#even gilmore

[bread-wizards]

I'm just saying, Orym knows something about being stuck on the death of your first love. Of being constantly reminded of them and their death, seeing signs of them every day, making it that much harder to get over them.

But now he has found a new love, and despite the seeing Will several times, being reminded of him every time he looks at the moons or swings his sword, he is ready to move forward. "It's pretty great, living a lifetime." He wants to try again.

If anyone would have some wise words for Keyleth to help her get through this, it would be him.

[calamitoustide]

thinking about frat boy James who tells Regulus he doesn't do "relationships" and Regulus agrees to just be casual and see other people which is completely fine... until there's a party they both attend with different dates and James sees Regulus with someone else for the first time and he loses his fucking mind

[deadpoets]

JESS MARIANO + GREEN QUILTED JACKET [x]

[mqrianos]

jess mariano and rory gilmore are literally the SAME people at their core, just in opposite fonts. they MIRROR each other and are each other's TWIN FLAMES. that's exactly why they understand each other better than everyone else (asp herself said so). both are raised by teen moms and have deadbeat dads. yet, one is nurtured with love and care with a mom like lorelai. and the other is abandoned & ignored by a flaky mom like liz. both develop an immense love for reading regardless of whether it became kind of a coping mechanism. both exceed normal expectations of intelligence required for their age. hence, one goes above and beyond, strives for perfection with it, and craves validation while the other could not care less what people think and says "fuck it. rules don't matter anymore for me. i know stuff". one becomes stars hollow's princess, held onto a pedestal by everyone around her. the other becomes stars hollow's pariah, hated by every person he meets. both are under intense scrutiny by people where one is held to exceptionally high standards and the other is seen as "good for nothing". both of them break out of those respective moulds as soon as they become young adults. and both play a pivotal role in helping each other break out of those moulds and still be true to their inner selfs. I COULD WRITE AN ENTIRE TEN-PAGE ESSAY ON THE PARALLELS BETWEEN THEM....I REALLY COULD!

[vivienvalentino]

GILMORE GIRLS 5.04, Tippecanoe and Taylor, Too

[not-with-you-but-of-you]

Good. I’m not alone.

GILMORE GIRLS | 6.08 “Let Me Hear Your Balalaikas Ringing Out”

Requested by @jess-stolengnome

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

#Holding Hands Over The Counter Like

[panharmonium]

OBSESSED with how lorelai calculatedly says the most inflammatory thing she can think of in order to stop chris's parents from targeting rory. this woman is standing in a tank of starving sharks and she dumps the chum bucket over her own head the instant straub makes her daughter uncomfortable. she doesn't cause a scene for no reason; she strategically weaponizes everybody's low expectations of her in order to stop straub from attacking rory and encourage him to attack her instead. and it WORKS. and she just sits there takes it. i see your daughter is just as out of control as ever, richard. but lorelai doesn't care what straub says about her because that was the point; she wants to him to come after her and forget that rory is there. if you'd attended a university as your parents had planned, and as we planned in vain for christopher, you might have aspired to more than a blue-collar position...you might not want to take such a haughty tone when you announce to the world that you work in a hotel.

and then she sends rory out of the room to safety and she sits there and continues to take it. she seduced him into ruining his life. she had that baby, and ended his future! and it doesn't matter because they're chewing on her and not her daughter and that was the point. she played them. they fell for it. and it doesn't mean that the things they say don't hurt her, because they do. it means she's willing to let herself be hurt in rory's place.

you can see the tense disapproval on lorelai's face when the group turns expectantly to rory like they're waiting for her to perform some kind of circus trick, and even though the gilmore grandparents + chris do it out of genuine admiration and pride, they don't understand how terrified rory feels about being asked to demonstrate genius on-demand in front of people who are already judging her for being born. rory looks reflexively at her mother with HELP written all over her face, and one needling comment from straub is all it takes for lorelai to offer herself up as a convenient (and familiar) punching bag.

[teddypickerry]

the gilmores, 2004. 🥹

[stellaluna33]

So... what do we think was behind the decision that Jess's final scene in the Revival would be him shouldering his Army-green duffle bag (a different, nicer one, but noticably a visual call-back to the one he carried in his youth) and, with a regretful look back, leaving again? We know it's just for the night and we KNOW he's coming back! But it's... The VISUAL SYMBOLISM. It's his LAST SCENE.

Was it just an echo? A callback to his character's past? Or did it MEAN Something?

[ksfd892]

Last night I was discussing with @ernestonlysayslovelythings that one of the things Gilmore Girls does really well is nuance. In terms of conflict, most characters will be a little bit right and a little bit wrong (as it tends to be in life), and yet many viewers will automatically side with one particular character. Lorelai and Rory (Rory in particular) tend to often be seen as in the wrong, and this intrigues and frustrates me. While a lot of the time they are 'in the wrong', so is the other character, and yet this is rarely acknowledged. Information which the other character has (and the audience has) is not given to Lorelai and Rory and yet they are still criticised for it (which other posts have gone into).

Emily and Paris are fan favourites and it's easy to understand why; they are funny, sarcastic and outspoken and yet also have vulnerability. Viewers will often take Emily's side in an argument with Lorelai and Paris's with Rory, which I find frustrating, because the reasoning seems to be either that Emily and Paris are 'more funny' or that Lorelai and Rory are 'annoying'. Emily and Paris are funny (Paris in particular is exaggerated as a side character) but they can also be very mean. Lorelai and Rory are not intentionally mean, generally speaking, yet a key element of Emily and Paris's characterisation is unkindness. Of course, this is largely for comedic effect (such as Emily firing maids and Paris making Brad cry), and yet Lorelai and Rory seem to be held to a higher standard. Emily and Paris can be very cruel to Lorelai and Rory (ie Emily's ongoing disgust over her daughter's romantic life or lack of and Paris bullying Rory at school) but it doesn't seem to 'count'. Viewers identify the reasons for this; such as Emily's hurt over Lorelai running away or Paris feeling intimidated by Rory, but do not extend the same understanding to Lorelai and Rory. Lorelai can be immature and shut out her parents, which is due to an unhappy childhood, and Rory sometimes wants space (which I don't personally find unreasonable), but that apparently means they're 'arrogant'.

This lack of nuance is also notable with Jess. With non-Literati shippers, many viewers write Jess off as the asshole exboyfriend who has 'exaggerated' his unhappy life with Liz and is 'ungrateful' to Luke. On the flip side, many Literati shippers take the view that Jess never does anything wrong and Luke is a total jerk. Again, there is nuance here; Jess is not infallible and, like all the characters, he is right and wrong about certain things. While there is zero evidence that Jess exaggerated anything (although some fans seem to exaggerate for him), he can be rude and perhaps seem ungrateful, but it is understandable. He acts this way because he had an unreliable mother who sent him to live in a strange town with his uncle without any say, and he lashes out because he is angry and not listened to. In S6 when Jess has grown up, he appreciates what Luke did for him, because he has the maturity to see it. Luke, for his part, did his best and also messed up because he stubbornly thought he knew what he was doing, and didn't think he needed advice. It does not negate the fact that he cared and tried his hardest. As with Lorelai and Emily, Luke and Jess are both right and both wrong with their reaction to things.

It's also interesting that within Literati shippers, the majority of people will take Jess's side in a conflict with him and Rory. Jess and Rory are flawed people (who are also very young) who manage to hurt each other deeply. Rory runs away after kissing Jess because she does not know how to handle her feelings, which Jess perceives as her thinking he isn't worth staying for and, a year later, Jess leaves town without saying goodbye, which Rory also wrongly perceives as a rejection. Neither of them intend to be cruel and yet, according to numerous Lit shippers, Jess was hurting and Rory 'couldn't see it'. Of course she couldn't see it - Jess never communicated to her that he was in trouble at high school and had to drop out, or that his father showed up, or anything else going on with him. She could see something was wrong but couldn't help him. Likewise, Rory never communicated to Jess that she was feeling mixed up about being with Dean and later with Logan, but somehow this understanding isn't extended to Rory. Jess and Rory are both fallible and are both written with excellent nuance.

One of the best things about Gilmore Girls is how well it reflects growing up and our relationships in real life. Situations are rarely binary and, as we mature, we can often look at conflict more objectively and see 'the other side'. Lorelai and Rory, along with most of the characters they interact with, are written with depth. When they mess up or miscommunicate, it doesn't mean they 'wrong' or not worth caring about - it means they have something to learn from. They are funny, frustrating, vulnerable and have moments of clarity, just as with real people.

[caslutz]

Jamie: I think I'm dating Roy.

Keeley: What?

Jamie: I'm not sure. It's just a possibility. I could be wrong.

Keeley: But how? When?

Jamie: Well, we spent the entirety of Ted and Trent’s wedding together and it was really nice and we had a really good time. We laughed a lot and we ate and then we danced.

Keeley: Danced? How? Was it a fast dance? Slow dance?

Jamie: It was a slow dance, a waltz. Roy can waltz.

Keeley: Roy can waltz?

Jamie: Roy can waltz. 😏

Keeley: …Look how you just said 'Roy can waltz.’

Jamie: What? I'm just saying, I'm surprised that Roy can waltz.

Keeley: That sounded more like 'I'm surprised I still have my clothes on.’

[deadpoets]

GILMORE GIRLS 02.21 | Lorelai's Graduation Day

[theonethatwatchesalotofshows]

Rory is better than me because if I saw the guy that's been sexually harrassing me relentlessly for months get dumped in public, I would think: "serves him right". I would definitely not have a heart to heart with him and feel bad for him.

[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.

[not-with-you-but-of-you]

It’s so sweet how certain Luke was that Jess would like Rory, “because she’s a lot like Lorelai,” and he likes Lorelai. As if he believed loving the Gilmore girls was simply in their blood or something. And he was right.