#he had no idea about the biggest fight between lorelai and rory

[emmafallsinlove]

the fact that christopher called logan, who got kicked out from a lot of private schools, a great guy is just the biggest red flag to me.

[jackiebuckley]

I kind of posted the prologue to my fic and posted it 🥺🥺 so if you wanted to check this out. I'll be posting it below with the info. Maybe comment for future tags or whatever 💅🏻💅🏻.

In case you wanted to leave comments and what not THIS is also up on here. ×××

Title: if it Stings. Let it burn

Word count: 2,552

Rating: teen and up (nothing yet)

Pairings: aaron hotchner/lorelai gilmore. More to come :)

What identifies a home. Is it a group of buildings that blend together with browns and reds on concrete walls? Is it blues of skies and greens of grasses in parks? What about the people? Passing by you in hurries as they find themselves needing to move to work or elsewhere. They hurry along not wanting to disrupt the pattern that everyone so gently crafted. 

And with and things what happens when your home is reached. When something happens to push everything to the side. What happens when your safety net, the thing that you most rely on catching you — snaps. Do you hold on, dangling with what could verses couldn't happen? Do you push your hope to the back of your mind, hopeful it's just one mistake? One simple thing falling short of something wonderful, beautiful. Or do you fight back, letting your chains become loose, and watching as you learn to gain your wings? Finally free to be who you wanted to be. These things aren't as likely without a reason. Something that makes you want to jump.

November 19th

The road back from Stars Hollow wasn’t too bad. It was a pretty straight and narrow line for the most part. But as for any road, it wasn’t safe when it came to the incoming cold.

“I should probably head home before the first snow comes in. you know how the roads get.” the voice of a boy in his late teens spoke, his car was warming up on the side waiting for him to climb in and go on the road. 

“Yeah, I’ll see you. Stay safe.” the voice of a girl no older than 17 spoke as she waved him off. They had talked whenever the other came into town. In this case, what the girl didn't know was that this would be for all she knew, the last time she would see him. 

Music played from the stereo as he changed the radio, again and again. God, it seemed all these stations only played the same nine or ten songs. Especially in a small town like this, it was all they could hear when moving around the different areas. Yet all of it from top to bottom made it so he never wanted to leave. Some remixed version of Amazing Grace could be heard. Fixing his eyes back to the road. As he stopped at the stop sign in front of the road he looked before driving more down the road. 

“Stop the car.” a voice popped in from the back seat. Fight or flight mode turned on and he realized that he would do anything at this moment to 

“What?!” panic rose in his voice. 

“STOP THE CAR.” he slammed on the break. That was the moment that everything went dark.

November 21st

"Living in a small town, I knew everybody and everybody knew me."

-- Anna Nicole Smith

 “Chip Macenstoch, 18. He was last seen leaving back home. They found his car with the keys still in the ignition but no sign of Chip seen.” Penelope's voice carried as she clicked through the slideshow she had on the screen. “Matt Schoenfeld, found with his window wide open, his bed was empty. There were no signs of struggle.” she clicked through the slideshow again. “The only connection between the two is a last reported conversation, and the area they come from.” she clicked off the slideshow. 

“Stars Hollow according to tourist websites, it has a population of less than one-thousand.” JJ offered as she looked through the file sitting in front of her. 

“And we need to be there before anything happens to turn that town’s population any less…” Hotch sighed as he made his way to standing up.”wheels up in thirty.” he offered, and the room dispersed. 

Not much happened here, not much has happened in the last seventeen years she had lived here with Rory. there had been some slight scandal involving the town priest. But nothing huge here or there. This though was a shock. 

The cold of the November wind lasted an ongoing chill to the brunette at the desk as she communicated with a woman on the phone. “It's a week before Thanksgiving it might be a little rough in order to get enough rooms.” the brunette behind the desk offered. “Yes, we do offer breakfast. Yes there's double bed rooms.” she offered. “three rooms for today? Will do. Thank you." She sighed as she moved from the desk to the small entrance to the inn. She ran a hand through her hair. So much had happened to their small town within the past few days. Two teens vanished without a trace. Both teens, very safe, smart boys. She looked out the window. 

"They canceled school for the rest of the week. Which, while I should be relieved.  They said they were canceling due to the vanishes in Stars Hollow. Which is weird." Rory spoke appearing from next to her.

"Woah Woah Woah — slow down speedy," Lorelai responded in return to her daughter's tangent.  The cases of the missing boys had made news in all the towns nearby, her parents swore they wanted Lorelai and Rory. to come to stay with them until it all blew over. It didn't seem like a good idea though. With a week till Thanksgiving they could use as much help in the Independence inn as possible. Plus — it was home to them. Even if their home seemed to be a little crooked. "Go get something from Sookie to eat to work at the tables.  Okay?" She offered. Seeing her daughter nod before walking off. 

It took some time, but as Lorelai was writing down some notes she saw from the corner of her eye two cars, she knew from the looks of the black sleek vehicles, that these were the guests they were waiting for. “It’s go time Gilmore,” she stated to herself, waiting for what was to happen next. 

What was there to expect from a small town that didn't even show up on a map? Was there something to expect from a place where some who exited called the "friendliest town on earth?" From the bright-eyed townsfolk who walked around looking like they belonged in a Disney film to the distinct smell of farm life and coffee beans that drifted throughout the entire place. Was there more than the sidewalks that cracked and crinkled yet how this place seemed to call the names of those around them. 

This place looked as if it hadn’t experienced constant shock and trauma. As if it was the perfect Disney town where birds braided hair and good peeked at every corner. As if truly things were perfect. The biggest shock factor had been when they found out the Organic Milk wasn't truly organic. So this really was the worst possible thing to happen. Emily commented that it looked straight out of a Hallmark film. And the little inn they were staying in, definitely brought more of that message forward. The agents walked out of their cars, into the small lobby area. Immediately seeing how it was decorated. They wouldn't be spending too much time here, but it did have a nice way of being subtly decorated for the holidays. “I’ll go grab our bags.” Derek offered as Reid mumbled a fun fact in the direction of Emily. 

“Welcome to the Independence Inn. I’m Lorelai.” a bubbly brunette offered and JJ stepped in. 

“Pleasure to meet you Lorelai. We should have three rooms under Garcia?” she offered, knowing Penelope had set them the reservation. 

“Oh yes yes!” she nodded as they stood in the center of the room. “4, 7 and 10A are all open and ready for you.” she smiled and Hotch wondered how this woman was so bubbly and full of energy. He would have mentioned it but Emily did with a comment of 

“Someone clearly had their coffee.” she commented, getting a roll of the eyes and a comment of “be nice.” from JJ. 

There was something about the way that the place had a small humming of home to it. It was a shame they wouldn't get to experience the town. Sure they were probably going to be in town for Thanksgiving, but that wasn't a reason to celebrate. There was a lot of wonder in the town. From the little Cafes and Diners they saw as they entered into the area. They had a place called Luke’s recommended to them a good nine times. He knew they would most likely eat there at some point for their trip. They just needed to get something established for the case first, figure something out. There also seemed to be a lot of mystery, from the woods that surrounded where they were. He had a lot of questions. From what other things lay unstirred behind these walls. 

And what about the bubbly brunette who walked around. Bright eyed as she talked to all the members of the team , asking them different statements as JJ happily conversed. To Reid, looking like he was absolutely shocked that someone could talk as fast as he could. Maybe there was something about her young daughter. Well not super young. Probably late teens. The way her eyes flickered around whenever someone would ask her something. How when Derek and he had pulled her for questioning she asked a few times if this would be on any kind of record for her

 “Do you have anyone we can talk to for an alibi?" Derek asked from beside him. And Hotch could tell right away. There was no way in hell this girl had anything to do with this. From the way her doe eyes shined, curiosity to the brim of them. To the way the books in her arms sat perfectly. She was grace, and he could tell that she was the woman in the lobby's daughter. 

“My mom and I have a movie night every Tuesday Night. My boyfriend came to watch with us. You can ask him, or my mom, I was home.” she commented and a mental note was made to ask. After Hotch included his own question. Wanting to get more of an idea for what was happening.

“Is there anyone with foul wishes or harmful intent for him?” he added in his own question. 

"Everyone loved him, he would come to town meetings and see if anyone needed anything. He came to a town meeting the night of his disappearance. Next thing we knew the newspaper came in with news that he was gone." She explained. She explained Chip and his role in the town. He was a local farmer's son. He would come into town every week to get supply and then he would come back home. "Is he okay?" They had found his truck on the side of the road. But they didn't have the heart to tell her that there wasn't much hope of where he was. 

 They sighed. Looking at one another "we'll keep you updated — okay kid?" Morgan stated before Rory as they learned her name was walked off. Running over to where her mother was waiting. As they prepared to go back for some of them to the scene of the crime. And others to remain questioning. Hotch ran a hand through his hair. There was something about these small towns that hit harder than anything else. from the way they came together, which meant it would hit harder knowing there was someone among one of them causing harm. 

What they had learned about Rory Gilmore. Real name Lorelai.  Bright eyed girl, smart, charming. Going to attend an ivy league within a year. She had a knack for reading lately getting into classics. "In Cold Blood" had been one of her favorites lately

He found that as being ironic. But not a funny irony. More of a cold irony. 

They had to be cautious with their next moves. 

 "Miss —." Morgan paused looking for a name.

"Lorelai. Lorelai Gilmore." She offered and her voice was rushed but still had music to it. 

"Do you mind if we question you?" He asked and Hotch watched as Rossi and Morgan took the brunette to the dining room. He watched as they walked away, she had some kind of wonder the way she did things.  

JJ approached him, "sir we should probably head back out. See if there is anything we missed." What was there to miss? This looked a lot like the rest of the things they had seen. He hated cases where the  best thing was to wait for whatever came next. Spend a day or two and see what pops up. Immediately as he stepped into the cold, feeling of air hitting his face he climbed his way into the car. Allowing Emily to take the wheel as they went to what was next. 

It wasn't that he didn't trust his team. He trusted them more than anything else. This case just had so little to go by at this moment. He didn't want things to crash and burn before they even started. They go back to the scene of the first abduction and immediately they’re back to not noticing anything new. What they did notice was their victim’s parents were standing off to the side, their arms wrapped around each other. Hotch had seen this look plenty of times before. Had seen the way their entire bodies would collapse, it was as if all they had known was crumbling. He tried his best not to get involved in the cases, he knew it wasn't the best thing to do. So he continued to push it aside. 

 “Please tell me you found my son.” someone would ask, at first when he started in the field he didn't know what to tell them. How did you break someone’s heart? Take away the hope they have kicking in their soul. He was called cold, broken. So that is what he allowed himself to become. He hardened his shell and bounced back stronger than anything else. 

His voice finally beckoned out of him as he looked at the family. “He's gone… they found his body in the creek.” he looked at them, his eyes not leaving the couple. He hated this type of news. 

“What do you mean he’s gone?” the response would come and then they would see the body pass on the stretcher. Tears would fill the eyes and he wished that all of this didn't happen. Yet it was. Bad people filled the earth. 

“No, no no, that can't be him. It can’t be my baby boy.”

He didn't know what stirred him out of all of this, but when he noticed Emily and Reid “we asked around and according to people nearby the last seen person near both of them has been identified.” 

“name?” Hotch offered. Hopefully, this person would have some kind of connection that could truly get them closer to where they needed to be. Even if they only had only been here for less than a day. 

“...Rory Gilmore,” Reid stated, he noticed the connection between the name and the situation.

The daughter of the woman back at the inn. This case just got a lot more intense.

@willlemonheadsupremacy

[welcometotheocverse]

What do your Gilmore Girls oc’s think of Christopher/what is their relationships with him like?

Okay so I had like over four paragraphs typed up for this and then my computer misclicked and I lost it all lmao.

But in a word: Bad. In multiple: Really Freaking Bad.

Noah ( Doose), Tino ( La Costa) and Lily ( St. James) all love Rory so so much. So even though their interactions with Christopher are limited compared to some of my other ocs they still hate him. They know better than others how much it hurts Rory when he isn’t there for her since two of them ( Tino and Lily) have known her since childhood. Lily and Tino see themselves as Rory’s honorary siblings ( Tino goes on record calling himself Rory’s unofficial twin) so the whole “He actually came to Stars Hollow this time!” and all the times he does things that hurt her have them more or less feral.

For Noah he’s dating Rory from s2 or s3 I haven’t decided  yet so he gets a bigger picture of Christipher and is unimpressed because as far as he’s concerned, Rory is the best girl and deserves a lot better. Also Christopher might or might not be a POS when he finds out about Logan, Noah, and Rory.

Tbh Noah at some point might go “I have crippling anxiety and depression but I also have a hockey stick and knife shoes ( skates ) and I’m willing to fight both your dads because holy shit” to both Logan and Rory.

Hope is both more civil and more openly disliking of Christopher. She knows full well what a number  their parent’s controlling and critiquing everything they do does a number on Lorelai. So she tends to be very “You call all the shots in your life. I support you as long as you’re happy.” to be the opposite of Emily and Richard and at one point, when Lorelai is nervous about telling her something says “I’m not mom and dad Lore. I won’t belittle your choices. I’m always on your corner” ( which ;A;)

So Hope bites her tongue a bit and utilizes the skills she learned in therapy to manage her own emotional responses when it comes to The Whole Christopher Deal

This does not mean Hope does not have opinions about The Whole Christopher Deal. 

Like basically she thinks he’s a weak man who can’t even speak up when Lorelai is being belittled by her own parents while singing him praises. She is very unimpressed by how little part Christopher has taken in Rory’s life when Lorelai has always had the door open. ( though  she also feels like since she ended up losing touch with them as well she’s no better even tho Hope bby nooo you were protecting yourself from abuse its so not the same) 

That’s not even the worse of it tho since, due to being Lorelai’s older sibling Hope is more aware than my other ocs of how much hurt Lorelai deals with from her relationship with her parents and what the abuse/ neglect does to her ( having suffered it herself as well) and how exactly that plays  with her and her relationship with Christopher. 

She hates HATES that he messes with her head. She hates that Lorelai seeks out affection in men like him and that they hurt her, that he hurts her. She understand them in a very Big Picture way and hates Christopher all the more for it. Like it starts off at Unimpressed in s1 and only gets worse the more pieces she understands.  After the wedding vow fiasco she loses whatever scraps of respect she had for him and thinks that the fact that he was willing to break up a relationship Lorelai was happy in is a huge ass red flag about him and openly dislikes him and hates him. She keeps it civil when Lore gets back with him for Rory and Lorelai’s and Gigi’s sake but there’s a pretty open dislike between the two that has been there from the start ( because you can only imagine how Christopher reacted to Hope being unimpressed with him and with her telling Lorelai she deserves better he p much hates her too)

Amelia Hates him with a seething unbridled fury that has less to do with Christopher being sorta passive aggressive  and shitty around her ( he wouldn’t Dare do it in front of Lorelai and Rory bc he knows they’d kick him to the curve and Luke would End him and Amelia doesn’t spend any time around him without them so it's  vague/passive sorta shittiness.)  and so much more to do with the fact that this girl is fiercely  Fiercely protective  of her family and loved ones ( see for example her willing to fight the entire town meeting for Jess and ranting for an hour and then some afterwards) and Rory is her Big Sister and Lorelai is Her Mother and she has seen them be hurt by him so much already. ( think of that speech Lorelai gives Jess of “Rory is one of the best girls and she  deserves to be treated well” but instead it’s “My mother and sister are two of the best people I know and they deserve the world as far as I’m concerned. Not some asshole who leaves them hurt and sad” like she thinks the fact that he doesn’t think they’re worth his  time and hurts them is unforgivable and so is how sad he makes them and she’d gladly punch him in the face if she had the chance. And that’s before the vow renewal fiasco where she actually punches him in the face. 

Sophia mistrusts him just on account that her parents like him. Lorelai hides from her how much Christopher has hurt her ( she canonically goes out of her way to make sure Rory doesn’t feel like she has to take care of her and has a good relationship with her dad no matter what and she sees Sophia as a kid as well specially as she realizes how badly living with her parents has affected her.) and Rory canonically not only does not talk about her dad to many people but describes herself as “A great compartmentalize.” so it takes a while before she gets the full picture  but she’s thoroughly unimpressed even before she does. Also she picks up on the frail hope on Rory’s “He’s never come to town before maybe he’ll stick around.” and it...hits a bit personal for her. 

She also would kill for Lorelai and has absolutely given Christopher a shovel talk  ( Lore: you’re my baby sister hon, not my babysitter) when he tries to come back into the Gilmore Girl’s lives and as the seasons go she only dislikes him more.

Kit and El are of course Christopher’s sons and boy oh boy there’s just so much resentment there. Like both of them are also “my sister and mom are the best and your hurting them makes me feral.” but on top of that they  have their own resentment for him. 

With El, Christopher always lumps him with Rory as “the smart kid who reads a lot.” when in truth the twins are their own people and their interests, diverge widely. He gets them the same book whenever he sends anything  and it hurts El so much like it makes him feel like he’s some after thought, someone not even worth learning the interests of and he carries that for a long time. It hurts him deeply for a long time.

He absolutely loses it when he finds out that he and Lore got married without any thought not even about him and Rory but about Gigi  (“so what you’re gonna have  her get used to having a family and then mess her up when you fall short because what? Me and Rory’? We weren’t enough kids to disappoint for you? ) Gigi’s pretty much the only reason he keeps things civil with Christopher bc El’s pretty sure that between Sherry and Christopher she needs someone looking out for her, or the poor kid won’t have a chance and also he loves her so so much. It only makes it  worse that Christopher is not above using that to make him be civil.

Kit while a lot less developed so I have less for him is also on the same beats. He’s a smack happy idiot  who doesn’t spend time on bad emotions and lets things roll off his back ( and a very big foil to Rory’s catastrophizing and spiraling into anxiety when things go awry) but Christopher may  be one of his only sore spots. He struggles a lot with sharing a name with the guy and also with not having a set path career wise or being academically inclined like Rory ( more because it would make him Different than Christopher if it did) one of his biggest fears is that he’s more like his dad than his mom, or that he has too many things in common with his dad.  He’s also of course very  hurt by how little Christopher drops by in his life and was very aware growing up that other kids’ dads were a lot more present. He skips school on father’s day  as sort of his own dark day and usually hangs with Zack and Brian ( who he met before Hep Alien formed) or with Lindsay Lister ( who is actually one of her  best friends.) though he does check in on Rory and tries to be there for her because she may be a good compartmentalizer but he’s her twin; he knows when she needs hugs. 

I have an idea for a Danes sister and while I know nothing of her I know she’d hate Christopher too. So does the Hayden sister plot bunny who’s nothing more than a concept

Basically fuck Christopher all my OCs hate Christopher lol

[athingthatwantsvirginia]

In the Company of Anne Sexton

PART THREE OF THE DO YOU SEE HER FACE? SERIES

Pairing: Jess Mariano x Original Character (Ella Stevens)

Warnings: plentiful pop culture references, mentions of violence, a slow burn at its core

Word Count: 3K

Summary: After a fist-fight, Jess invites himself on a carriage ride with Ella during the Bracebridge Dinner.

Thumbing through one of her most beloved copies of Virginia Woolf, Ella sat on the steps of Stars Hollow High waiting anxiously for Lane to emerge. They walked out most every day, with Lane on her way home and Ella on her way to the diner, but Lane had informed her during lunch she would have to stop by the cheerleading coach’s room for some secret business. Ella didn’t bother asking any questions, having seen the rabid excitement in Lane’s eyes. She had a feeling she would get let in on whatever was going on soon enough. Maybe even that evening, as she, Rory, Lane, and Lorelai had their annual viewing of It’s A Wonderful Life planned. Then, possibly, Die Hard. Usually, though, they just ended up talking through Bruce Willis’ quest. Snow blanketed the ground, but had grayed in the two days since it had fallen. There had been no melt, and street sweepers had cast it off in large, rocky clumps. Ella wondered at how magical snow looked falling, and what a nuisance it became in its aftermath. Like the happiness of a new marriage and the pain of a divorce. She was just getting to one of her favorite passages in To the Lighthouse when she heard the roar of a crowd growing on the lawn before her.

Looking up with curious hazel eyes, she found a group circling two boys in the midst of a fist fight. She only needed a moment longer to identify Jess as the aggressor in the center of the swarm of teens, though the other boy was holding his own perfectly well. Without thinking, she shoved her book in her bag, slinging it over her shoulder and running over, careful not to slip on the icy patches in her black Doc Martens.

“Jess!” she called, pushing her way through the hoard of pubescent teens. Obviously, she got no response, but that wasn’t exactly the intent of the exclamation in the first place. Her feet carried her farther into the brawl before her mind could stop them, and soon enough she had Jess by the shoulders, pulling him away. “What the fuck are you doing?!”

He squirmed in her grasp, wondering who’d had the nerve to touch him. Eventually she took him around the waist and pried him away from his opponent, who was panting and bleeding from one lip. The crowd began to dissipate almost instantly, victims of a short attention span, though a few stragglers remained. Ella’s heart pounded in her chest and she felt a little sick to her stomach at the sight of the violence. Her veins buzzed with adrenaline, though she had only been involved in a small fraction of the action.

“Get off me!” Jess yelled, still not entirely sure who had grabbed him, but able to deduce it was a girl from the height and the feminine quality of the voice. When he fought though, the rest of the world usually became nothing more than a blur but the person in front of him.

When they were far enough away from the other guy and she felt mostly confident the incident was over, she finally released him, though he was larger than her and she had been hanging on by a thread anyway.

“Jesus, Jess!” she shouted when he finally turned around to look at her.

“Eleanor?” he asked, shocked to find her there.

A startling anger raged in his eyes. What concerned her more, though, was the bruise already blooming on the apple of his cheek and his bloodied knuckles. The dichotomy before her had her stomach doing flips. She’d heard plenty about this side of Jess, but had never had the misfortune of seeing it before. His hair was mussed up, and his lips were pressed in a thin line. The smirk she always found was gone, as was the joking air in his voice.

She went against her better judgement and took a step forward, eyes on his injuries.

“Back off!” Jess snapped immediately, beginning to leave. She recoiled at his volume.

But, her voice followed him up the road as he made his way for Luke’s. He hoped to sneak past his uncle without having to endure an interrogation. “I’m trying to help you, jackass! What the hell was that?!”

“Peter Smith’s an asshole, that’s what that was! Now, I suggest you run along!”

She scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “No, Jess, you don’t get to walk away from me! Rory just reamed you for that stunt you pulled at Doose’s! I thought you were gonna get it together for Luke!”

“Yeah, well, sorry to disappoint!” Jess roared, winded but maintaining his fury.

As she swallowed down her irritation, the redness began to drain from her face. She knew it was no use to argue with him when he was in such a fiery state. For a minute, she debated leaving, going back to find Lane as she planned. Instead, she grabbed his wrist and spoke again in a calm, resigned tone.

“Jess, stop.”

He whipped around to face her again, pulling his arm back from her grasp, hiding a wince at the throbbing pain in his raw knuckles. “Don’t touch me right now!”

Ella held her hands up in surrender instantly, though she stood firm. “Okay. I’m sorry. But you’re not gonna get past Luke like this, if that’s what you’re thinking. You’re gonna need to at least cool off a little first.”

Sighing through his nose, he stayed silent. At that moment, it was as good as a verbal concession or agreement. He was just beginning to catch his breath, his pulse thumping loudly in his ears.

“You wanna go get some ice? I’m sure the nurse has some,” she offered, and Jess felt his confusion growing at her kindness.

He shook his head, stuffing his hands in his pockets despite the pain. “No.”

“Alright. Look, I’ll go clock in. I’ll tell Luke you had some test to make up or something. Go fix yourself up somewhere and you might be able to fool him,” she suggested, working out the kinks inside her head. Luke was a good guy, but he wasn’t the most observant person she knew. She suspected if Jess could get the bleeding to stop he might get by unscathed. Though she was more doubtful about the bruise on his cheek, she decided it was better for Jess to be placated before he returned to work anyway.

Jess nodded as Ella turned back to go find Lane. She felt slightly better, but still a little anxious about the possibility of a fight between Jess and Luke which still remained. It was one thing to work with them when they were at their usual level of bickering. She didn’t know if she could handle an entire shift of them screaming at each other.

“Thank you,” Jess muttered when she turned on her heel, only just loud enough for her to hear.

She sighed a little in relief, tossing a glance at him over her shoulder. “You’re welcome.”

.   .   .

Ella licked the last bit of melted marshmallow from her thumb, having eaten more than a few of the s’mores they had prepared with skewers over the stove burner. Instead of Die Hard, they had elected for the 1950s version of A Christmas Carol. They were watching as the ghost of Christmas future showed Scrooge his own grave. Lorelai sat above her on the couch, french-braiding her hair, while Lane and Rory shared a bag of chips on the floor next to her. Ella loved the Gilmore house, with its homey decor and welcoming atmosphere. Many times, she envied Rory for the kind of mother she had. All times, Ella felt more love in the Gilmore house than in the Stevens house.

“What do you want written or your gravestone?” Lane asked, her eyes trained on the screen, the picture reflecting back on her glasses.

Humming thoughtfully, Ella went with the first idea that popped in her head: “Here lies Ella Stevens, soon to become the world’s best ghost.”

“An award-winning haunter,” Lorelai quipped.

“My biggest, most long-term ambition,” Ella agreed. Soon, her hair was done and Lorelai tied it off with a proud smile.

“Okay, Rapunzel, my work here is complete,” she said.

“Thank you.”

“Well, now that that’s over with, let’s hear it,” Lane demanded, turning at a ninety degree angle to face Ella expectantly.

Ella furrowed her brows. “What?”

“What happened with Jess? You yelled at each other in the courtyard today, right?” Rory asked.

“Nothing happened,” she assured them. “I simply suggested he could wait for his knuckles to clot before he tried to fly under Luke’s radar. Unfortunately, it was an uphill battle. Once he saw his purple cheek, Luke dragged him up to the apartment by his collar. But, he was back down in one piece fifteen minutes later. Wasn’t too catastrophic.”

“That kid is bad news,” Lorelai groaned, shaking her head. “He’s got Sid Vicious written all over him.”

Scoffing, flopped down on the carpet, staring up at the ceiling. “Really? I see him more as a Richard Hell type.”

“Well, that makes me feel better,” Lorelai mocked. “I’m serious, Ella, that is a screwed-up, angry kid. The vandalism, the fighting. He touches a hair on your head, and I will personally organize a whole torches and pitchforks event.”

“We can make it like a parade,” Rory suggested cheerfully. “And then Dean can punch him as a big finale. They can’t stand each other.”

“You guys have gotta calm down. We work together, that’s all,” she reasoned. “I only helped him out to avoid a major migraine. The grunting I’ve gotten used to, but man when Luke gets going…”

“Tell me about it,” Lorelai grumbled. “Just promise me you won’t be wooed by that unwashed miscreant.”

Rolling her eyes at the dramatics, raising her right hand and holding down her pinky with her thumb. “Scout’s honor.”

.   .   .

Twirling her key ring around her finger once for good luck, Ella made her way up the path to the Independence Inn, Doc Martens crunching through the packed white snow. The storm had come and gone, but the damage was done all over New England. The fancy invitees for the annual Bracebridge Dinner were snowed in, so Ella had the pleasure of being invited in their place. She was almost excited, having the opportunity to dress up and her old junker out, since she usually walked everywhere. Opening the giant french doors, she was enveloped in the Inn’s warmth, and she could smell the extravagant dinner cooking already. It made her stomach growl. Her cheeks pinked up pleasantly, and she shed her peacoat almost immediately. She smoothed down the front of her simple black dress, stealthily looking at her patterned tights to make sure they hadn’t sustained any runs or rips since she’d donned them an hour earlier. So far, she’d been successful.

“Ella!” Rory greeted her cheerfully, her voice like a bell chiming in the busy noises around them.

“Ah, it’s been so long!” Ella joked, rushing up to Rory and Lorelai, giving them hugs.

“So, no plus ones I take it?” Lorelai asked, looking at the girl who stood with only the shoulder bag she used to carry school books and her jacket in one of her hands.

Ella smiled thinly, shaking her head. A bashful lilt came into her voice. “No, I invited them. My little brother actually was gonna come and then this afternoon...”

“Well, that just means no one will be hogging you tonight!” Lorelai cut in, sunshine in her voice. It made Ella’s smile grow wider and into one more genuine.

.   .   .

Descending the stairs after unpacking in her room, she caught sight of most everyone else arriving. She had the habit of being early to everything. Equipped with only her jacket in her arms, which included a volume of Anne Sexton poetry in one of the pockets, she felt a wave of anxiety. It wasn’t exactly shyness, only uneasiness. It seemed everyone in the room had a partner, but she’d come alone. There were two beds in her room, and one would remain entirely untouched. Not that bringing Adam along was the ideal situation anyway, her little brother had actually become kinda funny after entering middle school. He wouldn’t have been the worst possible company. In a crowd full of friends and family, she felt so utterly alone.

Lane arrived eventually, along with her mother. Mrs. Kim was not the biggest fan of Ella, what with her dark makeup and clothing, her unsavory homelife. Over the years, however, she’d earned a bit more credit with Lane’s mother due to her grades and time working at the diner. Ella marveled at the beautiful floral arrangements and mahogany adornments, wandering around mostly silent while Rory and Lorelai rushed around, finalizing things and greeting people. Her eyes roamed over the crowd, and she spotted Luke and Jess arriving at the door. Jess’s big brown eyes caught her own. He offered her a teasing wave, and she smirked in response, nodding a little. After a moment under his gaze, she let her eyes fall as her cheeks warmed, and she felt at the chain around her neck as a reflex.

.   .   .

Sniffing slightly in the frigid air, Ella bit her lip as she ran her eyes over the familiar words of Sexton’s poetry, waiting as the many carriages of horses peeled away. Watching Rory squish into a carriage with Dean and his little sister had been entertaining, but she had felt some shameful envy nonetheless. The seat next to her just looked so empty. But she only sighed, turning back to her reading after marveling at the beauty of the sparkly, frozen nature around her. In all honesty, she had no interest in going on a pathetic carriage ride alone, but Rory and Lorelai had gone to so much trouble, who was she to deny the opportunity? She barely noticed when the horses began trotting along, the winter wonderland of Stars Hollow passing her slowly.

“Eleanor!” she heard, jumping slightly but rolling her eyes. There was pretty much only one person in Stars Hollow who called her by her full name. Before she could even look to see his face, Jess hopped in the carriage from the side, nearly stumbling but ending up impossibly smooth.

“What the hell, Jess?!” she exclaimed, marking her place in her book with an old receipt from Doose’s.

“Gotta keep you on your toes, don’t I?” he drawled, cracking his usual crooked smirk.

Sighing, Ella mirrored his smile in spite of herself, running a nervous hand through the ends of her hair. “No, actually, I don’t think that’s a requirement.”

“Exactly. It’s one of many perks of associating with me.” Jess put on thick gray gloves as they spoke.

She scoffed. “Yes, I’m so honored, Mariano.”

“You should be.”

Ella chuckled breathily, clearing her throat as a pause stood between the two of them. Her eyes lingered on the bruise on his cheek, nearly invisible, having yellowed over the three days since he’d sustained it.

“Pretty, aren’t I?” he asked.

She blushed, looking away as her face dropped. “Sorry.”

Jess furrowed his brows, losing his teasing air. “It doesn’t hurt.”

Nodding, she sat up straighter and trained her view on the scenery.

“Look, I didn’t mean to scare you the other day,” he said, tilting his head to try to catch her eyes again.

“Don’t flatter yourself. You didn’t...you don’t scare me,” she assured him, forcing her tone to remain light. She felt as though they might be dancing around a forbidden subject, she just didn’t know what it was.

“Okay. Didn’t mean to be presumptuous,” he said, leaning back in the cushioned seat of the carriage. The clomping of the horses hooves offered a rhythmic undercurrent to their conversation, soft but constant.

Raising her eyebrows, she finally turned back to him. “Well, you didn’t mean to be presumptuous but you were still being presumptuous.”

“Alright, sorry,” he said, slightly huffy, eyes wide and gloved hands raised in surrender.

“Apology accepted.”

“I’m happy we sorted that out, then.” His tone was dejected but she didn’t let it rile her.

“Me too,” she breathed slowly, watching a white cloud form in the air with her words.

Regarding her as she turned away again, Jess tasted the crisp frost of the wind.  One side of her hair was pinned back, the rest cascading down her shoulder. She wore dark eye makeup and something shiny on her lips. But still, she was bundled in her old black peacoat. It reminded him of the beatniks. All she needed were big square glasses. He noticed how thin her stockings were, how she lacked gloves or a scarf or a hat. Just looking at her made him unconsciously.

“Are you here by yourself?” he asked. “Anne Sexton keeping you company?”

“I am. And she is. Did Luke drag you along?”

Jess shrugged. “Sort of. It’s better than a night of scraping greasy plates at the diner.”

“What high standards you have,” she said. “Are you scraping plates over winter break or are you going back to New York?”

“My mom didn’t want me up there,” he said nonchalantly.

“She said that to you?” she asked, eyebrows raised angrily.

They were passing the town square, decorated with snowmans for the town competition. At night, to Ella, they looked like the blue ghosts in a Charles Dickens story.

“Luke told me it was his idea that I should stay. It wasn’t his idea.”

Humming in irritated acknowledgement, she crossed her arms tighter around herself. Her ears were going numb in the icy winter breeze. “Well, if it makes you feel better, I’ll be at work everyday the next two weeks, silently protesting everyone else’s holiday cheer. You’re welcome to join.”

Jess smiled. “Will there be complaints of all the noise, noise, noise?”

“Every year.” She nodded in commiseration, a sardonic twinkle in her eye.

“Looking forward to it.”

[savvyliterate]

"Luke and Lorelai doesn't have a healthy relationship. I don't get why people like them so much," a recent post from starshollowconfessions says. Agree or disagree?

I think it depends on if you’re talking about original series or AYITL. And this is going to get fairly long, but in short … in the original series, their relationship wasn’t very healthy the further you got into season 6, with a lot of the damage being done in season 5. But in A Year in the Life, their overall relationship is a lot stronger.

And because I am clearly Hermione (or Rory), here’s a really long essay about the differences between their OS relationship and their communication issues in AYITL.

In the original series, there was definitely a good amount of unhealthy stuff between Luke and Lorelai starting with Lorelai lying about Chris, which eventually allowed Emily to manipulate the situation into where Luke breaks it off with Lorelai. There was a lot that went wrong there, and I feel like at the time, the series forgot the number that Nicole did on Luke in season 4 - which probably fed into his nuclear reaction to what happened at the Gilmore vow renewal. Had Lorelai not lied about Chris, I think they could have weathered Emily’s machinations. But instead, Luke probably saw it as Nicole all over again but WORSE considering that Lorelai was the one helping him handle Nicole cheating on him.

Remember that all the stuff with Nicole barely happened a year earlier. Nicole cheated on Luke in the late winter-early spring of 2004 and Lorelai begins lying to Luke about Chris in November, so roughly half a year later. Where the series failed here is that no one recognized that Luke did have a leg to stand on and his own fears. And while Lorelai realizes she majorly screwed up, we don’t see anyone acknowledging that Nicole’s actions may have had an effect on Luke’s reactions to Lorelai lying to him. He also rushed from Nicole to Lorelai so fast, that I don’t even think Luke fully dealt with the ramifications of the Nicole fiasco as of when he started his relationship with Lorelai. And there is no indication that Luke and Lorelai dealt with the Chris issue after they got back together, so that leads to *lovely* moments like Luke being a dick to Lorelai when Chris calls in season 6. Then you have the entire season six fiasco about April, and that really needs no explanation at this point.

The biggest failing that Luke and Lorelai have as a couple isn’t so much their communication issues but rather their inability to rock the boat, and it stems back to their fallout in season 2. Since then, you can tell that Lorelai goes out of her way to avoid getting the two of them into that sort of situation again. The whole Chris thing happens because of Lorelai not wanting to hurt Luke once she was caught up in her lies, and he got hurt anyhow. Lorelai thought that if she avoided it, it would go away, and it didn’t. The whole April thing happened because Luke failed to go to Lorelai right away because he didn’t want to explode things again so soon after Rory got back, and then it just got worse. And then Lorelai once again refused to push Luke, thinking maybe it would eventually go away rather than confronting him and risk losing the relationship. Once you start clamming up, it is super easy just to keep going down that path rather than face the consequences. Because they were both so scared of pushing each other to the point where they would had lost each other, they wound up losing each other. 

In pretty much every other aspect of their lives, they are compatible. They enjoy each other’s company. They largely have the same values. Luke respects and supports Lorelai’s work and her daughter, both which are huge for her. Emotionally they balance each other out. They are sexually compatible, and that compatibility is still there in middle age for them both. The first scene in “Winter” is a really good snapshot of their relationship at this point in time - the relentless bantering from both of them, Lorelai taunting Luke with the music on her phone, etc. Had Rory not been sitting there stuffing illegal doughnuts, those two would be doing the exact same thing with Paul Anka as witness. The house is a really good mix of both of them now, not just Lorelai and Rory.

So here’s the thing. That struggle that Luke and Lorelai had back in seasons 5 and 6 about really confiding in each other about what’s going on? That’s still there in the revival. Because no matter how good your relationship is, there is still a weakness somewhere. And I get frustrated when people bash the Ls for not having magically solved their communication issues, because this is something they will be working on for the rest of their lives. It’s not just Luke and Lorelai with each other. It’s Lorelai and Emily and Lorelai and Rory as well. In the revival, the Ls are handling things SO MUCH BETTER than they did in the original series, and that’s because they actually fight about it.

The biggest things Luke and Lorelai keep from each other in the revival stem around the inheritance Richard left Luke and Lorelai’s therapy with Emily. These issues are nowhere near as big as the ones they faced in the original series involving lying about an ex-boyfriend and not telling your fiancée you have a kid. And there are far more solid reasons for them keeping these things from each other than in the original series.

With Lorelai’s therapy, there is still such a negative stigma around mental illness that it really is super hard to admit to your loved ones that you’re doing therapy - or that in Lorelai’s case, she had stopped going with Emily and was going by herself. I almost didn’t tell my husband when I went into therapy a few years back, and we have an extremely happy marriage. It took me nearly a year (and a lot of crying) to admit to my mom that I had gone through therapy. It is really, really hard, especially for someone like Lorelai, and I don’t think she should be harangued by people for not telling Luke that she went into solo therapy.

Onto the inheritance. On the flip side, you have Luke being the person to deal with the fallout of Lorelai and Emily’s epic blowout post-Richard’s funeral. He wasn’t physically there since he was driving Rory to the airport, but he would had been the one to scrape up the pieces. He literally was the only person Lorelai could turn to. As of “Winter,” Emily hasn’t spoken to Lorelai in four months and Lorelai didn’t tell Rory either. Plus, Rory didn’t go home for Thanksgiving or Christmas after Richard died. So he’s at ground zero of a huge emotional hurricane, and that probably put a huge strain on them as well. A major death in the family always does.

Now Luke’s having to deal with this whole franchise mess, and it’s clear he’s only going along with it to a point. He knows if he doesn’t at least attempt to play along with Emily that it will make things worse between Emily and Lorelai, and he doesn’t want Lorelai going back to the dark place she was most likely in during the fall of 2015.

So now you get to their argument in “Summer.” Yes, each of them are hurt when the other actually confesses, but they actually fight about it. There are no ultimatums issued like in “Partings.” Luke doesn’t storm away and avoid Lorelai like in “Wedding Bell Blues.” Luke finds the idea of Lorelai cheating on him preposterous, which is huge given “Partings.” That meant at some point, he and Lorelai dealt with the Christopher issue, since season 5 or 6 Luke wouldn’t have hesitated to throw that in Lorelai’s face (because I love you, Luke, but you can be a dick.) That is communication, and that is progress. Luke expresses his hurt, and Lorelai expresses hers. That’s normal when you find your partner has kept silent - even if it’s for non-malicious reasons. That’s human. The fight ends at a natural stopping point because they did need to go back to work and they were unintentionally causing a scene in the diner.

Lorelai carries a lot of guilt about Luke because everyone is right - she has largely steered the ship of their relationship since 2007. It doesn’t mean that he just blindly went along. We know Luke will speak very loudly and forcefully when he wants his opinion known. Had he truly wanted more kids, he would had made this known. He expresses twice during the revival that he is happy the way things are and that he is satisfied with his life, and I think he truly is. But it doesn’t mean Lorelai still doesn’t have that guilt, and heaped that onto the therapy and what a mess.

Their decision to keep their lives separate probably stemmed from them getting back together and making a loose agreement not to drag each other into their respective family dramas based on the “crazy family” line. If it’s an issue with Rory and the Gilmores, Lorelai would handle it. If it’s an issue with April, Luke would handle it. And that’s not entirely an unusual thing. I barely interact with my step siblings on both sides of the family. All major decisions about me and my brothers were handled by my parents with very little input from the stepparents. It doesn’t mean I don’t love my stepdad or didn’t love my stepmom. It didn’t mean that my parents weren’t in good relationships with their partners. They were. My dad and stepmom were really happy for 20 years until my stepmom died. My mom and stepdad kept their finances largely separate until they married - 11 years after they moved in together.

But it’s obvious in the series that Luke and Lorelai are more entangled with each other’s families and their lives than they claim during their argument in “Summer.” Lorelai knew all about the financial stuff with April, which means Luke clearly told her. And he’s comfortable enough around Emily that he tried to hug her in “Winter” and that Richard added Luke to the actuary table and that Emily sided with Luke on pretty much everything brought up in the revival. And clearly they redecorated the house together, so their money co-mingled at some point. But man, considering how Anna dislikes Lorelai, I can see her pitching the hugest fit if she tried to make any sort of financial decision about April’s education or threw in her own money. They probably kept that separate just to keep peace. And that’s what you do, because families are MESSY.

I have a lot of sympathy for Lorelai in so many things, and that includes how she treats Luke regarding their lives. I’m the one who has taken the lead in my marriage a lot, and every so often, I am wracked with guilt. Did I ruin my husband’s life? Is he only going along with things just to keep me happy? Does he really want kids after all and will he regret that I chose to stop trying to have them? None of it is done maliciously, but I tend to lead and he’s content to follow. Every so often, our own insecurities and issues will cause us to fight. We have a really happy marriage about 85-90% of the time. When we do fight, those dark places do open up and we have to confront the weaknesses in our otherwise very strong relationship. Sometimes, those issues are tucked away to be dealt with another day. And sometimes, those issues are dealt with.  

And I see that in Luke and Lorelai. I think their relationship is perfectly fine about 80-90% of the time in the post-2007 era, but like any couple, they will have to deal with those weaknesses when it comes up. And Lorelai had to deal with this guilt she carries with her, which is why after the fight with Luke, she makes the decision to go on the Wild trip. Lorelai has been standing still for so long, afraid to push for change because she doesn’t want to lose the thing that is most important to her in her post-raising Rory life - which turns out to be Luke. So she’s had people heaping this stuff on her for the bulk of a year, and she’s cracking. And those cracks bleed through with the people she’s closest to - Luke, Rory, and even Emily.

Even Luke points out that the situation between them is abnormal. As he tells Jess, “Ah, we’ve been arguing, like sniping. And, we never sniped, you know. We never picked at each other in public and put each other down and made other people look at us like, ‘Oops, what’s going on?’” Which is exactly what happened in the diner at the end of “Summer.” Which means that the vast majority of the time, things are perfectly fine between them and that communication does exist. We don’t see it because AYTIL is handling a specific period in time and even then, it’s showing bits and pieces of that year. 

Despite everything, Lorelai doesn’t completely shut out Luke like she did in “Partings.” She tells him right away she plans to go. “Fall” opens with Lorelai calling Luke from her hotel and leaving that frankly adorable message about how she is 12 hours into this trip, aka 12 hours away from him, and she’s already going bonkers. And he’s going nuts without her. He’s not sleeping. He gave out the wi-fi password by accident. The three-week trip would be the longest they’ve been apart since they got back together in 2007, and I highly doubt they were separated for more than a couple of days prior to the Wild trip.

The Wild trip was never about Lorelai figuring out if she was going to end the relationship. It’s Lorelai finding herself so she can deal with all the emotional crap thrown at her in the past year. She goes when she does because she realizes that she’s fighting with her daughter and that if things keep going the way they are, she could very well permanently damage her relationship with Luke. In the end, her biggest fear is that he’ll leave her again. And his, as he vocalizes to Jess and later to Lorelai (and hallelujah for finally bringing up the number that Nicole did on him), is that she’ll leave him.

Luke acknowledging their communication issues is something that wouldn’t had happened in seasons 5 or 6. That entire conversation with Jess in the diner wouldn’t had taken place, which shows considerable growth for Luke. Luke and Lorelai at this point are both recognizing they’re heading down that slippery slope of communication failure again, and this time they are trying to stop it. Seasons 5 and 6 are pretty much them at the bottom of the Grand Canyon in a fiery explosion, and AYITL is them close to the top of the canyon realizing that if things continue the way they were going, they are going to crash and burn again. 

Lorelai going on the Wild trip reminds me so much of why I went to therapy - because I could see this strain starting to develop on my relationship because of my internal issues, and I love my husband and value our relationship so much that I wanted to fix it. For Lorelai, the Wild trip IS the final step of her therapy. She loves Luke and Rory so much that she wants to fix herself so she can fix things with them. I love you immensely, Lorelai.

And Luke makes it clear when Lorelai comes home that he will do whatever it takes not to lose her. He will go to therapy. He’ll franchise the diner. He’ll give her back half the closet that she’s already taking over anyhow. This isn’t something he would had done before “Partings.” He isn’t going to run like he did in “Wedding Bell Blues.” I love you too, Luke.

So, roughly 2,700 words and two hours later … Communication is always going to be an issue between Luke and Lorelai, but I think they will address it (and have done so already off-screen) and it won’t be the ticking time bomb it was in the original series. And they went from having an unhealthy relationship to a far healthier one.

[missallycat]

Relationships and revival metaphors

warning, this will be LONG and rambling (but fun if you like to analyze)

I was rewatching the revival once again, fourth fully including the musical, I’ve watched certain parts (ahem Logan parts ahem) more times but the revival as a whole including the unusual musical (I’ve come to the conclusion, the musical is hilarious, what I can’t understand is how the biggest grumps (Tom and Sophie and Gypsy) and the most honest person with Taylor (Babette) are so starry eyed over this… maybe it is to enhance Lorelai’s mortification but the musical was meant to be bad, hilariously stupid just like many other Taylor ideas,to the power of 10, but my peeve is them all being so on board with it given the way they are). I still come to the same conclusion and theory. The engagement of Logan is an arrangement. Yes of course this is only a theory and as all theories it could be wrong but the way things are put in the revival I see a few things that make me say this with a lot of certainty:

- We don’t see any interactions or even know anything about Odette, not even her face, there are no photos no knick knacks of a woman, no nothing not a trace of hers in his apartment. Sure she hasn’t moved in yet but really? no presents? no photos? Logan has photos in his apartment, of his adventures and places but no portraits of a girl, no couple photos, no stuff that’s clearly been bought by a woman in his apartment? How is that a relationship? - He’s been single all these years he hasn’t married anyone he hasn’t had one serious relationship with anyone apparetly (or else he’d be married already, because the Huntzberger pressure to increase the family should be heavy) since Rory, for 10 years and when we see them we have to assume their relationship isn’t new because of the domesticity the way they behave around each other the comfort they take in their interactions.

I think Logan was waiting for Rory to go back to him. Now, I’m not saying he waited pining away for her behaving like a monk (lol) because that would be unrealistic in this day and age, but he was waiting for her. While I don’t agree with some things in the revival and even though I love the characters and the stories created by ASP, I’ve come to the realization is more my desire, my wishful thinking, what I would have wanted to see, that could have suited the story as well, but it isn’t MY story to tell, and if I really think it through from the characters POV and the writers POV it does make sense. He’s giving into his family, not to maintain his status quo in money, after all we know he can certainly work on his own, but is about him giving into the desires of his family because, why not? If he can’t have the relationship he wants with the woman he loves, because she still keeps a (small) length of space between them, still keeps him a little at arm’s length in a way, then why not try and keep the family happy even if he could keep postponing the marriage, they could be engaged forever and eventually end it. She could have her own reasons as well.

Let’s put this Rory and Logan thing in time. We don’t know how long they had this Vegas thing going on, if it started like that from the begining, if it’s been steady for how long or if it’s been on and off. He is engaged and she knows it perfectly well. However his engagement seems very bizarre because is almost like it was non existant.

We have this idea of Rory and Logan together when we see them in the revival, they look so in tune so perfectly happy with each other and with their routines and their domesticity already in place, they look married, actually, or like a couple who has been living together for quite a while. (yes and them BAM Vegas and such but more on this as we go on)

Someone once asked if there were parallels between Romeo and Juliet and Rory and Logan like ill fated lovers the world separating them… I think that’s a little much, life happens, sh*t happens, we all have to take responsability for our actions and behave like adults and be aware that our actions have consequences.  I think these two are not ill fated lovers, no, I think they make or break their own lives due to fears in one side or resignation and why nots, in the other that result in lack of communication because they are afraid to burst their bubble, him of having her in any terms possible, her of having him but no strings attached (the roles have reversed from the original show but pretty much they both want the same, each other).

However I see a few things that could be taken from Shakespeare if we want to draw some parallels�� Odette to me, the fact they never show her face that we barely hear her voice once, that she doesn’t have an actual real presence, reminds me of how Paris was only a prop to force Juliette’s hand. Romeo and Juliette’s Paris, if we think about it, doesn’t really have a story or anything much, because he wasn’t relevant, is the same with Odette and who’s to say she’s not in it for the same reasons, to keep the family at bay and to prevent them from forcing a more permanent setting while staying in this arrangement and keeping the family happy.  Paul would be Rosalynd; someone quickly forgotten as soon as love comes by, someone who doesn’t appear to have relevance any longer.

I do have to say though that I also have my suspicions about Paul, why would this guy, any guy regardless of how much of a doormat he may want to be, would accept to be in a relationship with someone he NEVER sees? They don’t live together and she forgets about him even while he’s in the same house… how does that work? We don’t know how their previous two years were but he alludes to the fact that he doesn’t see her much. Who would be so much of a saint or so much of a doormat to take that? To be in a relationship with someone they never see and who constantly forgets about him…? Is Paul some sort of shield for Rory? We know they have said that at the moment we see them they’re going through the motions, and ASP has said is a bad moment for Rory… so perhaps the relationship was real in some way but Rory actually kept him as a sort of shield but forgot about him in every other way when he wasn’t present right next to her?? Paul could be Romeo’s Rosalynd, someone that was a relationship but faded into non existence the moment true love comes around. And lets face it, if anyone is actually braver in the story is Juliet more than Romeo…

I don’t think, however that Rory and Logan themselves fit so much in the Romeo and Juliet metaphor but they have some resemblances in their relationships during the revival. I am convinced that both Odette and Paul are symbols. Paul is a symbol of how much Rory is lost in herself and is trying to keep this guy as an anchor to prevent her from drifting but she doesn’t really care about him, she’s just there and keeps him around because he’s her excuse for not getting involved, her excuse for not fighting for what she actually wants with Logan, he’s her symbol of stability to show that she’s a mature adult because she’s with this guy who is stable and kind and serious… but forgettable.

Odette is the symbol of status the Huntzbergers want for Logan, the rich heiress marrying the rich heir, to give pedigree, to bring more heirs to the name, to bring potential more successful business deals, to take an international market perhaps, both families want the convenience of a union that would be profitable for them, economically beneficial to them (I’m having Sabrina flashbacks here hehe). They want this beneficial relationship and engagement. And if that were the case (“engaged to a girl who lives in another country, smart”, zero photos or things of her in his apartment, her being in there right within earshot distance when he’s talking to Rory) who’s to say that Odette isn’t in it for the same reasons Logan is? 

Maybe to have a relationship that isn’t serious for them but keeps the family at bay (why not marry them already if Logan was ACTUALLY moving on with his life and trying to forget Rory?) while they are together but not so much (the old arrangement you have your things I have mine, we each have our lives but are also together to keep the elders happy) And if they were all in this agreement, who’s it hurting that Rory and Logan are together? Truth is Odette is a symbol to create the conflict to put a body (but not a face) as the bump in the road that always prevents Rory from fully commiting to Logan, because if you add someone else to the mix, even if the someone else is in the practicalities, nonexistant, then you’re not the one with commitment issues, is just that you are not IN the picture. However THERE IS NO PICTURE. Odette is a metaphor for the invisible thing, a bump, an obstacle that Rory and Logan can’t seem to be able to throw aside to really be together, him because he’s leaving the decision to her because he already asked and every time he tries to know more she shuts down, Odette and Paul are each shields of a kind, the difficulty they need to overcome, the problems where they need to shed light in order to get past them. There’s a reason why Odette is literally nobody, she’s a non existent conflict, she’d dissapear as soon as they spoke clearly to each other.

Only Rory doesn’t know that because she cuts Logan off when he wants to explain about Odette, and she doesn’t want to tell him about Paul yet she freaks out when she finds out Odette is moving. If she didn’t care, if they were only in this vegas, sex buddies relationship why would she care that he’s engaged to someone else? why would she care and freak out about her moving in? why would she ask about not wanting to find another girl’s things when she’s staying with him? why would she care if she didn’t want him fully, in an actual real relationship the same way he wants her? Is perfectly clear Logan has been waiting for her and is still waiting for her to make up her mind. 

“The twilight zone: he was willing to wait 40 years and come back as an old man just to spend those last few years with her”. (I know this wasn’t ASP’s season but who knows if she had brought this story to the table for discussion and they decided to use it? They do mention the Twilight zone in earlier seasons so this could have very well been ASP’s idea to bring later on). He might have come to the end of it now that he kept waiting and she said goodbye to him. However I think it will be on Rory this time that this goodbye isn’t forever. This baby, their baby was concieved out of love. And while the man in her life is secondary, as much as I love him, he’s secondary to the story, he will be there for her, he has always been there for her, he’s waiting for her to give him a sign to reach out her hand. He will never force her because he knows that doesn’t work with her, he’s always asking for her permission and her approval before he does anything concerning her.

When he and the boys arrive to surprise her in fall, he’s waiting in the background then he approaches carefully and presents her with the hat and coat, he could have easily put the hat on her, told her to turn around to help her in the coat, yet he pauses to look at her, to give her a questioning look “is your call, Ace”, he’s always allowed her to call the shots, is no different with this small gesture, she can say no and they’ll go away but she accepts it because she’s not ready to say goodbye to him, she’s not ready to let go of him for good, she doesn’t want to but she can’t utter the words that would keep him by her side for real, fully and for good. This pregnancy is important to her path because Rory needs to focus on her life, this new relationship, this mother-child relationship that will come is what is going to re focus her life, that is going to be her new anchor to get her to find her path. She’s nervous and scared sharing the shocking news but she’s her mother’s daughter after all, she will go through with it and she’ll find her own path, and secondary to that path will be her relationship with Logan, because the more important will be the mother and child.

The conversation with Christopher is a clear sign of what will come, she’s asking him, begging him to tell her, why didn’t you fight for me, why didn’t you stay next to me, why did you let others make the choices for you. She doesn’t want to be this person anymore, and that’s her great fear, that she will become this figure in the back, this cookie cutter mold that just because her mom did it in a way that she must be the same, she wanted her father in her life, she yearned to have him there, no matter how much her grandfather and her mom had been the parental figures in her life she wanted her dad, she doesn't want to be in this preordained path and to just accept that her child will have the life she had, as wonderful as it was, and she will find the fight inside her to do things her way, she’ll find the fight in her to not let anyone run her over this time (Mitchum, Shira, Elias Huntzberger). Brave Rory, determined Rory has always made up her mind and kept it, she needs to find it again. The conversation with Chris about Lorelai, “yes she’d back you up”, that it was meant to be, but that doesn’t mean it will be the same for her because she knows Logan WOULD fight her on being a part of the life of his child and Logan isn’t an inmature 16 year old boy he’s a man with a well positioned status and more important a man who loves her and would want to be a part of the life of his child, and if she lets him, to love her fully and be with her, be a permanent full part of her life. She always yearned for her father and she never filled that gap. Richard was a father figure of many sorts but he came when she was already a teenager, Luke was more like a pal than a father figure and even he didn’t help bring Rory up, he was though a stable figure, not an authority figure but a stable friend, a part of her support system. And that’s what she needs, the full picture and she can get it because is in her hands, she’s not going to shut Logan out because she knows what it was like for her. She’s going to give him the choice, and he will choose her and their child.

Now, Jess. I watched the revival once more and got to his part and I have to admit it, I don’t hate Jess, I don’t even dislike him, but his extreme fans make me want to reduce the (albeit little) importance of his character in the revival, because he does have a significance there. 

He is family now, (ASP’s ONLY words on the Jess subject) he came, he listened to her woes, he does know a little about her because whoever knows Rory knows her passion for words, and he comes from that world of words, so he took a chance and gave her an actual good advise. I don’t think now, after putting a pin (A GIGANTIC ONE) on the extreme Jess fans who think he’s God come to live and Rory’s saviour (and apparently she’d be the Virgin Mary because according to them the baby would be his so it would be an immaculate conception all over again) I don’t think now that it was a command or just a random idea, I do believe he listened to her and he knows, coming from that world that she needs to find her footing into writing what she knows, the idea had to come from someone who wasn’t so much involved, and Jess’ job was that, to come and listen for once, and to be a friend who gives advise, nothing more. And let’s face it, if we go to the nitty gritty they don’t really talk personal things and she barely touches him, she grabs his jacked while jumping up and down. Is odd for someone who hasn’t seen a friend in four years, it gives you the impression that they’re not really close or that the relationship between them is not one of much trust.

The look through the window is not longing is regret, because he could have been a part of that world WITH her but it was never in the cards, and I think that now after seeing her again he’s also closing this chapter, maybe with a regret of what might have been, but closing this chapter and finally moving forward himself. He said it himself when she asked him about what was going on with him, he said “nothing stable” that means there IS someone just not someone he thinks worth mentioning or discussing with her, so he is involved with someone, much like Rory with Paul. However since they aren’t in that close contact he just gets away with saying as little as possible on the subject, and finally realizes his role was that, to be the last drop that spills the water in the glass, to be the friend who gives good advise then goes his way again (I do NOT include season 7 in good advise he came, yelled and went away that’s not advise that’s not even conversation in the subject). Is clear they aren’t close because she hasn’t asked him to read her pages, he hasn’t asked him for advise, she goes to Logan, and she doesn’t really discuss what light would she show him (Jess) in her book because it was so brief it doesn’t really matter that much. 

We see the difference in communication and closeness when she randomly bumps into Dean. She hugs Dean. SHE HUGS DEAN!!! She knows all about his wife and his kids and his life, they obviously keep in touch, and when she discusses what she would say of him in her book, jokes aside, she says “you were the best boyfriend you made me feel safe” she knows all about Dean’s life and his wife and his kids and his sister yet about Jess she only knows what she’s been told they haven’t seen each other in four years or more and they still don’t discuss much details “nothing stable nothing permanent” that means Jess DOES have someone just nobody of importance, yet because we don’t see her the whole issue isn’t made this big thing the way it is made with Logan simply because there’s a name and a specific openly discussed situation.

And we come back to Logan. I think Logan shares some personality traits with other men in the show. He’s loyal, loving, he loves Rory and doesn’t want to force her hand by making her do something she doesn’t want, but he also can’t really communicate so well because of the way he was brought up, he loves Rory he’d do anything to make her happy including trying to stay away from her if that’s what she wanted, he has always shown her this world of adventure and he has had his many flaws but he has grown from those, he has learned from them and he always looked for Rory to try and be better for her. For him this woman doesn’t want anything from him as others usually do, the status, the money, the hot guy to brag about, so he wants to give her the world but she’s scared of being trapped inside a family with so much power and money because she doesn’t trust herself to not relive her terror… her grandmother’s life, she doesn’t want to be the "bored society wife” role, and wait a lifetime to have an individual life. She’s been raised in a way that committing to someone equals the end of her freedom the end of herself and she needs to learn that’s not true. She’s been raised to be afraid of loving someone deeply and staying forever because other than her mom, she didn’t have a stable figure close growing up. 

She thinks Logan is gong to make the choices for her when he never has. Rory shares a lot of traits with both Christopher and Lorelai, she has the lack of commitment skills of her parents, she has this fears that she won’t be enough like her dad, and Logan is a lot like Lorelai, this force of nature that comes into her life and suddenly an entire world of adventures shows up to this little bookworm and she’s happy experiencing all, but she’s always afraid she’s going to get steamrolled, she’s going to get overwhelmed by money, that’s why she pulls away like her mother, like her father. Logan shares traits of Lorelai and Christopher as well but also has the good qualities of Luke and Richard a bit without being exactly a mirror of them, just as Rory isn’t a mirror of her grandmother and doesn’t want to be, nor is she a mirror of her mother.  Lorelai Leigh is her own person even though she loses herself from time to time and I think that this story of the baby would be the key piece of the puzzle what would force her to develop her strenghts and finally stand on her own two feet. 

Is not about the guy, like ASP says, although the guy is a big part of the picture but is about Rory standing on her own, Rory solving her own issues so she can finally realize she’s stronger than the trappings and that Logan wouldn’t make her weaker, all the contrary he’d make her stronger. Despite the fact that her love life is secondary to the story, this child will bring her back to her path.

If we go back for a moment to the Oz metaphor, for when she says goodbye to the guys like Doroty from the Tin Man, the Lion and the Scarecrow… Dorothy needs to find her way back home and she’ll find it with the baby, the baby will be sort of her red shoes, she’ll find her footing because everything changes and is not about the guy although in this case is not like in Lorelai’s; he’s not an immature afraid teen and neither is she, she’s not a force of nature, he is, she’s undecisive, he isn’t, she’s not as confident as she was in the past when she confronted Mitchum when she kept her distance from him, she got crushed because she respected him and he thought her untalented but she’s finding new footing and she is a writer, she can be a writer and still be a reporter. (Season 1 her interview with headmaster Charleston maybe I’ll travel the world and write books about what I see I just want to make sure I see something). She didn’t want to marry him because she thought he would keep her from the world when in reality he wanted to share the world with her. I think once she finds her path “back home” we’ll see that the full circle has come, only what happens after the start point is going to be different this time. Because Rory’s “home” is not stars hollow, is her own confident, stubborn, feisty self, ready to fight the world and eat it up. She’s now forced to find new footing because this new life is going to require her growing up, she’s leaving the land of childhood but this time she’s going to the adult world to find that her love is waiting for her, only now it has to be on her to say the word and get him back.

She would tell him because “why didn’t you fight her why did you just let her, did she push you away” she’s making this new path because she’s finding her footing and the baby though is something scary (“I want to remember it all”, she’s leaving the life of immaturity she’s leaving Oz) is a new adventure and she’s not going to be frozen in time anymore. To me the fact that the only permanent figure for her was Logan and the fact that Lorelai is now in this new path as well (she’s actually now fully committed to Luke, not because of the piece of paper but because they finally found permanent footing and open communication) means she can’t stay in Oz she can’t play childhood life in her childhood bedroom she needs to move forward and for Rory that means physically out of Stars Hollow. In her growing up that this new relationship of mother child would bring, the way things were led in the revival I strongly believe that she would go back to Logan not because of obligation but because she’d realize that the excuses and the barriers are flimsy and the fact is that she always goes back to him and he always wants to go back to her because they love each other, they belong together. To me the baby would be the final piece of the puzzle to get Dorothy out of Oz and into the real world, with her child, with her own life, with her love.

[thevalkirias]

Problematizing Rory Gilmore: the revival

Back when we were waiting to know where Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel) would be – mid 2016, before Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life was released – we made a point of saying that the apple of Stars Hollows’ eyes was far from perfect, which was great: Rory Gilmore is complex, and therefore a human character. Since then, the revival peaked and its buzz went away, and nothing in it was more controversial or discussed to exhaustion than the characterization of the younger Gilmore. Rory Gilmore is a monster. Rory Gilmore is a disaster. Rory Gilmore never became a real adult. Rory Gilmore is… complicated.

Beware: this piece contains spoilers of all four instalments of A Year in the Life.

Before the revival hit Netflix, Amy Sherman-Palladino wanted us to wonder in which newspaper Rory would be working and whether she would have already won a Pulitzer. The first episode, “Winter”, came to break many of the expectations surrounding Rory’s career, since she couldn’t be any further from where we thought she would be. Rory has no steady job; her biggest achievement is the publication of an article in The New Yorker – reproduced on every single one of Luke’s menus – and what she’s up to is the memoir of an eccentric British celebrity, which comes to an end before it even starts. By the end of the original series Rory was fresh out of Yale and working as a journalist following the electoral campaign of the then-candidate to the presidency of the United States, the Democrat Barack Obama (2007, good times). Even if her life wasn’t exactly on track (Logan, played by Matt Czurchy, ended their relationship of three years after Rory rejected his – very public – proposal, and her job, intriguing as it was, had an ending date), it seemed promising that Rory was following her dreams, with a job in her field of interest – political journalism –, after the crisis she went through between seasons five and six.

The revival comes to disappoint everyone that saw Rory as a role model. The year we follow in A Year in the Life leaves the younger Gilmore feeling even more lost and uncertain about her future. In a single year, she loses the book proposal, has her meeting with Condé Nast postponed again and again, throws a story away because she finds it uninteresting and arrives completely unprepared to a job interview for a hip website she completely despised, only to be despised by them. Rory ends up coming back to her mother’s house in Stars Hollow, but spends the whole summer telling everyone that wishes her welcome that she’s not back, as if coming back meant acknowledging her failure.

When it comes to her personal life, things aren’t much better. Rory apparently has a boyfriend, Paul (Jack Carpenter), so uninteresting to the whole family that no one – not even Rory herself – seems to remember he exists. Paul is not a character; he is a recurring joke through the four episodes, so Rory conveniently forgets to break up with him, finding it easier to have an affair with Logan. The affair is one of the most complicated issues of the revival: not only Rory is cheating on her boyfriend but, as we come to know later, Logan has a fiancée somewhere in Europe, a woman who never gets a face, let alone a chance of becoming a relevant character. The irony is that in the past Rory herself went through similar situations: first with Dean (Jared Padalecki) and Lindsay (Arielle Kebbel) when she was nineteen; afterwards with the same Logan she can’t bear to let go. Nothing, however, makes Rory nurture any kind of empathy towards Odette, the never-presented bride – she is not a character, she is an obstacle. The fact that she doesn’t have a face doesn’t seem to be fate’s work, but an intentional choice that tries to make the situation seem less serious than it really is, in order to make the plot all about Rory and Logan, as if all the rest were just details; as if Paul and Odette were mere plot devices and not just like any other human being: complex and with plenty of feelings, deserving to be treated respectfully regardless of their role in other people’s lives.

Once again, Rory takes on her most selfish side, of someone incapable of thinking about anyone other than herself. This is the same character that, in the past, had an affair with a married man without thinking twice, that was never capable of recognising her privileges and that has always thought herself superior, even if she never said it out loud. By the time she turns 32, Rory seems to have learned nothing at all from her previous experiences. It’s a radical departure from the teenager and young adult she once was, who always tried her best to be perfect and correspond to the expectations that were imposed on her. However, in 2016 Rory is no longer the apple of Stars Hollow’s eyes, the young journalist with a promising career ahead of her, whose dream was to be like Christiane Amanpour, and she is no longer the young girl who is too good for every guy in her life: nearly ten years passed by since she was this girl and ten years are more than enough to change a whole life.

Throughout the classic series of Gilmore Girls, Rory gave us enough proof she was far from the picture that dehumanized her full time: as any person building her own identity and facing a world of possibilities ahead of her, Rory would sometimes put her foot in her mouth, mess everything up and get frustrated with life not always going the way she expected it to go. This didn’t make her a bad person, but the opposite: as the complex young adult that she was, Rory had many nuances and never limited herself to being just one thing. She was the leading lady of her own story, the kind, smart and understanding heroine loved by all, the young girl with the best grades who never got into trouble and had a promising future ahead of her. But she could also be the villain of someone else’s story – Lindsay’s, for example –, the spoiled little girl that thought only of herself, incapable of accepting that life doesn’t owe her anything. At the same time, Rory would walk on the thin line between being herself and being what others expected her to be. Unlike many teenagers that vehemently deny the images projected on them, going to the extreme opposite, Rory embraced it, basically what her mother, her grandparents, her father, Luke (Scott Patterson) and the whole town wanted her to be, even when that wasn’t exactly what she wanted, even when Rory herself seemed to be close to changing her mind.

The sixth season of the classic series is essential to this line of thought because it presents a Rory that is far from perfect. She steals a boat, has a huge fight with her mother, drops out of college and is condemned to community services, but this is also the crucial moment when she breaks all expectations – not only everyone else’s, but her own too. Nearly ten years later, she still needs to deal with these unfulfilled expectations, but this time the frustration is more her own than it is anyone else’s. Her life took a 360º degree turn: she went around the world, wrote several articles, met and interacted with many people, but curiously returned to the same spot. However, at age 32, being back to the starting point is not the ideal and Rory knows it just as much as everyone else around her. Though she is reluctant to admit her alleged failure and finds it profoundly difficult to deal with it, Rory knows her life is far from what she expected it to be when she was 22. The difference is that instead of trying to evolve and mature she continues to be the same immature and presumptuous Rory she always were, who believes the world owes her a special future just because.

All of these – and many others – recurring slips on the plot have us wondering whether the Palladinos underestimated our judgment capacity, which evolved properly along the years. Our generation may find it difficult to stand on our own feet, but that doesn’t mean we have no clue about what’s going on in the world or have no critical opinion. Which brings us to the “thirty-something gang” and millennials being used as comic relief, presented as people who have embraced failure and spend their days together drinking milkshakes. Actually, sane people who return to their childhood bedrooms spend sleepless nights thinking of ways to put their lives together – that is exactly what Rory does, but in the series that’s pictured as something exceptional rather than obvious. Though it’s hard to take her seriously in her not-back-to-Stars-Hollow state of denial, what she really means is that she doesn’t want to be back because she doesn’t want to feel defeated. In other words, to judge Rory’s new character based on this sentence is a matter of semantics.

Taking the lead in the Stars Hollow Gazette was the (desperate) way she found to fill her time in a way that kept her connected to journalism – even though the citizens are more concerned with the seasonal first-page poem. When she decides to write a book about her relationship with her mother, a suggestion from Jess (Milo Ventimiglia), Rory seems to have found her true project. However, though this was positive for her career, the argument she has with Lorelai (Lauren Graham) based on the latter’s concerns about exposing their personal lives, and Rory’s choice of disrespecting her mother’s preoccupations, bring up, once again, questions about the selfishness that remains a trace of her personality. It is comprehensible that Rory clings to the idea of the book because, amongst her great professional crisis, it comes as a gift and gives her a north. The story of the Gilmore girls belongs to them both, of course, but Rory doesn’t even consider the fact that telling it would inevitably expose her mother. Rory is not a monster for it, of course. These are desperate times for her (obviously according to her point of view, that of someone who still has a ceiling to live under and means to travel around as she wishes). Who can judge her so easily? Who would give up such a concrete, real and doable project, when there is nothing left? But it’s Rory’s incapacity to empathize with her mother, the outrage she seems to feel when confronted by her mother’s point of view and the fact that she simply doesn’t talk to Lorelai before going on with the project that causes so much discomfort.

What we see in Rory throughout the revival, what bothers us, is the presumption that she deserves certain things simply because. That she has the right to tell the Gilmores’ story because it is an interesting life and it can help her find a way. That she can simply show up to a job interview completely unprepared because the site’s boss showed interest in her work (okay, plenty of it, to be fair). Rory has all the right in the world to believe she can do something better than working in a hip website – showing a very conservative opinion, by the way, of what it takes to be a Real ProfessionalTM. Rory also has the right to think that writing about people queuing in lines in order try new things everyone is talking about is boring. But her choice to look down on both things as if they were inferior creates a profound unease, because it sounds as if Rory still believes on the version of facts people used to sell her when she was little: that she was special, too good, the smartest, the best among her pairs – and everything she learned from her unsuccessful internship with Mitchum Huntzberger (Gregg Henry) seems, when we are watching the revival, to have served for nothing in her arc. The teenaged Rory, the one who could talk about the repaving of Chilton’s parking lot in a touching and profound way –  or at least that’s what her teacher assured us she did –, seemed way more willing to try, something the new Rory seems to think she is too good to do.

At the closing of the revival, it’s hard to understand what Amy Sherman-Palladino was trying to do with Rory. In an interview with Vogue, she declared that she gave the character this complicated path because it seemed very real to her.

“I had friends who went to college and put themselves through college and worked two jobs. They [thirty-somethings] don’t do that anymore! It’s a lot of kids coming home and staying with their parents after college and saving their money for a condo. […]And these are kids who have all the benefits—they’ve had a great education, supportive parents, but sometimes I believe a little too supportive. Sometimes you have to kick someone out the door and say, ‘Apply to Starbucks, sweetie, I don’t care that you have a master’s degree. Go work, that’s what the world does.’”

It’s hard to understand whether the Palladinos chose to sacrifice the character in order to fulfil some kind of badly-shaped social criticism aimed at the next generation, or if, because between the original series and the revival many years went by, they decided that the public’s vision of Rory was still too idealized and wanted to tell us she is just human and, as such, makes mistakes like all of us. However, regardless of their intention, it was still a bad call, a badly stitched attempt at multitasking that is unable to not make anything coherently. If we are invited to understand and empathize with Rory, a character that must be seen as an imperfect human being that makes mistakes and doesn’t have her life on track by the time she hits 30, why was the “thirty-something gang”, which has no real purpose, turned into comic relief? Why is Rory still put on a pedestal, as if her conflicts were so much bigger, so much more complex than the feelings of many others that find themselves in the same situation?

To problematize (or not) the Rory Gilmore we have last seen is a hard task because the truth is that analysing the revival critically is a complicated – and a bit ungrateful – task. The Palladinos seem to have never accepted their own premature departure from the series or the ending it was given without their approval, just like they seem to have not accepted the fact that ten years that separate the series finale and their chance to revive it on their own terms. What is left to see, even when we glance beyond Rory (at Luke and Lorelai, for example, and the fact that they did not discuss marriage and kids for nearly a decade), is that the Palladinos decided to write a story that did not remain frozen in time in theory – time left its mark on the cast, after all – but did in practice. The Gilmores’ story is theirs, of course, and they had the right to do what they wanted with it. But the way in which they coped with the unexpected paths life takes seems rather immature, contradicting the foundations of their own story. It’s almost ironic to see them turning the alleged immaturity of an entire generation into joke. It’s probably not by chance that the revival really shone when it showed the Gilmores dealing with Richard’s death (portrayed by the late Edward Herrmann) – the storyline in which the Palladinos had to take a turn from whatever plans they had. When the script fails from the beginning, it’s hard to look at Rory in a definitive way.

Rory Gilmore is still the complex and human character she always was, but ten years later perhaps she is no longer the woman with whom we identified so long – or not so long – ago; the girl that inspired us deeply the way only well-constructed and coherent characters can do.  For better or worse, Rory Gilmore has grown, became a woman who is far from what we expected, but this does not make her a monster. Life is not a magical genie lamp that grants us all our wishes, and Rory learned it the hard way. However, in choosing to treat her once again as a little snowflake, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life shows a reductionist view of an entire generation, disregarding the fact that the privileged youngsters who had a great education and constant parental support are not all simply spoiled people who believe they are too good to do anything other than the dream job, and that behind all the frustrations there is a world of expectations and pressures that do not exist in the void. For as long as we keep ignoring these issues, it’s hard to imagine a future for Rory that is not filled with darkness and some dragons. 

Written by Ana Luí­za, Fernanda and Yuu.

This piece was originally published in Portuguese on April, 2017 on Valkirias. Translated by Anna Viduani.

[frazzledsoul]

(Disclaimer: before I get started, just let me say I don’t begrudge anyone else their opinions on this matter, and perhaps there’s an in-between solution that would please a lot of us, but this is just my take on what we actually saw. Also, I am not really a wedding kind of person. My family loves to get married almost as much as they love to get divorced, so I have a cynical take on these things in the first place)

So, about that big Luke/Lorelai wedding . . .

I’m actually glad we didn’t get to see what was originally planned.

Don’t get me wrong, the flash mobs sound cute. And I actually like the Luke-Danes-and-Kiefer-Sutherland-are-secretly-fishing-buddies detail. Kiefer is a tad eccentric and he moonlights as a country singer who occasionally hits up the Alabama hipster club. I figure if he’s willing to hang out with our rednecks, then he can make it to a random Connecticut diner owner’s wedding.

But this big, expensive wedding where Lorelai wears multiple wedding dresses based on famous brides throughout history?

It just sounds totally out of character to me.

Even Lorelai’s OG wedding in season 6 that she so desperately wanted at the time (and IMO, she was not quite ready for, but that’s another topic) wasn’t that big of a soiree. She planned the entire wedding in a day and was going to pull the whole thing off with about four months of planning. It didn’t sound anything near as elaborate as what ASP described.

Let’s look at this semi-realistically. Lorelai planned the wedding herself in four days. (That alone is the biggest indication that this show is a fantasy, but let’s move on). She’s been romantically involved with her prospective groom for nearly thirteen years. They are around fifty years old. They’ve been living together for a decade. They’ve been married (albeit very briefly) to other people. They both have grown children.

The idea of this actually being the wedding to end all weddings is really silly.

I know there’s this idea floating out there in some quarters that ASP owed the fans this elaborate wedding because Luke and Lorelai didn’t get their “middle” (aka the early marriage, the 2.5 kids, the white picket fence). I’m not going to go into too much detail on that one (suffice it to say I think it’s ridiculous to state that their relationship didn’t mean anything unless it develops among those lines, especially since they were almost 40 and had already put in plenty of miles raising teenagers when they got together in the first place) but the fact that their wedding happens at this late stage is a clear indication of why it doesn’t need to be an elaborate shindig.

Their relationship was a long continuum that included years of friendship, almost-moments, mutual support, parenting crises, passion, fights, break-ups, reconciliations, and years of domesticity. It didn’t begin or end with their marriage. It had been going on for twenty years before they get to that point. Neither of them were fruitlessly pining for that final step this time, or holding off because one of them desperately wanted it and the other one wouldn’t budge. It happened when they both wanted it, and they didn’t feel that they were missing anything before it happened. It was part of the story, but far from the entire story.

So given all of that, it makes sense that their wedding is not really that big of a deal. It was a quiet moment that finally brought them and Rory together officially as a family, something that’s needed given the bomb she drops on her mother a few hours later. I imagine that this event will bring them closer together, and hopefully integrate the family together a little more (and that also includes April and Jess), but not that much else in their lives will change. They’ll still get up and come home to each other like they’ve been doing for the past ten years. They’ll still navigate the various foibles of their adult kids and life will go on, as it’s been going on for many years before then.

It is a happy ending, but it’s a lived-in one. Which is why the wedding we saw fits. At least for me.