frazzledsoul

[frazzledsoul]

People want Literati to be endgame but as someone who loves Jess Mariano, I want a revival of the revival where Jess moves on, finds someone else and when Rory tries to go crawling back to him for the millionth time, sees what she missed out on because it is so unrealistic that she has all these men still pining after her 10 million years later.

#look i ship them but in a completely different way than i think most shippers do #jess is miles and miles more mature and a better person in ayitl than rory #her life is a disaster and it's going to take a lot of work until she's anywhere close to being a good partner for him #i also completely reject the take that jess would reject her because of her motherhood #(he would never) #but i do think it's wise that he keeps his distance romantically while she figures her shit out #while still supporting her and her child #until she can be a person that's good for him #(and until then he can call me!)

[frazzledsoul]

Not to hark on that (relatively filler) hockey episode of Gilmore Girls again, but I think it's a pretty blatant example of the narrative feeding the audience a bunch of baloney in order to prioritize the desires of the title characters. The narrative in this case would have the audience believe that Jess is in the wrong for not properly arranging a date with his girlfriend instead of....going to the work shift he had previously agreed to, and planning a surprise date for her out of the prying eyes of her mother that their judgmental small town can dissect isn't a sufficient enough atonement for being...pretty responsible, actually. Rory's social life should not take precedence over Jess's work life, and if the narrative argues otherwise, the narrative is fairly shallow and I don't feel bad about rejecting it.

There is a fair amount of classism thrown in here too, that the working-class job the love interest has just isn't as important as the prep school girl's social life. It's a flawed analysis (Jess doesn't have to work that job, after all and it's not like Dean doesn't also have a job as well as a lack of college ambition) but as always the emphasis is on Rory's desires instead of the responsibilities that Jess already has.

It's not the worst thing the show has asked us to believe, given that at times it has argued that infidelity is justifiable if he was your boyfriend first, a married ex is a more reliable prospect than a single broke one, running away to live in a tool shed as a teenage mom is actually a wise decision, Rory actually has the moral high ground when it comes to cheating/cheating adjacent behavior, and parental devotion is a flaw if it gets in the way of your wedding plans. However, just because the show wants us to prioritize the desires of the main characters over the well-being of the people they're dissatisfied with doesn't mean that it is right. Sometimes the narrative just needs to be told to fuck off.

#and you can apply this philosophy to other shows too #for instance you will never get me to believe bran stark as an immortal tree god should be an absolute monarch #gilmore girls #rory gilmore #jess mariano

[frazzledsoul]

Thinking about the up coming paternal family reunion and how I promised my dad but I really don't want to go...I didn't go last year because I was unemployed and I was too embarrassed to go but now even though I'm working again (and even got promoted!) it just feels the same way again...and also, I just feel strange interacting with that side of my family now that my stepmom has passed. I don't know how to handle it. Objectively things are better for me and my dad seems okay with it all but they don't feel better.

Ugh. Getting old(er) sucks.

#personal stuff #idk #i have to go though i don't have an excuse this time

[frazzledsoul]

You're not friends. You'll never be friends. You'll be in love 'til it kills you both. You'll fight, and you'll shag, and you'll hate each other until it makes you quiver, but you'll never be friends.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER

3.08 | Lover's Walk

#he's the ultimate romantic and cynic baked into one #spike #buffy the vampire slayer

[frazzledsoul]

Jess and Dean's homoerotic rivalry was Strong in S2&3

#you know dean really wanted to pin jess up agaisnt that brick wall in the alley and was just looking for an opportunity #rory who #gilmore girls

[frazzledsoul]

#me @ the gilmore girls subreddit #was literally suspended for asking someone to look up milo's imdb

[frazzledsoul]

#daemon intends to strangle aemond to death with that cardigan apparently #house of the dragon

[frazzledsoul]

Spent most of the weekend in a depressive stupor and delayed doing laundry until late Sunday night, only to discover that most of the machines are being used. So now I'm going to bed at a semi-decent time and improvising on a work outfit tomorrow because

#or inaction in this case #frazzled get your shit together

[frazzledsoul]

Kit Harington as Jon Snow

Game of Thrones (2011-2019)

#he's so pretty #my disaster boy #jon snow #game of thrones

[frazzledsoul]

It's generally left out in the annals of bad behavior/infidelity in the Gilmore Girls canon, but I just want to review the details of Lorelai's "situationship" with Twilight Dad in season 3 when she is in the midst of lecturing Jess and Rory on proper boyfriend/girlfriend etiquette.

Lorelai meets Alex (aka Twilight Dad) on 3.11, which aired on January 21. She and Alex are third wheels when Sookie meets up with an old friend and accidentally sets up a date with him (this takes place during the episode where Rory and Paris fence and have intense sexual tension). I think he asks her out during this episode.

One week later, on 3.12 (airing on February 28) Lorelai and Alex have a coffee date. They discuss the coffee shop he's opening and his two kids who he shares custody with his ex. He suggests a fishing date, and Lorelai ropes Luke into teaching her how to fish. Bear in mind that she has known Luke has crushed on her for the better part of two years.

Anyway, after this incident, Luke decides to give up on Lorelai and asks Nicole out.

The next episode is 3.13, which is the flashback episode. It airs on February 4. This is Luke and Nicole's first date. Nicole definitely does not spend the night.

3.14 airs on February 11. This is Swan Song, where Lorelai is antsy about Rory and Jess possibly fucking, he gets beaked in the eye by the ghost of Shane, they fight, and at the end of the episode Alexis makes a way too realistic moan into Milo's mouth and Rory goes home and tells Lorelai that she's totally going to do Jess at some point.

So Alex and Lorelai have been going out for three weeks, and they decide to go away together with Sookie and Jackson. Sounds kind of serious. It's also mentioned in this episode that in the one week he's been dating Nicole Luke has been on a bunch of overnight trips to New York and seen a bunch of Broadway plays with his girlfriend. I guess we're supposed to assume there's a time jump here because there's no way he did all that within a week.

I'll also point out here that even though Luke mentions he interrupts Rory and Jess every ten minutes so they don't get around to having sex, if he's also making overnight trips to New York they're probably being left alone in the apartment at night quite a bit. Pair that with the offscreen "movie nights" we hear about later and yeah, uh, I think we can figure out what is taking place because no way is that going on in Lorelai's house unless it's also happening while she's out with Alex.

3.15 is February 18, the hockey episode. Jess doesn't call Rory to arrange a date and Lorelai lectures him on his terrible boyfriend behavior. Then he shows up with hickey tickets (and then some!) and I'm guessing Rory's virginity became fairly technical in the car afterwards.

3.16 is the episode where Paris is rejected from Harvard, which airs on February 25. Lorelai is delighted to know that Rory has not actually had sex and that she has "the good kid". She also makes out with Max and then tells Rory all about it and when Rory asks about poor Twilight Dad, Lorelai says "I don't know." I'm thinking you really should not be giving lectures on morality and proper relationship etiquette, hon. Also two weeks ago the relationship was serious enough to include an overnight weekend, but now it doesn't matter? Huh.

So let's skip ahead to Keg. Max, which is three episodes and two months later, which airs on April 25. I'm assuming there actually was a time jump between Luke and Nicole's first date and the swan episode and these episodes actually took place much closer together than they aired, as there's a lot of stuff going on with Luke finding out Jess is skipping school, steals his car to force him to go, and Jess finally being told he isn't graduating that seems like it would take place much closer in time. Anyway, it seems that Lorelai concludes that her relationship with Twilight Dad is over, because "it's become more intermittent". Does she call him and ask them if their relationship is over? I think we all know the answer to that one. Lorelai tries to push herself on Max after he says no and acts like she's the one that's been affronted when he shoves a table between them. I think there was supposed to be a parallel between Lorelai and Jess crossing boundaries in this episode, although I'm not sure why Lorelai did what she did for any reason other than she felt like it.

I really feel someone who behaves in this manner should not be lecturing her teenage daughter or her boyfriend about what a real relationship looks like, nor should she be evaluating who or who isn't "the good kid" based on what she's been doing. It appears Alex was just cheated on and dropped without explanation as the relationship was getting serious. Rory was fully aware of what was happening and further got the message that it is okay to do this sort of thing if an ex boyfriend enters the picture because if he was yours first, it's okay to cheat with him whenever you feel like it. I'm sure that's not something she's going to take to heart or anything.

Anyway, fair well Twilight Dad. I'm sure you'll have more interesting adventures in the PNW from now on.

#alex lesman #gilmore girls #the misadventures of twilight dad #also thoughts on rory and jess's movie nights

[frazzledsoul]

and if you’re comfortable put in the tags how old you are

#duh #i am an old #that's all i'm saying

[frazzledsoul]

did you know? if you do your laundry you can get your clothes back

#too true!

[frazzledsoul]

The real moral of Face-Off (the hockey game episode) is that Lorelai Gilmore has zero boundaries and used this benign situation as an opportunity to manipulate her daughter's love life. My unsolicited dissertation follows:

What the episode SHOULD be about: two teenagers have different expectations for their relationship, leading to a minor misunderstanding that could be easily solved with one conversation.

What we got instead: Lorelai playing all sides of this totally normal teen conflict until it blew up into a catastrophe that would come to define Jess and Rory's entire relationship.

The episode starts with Rory waiting around for Jess to call, because apparently "call you later" meant he was supposed to call by 9:00pm that night. Lorelai initially teases Rory about it - a quip about the Bay of Pigs, implying that BOTH Jess and Rory are bad at planning ahead. Fair! The next morning, Lorelai asks why Rory didn't just call Jess herself - great question! Rory makes a weird excuse, then shifts to comparing Jess to Dean. After telling Rory not to compare them, Lorelai goes on to compare them by calling Dean the perfect first boyfriend who spoiled Rory by calling so much. It's a fascinating distortion of the events, which was that Dean called so much that Rory felt completely suffocated. She actually hated that, remember?!

Then Lorelai starts setting imaginary rules. Jess is supposed to (1) immediately sense that Rory is upset, (2) automatically know WHY Rory is upset, and (3) apologize the SECOND she walks into the diner. Jess doesn't do that, because he's not clairvoyant and he's literally in the middle of working a shift, so Rory is apparently justified in storming out of there without a word. Lorelai then sneaks in a side convo with Jess (another thing Rory hates, by the way!). Mocking Jess for not calling and getting annoyed when he doesn't stick around to hear her lengthy diatribe about how much he sucks.

Rory sits around waiting for Jess to call, which is even stranger because they had no plans that day. And she also knows how to use a phone, so theoretically she could call herself. But Lorelai sets MORE imaginary rules. Rory is home at 6:00pm on a Saturday - something that seems totally normal for a homebody like her - but Lorelai catastrophizes it. It's SHOCKING that Rory is home, she should go out immediately! How dare Jess leave her unescorted on a Saturday evening! This, of course, gives Lorelai the opportunity to give Jess her second sarcastic lecture of the day. Because calling at 5:30pm that day would have been fine, but showing up at the house two hours later is an unforgivable crime (who is making these rules?!).

Jess then waits for Rory at the hockey game, completely unbothered by the fact she went out without him (because he actually allows her independence) and not remotely blaming her for the angry silent treatment she gave him earlier. Instead, he's trying to make amends with concert tickets - which seems like a pretty nice gesture! It's interesting that the episode distorts that into something bad. Rory keeps it a secret like they've done something wrong, and the episode ends with her all sad. While Jess is presumably thinking he's fixed the problem. Because that's a reasonable conclusion.

So in the span of 24 hours, Lorelai took this tiny misunderstanding and blamed Rory, used Dean as the standard for 'perfect' behavior, set a bunch of imaginary rules for Jess to 'break,' then switched to blaming Jess for the entire thing. It's a masterclass in manipulation. Emily Gilmore couldn't have done it any better!

I look forward to @saltygilmores take on this later! Maybe we can scream into the void together.

#lorelai prides herself on being a more tolerant mom than mama kim #but she goes out of her way to make sure rory is chaperoned on 80% of her boyfriend interactions #(either lorelai is literally right there ir they are at stars hollow events) #and does her best to steer rory away from any boyfriend she doesn't personally approve of #oh and very shortly after this lorelai decides it's okay to ignore twilight dad and start making out with max again #because twilight dad doesn't call her enough so she's decided it's over #so...uh maybe you shouldn't lecture about relationship consistency lorelai #and i'll point out lorelai doesn't behave like this durung the logan in part because it's impossible for her to chaperone rory #but also #she has luke to distract her from butting in so often

[frazzledsoul]

#when shane finds a new boyfriend to add to her revenge spree #jess babe watch out

[frazzledsoul]

I'm thinking about Eternals and how Marvel inexplicably sold it as a hardcore love story despite the leads having absolute negative chemistry and seeming to have co context behind either their relationship or their breakup...meanwhile Drug and Makkari were around in the background as this actual immortal love story...they had common interests, chemistry, and an actual affinity for each other on their side, and it was all an accident because the actors played so well off of each other. Lauren had a bit of a fanbase from the Walking Dead and Barry was soon to become a much bigger star and yet Marvel did....nothing with it. All they seemingly care about is Harry fucking Styles and how many projects they can put him in or in reintroducing their beloved Ikaris into another guise where they hope people will flock to him.

Fucking embarrassing franchise.

#druig x makkari #eternals #anti marvel

[frazzledsoul]

I've Been Thinking About April

I've seen a lot of people say that April was the end for Lorelai and Luke but I don't think that had to be the case.

I keep imagining an alternate universe where they introduce April a little sooner. An AU where Luke isn't scared to tell Lorelai about April-- instead, he turns to Lorelai, feeling overwhelmed and unsure. Lorelai brings them together and creates opportunities for them to bond so that Luke can focus his attention on his daughter and not worrying about planning things for her/them. This still leaves room for Anna to get her defenses up about Lorelai getting close to her daughter before she and Luke are fully committed and married.

I also think it would have presented a good arc to explore between Rory and April. I think it would have been very interesting for them to get into Luke being a father figure for Rory and April feeling like she missed out or was robbed of that. They could have a mildly tense relationship at first, slowly growing to appreciate each other as sisters. I think Rory might not have spiraled so much if she knew she had a little sister, very similar to Rory in her youth, that she had to be a role model for. Or her pattern of occasional self-destruction could be something April picks up and then Rory has to grapple with feeling responsible and guilty? Is there something here? idk

#while i would have liked to see aoril incorporated into a healthier blended family dynamic #i don't think her purpose should be to save rory from her own mistakes #at a certain point rory has to fix rory and take accountability for her own behavior #and if she's still having the same problems by the ayitl era april's presence has not helped #because april has been around for holidays and summers and the occasional weekend for ten years #she's lived in rory's childhood home for half of that time #possibly slept in her bedroom #it doesn't seem to have made much of a difference #(also gigi exists and that hasn't made a difference either) #so occam's razor strikes again here #rory is responsible for rory

[frazzledsoul]

Marie-Joseph Clavel - The lake of love - the weeping willow (ca. 1918)

#she's conspiring y'all