#LOGAN MISSING HIS KIDS BUT ALSO REFUSING TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT HE DOES | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

peniscat · 1 year

Note

missing gerri hours SO… do u have hcs you want to share 🤲

hi hello kat thank you for enabling me during these trying times <3 it’s been a while since i’ve last thrown some gerri hcs together so some of these might be familiar to some people hdksfjs. unsurprisingly this got long so... under the read more <3

she did choose to marry baird but if she truly had had a choice, she probably wouldn’t have married anyone at that point of her life. marrying baird meant influence and stability which in turn helped her career, and being an unmarried woman in the 80s in an environment like waystar wouldn’t have been a good look.

she doesn’t mind being a mother though it’s also another thing she wouldn’t probably have chosen for herself. she acknowledges that she could have been more present in her daughters’ lives during their childhood, but she also refuses to feel too bad about it. in her opinion she has always been there when it mattered.

she also didn’t mind baird and they became pretty comfortable with each other during their marriage. gerri got baird’s job after he died mostly because she already knew most of the secrets and because she was genuinely good at her job. but also because waystar desperately needed more women at the top. while she would have liked to have gotten the job solely due to her competence, she’s not gonna complain.

she genuinely has never wanted to be at the top. she much prefers orchestrating everything from the sidelines. that doesn’t mean she has never thought about what she’d do if she was the one in charge. that is why she doesn’t really like being the interim ceo – in paper she might be at the top, but in reality she’s just being logan’s puppet.

she has always kept her daughters away from waystar as much as possible. she knows why the waystar office walls are made from glass these days. she and baird have attended copious roy family events but their daughters have rarely made an appearance.

has a very delightful frenemies-sort of a relationship with caroline. in a way where she is invited to caroline’s wedding and they have one extremely fake conversation filled with pleasantries but after that they both roll their eyes.

she actually likes marcia.

has spent the past 30-ish years not really liking the roy kids. she hasn’t really let that affect the way she actually works with them: even if she thinks that kendall is pathetic and that roman is stupid, if she has to, she helps them.

obviously she doesn’t think that roman is that stupid anymore.

though if the situation was different she probably would think that shiv is the most competent one out of them.

if roman sends her another dick pic in his life she’ll probably have him murdered. no one will ever find his body <3

she’s bisexual because that makes me happy and i get to decide these things

her team-up with roman is probably the most daring thing she has done in years. she doesn’t exactly regret it but wishes she’d done some things differently.

mostly listens to older music but occasionally also some hit songs from the early 2000s her daughters used to listen to

unwinds by playing games on her phone. she’s unbeatable in candy crush <3 also started playing word games with roman and also beats him in that all the time.

the biggest workaholic you’ll ever see. probably spends more time at the offices than at home.

grudgingly takes blood pressure meds every morning. she doesn’t mind getting older and she doesn’t have many regrets, but she does find it annoying to see the ways her body is starting to age. what do you mean you don’t recover from jetlag in a day or that you don’t survive on 4 hours of sleep anymore? bullshit, thinks gerri.

and finally, if there was a competition about who’s the baddest and biggest milf out there, she’d win it every single time <3

i’ve now decided that there is such a competition. gerri kellman, winner of waystar’s milf of the year award since 2004.

#i love u for giving me this opportunity to talk about gerri. my favorite thing to do <3333333 #gerri kellman #answered

21 notes · View notes

i-will-physically-fight-you · 4 years

Text

Monsters in the Closet

Title: Monsters in the Closet

Summary: “You’re so much nicer when you’re bigger.”

Roman knows he can’t change the past. He can’t change the way he treated Virgil horribly, driving him to feel the only way he could be accepted was to be the villain of the story. But he can sit there and feel guilty knowing he is not worthy of any of the trust this young Virgil has placed in him.

(Part of the Tiny Virgil verse, takes place after An Itsy Bitsy Nightmare)

Word-Count: 2.7k

Pairing: Brotherly Prinixety

Warnings: Guilt, Panic/Anxiety, Treating Someone Wrongfully in the Past, Deaging, Hurt/Comfort

This part of a very late birthday present for @theeternalspace! I’m so sorry this took so long, please forgive me and I hope you enjoy! :)

Roman lets out a sigh and opens his eyes. Virgil is still snuggled close to his chest, asleep again after waking up what appeared to be a horrible nightmare. Roman can’t find himself to fall back asleep. His mind refuses to settle, refuses to let go of what Virgil said to him moments ago.

“You’re so much nicer when you’re bigger.”

The words rumble in Roman’s mind like that of a great and fearsome thunderstorm. How could it not? All the more confirmation that regardless of the unfounded trust young Virgil placed in him, he’d still expected to inevitably be treated terribly.

And that? The guilt of that stings deeper than any sting of the blade or a bandersnatch’s ferocious bite.

It also makes him wonder what exactly the Ankle-Terror thought was going on. Kids aren’t stupid. Naïve, yes, but that’s different from being stupid. They’re creative and innovative in ways adults couldn’t dream to be. Plus, they tended to love engaging in-depth conversations about Disney.

Sometimes, Roman misses the days when Thomas was a kid. Back when they were free to run around in the backyard and reimagine the swings as a spaceship or the underneath of the trampoline as the lair of an evil sorcerer. Back when they weren’t bound by inane things such as time constraints and the logistics of translating an idea into a real-world possibility.

He could get Thomas and the others roped in a fantastical make-believe for hours. Weeks even of stretching an incredible imaginary world to its limits. The only things that ever stood in their way was the outside forces of school, parents and bedtime.

Nowadays, the reminiscing with a tinge of regret. There always had to be villains to fight, you see. An evil mad scientist. A corrupt king. A greedy dragon. The list goes on and on. He never ever played the villain. He’d always cast himself and Thomas as the heroes. Logan and Patton were the supporting stars. Virgil and the rest? The villains through and through.

Virgil at this age would be used to this treatment. Rather than in his rightful heroic role as Protector, Defender, Watcher of All Perceived Threats--he played roles such as a wicked sorcerer who cast fear and disgrace upon the entire kingdom with his heinous sorcery.

He took to the roles without much grumbling. Oftentimes, he didn’t perform to young Roman’s expectations. Roman would chastise his performances, critiquing every bit. He wasn’t ever scary or evil enough for a Side responsible for making Thomas scared of monsters under his bed.

Virgil would also veto actions such as climbing super high up a tree and using it as a crow’s nest for a pirate ship. Much to Roman’s dismay, the others would side with him. Logan because Thomas could break a bone if he should fall and Patton because their parents wouldn’t approve. Thus making Virgil a major downer at times in Roman’s eyes and all the more deserving of the villain title.

It wasn’t until Thomas was older, closer to middle school, that Virgil started lashing out. He refused to play along, slinking off to sulk in his room. His influence had also grown and suddenly it wasn’t just monsters under the bed anymore--the monsters were everywhere. Homework, Teachers, Friends, Family. Roman worked overtime to help Thomas escape to worlds unfettered by these fears.

Of course, back then, he presumed this was Virgil fully showing his true colors as an antagonist. Thomas himself believed it, wishing vehemently for Virgil to just disappear. It was Roman’s responsibility, nay his purpose, to make Thomas’s dreams and desires come true. He was the Fairy Godmother to Thomas’s Cinderella. So for years and years he’d pursued this dream, desperate to make Thomas happy, proud even.

Now, he knows better. He knows that Virgil is more than just Anxiety, just like Roman and the others are more than what their title implies. He is vigilant, he keeps Thomas safe from external threats. Sometimes he can be overzealous, but he means well. And shutting him out isn’t the answer. It never was.

With all that in mind, he wonders if the Boy Terror thinks this is one of Roman’s elaborate make-believe games. Roman could easily picture a younger him coming up with a make-believe game involving himself and the others being adults. True, Thomas back then liked envisioning himself as a kid defeating the evil dragon like kids his age did in the media he watched.

But all kids at some point wonder what it’d be like to be an adult. They imagined themselves in the most exciting professions that made a real impact on the world. Then they’d grow up and very few of them made it to such professions.

(Except Thomas of course. Roman is incredibly proud of him and his accomplishments as an Ex-Viner turned Youtuber. Yes, they are still far from achieving feats such as Hollywood or Broadway, but still! For a while Thomas had to settle for a real, sensible job such as a chemical engineer. While science interested him, it didn’t drive him the way that creative pursuits such as singing and acting had. Thomas is lucky to be able to have a platform to do what he loves. Roman tries reminding himself of this during incredibly rare moments of insecurity.)

Kid Fright must be ecstatic about this. For possibly the first time in his life Creativity is including him in a game without making him the villain. Adult Virgil doesn’t talk much about the past--the few times Roman has tried to breach the topic it’d been an instant shutdown.

But Virgil has always cared for them, even before they’d all realized this. He must’ve taken any part Roman gave him out of a desperation to be with them and keep them safe. It sickens Roman just thinking about it. He doesn’t know how Virgil stayed strong for so long. Roman doesn’t know if he could’ve lasted a day in Virgil’s place.

He is probably also terrified and waiting for the other shoe to drop. Regardless of his age, Virgil always expects the worst out of any scenario. Even now that’s been a year since he’s been accepted among the core sides that make up Thomas. He can’t help it, it’s in his nature. Roman can’t blame him for it. One year isn’t enough to undo the damages that the other twenty-nine years caused.

One thing is for certain: if he does think this is one of Roman’s make-believe games, he must think Thomas is still a kid. And Roman’s not sure if he should let Virgil know any different. In fact, it might be best to keep Virgil distracted while the others work to find the solution to this strange vexing problem. Because he knows Virgil won’t take it well to finding his host all grown-up. He thinks that none of them would in his place.

So he’ll keep Fall Out Kid safe away in the mindscape and continue being the Prince he deserved. He’ll allow Virgil to be the hero and he’ll play all the other roles. Sidekick, damsel-in-distress, villain--if he must. It’s silly, but he’s almost buzzing with excitement at all the worlds they could explore from within the common area. Cowboys, Spaceship, Space Cowboys. The possibilities are endless!

A small hand tugs at his sleeve, tugging him away from his thoughts altogether. He looks down at the inquisitive eyes slightly shrouded by a mop of dirty blond hair.

“Yes, little prince?” He says, trying to blink away the prickling sensation in his eyes.

He refuses to cry again in front of the Little Shop of Terror. He knows he will have to confront his bubbling guilt and sorrow at some point, but for now he must push it aside. He is used to this. Being a hero means sometimes remaining strong and not showing vulnerability to loved ones.

“M’hungry.” Virgil murmurs into his chest, little arms wrapped around Roman’s neck. It’s almost endearing with how much he resembles a baby possum clinging to their mother. Roman isn’t used to a Virgil so physically affectionate.

Virgil is like a feral cat. You couldn’t hug or pat him on the shoulder without warning. You had to ask and very rarely did he accept, even if it came from Patton. No, the best way is to let him initiate it. Let him lean his head against your shoulder, or his leg overlapping your own during a movie night.

You also don’t acknowledge it and by not acknowledging it, Virgil then inches his way more until it grows into a proper hug. Then he would withdraw and promptly act like nothing happened. Like you were to forget the interaction ever occured in the first place.

Logan has a theory that it’s because Virgil is the Fight-or-Flight instincts and physical affection lowers his guard in a way he isn’t completely comfortable with. Roman now has a theory that it’s a lot more heartbreaking than that.

“You’re hungry?” Roman asks, attempting to steer his mind out of Despairing Drive and into Present Place.

A small growling noise occurs and Jack Smallington ducks his head down, embarrassed.

Roman isn’t entirely surprised considering that it’s been about eight hours since they discovered approximately five-year-old Virgil in the place of grown-up Virgil. Who knows how long he’d been like that, alone in his room, before that. Virgil also rarely eats so the poor kid probably woke up hungry.

Roman feels so stupid. If it’d been Patton or Logan watching him, the first thing they would’ve made sure is if he was hungry. Because kid or not, it isn’t in Virgil’s nature to be self-advocating. That type of stuff freaks him out. Yet another reason Roman is completely unqualified to watch over Virgil.

“Okay,” Roman breaths in, smiling, “thanks for letting me know, big guy. To the kitchen at once!”

With that, he hoists Virgil up, settling him on top of his shoulders. There’s a squawk of surprise and Roman’s almost worried until it turns into a gleeful giggle. When Roman lets out a neigh, pretending he’s a horse, Virgil’s giggles grow louder.

“You’re not a horse,” Virgil says.

“Neigh I am!” Roman says, “I am your trusty steed and we’re embarking on a perilous-but-completely-safe journey to the kitchen!”

He treks towards the kitchen, clicking his tongue in an imitation of a horse clip-clopping along.

“Faster,” Virgil urges, resting his hands on top of Roman’s head.

“Faster?” Roman asks, almost stopping in surprise.

“Yeah!” Virgil insists, “We gotta get there as fast as possible before any monsters come and eat us!”

“Never fear,” Roman says, “For I shall get us there before any monster even thinks of gobbling us up!”

With that Roman quickens his pace, ensuring he had a firm hold onto Virgil to keep him falling off.

“Faster, faster, faster!” Virgil chants in an anxious yet excited tone, “I think I see one!”

“Oh?” Roman turns his head back, “Oh, I see him too! Neigh, we better hurry!”

There isn’t an actual monster there. No sharp fangs or numerous eyes glaring menacingly in their direction. He can’t tell if Virgil is making up a game or if he actually believes there is one there. Either way, Roman is Creativity. If there’s one thing he knows best, it’s how to combat imaginary foes. Such as reaching the threshold of the kitchen.

With one great bound, he makes it onto the black-and-white checkered tiles.

“Aha! Now no monsters can attack us while we feast in the dwelling of this noble kitchen!” Roman grins, setting Virgil atop the kitchen counter before jumping up to sit beside him.

Virgil beams up at him, face wide with utter delight and awe. Roman is left dumbfounded at this. Even as a kid, Virgil had been very closed-off with his emotions. So shy and distrustful of everyone and everything. But here he looks at Roman like he’s some great hero or something.

‘How,’ Roman wonders, ‘how can you look at me like this when I’m the obstinate villain of this story?’

“Princey,” Virgil swings his legs, “won’t Dad be upset if he finds us sitting on the counter?”

Roman blinks. At first he thinks Virgil is referring to Thomas’s father until he remembers Patton also goes by Dad. For the longest time, Pat had even been insistent that was his name. In the way that young children believe their parents’ real names really are Mom and Dad.

“Well,” Roman says, offering a pinky, “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

“Okay.” Virgil hesitates before interlocking his tiny pinky with Roman’s.

“Excellent! Now what would you like to eat?”

“Ummmm, I--I don’t know.” Virgil bites his lips, eyes flickering around the kitchen. Roman’s heart squeezes at this. He should’ve known such an open-ended question would set his anxiety off. They’ve learned recently that it was better giving Virgil the option of clearly-defined choices rather than vague ones.

“Would you like grilled cheese or spaghetti?” He asks kindly instead.

“Grilled cheese? With applesauce?” Virgil doesn’t meet his gaze, as if afraid Roman will condemn his choices.

Roman smiles, “Your wish is my command.”

He could’ve just snapped the food into existence right then and there. A few years back, it would’ve been enough to suffice. But as much as the Sides influence Thomas, the same holds true the other way around. Thomas once saw a fanart of Patton cooking breakfast for the sides and the idea stuck.

Now Roman could still summon fully prepared meals but they weren’t super filling. Roman didn’t mind too much; contrary to popular belief (Logan) cooking could be a very creative endeavor. As Thomas’s creativity he could make up steps to dishes and still have them turn out perfect in the end. He may or may not enjoy it simply because it frustrated Logan to no end.

He hops off the kitchen counter, snapping a finger. Instantly cabinet doors magically open as the ingredients and the materials he needed floated out onto the countertop beside the stove. Okay, so he cheated a bit, but just because the others lacked a little imagination didn’t mean he couldn’t bend reality in a place where reality is inconsequential.

Roman turns to Virgil, unable to hide his smile at Virgil’s gobsmacked expression.

“Here, you can help put butter on the bread,” He tells Virgil, handing him a butter knife.

Grilled cheese sandwiches are a quick and easy meal. Before too long, Roman hands the kid a plate with a plain grilled cheese cut in halves and a cup of prepackaged apple sauce.

“Thank you,” Virgil squeaks out before digging in.

“Of course.” Roman says, resisting the urge to ruffle the Little Terror’s hair. Instead he takes a bite of his own grilled cheese. Admittedly, he went a bit overboard with his own grilled cheese sandwich; three different types of cheese with lettuce, tomato and pickles. He isn’t quite sure if he’s a fan of the pickles but ah well. So it goes when in the pursuit of creativity.

They eat on top of the kitchen counters with relative silence. Roman hums a bit between bites of grilled cheese. Halfway through, he notices Virgil sending him glances when he thinks Roman isn’t looking. The kid squirms a bit in place, his face twisting in apprehension.

“Is there something troubling you, Little Prince?” Roman asks at last.

“Princey, where are the others? A--are they okay?!”

Oh. Oh, of course. Roman’s heart aches knowing how much Virgil worries and cares for everyone, even at such a young age. He’s so quick to reassure him that he doesn’t even pause to think about the phrasing of his words.

“They’re perfectly fine, rest assured. Logan is shut away in his room reading like the insufferable nerd he is and Patton is simply checking up on our dear Thomas--”

“Thomas?” Virgil breathes in, eyes bright with alarm. His shoulders raise to his ears like hackles raising on a frightened cat.

It is at this moment Roman knew that he messed up.

“Virgil, wait--” Roman pleads, attempting to place a placating hand on his shoulder.

Roman is too late. His hand meets air as Virgil disappears in front of him with a loud crackle. All that’s left is a plate of half-eaten grilled cheese clattering to the countertops and a terror that shakes the entirety of the mindscape.

#sanders sides #roman sanders #virgil sanders #brotherly prinixety #kat writes #*slaps roman* this bad boy can fit so much angst and regret #also this more setting up the next fic in the series than anything else #hope you still enjoy it tho

211 notes · View notes

sleepless-in-starbucks · 5 years

Note

they ain’t home rn so hello? all the horrible parents in pom(h)s are based off of my parents:( like certain traits of them, so it’s a miracle that i am allowed to write stories for ppl on the internet. also, are you still doing the ship thing? bc how about LAMP? - soulmate anon

:( I’m sorry to hear that Soulmate anon. And, oooooh, LAMP? Fun, let’s do it

Nose/forehead kisses- While Roman is also known to do it, Patton is the notorious nose nd forehead kisser. Logan’s reading his book? Got him on the forehead. Virgil’s disappeared in his hoodie? The nose is open. Roman’s just trying to exist? Well his face is also trying to exist and it deserves to exist with KISSES.

Gets jealous the most- Ooooooooh this one’s tricky. I’m going to say Roman, though it’s often more him being dramatic- Patton kisses Virgil and five seconds later Roman’s there more or less going ‘exCUSE ME WHERE IS MY KISS’ because he’s a big drama boi

Making this one ‘who’s drunk and who’s driving’ for the four of them- Patton and Roman are drunk, Logan and Virgil are not, and they take turns with driving- one of them gets to sit in the back with a very clingy Patton and a loudly singing Roman while the other drives

Takes care of on sick days- For this I’mma order them by who I think has best bedside manner, since, again, everyone does get sick- Patton, Roman, Virgil, Logan. Now, don’t get me wrong- they’re all great in their own ways, but some are definitely nicer than others.Aka, Patton is THE best at nursing his boyfriend(s) back to health- he’s got soup, he’s got medicine, and he’s got cuddles all with a very soft touch and comforting words. Roman’s pretty good, though he’s more dramatic than soft (will still cuddle though).Virgil and Logan are pretty similar- they’re going to berate their bfs for not taking care of themselves while taking care of them, though they mean it lovingly. Virgil’s only ahead of Logan because his resolve to insult the sick bf instead of cuddle them crumbles faster

Who’s dragging who to the water- You’re going to find the right and left brain sides get split up a lot, but it just fits well to have Logan and Virgil attempting to band together against being dragged into the ocean only to fail spectacularly because a) Roman is stronk b) Patton has really convincing puppy eyes

Unprompted massages- Sorry, but I refuse to pick. They all do it. It’s a game and none of them can win because every time they think they have the advantage another one of them dives bombs them. Virgil’s hunched over? Patton’s all over that boi. Roman pulled something on a quest? He doesn’t even have to ask before Logan’s kneading the pain away. Patton’s sleeby? Roman likes having a sleeby happy Patton in his lap and massaging him fulfills this want. Logan’s working too hard? He’s ambushed by ALL of them. And so much more; so, so much more. The massages are war.

Drives v rides shotgun v sits in back- Roman and Patton don’t have driving privileges. Virgil’s responsible so he’s allowed to drive (unlike the wild ones) but he doesn’t like it much, so it’s normally Logan in driver’s seat. Depending on the mood of the night who’s in back and who’s shotgun changes, but more often than not Roman and Patton are busy being insufferable cute in back while Virgil and Logan sit up front. Another common variation is Roman lovingly annoying Logan in passenger seat while Virgil breaks the law like a rebel to lie his head in Patton’s lap without a seatbelt

Bringing lunches and forgetting them- Logan is the only damn responsible one in this household, he swears. Patton can remember to live cute notes in all their bags but not to grab his own. Roman gets distracted by one (1) thought and he’ll forget he even needs to eat. He thought Virgil could be trusted but he either stays up too late or wakes up too late and then he’s forgetful and rushing out without food. Logan has to stop by all their works at least twice a week, often more than one a day. He loves them but like... come on guys.

Best parental relationship- From the children’s standpoint, Patton and Roman take the cake easily. They’re fun and energetic and nice and playful! From a responsible standpoint, Virgil and Logan are the ones keeping the household not dead.

Non-sexual role play because I refuse to acknowledge anything else- I don’t care that I say it every damn time Patton is there, all he wants to do is hug his boyfriends, and if he has to become the cute police to so he will!

Drunk dancers- Well only two of them really like drinking, so where do you think this is going? Because if you don’t think it’s Logan stifling a laugh while Virgil video-tapes Roman and Patton dancing like utter fools you’re wrong.

Tears over Titanic- Patton and Roman are comforting each other Jack’s death. They express the need to keep Logan and Virgil safe many, many times. Logan and Virgil are sitting on the other side of the couch as if that will stop them from contracting Feelings.

Couples (or in this case... uh.... whatever you call a group of four peoples) costumes- Are you guys sick of Roman and Patton ganging up against their poor left brained boyfriends yet because it ain’t stopping soon. When they fail to convince Logan and Virgil to join in on the fun, however, they can and will slay in their couples costumes, even without the other two. There will always be couples costumes.

Breaks the expensive gift rule during Christmas- While they’re generally good with keeping within the bounds, Roman and Virgil have a tendency to go overboard at times- Virgil out of anxiety at not getting something good enough, and Roman out of the need to get his loves the best of things!

Makes the others eat breakfast- For once, a different team up- Patton and Logan on the crusade to get their boyfriends to eat. Virgil’s easy enough- he doesn’t normally have an aversion to breakfast he just forgets it. Patton and Logan are careful to not let him forget it, of course.Roman’s trickier- breakfast takes time and he likes using that time to imagine and fight monsters and have adventures! But no matter what he does, Patton and Logan always find him and make him take a break to eat. Always.

Remembers anniversaries- Once more, Logan is the only one in the relationship with a fully functional braincell. He never forgets an anniversary- ever. Virgil’s pretty good as well, but he’s been known to miss a few. Roman and Patton are the most forgetful messes, but that’s alright- they have gotten real good at faking it.

Brings up kids- I think the conversation would either be brought up by Roman in the bluntest way possible (they’re all just chilling when he randomly says ‘I want kids’ or smth of the like) or by Logan, much gentler (he’d plan a group meeting, and he’d open it just with the idea of kids, regardless about whether or not he wants one)

#sorry I took a while to respond to this #I was fighting a war of hot and cold #the cryptid speaks #the cryptid answers #LAMP #ts virgil #ts patton #ts logan #ts roman #soulmate anon

11 notes · View notes

shortskirtsandsarcasm · 4 years

Text

Gilmore Girls: Rory is Giving Us All a Bad Name

My childhood TV consumption came entirely from the channel TV Land, which almost exclusively broadcast reruns of American sitcoms from the 1950s-70s (think I Love Lucy, I Dream of Jeannie, Leave it to Beaver, The Andy Griffith Show, Three’s Company, and Happy Days), so Gilmore Girls was not on my radar; in fact, I was barely aware of it. I am sure that if I made any effort to watch it in real-time, my mother would have told me to “turn off that trash,” as she had when I wanted to watch anything on the Disney Channel or Downton Abbey. GG has been revisited in the past years as more people have become aware of all of its problems, and as the Year in the Life reboot has come out recently. Even though many of the re-visitations of GG have been to criticize it, it’s clear that this was an important and beloved show that people see as a seminal aspect of their childhood and adolescence. Reading around GG made me feel like I’d missed a defining experience, so I decided to watch all seven seasons and the reboot, even though I knew that I would hate it. And I really did. I started watching season 1 on Thanksgiving in 2016 and I finally finished the original series and the reboot not long ago, in June 2020. I had to take breaks from Rory and all her bullshit.

Superficially, I share so much with Rory: I am an only child; I love to read; I take books with me everywhere; and I have brown “straight, shiny Harvard hair,” as Carol from season 3, episode 3, “Application Anxiety,” describes it. Adults told me I was “mature” and “precocious” and would “go on to do great things,” without much more evidence than that I was a smart kid. I would like to think that I did not become an insufferable young adult as Rory did, but I write judgmental nonsense on the internet, so maybe I did.

I remember my mom making me read the article “The ‘Trophy Kids’ Go To Work” when I was in junior high that clearly framed millennials wanting financial security and job stability as a bad thing and invoked a moral panic about participation certificates and teachers not using red pens anymore. I thought the article was unfair to young people trying to find financial stability directly after the 2008 financial crisis then and I still do, but Rory is giving us all a bad name. She acts entitled to absolutely everything: Ivy League education, high-profile jobs, men, etc. She assumes that going to private school and getting good grades will be all that is required of her to get into Harvard, and she has no backup plan if Harvard rejects her. She just assumes Harvard can’t reject her. The only reason she even applies to Yale is to make her Yale alumni grandparents happy. But first, she has a meltdown because her grandfather was kind enough to organize an interview at Yale for her. The bastard.

As she enters her final semester of university, she seemingly only applies for three jobs. The one she really wants is a six-week New York Times unpaid internship that is in incredibly high demand. Again, Rory just assumes she will get the internship because she’s special and turns down a real job with a salary in Providence. After she finds she has been rejected by the NYT, she calls back about the Providence job, only to find the position has gone to someone else. She does not learn from this and continues to feel entitled to jobs just because in the revival. Rory has a few job possibilities in the revival, but one by one they fall apart, so she decides to go in for an interview with the website SandeeSays for a job she considers beneath her (but why? Because it’s online?). She is absolutely unprepared for an actual interview because she assumes Sandee will automatically hire her. When Sandee is disappointed that she is unprepared and does not hire her, Rory yells and insults her and her publication.

Whenever her narrow trajectory directly to success is challenged, she goes into a complete meltdown. When Paris says she has been doing community service since fourth grade to look good on college applications, Rory has a meltdown. When Mitchum Huntzberger, who everyone agrees is a giant asshole, tells her she’ll never become a real journalist, Rory has a meltdown. When she doesn’t get the job with SandeeSays because she is unprepared and unprofessional, Rory has a meltdown. When she finds out Logan slept with other women while they were separated but not broken up, Rory has a meltdown. I’m not defending Logan here — it was definitely a shady thing to do — but Rory is upset about her access to Logan being infringed upon and her solution is to bang Jess, to whom she is also entitled.

If you date Rory Gilmore, you belong to her forever.

It’s easy to see how Rory became so entitled in the first place. Stars Hollow is a quaint but bustling town, home to what might be described as a “colorful cast of characters,” who literally all dote on Rory and constantly tell her she is special. Stars Hollow is also home to its very own high school, but clearly none of them are special. Rory’s entire community bolsters this idea in her that she’s struggled against some sort of monumental obstacles, which is just not true. Lorelai is the only one in this family who has achieved anything through hard work alone, and that is because she absconded from the family home as a teenager with a baby Rory.

Rory’s “specialness” is something we are often told but seldom shown. For example, when Rory’s first boyfriend, working-class Dean, comes to dinner at Rory’s affluent grandparents’ house (s2e1), Richard and Emily grill him on why he thinks he’s good enough for their special granddaughter. Richard points out that Rory will be going to an Ivy League university, and that Dean has dimmer prospects, and will, therefore, hold her back. Richard implies that Rory will “go on to do great things,” simply because she is smart and not because she is incredibly privileged. It is obvious that Dean has “dimmer” prospects because he has to work alongside going to high school and has other responsibilities in Stars Hollow which preclude him from spending $$$ on an Ivy education and extensive travel. Rory does stand up for him and point out that being working-class does not make Dean less than, but she hangs on to the idea that she is more than because she is smart and does not acknowledge that her private school tuition, Ivy tuition, and travel is only within her reach because of her family’s money and connections. In her mind, she maintains that she is a lower-middle-class or working-class person who has achieved her “special” status through hard work, but she has never been the one to undertake this hard work. Through the entire rest of the series, she will never come around to seeing this, and interestingly the only time she gets close is when Logan calls her out on her snobbery. Logan, of all people.

This brings me to my hottest hot take on Gilmore Girls: Logan is Rory’s best boyfriend. Both Dean and Jess were possessive and emotionally abusive, so the bar is very low. Rory clearly has terrible taste in men, but of the three dickwads in Rory’s life, he is somehow the best. Logan is not possessive like the other two and seems to be the only man in the entire series that’s not unreasonably jealous. For example, when Rory develops that crush on the TA (even though he’s ugly let’s be real) he recognizes it for the silly passing crush that it is. Dean and Jess would have both lost their minds.

The possessive and jealous descriptors can also be attributed to Lorelai’s boyfriends, specifically Luke. Luke is so sensitive over Lorelai’s friendship with Christopher (pre the whole impulsive decision to get back together and get married in Paris mess), even though Christopher will always be a part of Lorelai’s life because he is Rory’s dad. At this point, Luke has found out about his secret daughter, April, and is fighting so hard to be a permanent part of her life and does not seem to appreciate the parallel. April and Rory are the subjects of Luke’s possessiveness. He feels entitled to be a parent to Rory, even before his relationship with Lorelai, but then refuses to let Lorelai get to know April even though they are engaged and kept her existence a secret for months. Again, he cannot see the double standard there. After they break up and Lorelai gets back with Christopher, Luke then has the audacity to ask Lorelai to write him a character reference so he can win custody of April. Luke also asks for parenting advice from Lorelai on how to deal with both Jess and April, but when he doesn’t like her response, he either says outright or insinuates that Lorelai is not qualified to weigh in, even though Lorelai is a parent Luke clearly loves and admires Rory, the product of her parenting.

On the subject of Lorelai’s parenting, I have some questions. When she ran away from home at seventeen, was she legally emancipated? I don’t think any court would rule in her favor if she had complained that her parents were rich east coast snobs. Richard and Emily are certainly overbearing and snobby, but is that enough reason to literally run away? As a result, Lorelai has become stuck in the mentality of her 17-year-old self and believes people are “against” her personally when they just have different opinions on mundane things. In season seven when her parents want to throw a party celebrating her marriage to Christopher, shoots down literally all of the party planner’s ideas because she feels threatened that her parents want to celebrate her marriage. She’s really out here at thirty-eight being moody and rude to the party planner like she’s a PMS-ing teenager. Richard and Emily did not get to see their only child actually get married — is it so much to ask that Lorelei goes along with their party plan?

This kind of thinking cultivates an “us against the world” feeling between her and Rory which also contributes to Rory’s feelings of entitlement — Rory’s high school valedictorian speech at her graduation was almost entirely about her relationship with her mom. It is absolutely no surprise that Rory has no empathy for anyone else and only thinks of herself and what she wants in the moment. This sometimes even backfires on Lorelai, such as when she graduated from her business degree. Rory chose that exact day to skip school to visit Jess in New York, miss her graduation ceremony, and leave her graduation present on the bus. Lorelai never got her Belinda Carlisle record, and I’m still mad about it.

I have many more thoughts about Gilmore Girls, like how they did Lane so dirty, and how unnecessarily rude Rory was to the Thirty-something Gang, but that would turn into a body of work rivaling my actual PhD thesis I am procrastinating on, so I will stop for now. Now that I can put GG behind me for good, I can finally “go on to do great things,” whatever that means.

#gilmore girls #gilmore girls revival #tv #essay #millennials #long read

0 notes

theconservativebrief · 6 years

Link

The only way out is through.

By the time the curtain falls on the first season of HBO’s Succession, that adage has quite literally drawn blood. Though the series, which follows the power struggle within a family-owned media conglomerate, has been called a satire and in some cases a comedy, any laughter during the show’s final hour will likely be out of horror rather than amusement. With each successive episode, the series has shed layer after layer, revealing itself to be something much grimmer than just a wry indictment of the über-rich.

The finale, “Nobody is Ever Missing,” lands like a bomb, fundamentally shifting the dynamics of the show thus far. That it works is largely thanks to the stunning performances of Jeremy Strong as Kendall Roy, the heir to the family company throne, and Brian Cox as Logan, his ruthless father, as their characters emerge as the keystones of the entire show.

Kendall and Logan’s story neatly vaults Succession into the realm of the classical texts that inform it, a point that was driven home when I spoke to Strong and Cox to examine the season’s final episode and its last two parts, which shake the very foundations upon which the series is built. Strong calls it an example of the archetypal monomyth, while Cox describes the show as “ludicrous.”

“It’s the ludicrousness of life,” Cox explains, citing how the classical works that Succession calls to mind — King Lear and Titus Andronicus among them — veer between comedy and tragedy. “You’re not locked into any sense of absolutism about the characters,” he adds, laughing, “You think, ‘Oh, they’re such horrible people,’ but then, if you really strip it down, they’re no more horrible than most people.”

Strong’s verdict is similar: “I hear from a lot of people how unlikeable these characters are, and I find that so interesting, as if a character is either likable or unlikable.”

It’s that refusal to fall into a strictly black-and-white matrix that ultimately makes the Succession finale so affecting, and so difficult to watch. The balance between comedy and tragedy finally tips, crashing into the latter category, and it’s a testament to the series that it all comes together.

Warning: spoilers for “Nobody is Ever Missing” lie ahead.

With the crash, the series reaches a point of no return. Colin Hutton/HBO

At the beginning of “Nobody Is Ever Missing,” Kendall delivers a letter to his father informing him of a hostile takeover of the company. For a moment, it seems like Kendall may finally triumph over Logan after the countless humiliations and setbacks he’s suffered over the course of the season, but there’s no savoring the victory. Kendall can’t get through the confrontation without stammering, and his siblings now hate him for putting their inheritances and social status in jeopardy, and on the day of his sister’s wedding, no less.

The brewing sense of unease only worsens as, at the episode’s halfway point, Kendall goes hunting for drugs to try to take the edge off, coaxing one of the serving staff to take him to get some cocaine. As they drive, they joke about kidnapping; “You should kidnap me,” Kendall says, boasting about his fortune as the boy notes that he knows a house where he could keep him. Though the characters laugh, the scene is very clearly teetering on the edge of an abyss — of some event that it’ll be impossible to come back from.

In an instant, the balance breaks. A deer appears in the middle of the road, and the car goes careening into a nearby lake. Though Kendall manages to swim out of the car, the boy is knocked out cold by the crash. Kendall dives once, twice, to try to get him out of the sinking car, but it’s no use. By the time he manages to swim to shore, the spot where the car sunk isn’t even distinguishable anymore, and the young man is dead.

The next 10 minutes focus on Kendall, and Kendall alone. As the ramifications of what’s just happened sink in, he stumbles back to the wedding festivities. The sequence almost plays like a horror movie: Kendall is soaked through to the bone, and darts behind trees to hide from cars on the road, knowing that he can’t afford to be placed anywhere near the accident. His posture is rigid, as if he doesn’t know how to function anymore, and his expression is slack, going from abject despair to grim determination and back again.

“It was really hard to shoot,” Strong says of the scene. “It was hard emotionally, it was hard physically. But in a way, those are the given circumstances, so you kind of lean into that. You lean into the fact that the water is freezing, you lean into the fact that it’s raining and freezing and it’s 4 in the morning and you’re covered in mud.”

On top of that, to try to sustain a certain “energy field” around the sequence, Strong asked the episode’s director, Mark Mylod, to keep as much of the post-crash shooting together as possible. “As you can imagine, a 10-minute sequence takes much longer to film, and you have to sustain the life and death stakes of that, or I believe you do, for the entirety of it,” he explains, adding that he’d also requested not to rehearse a few specific scenes (including Kendall’s delivering the letter to Logan) to keep a sense of tension to them.

After breaking back into his own suite (having lost his room key somewhere along the way), Kendall cleans himself off and returns to the wedding. Though he does his best to act as though nothing’s happened, dancing with his children as Whitney Houston plays, he can’t quite keep his facade from slipping.

It’s a showcase for Strong, who, despite the presence of more outwardly colorful characters like Tom Wamsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) and Cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun), emerges as the series MVP with how heartbreakingly he pulls off the episode’s final act.

“I remember just being really kind of destroyed by them,” Strong recalls of reading the final scripts, which were written by series creator Jesse Armstrong. “You read something like that, you sort of know you’re going to have to go through this, you can’t avoid it. But I think a part of me certainly wished it on someone else.”

This near-Gothic tragedy is a far cry from most initial impressions of the series, which Strong is quick to acknowledge. “Even though the show starts out with some low-hanging fruit, I think the real kind of bedrock of it, the plate tectonics of the structure that [Armstrong] starts to create, that build to this sort of tragedy, is really — when I read the script, I was blown away, and quite daunted by what I had to go through in order to serve it,” he says.

He tells me he hasn’t revisited those nights since they were over. “They were harrowing to go through. You want it to be real, is the thing. It’s not enjoyable. I think there’s always joy in the creative process, on some level, but actually, what is the character’s experience, and what is the character’s struggle — I don’t think you can really spare yourself from that if you want to embody it.”

Given just how far and how drastically Kendall falls, there’s a certain bittersweetness to knowing that the show’s writers had such a plummet in mind all along. One day, during a break in the writer’s room, Strong sneaked in to take a look around. On the wall were notecards, one of which read, “Kendall wins, but loses.”

“This could be the defining moment of your life, and indeed everything.” Colin Hutton/HBO

It doesn’t take long for the other shoe to drop. The next morning, Logan calls Kendall to discuss a matter brought to him by the police. The car and the body have been found, along with Kendall’s room key. Calmly, Logan explains to Kendall that it must have been an accident following an attempted robbery, and tells Kendall to report any missing items. Kendall, shellshocked, simply nods along.

As soon as the room empties, Logan instructs Kendall to inform his co-conspirators that the takeover is no more. Kendall begins to cry, trying to protest his innocence, but it’s of no use. “This could be the defining moment of your life, and indeed everything,” Logan says. “A rich kid kills a boy. You’d never be anything else. Or you know what it could be, what it should be? Nothing at all. A sad, little detail at a lovely wedding, where father and son are reconciled.”

There’s something awful about the episode’s final moment, as Kendall, in tears, stumbles into Logan’s arms. It’s the first glimpse of tenderness we’ve seen Logan offer his son — “You’re my number one boy,” he says in consolation — but it’s undercut by the tragedy that’s prompted it, as well as by Logan quickly calling in one of the house staff to take Kendall off his hands.

“I remember talking to Jesse about if [Logan] really loves his children,” Cox recalls, when I ask about Logan’s capacity for genuine warmth. ”Jesse said, ‘Absolutely. He absolutely loves his children.’ And I think that’s the tragedy of the piece, that’s what gives it its stature. It’s not just — it is a morality tale, certainly, but the thing about Logan is his children mean a lot to him. They’re all fuck-ups, and he sees that, and that sort of fills him with great sadness, that they have to have their hands held.”

But that doesn’t preclude a certain ruthlessness. “He really had Kendall,” Cox says of the final scene. “He was able to reconstruct Kendall, in a way. … It goes back right to the first episode, where I say to him, ‘You’re too soft.’”

It’s a sentiment that’s echoed in the finale before the crash, as Logan dresses down Kendall yet again, telling him that he’s not made for the harsher, harder world in which his father runs.

Their final conversation drives that point home, as Logan’s willingness to sacrifice a life in order to bring his son back into the fold is contrasted with the way that Kendall breaks, exhibiting a vulnerability that had seemed lost as the season progressed. They’re fundamentally different — Logan is a “man of blood,” as Strong puts it, where Kendall is not. The crash shakes Kendall to his core, but as Cox explains, “Logan will not dwell on that. He wants it sorted, done. He moves on.”

In other words, Logan’s language is the “language of strength,” a description that Strong cites from Michael Wolff’s book The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch, and which Cox ascribes to Logan’s childhood brutalization, as suggested by the scars visible on Logan’s back when he goes swimming in “Austerlitz.” Obviously, it’s not a vocabulary that Kendall possesses, and as Strong notes, it’s his attempts to use it that lead him to suffer.

It’s clearest in Kendall’s breakdown, which, incredibly, Strong tells me wasn’t scripted. “That’s honestly just what happened in the room that day; I had no idea how it would come out of me,” he explains. “That was just what I experienced. I think you load yourself up with everything that’s happened to the character until that moment, and then you walk through the door and see what happens. It’s a very important way of working, for me, because if anything is prescribed — to be honest, if it had been in the writing, I’m not sure it would have happened.”

On the characters of Succession: “These are real people.” Colin Hutton/HBO

“It’s not Arrested Development,” Cox says, as we discuss the series’ influences, from the Chappaquiddick incident to Greek tragedy. “There’s a classical element to it, with language, and I think that’s its strength, in a way.”

His meaning becomes clearer as he notes the way that plays like King Lear will get laughs despite being regarded as tragedies, just as Succession has excelled at balancing humor with an increasingly tragic narrative.

“I’ve always regarded myself as a comic actor,” Cox says, adding, “I play a lot of heavies, but I think I always play them in a slightly sort of comic— certainly wicked, that kind of comic way. […] I think Logan is also very funny, because he’s got this authentic quality. He doesn’t seem to be quite there. He’s not quite there because he’s damaged in some way, but he’s not quite there, I think, because he doesn’t want to be quite there. He likes to be inscrutable. And you get that very clearly in the first episode, when one son brings the goo, the sourdough, and then Tom brings a Patek Philippe watch. He’s more curious about the sourdough than he is about the Patek Philippe watch.”

Though Kendall certainly isn’t quite as opaque, he’s still unquestionably complex, and draws from the same sorts of archetypal molds. “Chekhov said, ‘Tell me what a character wants, and I’ll tell you who they are,’” Strong tells me. “What [Kendall] wants is so clear, and he goes after it with such a vengeance that that becomes his undoing. And that is such an archetypal story. I’ll be struck down by a bolt of lightning, but if you look at The Godfather, Michael Corleone goes from being this guileless student to being a cold-blooded, ruthless killer. Obviously, Jesse finds his way into that terrain in a kind of sideways way.”

To that end, Succession is an organically growing creature, and its creators clearly have larger ambitions. Cox initially expected his role on the series to be a one-season part, but Armstrong and Adam McKay dispelled that notion as soon as they began negotiating to bring him onto the show.

Cox also points to the growth of Kieran Culkin’s character, Roman, as evidence of the show’s shift toward “a more considered element.” “He’s such a roister-goister, he’s so glib and talky,” Cox says, “but he suddenly emerges. I watched [episode] eight the other day, and I thought Kieran was so good in that because he sort of ends up holding it all together.”

Again, it all comes down to a sense of humanity. “These are real people,” Strong says, stressing the quality of the show’s writing. “I think Mike Nichols said that, in the first act of a play, you invite the audience to the party. So I feel like the show invites everyone to the party, and then hopefully it kicks them in the stomach. Or something forceful.”

That forceful effect is certainly felt in the series finale, which is more than just a brutal reset, as the crash and its resulting fallout wipe out a season’s worth (arguably a lifetime’s worth) of Kendall’s attempts to get out from under Logan’s shadow. It’s wrenching to watch, and all the more remarkable for having been born out of genuine emotion.

“I think that really great work is a product of putting yourself in danger, which is sort of what I mean about not knowing what would happen in that last scene,” Strong explains. “Without risk, you’re just making something safe. Or if you know in advance what you’re making, it’s not art, certainly. I think that’s, at the end of the day, what you’re trying to make, whether you fall short of it or not — not just television.”

Original Source -> How HBO’s Succession pulled off its brutal finale

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

0 notes