#jenny humphrey defence squad

[staliaqueen]

how can you nate with jenny when she manipulated him into kissing her without his consent (then invalidated his feelings about it) and got him drunk and tried to take advantage of him 🤕🤕🤕🤕🤕🤕

Wow, the way I literally knew this would happen! I reblog a couple of jenate posts and suddenly the antis are on me. And so quickly too, I'm almost impressed. Who had two hours on their bingo card?

How come people constantly preach death of the author and f*ck canon but as soon as I wanna ignore bad problematic writing because I like a ship's potential I'm a bad person?

I already went over this shit the last time I reblogged a jenate post and an anon immediately came after me, so I'll link that for ya here (also talked some more about how I like Jenny/Jenate here). But I would like to add onto it a bit because I hadn't watched the show in a long time and didn't remember the events exactly.

What Jenny did was wrong, OBVIOUSLY. Like, I never have and never will say anything different. I f*cking hate that storyline in general and think it was ooc.

Also, like I said in the first post defending this ship, the situation is so much more nuanced than y'all like to pretend it is. Jenny is going through emotional hell, she literally has no one and nothing expect for Nate. She wants him back literally because he is the only one whose seen her at her most fucked up and still helped and retained respect for her, and she needs something like that right now because her life fucking sucks!!! Then Chuck sees this and manipulates and takes advantage of her to get her to break Nate and Serena up! The whole get him drunk and take advantage of him thing was literally Chucks idea, Nate's supposed best friend. Does this excuse Jenny's actions? No! Of course not! But, like, can you at least spare her some sympathy? Geez.

Now, can I understand that despite this the ship might still make you uncomfortable? Of course, and there's nothing wrong with that. But if you don't feel comfortable seeing jenate stuff just block the tag instead of coming after me for liking them.

And now the obligatory citing @natearchie in my defending Jenny post. Here's a link to a post that I feel is relevant. This is literally fiction! Nate and Jenny are not real! No matter how problematic a ship is I can still find the dynamic interesting without condoning those problematic actions in real life. Like, I ship samruby from Supernatural and she's literally a demon that manipulated him into freeing the devil and starting the apocalypse. That's bad! But I don't ship them because I think they're some role models for healthy couples, I ship them because I think their dynamic is interesting as hell (ha! get it?) and Ruby could've had such an interesting redemption arc if the writers weren't misogynistic assholes who killed off any female character they actually took the time to write.

This is the last time I'll talk about this crap. If I get any more hate I'll just delete it or link them these posts. I'm so tired of defending myself with this one.

#and can people f*ck off with using those emojis they feel so rude and condescendingI just wanna strange someone when I look at them #strangle* #anon hate #gg #jenate #jenny humphrey defence squad #mal answers

[mrs-nate-humphrey]

okay i’m reading this and it is SO good

#meta #gossip girl #if you can access this article PLEASE DO it's amazing #jenny humphrey defence squad #always & forever #i'll reblog once im done with all my fave excerpts #but it's very much an article that like #if you CAN read you SHOULD because excerpts don't capture all of it #the way it builds up its points.........

[mrs-nate-humphrey]

rufus’s insistence on keeping jenny at constance did her so much actual harm. it’s not like there aren’t tons of really good high schools in nyc - both private and public - so why are you so set on keeping her in an environment where she’s being ruthlessly bullied?? on that note, i always thought it’d be nice if she got to transfer to an arts high school - like laguardia high or saint ann’s school (that one’s actually in brooklyn)!! i think she’d thrive in that kind of environment!

agreed on both counts!!! jenny in arts high school would've been so good. it was very weird how rufus acted like jenny's 3 options were either constance, homeschooling (he wasn't going to agree to that until lily complimented jenny's talent, 2x07. what a shallow man and shitty father), or going to alison's. like. hello???

it was just very weird how the show - where jenny was concerned, anyway - had this very 'if you're being bullied just suck it up and deal' kind of view, but more than that, deeper than that, it just... viewed her problems as totally insignificant? i'm watching bits of s3 so that i can gif hilary duff (that's my agenda) and the jenny bits are too painful to watch, she's so obviously barely keeping it together - and this is before things really start spinning out of control/before she starts spiralling. jenny got a shitty arc in ALL 3 seasons and every single time she was knocked down a peg for narrative purposes and i just. idk. i am very annoyed & frustrated & upset. protect her!!!!

#jenny humphrey #jenny humphrey defence squad #i LOVE the arts school idea so much im putting you in #gg rewrite #thank you anon!!! #oh and never forget the classic tag: #anti rufus humphrey #kkfhlkghfgkh #anon #meta #i .........guess?

[staliaqueen]

yea people don’t like jenny/nate coz she got him drunk so that’s she could take advantage of him while he couldn’t consent to make it seem like he cheated on serena. there’s a reason next to no one them like their hate is very much deserved

oh boy... there's a lot to unpack here and this answer is gonna be really long, so just, stay with me okay?

Obviously, that's not good, I never said that and I never will. But if you follow me you probably know that I tend to ignore canon when it's badly written, and the whole Jenny/Jenate thing was very badly handled. I like Jenny and Nate because they have ✨potential✨ if you get what I'm saying. I thought they were extremely cute in season 2 and I really wish they would've been explored more in depth and like actually be given a chance to have an actual relationship.

I like Jenny and Nate because in her entire life Nate is the only one who's been there for her without judgement. She has always been my favourite GG character so I guess I like to see her with Nate cause he's literally the only one who consistently treats her with respect. I'm also a big sucker for the "my brother's best friend" trope so there's that lol.

Now... onto the whole “Jenny trying to steal Nate from Serena” thing, cause the whole situation is really way more complicated then you make it seem. I think the fandom’s issue with this really comes from this certain Surface Level Activism that’s very common on tumblr. 

Like, people here are so quick to condemn anything they see as bad™ without thinking about it with any sort of depth and nuance, which ultimately doesn’t do anything good. 

Now, user @rainathorpe (who doesn’t even ship jenny and nate but actually sees jenny as a lesbian which is totally valid) has already made a post about this and probably phrased it way better than I ever will but I’ll do my best while simultaneously linking their posts lol or at least a couple of them there was one in particular I couldn’t find but oh well I guess I’ll have to do without it. 

I haven’t actually watched the show in a while, but I have seen it like 7 times over, so I’d like to believe I remember it pretty well, and I have no idea what you mean with “she got him drunk so that’s she could take advantage of him while he couldn’t consent” like, that never happened???? What I remember was that she slept over at his/Chuck’s place a couple of times where she and Nate literally just played Wii. And that she slept in Nate’s shirt that she stole and put in her bag so Serena would see it and think he was cheating. Then on his birthday she distracted him even tho she knew Serena was planning a surprise and later kissed him during the game. Don’t get me wrong, that is all BAD, but you make it sound like she got him drunk and r*ped him, which, no???? Like maybe they got drunk together one time (I remember there being a party) but the only time she did anything like that was when she kissed him, and that situation, while still BAD, is no where near the level you’re accusing her of. 

And also, does no one remember that breaking Nate and Serena up was Chuck’s idea, not Jenny’s? (post about that HERE) Like, I’m not trying to completely absolve Jenny of responsebilitby for her actions, but doesn’t the fact that she’s being manipulated into doing this by an older man, who has way more power and money than her and who also tried to rape her once, tipp you off that she’s also partly a victim in this situation? 

I also implore you to think WHY Jenny’s doing all this. it goes back to what I said earlier about Nate being the only one there for her, or to quote @rainathorpe directly “nate’s the only person who’s seen her at her most fucked up state and still retained respect for her”. Jenny’s in such a bad place in season 3 (and onward too, let’s be honest, post HERE) and like, no one helps her!!! Rufus is just a horrible dad (post HERE), the writers pretty much forgot that she and Dan are siblings, and Eric isn’t friends with her anymore. The only one she has is Nate. After all, this happens after Nate saves her after Agnes drugs her and basically leaves her to get assaulted which also makes it really weird that you think she would get Nate drunk and assault him after that like she would NOT it would be incredibly ooc. So I think it’s natural that this 16 year old (let’s not forget that she’s also a child) latches onto the one thing she has when her whole life is falling apart. Even if she does it in a very bad way, and yes, that should be acknowledged and criticized. 

I think that overall the way the fandom views Jenny is just so fucked up and no the hate she gets is not deserved. Like, of all the bad things Jenny has done that I just wrote about, how many just as bad or worse things have the other characters, namely Blair, done? People literally hate Jenny for the same reasons they love Blair, and like, just say you’re classist and move on? The show completely falls into that trap too as they start villainizing the poorer characters (Jenny, Vanessa, Ivy, Juliet) while the rich mains gets everything they ever wanted without consequences. Before you attack me, I’m not saying that Ivy and Juliet were “good actually”, but there is still a pattern of making the villains mid or lower class and it’s disgusting.

I don’t even know how to conclude this really but just approach situations with more nuance in the future will you? 

#btw this is the closest i've ever gotten to anon hate are you guys proud of me? #tw rape mention #anon hate #gg #meta #jenny humphrey #jenny humphrey defence squad #nate archibald #jenate #anti chuck bass #mal answers

[mrs-nate-humphrey]

ALSO it’s not for nothing that while rufus is a terrible parent to jenny, at least he IS a parent to jenny - alison did nothing(!!!) while her daughter was struggling. she didn’t contact her, she didn’t visit her, she didn’t send her so much as a postcard. imo of course, but alison’s straight up child abandonment is really bad - like it’s not just that she left, but she has no contact with dan and jenny unless they’re in hudson. and she never actually invites them to hudson - they get sent there

i know what you're saying and i agree that alison essentially ghosting her kids is terrible, but i don't agree about rufus, at all. the way he treats jenny is so disrespectful and undermining - i really think if he'd shown her some compassion and understanding and just listened to what she had to say, things wouldn't have gotten so out of hand for jenny and she wouldn't have spiralled so hard in s2 and in s3. the fact that she was considering emancipation and was technically homeless for a bit in s2 and rufus is like "well if that's her attitude that's her attitude!" is just.... i don't know. i can't rlly excuse that.

alison didn't help jenny, at all. and alison's absence was definitely something that would've affected jenny negatively. but rufus constantly treated jenny like someone with no autonomy. he very clearly viewed her as the "problem child" and "black sheep of the family." in most of their arguments im like... *winces* because the way rufus fights back with jenny is not parent-&-child, it is like 2 fifteen year olds having a brawl. rufus is her dad. he is the authority figure. he just doesn’t behave like it. "at least he IS a parent to jenny" isn't a sentiment i agree with, because the nature of their interactions are so awful.

there is real disparity in the way he treats jenny vs the way he treats dan - the dignity dan gets is something he denies jenny... for what? making a mistake when she was 14? making a mistake when she was 15? making a mistake when she was 16? that's still a child. to me it feels like alison was a 0, in terms of what she contributed (& yes, that IS bad.) but rufus was a negative number.

#again: all subjective and down to interpretation #i just have a lot of feelings abt this particular dynamic #anti rufus humphrey #jenny humphrey defence squad #meta #anon

[mrs-nate-humphrey]

sorry if it's off topic from what you're focusing on today, but did you ever catch in 2x20 when Lily and Serena are talking to Jenny about throwing her a bday party, J references "the two girls in my chemistry class that didn't try to light my hair on fire that one time" (I'm 100% paraphrasing) bc everyone in the scene moves past it like they already knew??

first of all - this should have been a bigger deal within the context of the show. like,,, the writers and fanbase must all really hate jenny to move past that so quick (which is disappointing but not surprising)

and second - why did rufus let her keep going to constance after that?? what the fuck dude??? you were talking recently about his (and Alison's) bad parenting of jenny, and this is maybe a prime example

I legit haven't watched the show in a year and I think about this throwaway line all the time i just need someone else to acknowledge it so I don't feel like I imagined it lmao

ahh, you have nothing to apologise for! thank you for bringing this up. i don't actually remember this? i've watched 2x20 only once, and that was like, in september 2020, which isn't that long ago, but still. i'm pretty sure it happened though, because it sounds extremely feasible. OUCH.

that SHOULD have been a bigger deal, yes. i'm just thinking about that nairtini in 2x04, and how, even though serena didn't make that decision, since the decision was made 'for serena's benefit' dan got so angry with her. it's like ??? where is this energy for your sister, dan?? i refuse to believe he'd just sit around and do nothing while this happened. and yeah, i blame the writers, lol.

rufus's attitude makes NO sense. the fact that jenny is actively bunking off school and not talking about her problems is a sign that her problems are bad. obviously something was going on that made her feel the need to escape that environment like that. i've never got why he didn't just transfer her to a different school - a better school for jenny?? unlike dan, who wanted to get into an ivy for his writing, jenny's aspirations are fashion related. she doesn't necessarily need to be a constance student to get where she wants in life!! (and the dan thing pisses me off, too - those years of high school where he was treated like he was invisible amount to practically nothing, because he couldn't go to yale and rufus was 'too proud' to borrow money from his millionaire girlfriend.)

#anon #jenny humphrey defence squad #was that the tag? i dont remember #anti rufus humphrey