#Gilmore girls discourse

[anxiouspotatorants]

This whole «Lorelai is evil and so is Rory and Emily is the real MVP of the show» shtick is getting on my nerves.

Like don’t misunderstand me, I love Emily and Richard. They are interesting and complex characters with strengths and weaknesses and a whole lot of baggage (like almost everyone in Gilmore Girls, except maybe the Town Troubador). But they aren’t this perfect well meaning couple with an ungrateful daughter who refuses to accept help and grow up.

Lorelai is not perfect either by any stretch of the imagination. She’s presumptuous, stubborn, used to getting her way and struggles to see things from more than one angle, but she’s also kind, hard working, supportive and able to strike a balance between being open and setting boundaries. She’s a complicated, flawed person, like all good protagonists should be (as opposed to heroes). And she doesn’t fight with Emily or cut her parents out because she’s being immature, she’s doing it because they genuinely hurt her several times.

Imagine if things had gone exactly like Emily and Richard wanted things to go. A 16 year old Lorelai would be married against her will to a guy who would likely then spend the rest of his life under the thumb of his parents for the «mistake» of having Rory. Her social life, her work, her education, all of it would be heavily monitored by Emily and Richard, as they would insist she only engage with what they deem respectable work and social circles. Lorelai in the DAR, Lorelai running charity functions, Lorelai staying married to a Hayden. So much of what makes Lorelai herself would be gone: the inn, her friendships with Sookie and Michel, cooky hobbies and a band of semi-adopted misfits and Luke.

Certain people (not many but still some) seem to forget exactly what it is Emily and Richard ultimately criticize Lorelai for, because it’s not her childish remarks at Friday Night Dinner. They criticize her for her lack of university education. For her lack of a high status job even though she runs a successful inn that she co-owns herself. For her terrible pick of men - not because of how they might be as lovers but because they’re not high society and not the kind of wealthy guys who could let Lorelai retire to the life of an affluent housewife (like did we forget that one of the times Lorelai cut them out was because they refused to accept LUKE?). Hell, they usually don’t criticize Lorelai for reasonable issues with how she raised Rory, they criticize her for not controlling Rory’s love life more.

I do think Emily and Richard love Lorelai and Rory, and that at the end of the day they want them to be happy (otherwise none of these characters would fight so hard to stay in each other’s lives). But time and time again they let their love of status and fear of a bad reputation stand in the way of recognizing their daughter and granddaughter for what they love and for what make them happy. Dislike Lorelai all you want, Rory too, but don’t come here and tell me that Emily is the one in the right.

#I almost never see this take in the Tumblr circles I run in so that’s good #but there seems to be a lot of it almost everywhere else #so I felt like screaming into my personal echo chamber for a while #also I didn’t get too much into Rory or how Richard specifically does this too #because they deserve their own posts #but yeah people do this to Rory too #and Richard isn’t an innocent bystander which is why I write him in with Emily as a unit #gilmore girls #the potato rants #Gilmore girls discourse #lorelai gilmore #rory gilmore #emily gilmore #richard gilmore #not tagging anti because again I am not anti

[1982brucespringsteen]

time for gilmore gays posting. in a butch luke & transmasc jess situation, who lends who his copy of stone butch blues by leslie feinberg??

#gilmore girls #gilmore gays #okay hear me out: luke is a veteran he/him lesbian but has lived his entire life in such a small community that his contact with other + #queer people has been limited to his ex gfs & michel #so he mightve been secluded from the most avant garde discourse & trans liberation struggles or whatever #BUT stone butch blues was an instant classic afaik so he mightve read it when it came out #on the other hand. jess grew up in the midst of thee most influential queer spaces on the planet #so his contact to trans ppl is face to face and not through second hand accounts or books #but!! hes still a bookworm that wouldve had easy access to stone butch blues #so! who reads it first? who thinks of it after they start living together? #mine

[jellybracelet]

hes so tan

#tan jared discourse #gilmore girls

[actuallycherub]

My very rare Gilmore girls post of the millennia, but I’m noticing an unadulterated hate for Dean? Like, okay, I completely understand like later in the show? I don’t like him from season 5 on, and that completely understandable? But I’m talking like, early early seasons Dean hate? And I guess I’m a little confused. Why???

#gg #Gilmore girls #Dean Gilmore girls #dean forester #discourse #??? #dean hate?

[frazzledsoul]

#crack poll #courtesy of gilmore girls discourse #gilmore girls

[felixcatton]

having thoughts and feelings

#from here https://www.reddit.com/r/GilmoreGirls/comments/sydocd/my_favorite_faces_rory_makes_at_logan_while_hes/ #i nevvvverrrr look at gg reddit because excessive rory criticism hurts my feelings. and i'd prefer not to unpack why that is<3 #+ tumblr is the only place where it's even slightly possible to filter out certain subsets of a fandom/avoid heavy discourse #but stumbled across this while looking for something else and :') she's SMITTEN #rogan #gilmore girls

[fearsomeandwretched]

I'm such an Emily defender bc she reminds me of my dead grandma lmao and my last rewatch was the first time I'd watched since her passing

#before then I've always been a STAUNCH Lorelai defender #it's also shitty but I think since realizing how bad my own childhood was it makes it hard to sympathize as much with Lorelai #which I think is the reason for much of the anti Lorelai discourse #like she just did not have it ~that bad comparatively! and she acts like she had the worst childhood of all time #which I think is frustrating for a lot of ppl including me #I think these are all obvious observations if you've been following me a while but for the newbies #cassidy watches gilmore girls

[mike-el]

Time for me to be controversial: stanning Jess gives strong “date a girl who reads” energy. he offers nothing except tired opinions on famous dead authors. objectively all three of Rory’s boyfriends are awful, but dean was the least bad and that’s just the facts

#I share a thought #gilmore girls #tw discourse

[feralgodmothers]

This isn’t a fully-formed thought yet, but I was thinking about the whole anti-Rory vs. pro-Rory discourse in the Gilmore Girls fandom, and honestly - I think the reason why there are so many antis, is because we as viewers tend to hold main characters to crazy high standards.

It’s like people want a main character that is completely relatable to them as an individual AT ALL TIMES. If the main character deviates too far from what the viewer would personally do, they hate them.  They want to watch a show and be able to put on the main character like a skinsuit for the duration of the runtime like it’s some RPG where they don’t have to do anything, because the show just intuitively knows what they want to see at any given moment.   But no!  That’s not enough!  Because people ALSO want someone they can look up to and aspire to be. Someone cooler, funnier, smoother, more altruistic, etc. - because that’s what people would like to think they could be if they just had the chance. People want 100% self-centered indulgence in their tv shows, and by extension - from the main characters at the helm of those shows. They want someone flawed and relatable, but not too flawed (because everything’s a moral hierarchy now, and anyone that might be perceived as less perfect than them is scum). I honestly believe that to a lot of people nowadays, tv shows aren’t accepted as just stories anymore. They’re taken as virtual reality.  And that’s what’s sucking the life out of fiction, because to consume media in such a self-centered way closes you off from what it’s really supposed to be about - imagination, the exploration of the human condition, empathy.

Not to say that you should never criticize a main character.  I do it all the time. There’s plenty of moments when Rory isn’t my favorite character in the world. But that’s the thing - she’s not trying out to be your favorite character in the world. She is a made up person in a fictional world who is just living her life. Can I relate to her sometimes? Yeah. Are there times when I don’t really relate to her at all? Also yeah. And that’s probably true for a lot of us.  It’s okay if you love Rory with your whole heart, and it’s okay if you hate Rory with every fiber of your being.  Same goes for any other main character. But if you feel hatred more often, it’s quite possible that a large portion of your reasoning stems from the previously mentioned standard of self. 

Despite possible appearances, I’m not trying to lecture anyone here.  It’s just a thought I had and something I’m asking for anyone reading to consider.  Whatever show you’re watching, analyze whether any anger you may be feeling towards the main character has to do with the criteria I mentioned above. If so, try to relax, see the character as a separate entity from yourself, and let go of the desire to control the narrative (unless you’re writing fanfiction).  It’s a much more enjoyable state of mind to be in, and it’s really the intended way to consume fictional media in general. 

#txt #personal #gilmore girls #rory gilmore #fandom discourse

[allthisheaven2]

Ooh, tell me more about what you like about the Rory/Jess Swan Song fight!

i love it when characters are dicks at each other!! and in this particular case theyre both super pretty so it makes for good television

prefacing this by saying i love it when rorys privilege is talked about. not in an anti-rory "she's so ungrateful and ignorant way!!!" but its There. she is a blue blood whose ancestors came over on the mayflower and jess is. not. they come from Different Worlds and walking into the gilmore mansion sort of cements it in jess's mind. then it adds onto the frustration he's feeling already (like he's got a black eye he's late he was working + stuck in traffic etc etc) plus rory's nervous and she wants to show emily she's made the right choice so rlly theyre both. messy atp.

and then the actual fight just spotlights all their issues!! rory not trusting jess. jess feeling like rory doesn't give two shits abt him. all that other pizzazz. LOVE when he sees the rory portrait bc he says something like "now ive seen everything" and then the bit in the end where he says "you like making up stories" or wtv is sooo heart wrenching actually! like. they argue well. there's not much to it? i love dynamics where the love is There and its overflowing there is literally So Much of it its sort of the only thing that matters but its a bit fucked bc of external factors! not miscommunication bc that's crap and the mistrust is also crap bc its just. why? like maybe ive forgotten the context and maybe its just residual stuff from a 2 year attachment to dean but why would rory jump to a conclusion that jess is the one who screwed up when she spent all of s2 defending him as a good guy and suddenly when he's her actual bf it all goes 180? anyway someone should've gotten asp on meds or off meds idk. anyway

point is i like the rory/jess mirror selves/narrative foil. theyre the exact same but circumstances made them wildly different and i like when it's pointed out. and in this case its GOOD in the sense that its a fucking disaster its a train wreck but its sort of like. you are the knife i turn inside of myself and that is love etc etc. the fight is them going in circles. they are still in the same spot fighting abt shit that doesn't really matter instead of saying the shit that does matter. idk i mostly like it bc the vibes are cool

plus honestly i wasn't lying when i said i like it when characters are dicks at each other especially if theyre in love. its entertaining its good narrative fodder and its angsty. 10/10

#asks #gilmore girls #side note a swan black eye is still the stupidest plot device ever even for a 2000s teen tv show #anyway gilmore girls discourse is the only discourse i will engage in. half the show is not even Real to me i cherry pick bits i like then #make up stuff as i go. asp doesn't know her shit sorry!!!!

[anxiouspotatorants]

Once more with feeling guys: Dean is the good boy gone bad, Jess is the bad boy made human (or realistic bad boy) and Logan is the rich bad boy

#they’re all different interpretations or subcategories of ‘bad boy’ #this does not make one better or worse than the other two just slightly different #because they explore different relationship themes #Dean is the souring of perfect all American romance #Jess complicates the classic trope with layers and untraditional responses #and Logan is the 21st century bad boy with a sprinkling of class themes #gilmore girls #jess mariano #dean forester #logan huntzberger #gilmore girls meta #gilmore girls discourse #the potato rants

[smol-being-of-light]

it’s the season so gilmore girls discourse is back and my dash gets filled with different levels of hate for rory because she makes bad decisions but like yes she makes bad decisions it’s almost like she’s a teenage girl who doesn’t know shit about life yet

#like obviously when you watch the show you can say wtf rory why would you do this when you should obviously do that instead #but that’s the whole point #she’s a teenage girl #we’ve all been teenagers #we’ve all been dumb and stupid and we didn’t know better #but the mistakes are sometimes huge but that’s the point of life and that’s how you grow up #so how about you stop hating on a teenage girl for being a teenager for once #rory gilmore #gilmore girls

[lanawinterscigarettes]

Hi! Would I be able to request a fic for coming out to Yelena Belova (MCU. Sorry for spelling on last name) as Aroace, please?

oh absolutely! I know there's some discourse about whether Yelena herself is "technically" aroace or not but I personally believe she is, so this fic (and everything I write with her) will reflect that. I'm not aroace so if there's anything inaccurate please let me know and I'll make sure to change it. hope you like it! <3

A Lot More Similar (platonic! Yelena Belova x reader)

Warnings: Yelena calls the reader "dude" but it's meant in a casual gender neutral way, very brief and mild swearing, Yelena and the reader drink beer in this

"Hey, Yelena, can I talk to you about something?" You asked somewhat nervously, giving her a glance.

You were both sitting on the couch watching trashy reality TV and making fun of the people on it when you were suddenly hit with the urge to come out to her. You figured that now was as good of a time as ever, and that you were as ready as you'd ever be.

"Yeah, sure. What's up?" She asked casually, not having noticed how nervous you were.

You took a deep breath, trying to collect your thoughts before continuing. "I- I think I'm aroace. Actually, no, that's wrong. I am aroace." You tried to be confident when you spoke, even though you were terrified to hear her reaction.

Much to your surprise, she just shrugged and said, "Okay."

"Really?" You asked in confusion.

Yelena snorted in laughter before responding. "No, I hate you. Get out of my house." She said sarcastically while pointing towards the door.

You had to laugh, realizing just how ridiculous it was for anyone to not be accepted just for being themself. "Wait, but seriously, though. You're really okay with it?"

"Yeah, dude, of course." She took a swig of her beer before leaning back on the sofa again. "Why would I have a problem with it? Hell, I'm aroace."

"You are?" It was difficult to hide the surprise in your voice, causing Yelena to laugh again.

"Of course I am. I mean, it's not something I like to make a big deal of, but I don't exactly plan on really hiding it, either."

You nodded your head as you started to understand where Yelena was coming from. "Yeah, that makes sense. I guess we're a lot more similar than I thought."

She made a sound of agreement. "Yup, we're both aroace, we both like pizza and beer, and we both hate crappy reality shows."

Laughing, you held up your beer bottle. "I'll drink to that."

Yelena smiled, lifting up her own drink. "Cheers."

Likes < reblogs | PLEASE REBLOG if you like what you read

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#gender neutral reader #x gender neutral reader #gn reader #x gn reader #marvel #marvel imagines #marvel imagine #marvel x reader #marvel fic #mcu #mcu imagines #mcu imagine #mcu x reader #mcu fic #yelena belova #yelena belova imagines #yelena belova imagine #platonic yelena belova x reader #platonic! yelena belova x reader #aroace reader #aro ace reader

[lol-jackles]

Netflix finally released viewing statistics for its movies and shows. What do you think about it? And what about our beloved SPN and Gilmore Girls? about*netflix*com/en/news/what-we-watched-a-netflix-engagement-report

Link. Long live Excel lol. Steaming services don't get paid by views so it's no surprise that Netflix was willing to share the views data when the real metric is how much each show/movie contributes to getting or retaining subscribers and weighed against licensing and production costs to determine viability of continuing the show. But Netflix will never release that information for their competitors to see.

The main reason why #1 Nielsen rated Neftlix shows get cancelled is because they're front-loaded success, meaning people start watching but quickly lose interest and don’t finish out the series. Gilmore Girls has impressive completion rate from season 1 through season 7, which helped explain why Netflix was willing to produce a revival limited Gilmore Girls season. Gilmore Girls has 29.4 billion viewed minutes for the first 6 months of 2023, nearly 3 times the number of SPN, and averages out to 13 million viewers per episode. To put in discourse contexts I get from my Ask box, Gilmore Girls has 5 times more viewers than The Boys and is a proven cultural mainstay after 20 years. Also, Gilmore Girls' 7 seasons nearly beat out Grey Anatomy's 19 seasons. So little wonder that Jared is going outside the SPN-only conventions.

Supernatural ended 2022 with 18.8 billion viewed minutes at 21.8 million viewed minutes per episode, which averages out to 66,852 viewers per episode. In the first 6 months of 2023, Supernatural has 11.4 billion viewed minutes so it's on its way to beating their last year's record. Supernatural's completion rate is far less impressive than Gilmore Girls, but nonetheless has steady viewers through to the final season. Similar to the live & 7day ratings, most of the audience dip happened after season 4. If either Netflix or WBD plans to produce a SPN reboot/revival that stars both Jared and Jensen, then my guess it will be based on the first 3 seasons' formula i.e just two main leads and not have to pay for additional regular actors, so at best the low-tier recurring actors will only be back for an one-off, if that.

#supernatural #gilmore girls #ratings #netflix

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Been thinking again about the "Mitchum was right" post I wrote, and how the Gilmore Girls fandom has such a Rory-hate problem. Because in the fandom discourse "Mitchum was right" is saddled with lots of implications about how much of a failure, undeserving of the love, praise and encouragement she receives Rory is. It's so often taken as a synonym with "it's so satisfying to see this privileged little pampered girl being taken down a peg and slapped in the face with reality". And that's not it to me at all.

If anything, Rory's reaction to Mitchum's comments highlight an underlying problem about how she was raised. While Lorelai was raised in an environment where demands to conform were very high, Rory was raised in an environment were expectations of excellence were high. Rory doesn't have the freedom to be ordinary or to choose to be ordinary, or even outstanding at an ordinary, obscure job. Where Lorelai could rebel in the name of freedom, a Rory rebellion would have always been perceived as an unforgivable waste, as a sort of degradation. Lorelai was expected to not stand out, and because she stood out, Rory is expected to stand out.

The Christiane Amanpour aspiration always felt weird to me, because that's just not the sort of person Rory is. Rory is used to a model where if she does what pleases others, she will be rewarded with affection and admiration. Rory doing well or badly at school is predominantly about her reputation as intellectually outstanding, and not about the knowledge being acquired or the satisfaction of overcoming a great obstacle with great effort. In other words she's been raised since childhood with other people's expectations that she'll achieve great things and whatever she wants, not because she can put great effort and make great sacrifices and push hard, but because she's Rory and Rory means brilliant and good by default. Rory's source of validation is not the results of her own work, but the social rewards she gets for it.

It is a big contrast with Paris, who is made a go-getter for the simple reason that her family does not care about her and therefore has not created that system of social rewards for her. (I'm not saying this is good; I'm just presenting the way things work for her). Paris does crave those social rewards, of course, because she doesn't have them, but doesn't get discouraged when she doesn't get them, because she's used to it and has found a different source of motivation for herself. The only person Paris can really disappoint is herself.

That's why Rory is so secretive about the good things she has in her relationship with Jess. Standing up for Jess that way means pushing back against the narrative the people in her life have constructed about him and her, and that means letting them down and receiving negative feedback (this is a bit different from the just blank-statement "you hate Jess for no reason" and "he isn't as bad as you think" she does at some points, because those reinforce the narrative of "Rory is such a good girl she'll see good in everyone"). But I also think she's not the least bit aware that she's doing this or why.

The Christiane Amanpour style journalism is all about pushing back against the established narratives of those in power, and getting a lot of negative feedback from people that don't want to tell the truth or have the truth out in the open. It's about knowing what you want and be ruthless in its pursuit, no matter what, because THAT is the reward you get from it. Fame and fortune may or may not come, but they are not necessary for your self fulfillment.

From that perspective it does make sense for Mitchum to test Rory the way he does, and arrive to the conclusions he does. It is also proven right in how Rory crumbles in front of this negative feedback instead of digging her heels in.

But this isn't Rory's FaultTM

Because she hasn't been raised to be resilient in the face of negative feedback, to build a strong sense of self outside of the approval of the adults around her, and derive satisfaction from the things she does well and enjoys doing. The only instance of this she has is her job as editor of the Yale Daily News, and yet she never extracts the lesson that that is a great job for her, because she never seeks out similar jobs elsewhere. Why?

Because an editor is essentially someone whose job is the best when they are the least noticed. It's an essential job that requires great skills for managing people and schedules, keeping track of several things at the same time, and a clear perception of the big picture. Rory has all of that! But there are no famous newspaper editors as editors. Editors don't stand out, and Rory has been conditioned her whole life that in order to fulfill the expectations of everyone in her life, she MUST stand out.

This opposition between Lorelai's "never give in in anything" and Rory's "always give in in everything" also heavily influences the different way they face similar relationships. Lorelai can never be at peace with her mother, Rory can never be at peace without her. Lorelai's relationship with Christopher can never work because he's her bolt/rebel escape and she cannot outgrow that (as a side note this is why the execution of the Javajunkie does not work for me. Lorelai never achieves the state of mind where she can cope with someone else's hard boundaries, because she's incapable of seeing them under any other light than a restriction set upon her autonomy). Rory's relationship with Logan can never work out because she's mesmerized and subdued by his extreme self-assurance and inclination to disruption, and he works her punishment/rewards levers like an expert (and the failure of Literati's relationship on Rory's side is her inability to put her foot down and say "this is what I need from you" and "you cannot do this to me"). Both Christopher and Logan represent unhealthy coping mechanisms, but in opposite directions.

#Gilmore Girls #Rory Gilmore #meta #long post

[frazzledsoul]

So Matt Czuchry has been making the promo rounds recently because apparently he's still alive on American Horror Story this most recent season and the season was split in two parts.

Apparently he was on The Talk two days ago and he was accused of ruining the love lives of teenage girls for decades

First of all, I am sick of the knee-jerk misandry that claims that any man Rory Gilmore dates is not good enough for her, because she's such paragon of fidelity, moral character, and good behavior. Has anyone asked if Rory is a good girlfriend and if these guys deserve her? She cheats on or with all of her boyfriends (with Dean and Logan, she's done both), she pits these guys against each other often, she frequently lies and misleads them about her intentions (this goes along with the cheating), she very rarely is repentant about any of this, and she also has the nerve to play the martyr (hello, bridesmaids: hello, being pissed at Jess for not waiting for her in season 3) when her track record does not call for it. I'm not saying she's always awful, but I think the only seasons where she was fair to whoever she was dating were season 1 and season 7. The rest of the time her record....is not good.

Furthermore, Dean and Jess seemed to struggle for a bit after Rory leaves their lives for good and then they get considerably better without her. Dean had at least one kid by 2011, so I'm assuming he was married and settled by then, which is really all he wanted in life (hopefully he got some therapy first). Jess is an author, co-owns a business, and is accepted in a community of his own by 2006 (and is emotionally stable enough not to hold Rory manipulating him into more love triangle bullshit against her). Logan never really gets a break from any of this in the canon we see (and is just as big of a cheater as she is in AYITL) but even he is personally and professionally stable by that era while Rory spends most of AYITL throwing epic tantrums and destroying any professional opportunity she gets.

Why should the boyfriends, who actually exhibited considerable character growth, should be forever declared "toxic" and perpetually morally inferior to Rory when they became more mature (okay, Logan has a mixed record, but Adult Logan works and he gets along with his dad, so we'll take it) and she did not? Why isn't anyone asking if the way Rory treats other people is behavior we want young girls to emulate, instead of only holding the boyfriends to account for what they did wrong?

Yeah, yeah, I know. This is the perils of being a main character written by Amy Sherman Palladinos: you leave her orbit and your life gets better offscreen. But Rory holds a lot of blame for why these relationships didn't work, especially since she keeps doing the same thing over and over. She should be held just as accountable for the things she did wrong as her partners are.

Honestly, Czuchry is being a lot more gracious than the situation calls for here. He showed up to promote his most recent project and a random Tik Tok was waved in his face accusing him of ruining the love lives of young women for years, because of what his character on a TV show did LITERALLY DECADES AGO. Why are y'all mad at him? He didn't write this. He had zero control over any of this. Why is this his fault? This ain't why he's there. Go yell at ASP if you're still mad and leave the actors alone. Credit goes to him for not trying to play Team Logan and be diplomatic because I don't really think he signed up for this discourse here.

This isn't an issue that is isolated to Czuchry: Milo also made the Interwebs mad when he asked to defend Jess's behavior on a talk show a while back (promoting a completely different project) and he pointed that Jess was literally a child when he was a main character on the show with a lot of childhood trauma. But hey, let's get pissed at the actor for pointing out literal facts again.

And Czuchry is right here:all of these characters were flawed, none of them behaved perfectly, and you should not model your real life relationships on any of them. This is not a tale of evil men ganging up on a helpless damsel. There's plenty of bad behavior to go around for all of them.

#matt czuchry #rory gilmore #gilmore girls #stop asking these actors about decade old storylines if that's not why they're there #this got very southern but matt was raised in tennessee so it's fitting