#and does not fit into the literal category the book provided. which. okay. christ

[ban-joey]

actually marking another one on the autism list. why are my favorite stories always the ones about "what is it that makes you a person" and why do i find the most kinship with the characters above which that question looms. anyway

[randomestfandoms-ocs]

What’s Kirsty’s relationship with Jess like? (I know you touched on it a bit in the Yale ask but I wanna know more!)

Short answer: “true friends don’t judge each other, they judge other people together” meets “slow burn found family”

Long Answer: oh boy buckle up we’re getting an Outline™ bc I really don’t know how to sum it up bc it’s a lot of growth and shit!  it’s like... many many paragraphs so I’m tossing this under a cut bc i don’t want to be murdered lmao

(I’m just... v proud of how much work went into planning out their whole arc and how the dynamic shifts and how certain plots play into things and I just wanted to share it all I couldn’t chill and I’m like half sorry but thank you for this ask I love them)

So when they first meet they don’t really get along because they’re just generally both kind of abrasive and shit, like it’s not personal on either end but they both generally push people away so that they don’t open themselves up to get hurt which makes their first couple of meetings kind of rough

but then there’s the dinner at Lorelai’s and Kirsty went outside because the whole vibe was just setting her on edge, and she hears the Lorelai rant bullshit (hi lorelai he’s seventeen and your an adult grow the fuck up) and as he leaves she goes after him — she tries to apologize for “my mom being... well, the way she is” and Jess immediately snaps back that he doesn’t want her pity, and Kirsty just shrugs and goes “nah dude I get it, parents suck.  My dad is a piece of shit and my mom, well, you’ve met her... not to mention she named Rory after herself and me after my piece of shit dad so I’m sure you can guess who her favourite child is” and just keeps it very chill and Jess takes that a lot better than pity and they end up talking for a bit and are like “yeah okay I can get along with you” and like they aren’t close but they both like pissing Taylor off and giving Luke ulcers so it works well enough

Kirsty absolutely flips her shit when Taylor calls the town meeting about Jess like she tears into him more aggressively than anyone has seen before and basically tells them all to shut the fuck up and “let him at least settle in before you pull out the fucking pitchforks” and goes off on them all for trying to bully a seventeen year old kid out of a town he didn’t even choose to move to and like Luke still gets there and flips his shit too but Kirsty is completely feral calling out the hypocrisy and telling them to get off their high horses and pull their heads out of their asses — like they might not be close but Kirsty is so far beyond pissed at the idea of Taylor calling a meeting literally just to get everyone to hate Jess that she can’t just stand there quietly 

Fast forward a bit and they’re getting along a bit better, Kirsty spends so much time at the diner that she and Jess have taken to talking during Jess’ shifts and Kirsty helps out when she can so they’re starting to actually get along, Kirsty has figured out the tells for when Jess just can’t deal with people anymore and will make up all sorts of excuses to get him a break (anything from ‘hey can you read over this essay’ to ‘hey did you remember to grab that book from upstairs’ to basically anything else that comes to mind) which he appreciates and when he’s on his breaks he sits at the counter to do homework with her

By the Bracebridge dinner they’re like actually friends, and when Jess meets Tristan for the first time he’s fully prepared to hate him but when he sees how shitty Lorelai is being about Tristan he’s just like “okay guess we’re in the same boat” so the three of them end up working together to stay as far away from Lorelai as possible for most of the night and Kirsty is just very grateful for the buffer because like she just can’t deal with Lorelai and Jess remembers her comment on the “you can guess who the favourite is” and starts to see how much Lorelai’s disapproval actually bothers Kirsty

fast forward even more to Christopher coming to town and with Sherry and all that and oof Kirsty is not okay like her relationship with Christopher is terrible and Jess kind of knows this already (based on the fact that Kirsty asked Luke to stand in for her dad at the debutante ball because she wanted nothing to do with Christopher; and he’s heard her bitch about him before) but when Christopher and Sherry come to the house, Kirsty excuses herself for “dance rehearsal” and runs over to the diner and Luke is out at the moment and Kirsty is Not Okay™ and Jess is the one who sees her just standing in the doorway shaking and clearly about to start crying and he just quietly leads her up to the apartment and sits down and lets her sort of collapse on the couch and she tells him about Christopher and about how unreliable and flakey he always was and how Luke has always been more her dad than him and he always shows up and tries to play happy family and then bails as soon as he gets bored or something comes up and about how now he’s apparently changing and becoming mr family man and why wasn’t she worth changing for

and jess has no idea how to handle this whole breakdown because he's a little bit emotionally stunted (which is fair and so is she) but it definitely resonates with him and he ends up sitting next to her and telling her that if Christopher wasn’t willing to change for she and Rory then it’s because of him not her and trying to comfort her even though he really doesn’t know how, and ends up opening up to her about Liz and his life before Stars Hollow too.  It���s more than either of them have shared with anyone before and it’s very strange tbh — at this point they’re definitely veering into the friend category but neither of them would admit it, not to mention they don’t talk that often because neither of them wants to deal with a Lorelai Gilmore Hissy Fit, you know?

(also a sidenote, Tristan is completely chill about literally all of this like he and Kirsty are the healthiest relationship and have very good communication skills now and he's just like “hey I don’t live nearby and Kirsty hates cars, I’m just glad she has someone to talk to”)

and okay so now we’re at the episode where Lorelai accuses Jess of stealing the bracelet and this is just as Kirsty is getting home, and Lorelai is more of a bitch than in canon (but seriously Lorelai grow up and let Dean deal with his own relationship issues ugh) — as Jess is leaving, Kirsty turns around and calls Lorelai out on being an absolute bitch and on the fact that she’s an adult and Jess is seventeen and to grow the fuck up because she’s acting like her mother and believe it or not she doesn’t actually know everything.  Kirsty then sort of storms off, and Jess ends up walking with her and just goes “hey, thanks for that” and Kirsty goes “don’t mention it” and they just sort of laugh and part ways so she can go to Miss Patty’s but anyways I’m soft for Kirsty fighting the entire town for him

then we have the hilarious scene of Kirsty looking Dean in the eye, knowing full well that he literally just saw her getting out of Tristan’s car, and going “yes I’m completely in love with jess is that a problem” and jess going “oh Kirsty I’m really flattered but while you were gone I started talking to Paris and I think I’m in love” and they’re just such little shits I love them

and okay now I promise we’re getting close to the speedrun part of this relationship lmaooo

so Kirsty is the one who ends up tutoring Jess and like he’s not on the verge of flunking because Kirsty has already been forcing him to do his homework semi regularly but he has trouble staying on task (he’s a mood) so Kirsty is basically there to make sure that he gets all of his final projects done — they take a break to go get ice cream and the car accident happens and Kirsty gets injured and she’s having a panic attack and she begs Jess to stay with her so he does, she lies to the hospital staff and tells them that he’s her step-brother so that he can stay with her because she’s afraid of hospitals and doesn’t want to be alone.  He stays with her until they hear Lorelai and then sneaks out the window; at this point Kirsty has finally called him her friend — while high on painkillers and introducing him to Richard and Emily, who she had him call because she knew Lorelai wouldn’t (they like him much better in this !verse than canon because Kirsty knows how to play them lmao)

Lorelai still pitches a fit to Luke and Jess still leaves and jesus christ when Kirsty finds out about all of that she flips her shit even more than she did at the town meeting, calls Lorelai petty and selfish and a shit mother and tells her that she’s more like Emily than she wants to admit, and this is very possibly when Kirsty finally drops one of my favourite lines of hers — “you and Rory might be best friends first and mother daughter second but I never needed a best friend, I needed a mom.  And now I don’t want either.” — and crashes at either Luke’s or Miss Patty’s (and is not thrilled when she finds out that Lorelai called Christopher and that he’s now back and awnting to play dad again)

fast forward and Kirsty knows Jess is in New York but they haven’t talked and Sookie’s wedding happens and Kirsty and Lorelai have their huge fight (this is the other point where that favourite line might happen, I’m torn) and Kirsty packs up and moves to New York for the summer to play Victoria in Cats on Broadway

She gets to New York and she’s staying at a hotel provided by the production company and she’s lonely and miserable and she’s never really been alone before and low and behold she stumbles into some diner on the verge of tears (just a bad day and everything is too much and she’s about to break) when all of a sudden she hears “wow, deja vu.  Coffee?” and she turns around and low and behold it’s Jess Mariano.  She accepts and sits at the diner until his shift is done and then they leave together and catch up and he offers to be her tour guide, and over the next week they become really close (all of both of their coworkers think that they’re siblings at this point) and blah blah lots of details I won’t get into bc seriously how many paragraphs is this thing, but Emily and Richard end up renting Kirsty this huge penthouse apartment and she manages to convince them to let Jess live with her and they become super close and kind of codependent and skip right over the friend stage to the “this is my brother, Jess” stage lmao and basically everyone in stars hollow except for lorelai and rory (bc kirsty and lorelai aren’t talking for most of the summer and rory is in dc so she and kirsty aren’t talking much either) know because they all came out for her opening weekend and everyone thinks it’s hilarious and their new york friends think Luke is their dad bc he called them “my kids” without thinking about it

also Tristan visits as much as he can get away with and seriously he and Jess become really good friends too and they’re just like, an iconic trio okay I love them

fast forward they go back to stars hollow together the day of the summer festival thing and that’s when Lorelai and Rory find out about their friendship and Lorelai is Not Happy and then Tristan shows up and the three of them are being adorable and having a great time and Lorelai flips out and there’s yet another fight (seriously Lorelai pls stop assuming you always know best, you don’t) and the fight is angsty but there’s the softness of jess finally really accepting that Kirsty meant it when she said that things weren’t going to change when they got back to stars hollow and they don’t and it’s just great

and in season 3 they’re just still all soft and codependent and Lorelai is forced to accept that Jess knows Kirsty better than she does and Rory has some really fun “what the actual fuck” moments watching Lorelai & Luke and Kirsty & Jess have the exact same arguments because Kirsty did inherit Lorelai’s ability to annoy people into doing things like participating in town events and season 3 is just very very soft and there are so many scenes/episodes that I’m so excited for

and anyways this was so long and I’m sorry but also I’m not because like i just really love this dynamic and I want to just like skip two seasons and just write new york & season three because i love them so muchhhhhhhh and anyways yeah 

TLDR they’re a slowburn rivals to found family with a speedrun towards the end and i fucking love them so much