#resonance extra

[anxiouspotatorants]

Actually you know what I need to rant about this: while literati is technically a good girl x bad boy dynamic it is written so incredibly well and avoids so many pitfalls and stereotypes that it makes a good girl x bad boy hater like myself (I’m only half joking — I don’t think any trope is inherently good or bad but I tend to dislike most pairings with this dynamic) fall head over heels for their story and relationship.

So much of what makes the two of them work is the contrast between how others perceive them and how they truly are. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of people who understand who Rory is as a person (Lorelai, Lane, Paris, Richard and Emily to a certain degree for starters), but she's constantly met with the expectation that she just does good and is supposed to make everyone proud 24/7. Stars Hollow as a group especially are big on this, as seen f. ex. through how Taylor takes Rory's one comment about an inappropriate DVD and twists the whole thing into a censorship crusade and makes Rory its poster-child even though she wants nothing to do with it and tells him so repeatedly. But instead of hearing Rory disagree with him (like he would Lorelai and Luke) he assumes that she actually agrees with him - and why shouldn't she when she's the perfect sunshine paragon of good who would never disagree with her elders? Also her grandparents treat her as incredibly fragile and childlike, like she must be too innocent to ever do anything wrong and so whenever she does something it has to be somebody else's fault (usually Lorelai, but occasionally Jess or whoever else was present). Time and time again Rory is treated like something innocent and naive and weak — but not by Jess. He sees her as a person.

And it obviously goes the other way too. Jess is treated like shit by pretty much everyone else. Either people hate him unprovoked or very much provoked (he did do a lot of pranks in his first few weeks and while I'm a Dean-hater I'm not blind to how much Jess picked fights with him), or they’ve simply given up on him. He tells Rory himself that every authority figure he had back in New York gave up on him too, from teachers to principals to his very own mother. But Rory doesn’t treat him like a lost cause, she treats him like the smart, brilliant and asshole-ish teen that he is. By having faith in him she also often holds him more accountable than others. Where f. ex. Lorelai or the other adults just roll their eyes, Rory physically drags Jess into doing his shifts at the diner. While others write him off, Rory chews Jess’ ear out for not helping Luke more and for willfully making enemies out of the Stars Hollow adults.

They don't put each other on pedestals or below each other. Jess doesn’t try to make a sinner out of Rory and she doesn’t try to make a saint out of him. There’s genuine respect between them. They expect each other to have integrity and treat others with kindness and honesty, and the rest is good old chemistry and common interests.

I particularly love how in so many of their scenes (especially pre-relationship) when they spend time alone they just get to be these goofy nerdy kids. They argue about controversial authors and dig through records shops and eat hot dogs and make fun of each other and try to make each other laugh. It’s not just sexual chemistry as it too often is in a dynamic like this (and often uncomfortably sexual when writing teenagers - looking at you Gossip Girl), and not just well written intellectual chemistry — they have platonic chemistry too. A hell of a lot of it actually.

While I don’t think ASP wrote them through a purely deconstructionist lens on the good girl x bad boy dynamic (if she did plan on writing the dynamic at all), there is something to be said about how where many around them treat them like stereotypes they treat each other like people. To so many people, Rory is a perfect small town princess, a little miss sunshine with booksmarts for days but too delicate and sweet for anything with grit and weight. To a lot of the same people and many more Jess is a pathetic brutish and maniacal lost cause, hell personified in a chainsmoking leather-wearing teenager. But to each other they are actual human beings. Kind and mean and flirtatious and scared and reckless and smart. Rory really thinks that with the right motivation and mindset Jess can be the kind who does (and at the end wrote) incredible things. Jess really believes that with a little more practice and support to step out of her comfort zone she can be the amazing journalist she wishes to be.

They don’t have this stupid «we’re so bad for each other but we can’t stay away» thing that too many trope users rely on and don’t even justify in the plot. Everyone else might think they’re not fit for each other, but they knew they were each other’s person from the very first day.

[daemon-is-perfectly-unhinged]

Now, I don't want to make too big a deal out of this, but when my sons win, it will be the greatest moment in the history of EVERYTHING.

- Daemon Targaryen

[anticidic]

Imagining Chuuya at the bar sitting at the counter in one of those really high stools and his feet don't touch the floor, they dangle—something he's begrudgingly gotten used to, and he just. Likes to swing his legs in the air.

Dazai snickers and pokes fun, but he's too tall to do that, so who's the one laughing now?

[darlin-djarin]

certified halal kanan bc he’s arab to ME

[strawbunnycakes]

new mocha art dropped (also a smol few additions to their design! :3)

[folks-just-call-me-orange-joe]

Guess who just reread Does Marge Have Friends and almost broke down into tears

[bunnihearted]

🦈2

[spocks-kaathyra]

what if I kill myself

[monstermoviedean]

what a fine selection of words for this november 19 (source)

[hyperions-fate]

Unlike Israel's Ambassador to the UK, I proudly support a two state solution (turn Israel into Palestine and Britain into Palestine's olive oil importing colony).

[dragonanne]

Hey hello I just wanted to let you know, I know the author of RDG and she’s seen your Ginger art and she Very Much Fangirled. Jenni loved it. Just letting you know, because she doesn’t have tumblr but I do and I’d want to know if an author loved my work

That's so sweet of you to let me know, thank you!!💖 I actually shared in on Instagram back when I posted it, so I was able to tag her in the post. But still, thank you for reaching out!!💖 It made my morning to know that someone wanted to make sure I knew something so cool! You're awesome!! Have a lovely day, anon!

[weirdgirlbymommylonglegs]

there’s being a teenage girl in your 20s then there’s whatever the fuck the babyface by sorry mom experience is

[aromanticasterisms]

iansan relevance right off the bat let's fucking go

[purgemarchlockdown]

I dunno if this would of helped her but it would of done Something.

[harlequinfrog]

thinking about that time i asked God to send me a sign if i should leave the church and immediately the st jude necklace i was wearing broke and fell on the ground. He was pretty funny for that ngl

[robinsnest2111]

Benson desperately looking to Randy for reassurance, practically begging him for it, asking for something Randy cannot really give in the kind of fucked up situation they're in, really brought out some buried unprocessed things from deep within myself lol

The Passenger 2023 really is The Movie of All Time ™