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Is anyone else strangely overwhelmed by the new format on this site? I had just figured out the old site, and this new look is throwing my tiny brain for a loop! 12, 22, 24

My Valentine's Day gift to myself: reading and hopefully writing LL fanfic! I reserve the right to ignore large parts of canon I happen to dislike 🙂 This thread is such a terrific resource, and I'm so inspired by all of you who have worked to keep our characters alive.

6. 15, 26

6, 15, 20

6, 7 and 15, but these are all amazing!

This heavily addictive show has sucked me in yet again. Is there as 12 step program for GGaholics? As other people have pointed out, even when I don't always like this show, I still love it. And every time I watch it, my intake of caffeine and junk food mysteriously triples. Disclaimer for all of the below: these are just my opinions, and not even articulate ones. I know everyone interprets things about this and every other work of fiction differently, so I'm definitely not trying to assert my views as facts even when I'm too lazy to qualify my statements with "in my opinion" and "that's just me" :-) I'm at the beginning of season 3, and I'm ashamed to admit that I've been pulled back on board the never quite steady "ship" that is Rory and Jess. Sometimes actors who date in real life seem to have very little onscreen chemistry, but Milo and Alexis have a connection that I can practically feel through the screen. I almost feel like I'm watching them fall in love. It's not just physical attraction. I look at Rory-Jess and have similar thoughts that I do about Luke-Lorelai, that they implicitly understand each other, that they challenge each other to be better but accept each other's flaws, that there's this magnetic pull between them that not even time and various irritating plot contrivances can weaken. Jess is an insolent jerk too often back then, but as we've established, all of the characters' flaws tend to be exaGGerated. I have to admit that keeping in mind how much more mature and thoughtful he becomes later on makes me a bit more tolerant of his adolescent obnoxiousness. Maybe my own experiences and CW shows have desensitized me to teen behavior, but I actually don't see Jess as that bad in season 2, and even then I see his good points - he's smart, resourceful, thinks for himself, and when it comes down to it, I don't doubt that he does genuinely care about Rory and Luke. Maybe I'm too ready to forgive what a defiant wiseass he is, but I've known my fair share of teens like Jess who lashed out due partly to pain and anger but became happy and productive adults. If I had been brought up by Liz and her rapidly rotating slew of assh*le significant others, I'd have had many of Jess's same issues with trust, communication and attitude. But maybe I'm being too easy on him because I'm so taken by the Rory-Jess chemistry and because I now know when I watch that he evolves while nearly everyone else regresses. And as a charter member of the But Rory was ALWAYS Kind of Awful club, I have to admit that I had forgotten how much more likable less awful she used to be. She always has her share of issues - fearing conflict to the point where she lets others take the blame, the way she represses too much until she suddenly does something really impulsive and unwise, and her borderline callous obliviousness and lack of honesty about how she really feels and therefore how she treats people. Even during the high school years, the writers do her no favors by giving her little rewards that she doesn't seem to deliberately strive for or even necessarily want. The Puffs immediately like and accept her without her trying. She wins the class vice-presidency that she had to be persuaded into accepting at the last minute. Tristan remains interested in her despite her continually blowing him off. The entire town adores her seemingly for no real reason other than because she's moderately polite and reads books. Then of course there's her getting into Harvard, Yale and Princeton. I know none of these would be that big a deal on their own, but taken as a whole, it all adds up to things being unrealistically easy for Rory, which is never the recipe for creating the most believable and rootable characters. And I'm not even getting into the later years, like the cringey ridiculousness in season 6 with people having to beg Rory to take the editorship of Yale Daily News despite the fact that she had dropped out and not even shown up there the previous semester. AND - no, not getting into it :-) I think the point I was trying to make when I started typing the above paragraph way too many minutes ago was that Rory did always have flaws and was always a bit mishandled by the writers, but back then she also had qualities that I really love and relate to, and it makes all the difference. Unlike some others, I don't blame Logan and his douchey frat boy hangers on. I think that by then Rory had already changed, in ways the writers intended and maybe some they didn't, and the fact that she'd gravitate towards those people and their lifestyle was symptomatic of that change, not the cause. You can tell from the beginning that the writers were always going to show Rory exploring her grandparents' world. [The writers really do see different socioeconomic classes as entirely different worlds, galaxies even, which in my experience is another exaGGerated aspect of the series] I get why that's part of the narrative, but I just happen not to enjoy watching Rory immerse herself in the lifestyle her mother left behind, and I think they could have done it in a different way while allowing Rory to retain more of the qualities that made her so much more likeable (TO ME!!) during high school. And she and Logan should have been over a lot earlier, but maybe that's just wishful thinking. I got so caught up talking about Jess, Rory and Jess-Rory that I forgot another supremely unpopular opinion: generally speaking, I actually prefer to rewatch the episodes without Emily and Richard or where they just make a brief appearance. They're interesting characters played by superb actors, and there's no denying their importance to the show's themes and storylines. But GG is my relaxant and mood elevator, the tv equivalent of a warm blanket and hot chocolate, and Emily and Richard's presence tends to stress me out. The conflicts between them and Lorelai start to seem too repetitive, and I usually get where both sides are coming from, but I also just want them to all move the heck on. I understand that family dysfunction is hard to break out of, but watching them have essentially the same arguments about the same issues for years tires me out! And like someone here observed, it's hard to find it that touching when they have lovely little moments and appear to make headway since we know that they always go sprinting right back to square one by the next episode. Major conflicts between Luke-Lorelai or Lorelai-Rory stress me out too. I know rationally that there's no story without conflict, but when it comes down to it, I just watch my favorite fictional people bonding and swapping clever references :-) I don't know which seasons are more or less popular, but I think season 2 is my favorite of all of them. And there are so many beautiful little LL moments for those of us who notice these things! TL;DR: 1. Rory's flaws were always in evidence, but back in early years her better qualities were more prominent, and I'm loving her again in spite of myself 2. I am shipping Jess and Rory and trying not to hate myself for it 3. Emily and Richard usually stress me out to the point where I find it hard to appreciate the great writing and acting 4. There are better shows than this one, and certainly less frustrating ones, but none that I've ever been as hopelessly addicted to!

This might earn me the Queen of Unpopularity crown - which I think I already secured back in elementary school, lol. Here it is: after rewatching the revival, I actually love the LL scenes overall. Their lack of communication was exaggerated, but what isn't exaggerated in ASP's universe, so I don't take it too much to heart. [Side note: class distinctions, the whole "the rich are DIFFERENT from you and me" thing, everyone's character quirks, the way people express their anger and jealousy, the way Lorelai and Rory consume a minimum of eight thousand calories a day and drink gallons of coffee with no repercussions - all that and more is exaggerated on GG to be funnier, more dramatic or just memorable and entertaining, so I don't watch expecting a very literal representation of the world. The show drives me less insane that way!] And yes, even though I understand that Luke represents 'old school' values and love him for it, I agree that it was silly how Luke, who in his own way is actually a smart man, seemed embarrassingly incapable of grasping the concept of surrogacy. That aside, LL had some lovely little domestic scenes, and the theme about being so comfortable with where you are in your relationship and life that you're in a state of inertia vs. being so restless that you're never content resonates with me. A lot of us can relate to that. I also can't help but wonder if the thing about LL wanting kids but never discussing it until it seems too late was ASP's way of hinting that they might be the ones to raise Rory's baby while Rory continues her grueling work schedule of churning out one brief article every 14 years in between flying back and forth from Europe to sleep with engaged men while supposedly in a relationship with another nice guy she treats like trash. Everything Rory-related annoys me at the moment, so I haven't given it much thought. I ended up loving LL in the revival more than I did since maybe late season 4 or early season 5 in the original series. Like Lorelai, I have a big head, so please keep that in mind when I'm fitted for my Queen of Unpopularity crown. ;) And no matter how many times I've watched their wedding scene in Fall, it still makes me cry!

I've always felt like ASP bases her show in a deliberately exaggerated "corner of the world" (shout out to one of my favorite GG songs!) where class distinctions are much more pronounced and impactful than they actually are in modern society. That's not to deny that class differences and preferential treatment still exist, which obviously they do. But sometimes ASP makes the wealthy seem like a whole different species. To ASP, the wealthy inhabit a society more similar to the 1800s than the 2000s, with different laws and totally different beliefs and values around every issue. The wealthy people I've worked for are a lot more similar to us "working class" folk, interact with a much wider cross-section of society, and do have accountability to the law, though they can afford better lawyers more likely to cut their clients a favorable deal, lol. So it makes sense to me that ASP would write Logan as never even having to appear in court. I just block out most of what the show says about socioeconomic class and basic finance by now, lol. It's even worse when she tries to depict Rory as a plucky working class heroine instead of one of the more privileged characters I've ever seen on TV, but I'll save that rant for another post! I wanted to say I agree with nearly every word you all write about Rory. But most of you won't agree with this unpopular opinion so please be merciful :-) Here it is: Despite Lorelai's many flaws, I think she was a good mom and much more cut out for motherhood than Rory. Rory is organized and will do most of the "right things", showing up on time to the kids' appointments and events, keeping track of where her child is, etc. When it comes to that aspect of parenting, she'll do fine. And since she's extraordinarily privileged whether or not the show will consistently acknowledge that, the child will be provided for. But when it comes to ethics and values, healthy communication and emotional connection, knowing when and how to be nurturing and when and how to be stern, I honestly think Rory will be an absolute train wreck as a mom. At least Lorelai has genuine warmth and resilience. Rory is a lot more detached and...whatever the antonym of "resilient" is. Thanks for letting me get that out!

Yup, Rory's love interests were all pretty terrible. But then again so was Rory, even when the writers and their characters failed to acknowledge it. That's the thing about the revival imo - part of why it was unpleasant to watch was because it wasn't this out of character depiction of Rory but actually a more honest focus on who Rory has been since early on in the series. She cheats, she lies, she plays the victim rather than owning up to her mistakes and flaws, she's ungrateful and spoiled, she's passive and then takes the credit for her achievements while letting others take the blame for her mistakes, she needs to be worshiped and have every single thing go her way and then melts down completely when the world doesn't comply, and she's strangely lacking in real compassion and empathy for most people. The revival highlighted things about Rory that were always there but which used to be easier to avoid seeing. I'm not saying she's an evil irredeemable person, but she became an extremely hard character for me to like and cheer for. I disagree with the idea that Rory was ASP's fall guy/woman and scapegoat. Lorelai and Emily's flaws were much more directly acknowledged in the scripts and by other characters. Rory was still regarded as an angel, and not just by her adoring mother, but the whole town, Emily's DAR friends and nearly everyone else we were supposed to like. Even after the town found out that she cheated with Dean while he was married to Lindsay, the only minor repercussion was Lindsay's own mother being justifiably annoyed - and then the woman was promptly informed she was "out of line." It would have been interesting to see Rory's loved ones and the town that worshiped her really rethink who Rory is and help to hold her responsible for her actions, but that was one of many potential opportunities that the writers squandered.

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Yes! You get to ask the new one!

12, but I love every single one of these!

Paris! They would both annoy me, but Paris is so brilliant and resourceful that she might have good ideas about how to get us out of that elevator more quickly :) Would you rather be trapped in that same malfunctioning elevator with Jess or Logan?

Would you rather be trapped in an elevator with Lorelai or Rory?

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