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[bookelfe]

Aside from OTPs, lacewood also asked me for my Top 5 Platonic BFF Pairings, which is an awesome question but tricky because I am going to try not to overlap with any of the BFF pairings I talked about when I did my top five BFF moments. To make narrowing it down easier, I am also very strictly ruling out anyone I think might be even a little bit not

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[kindness_says]

...Sidebar, I would venture to say that strong platonic friendship is a totally different kind of being in love, actually, but you read my point.

P.S. Unrelatedly, I don't really "side with" Shawn or Henry, per se, (I kind of don't believe in side-taking in those relationships, I think) but I do probably more often go, "Sweetie...what?????" at Shawn's reasons for being bizarrely suspicious.** Henry I just sort of go, "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, oh, Henry," even though he is occasionally quite as ridiculous (in a different way). I think it's a little bit like how I feel about the Gilmore family relationships, probably because Lorelai and Shawn have similarly...kind of stunted? relationships with their parents? where they never seem to have evolved into actual adult not-quite-equal-but-far-closer-than-when-I-was-a-teenager relationships?

**I will say, though, I have a lot of sympathy for Shawn and why he is the way he is, a lot of which OF COURSE has to do with Henry (and Madeleine). But I also think (much like my parents, and most parents, imo) Henry has always tried to do what he believes is best for his son. Things just don't always work exactly as you think they should.

[bookelfe]

. . . you make a lot of good points about parental relationships, but man, now I am stuck on the fact that I haven't even seen a lot of Gilmore Girls and now I just want the crossover where Henry and Emily go on a date.

[kindness_says]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

But Emily/Richard!!!! =(

But, omg, LAUGHING FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER, MAYBE I WILL WRITE THAT CROSSOVER AUUUGH HILARIOUS TIMES.

Makes me think of my giant cracked-out AU of doom that I started inventing instead of studying for finals last semester. In which Zoey Bartlet was Shawn's sister because the idea of their very different relationships with their AU-shared father CRACKED ME UP. Also, the flip of Gus-and-Shawn's-sister.

[kindness_says]

omg, omg, when Emily is dating people during that separation period and Henry...............HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, oh man, and Shawn and Lorelai's reactions!!!!!!!!!!

...although, I don't know how we'd get them to meet. I suppose the Gilmores would have to come to Santa Barbara. Henry would never go to Hartford.

[bookelfe]

The Gilmores could totally go to Santa Barbara on vacation! Or maybe just Emily, during the separation, and then she comes back and is like "so I met this guy on vacation" and Lorelai's face is like this: @____________@

[kindness_says]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

OMG, LOLARIOUS PHONE CALLS.

Emails? Do they email? GG is so behind the times.

[ceitfianna]

Hopping in to say that's a perfect description of Lorelai and Emily's weird relationship. That's why Lorelai and Rory feels so different, they're more mature with how they treat each other.

Though it does kind of fall apart when Rory turns bratty in the last few seasons, but point still holds. They regress and fix things in a way that Lorelai and Emily never do.

[kindness_says]

Yeah, I think Lorelai's kind of stuck-at-teenager in a lot of ways (Shawn, too). Though they both grow over the course of their respective shows.

Lorelai & Rory: I mean, Rory has similar moments to Lorelai where I'm like, "WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?????" but then, she was raised by Lorelai, so it does make sense... (but that has more to do with guys) I was actually just thinking about Rory in the last couple seasons today, because I'm in school right now and in a place where I JUST WANT TO QUIT FLJDASGSFDLJSA (but I won't!), and I'm sort of suddenly understanding what happens to Rory much better than before (when I, probably slightly influenced by my very...responsible? bestie, who watched GG first, used to always be like, "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? WHY WOULD YOU EVER???")...although, admittedly, my trajectory is a lot more what-do-I-want-to-do-with-my-life and a lot less now-I'll-go-steal-a-boat-with-my-questionably-reliable-boyfriend. x_x BUT ANYWAY, um, yeah, I've always found Lorelai and Rory's relationship interesting in that respect, the uh...ups and downs of how they switch from friends to parent-child, and also Rory's relationship with her grandparents, and how that's different...and how Rory forms a grown-up relationship with them, too, in a way, that's very different from Lorelai's with her parents ever is.

It's kind of like how my dad still comes home and brings me, like, stuffed animals and keychains; I think it's because he hasn't lived full-time with me since I was six. XD (Though, I'm sure it's also partly the general convention that dads don't like their little girls growing up.) (Don't worry, we're not nearly as dysfunctional as the Gilmores (usually), and anyway I was an actual teenager much more recently than Lorelai.)

[ceitfianna]

*nods* Family's are so strange and oh yes, those moments of ah what am I doing? I had that when I was working on a masters' thesis and realized, this isn't for me. It took me a while to go, wait, not a disappointment just not the right choice.

Now I'm near finishing a masters in library science which makes sense though I still have to navigate bureaucracy. There's something about the pressure of careers plus classes that isn't healthy but we're all expected to go through it.

For my family, I'm the youngest and the glue in a blended family so my brothers who know me better than my sister give me good gifts. My sister and I just have an odd relationship due to so many years difference and she's rarely lived with me.

[kindness_says]

Heeeee. Your family sounds like something I would have devised in fictional-family-tree form and been very curious about.

I'm an only. My parents are great (which is to say, they're both very intelligent and accomplished people, and adorable together and apart and just generally very amusing ahahaha oh man parents), but there's a pretty significant cultural and generational difference. Which is to say, we actually share some interests (I'm very much the product of them, plus I have these hilarious moments where I talk about something (say, A Few Good Men), and it turns out my dad owns and can quote it, or I'm watching HIMYM and my mom is like "Oh hey! It's Doogie Howser!" and I'm like, "...What. oh right, you watched stuff like Growing Pains and Cheers and apparently this when I was a baby."), but it's...really good overall that they don't give me proper birthday/holiday gifts because it's really like, jewelry works, and if I specifically ask for something, great, and if I don't it's just best they just give me cash. It's kind of depressing from my friends' very American perspectives but it doesn't particularly bother me. XD It's like...they know I like theatre, so they'll get me a coffee table book about Broadway, you know? Which is kind of cool, but...it's really different from if they actually knew me better.

THIS COMMENT GOT LONGER THAN INTENDED AND POSSIBLY WENT OFF TOPIC SORRY.

How much older are your siblings?

[ceitfianna]

Hee, my family does sort of look like something someone would have made up. From my father's first marriage, my older sister and brother are fourteen and I think ten years older than I am. While from my mother's first marriage, my other brother is seven years older than I am. So I've had times when its just me living with my parents so I have a different relationship with them than some of my other siblings. It all works out but there are times that I realize there are some older hurts that surface at weird times. Then I go into mediator mode.

*nods* I'm kind of the same way with my parents, my father sends me clippings he thinks are interesting and I forward them articles. We also do gifts like jewelery and fun stuff but I just enjoy spending time with them. Its all very odd, but surprisingly it all seems to work. Also both my parents are older than most other parents of my generation sine they're currently retired so that's always added some interesting twists.

[kindness_says]

Well, with older siblings from earlier marriages, that makes sense (the older parents bit, I mean). Your family sounds really interesting; how old were your siblings when their parents divorced/remarried? (Um, not to grill you or anything. XD) Also, yeah, I can definitely see how your relationship would be different because in a way you're an oldest, youngest, AND only (although, in practice, it would have depended how your siblings' custody arrangements were, I guess, but I was thinking of when they all hit adulthood and you were still a teenager).

It's great that you enjoy spending time with them! I enjoy my parents most of the time, too, now, which is really nice, but there are definitely still times when it's like, wow, the highs are high and the lows are low. But hopefully as I figure myself out more and more and they worry less (it's a lot of, like, fear of the unknown, and fear of me not being okay, which is all normal parent stuff but the former is particularly strong with them I think because culturally their lives were very structured and I have a lot of choices and interests and blah blah blah my diamond shoes are too tight), it'll get better. I've definitely gotten better at talking to them in a non-obnoxious/accusatory/adolescent way. Though I think they often read into what I'm saying wrong, too, because of past guilt and things I felt when I was younger and such... (this part feels like it ties back to Gilmore Girls, hee!)

[ceitfianna]

My older brother and sister were in their teens when my parents married and have always lived with them. Then my brother Aaron was younger so while I was in elementary school he was in high school. His father had joint custody and lived nearby so I can remember going to drop him off with my mother. I was born about a year after my parents married and at that point they'd been together about two or three years.

I think distance helps with parents, I love mine but I've lived abroad and gone to college and lived on my own. That makes it easier to call them and go, ah, can I do this and they say, yes? We'll support you and help but you can do this. As you can tell, I think I'm older than you by a bit so time does help.

[kindness_says]

HAHAHA, yeah, we definitely get along better when we're not in the same house (although it's also better now since I've been out of the house for school, and so even when I am home they've given up trying to get me to go to bed at, like, ten). Just tonight I was talking about how I may move to California after graduation, and my mom was like, "What?! Our only child?!" (she was kind of kidding, though; I had just been whining about the fact that I'm almost on break and have been kind of whining about wanting to run away to California (admittedly not to them) for like a month, and they're tomorrow morning and FORGOT TO EVEN ASK IF I WOULD BE ON VACATION, GRUMBLE, WHAT JACKASSES, AND THEN MY DAD HAD THE AUDACITY TO BE LIKE YOU CAN STILL COME WE'LL BUY A TICKET NOW AND I WAS LIKE WELL I CAN'T NOW I HAVE LOCAL COMMITMENTS GOD!!!!! I'm totally kidding, btw, but I was whining, and being like, WHAT. I AM YOUR ONLY CHILD YOUR FLESH AND BLOOD DDDDDD=) and I was like, "You can move, too! You can live with near me!"

[ceitfianna]

Yeah, family is always weird but space does wonders for making that seem nice as opposed to too teeth gnashing.