Rory Writes A TV Show
Disclaimer: With the upcoming revival, we all know it's not mine. Or yours. Or ours.
Summary: Lorelai and crew get a taste of Rory's talent when she writes a television series… AU. Ish. For a given value of "ish".
Genre: Parody/Humor
Rating: T
AN: In real life, alas, I've had a black hole sucking me into the abyss. The show revival means my ability to mock or change or abide by GG canon is suddenly in neutral. Shout out to both PurryCat and Brittaden for inspiration.
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"She wrote the whole thing," caroled Lorelai Gilmore, waving enthusiastically to passers-by. "This, my offspring, wrote the whole thing!"
Rory Gilmore, it must be admitted, preened a little as Stars Hollow residents cheered or hollered or waved at the typical Lorelai display of pride in her daughter. They had no idea, probably, what Lorelai meant, but that was fine. It was Stars Hollow. Confusion was the order of the day, and coherence was for other towns. Ones without Taylor Doose in charge, usually.
"Geez," groused Jess Mariano, exiting his uncle's diner with a trio of cups. "Coffee, coffee, more coffee."
"Yay!" squealed both Lorelai and Rory, grabbing cups.
Left with the smallest of the three takeaway cups, Jess shrugged, and locked the diner door behind himself. "Now can we go?"
"Marching to victory, glory, fame, maybe independent fortune!" sang Lorelai happily.
"Now I know why you two never got married," muttered Jess with a sardonic roll of his eyes. "I wouldn't want my name on that, either."
Both Gilmore women stopped in their high-heeled tracks. Jess froze, wondering what rebuke he'd receive, when a baritone grated from behind him, "Who says we never got married?"
Jess's double-take was worth the snorting of coffee through the Gilmore noses. Then Luke Danes burst out laughing, slapped Jess's shoulder fondly, and put an arm around Lorelai. "Kids?" she asked reflexively.
"Finally asleep. That nanny your mother rented for us? She told them a story in Norwegian."
Lorelai's forehead scrunched up. "Okay? Norwegian?"
"I'm getting one of those language courses, in case it works again," muttered Luke. "Two hours playing ball, they should've passed out after the minestrone."
"Your fault," said Lorelai serenely. "All that healthy food, keeps growing boys active."
Scowling, Luke rearranged his ever-present but aged blue ball cap. "Let's get this over with."
"Gee, thanks, Luke," snorted Rory with a flip of her hair. "This is huge! I wrote a TV show! They made it! It's on! Can't you even try to be happy?"
"Relax, kiddo," said Lorelai to her fully adult daughter, and leaned over to peck her temple. "You know he only watches sports and news."
"Movies," added Luke gruffly.
"As long as they have phasers and lasers."
"All your movies have the same plot," retorted Luke congenially. "Boy meets girl, girl hates boy, boy gets girl anyway. Visual junk food."
Lorelai opened her mouth to defend herself, and popped her mouth shut. Clearly, that point went to Luke.
"So you jump out of a press gig in DC and land in Hollyweird," said Jess to break the momentary tension, and pushed open the door to Miss Patty's studio. "Cliché, Gilmore."
"Three novels with movie rights sold isn't cliché, Mariano?"
"Hey, two of those were indie film-makers, and that middle-aged pretty boy who wants an Oscar, he'll never make a movie out of it that anyone'll recognize." Sotto voce, Jess added, "I hope."
A good portion of the usual circle of friends and not-quite-enemies sat in the studio, gaping at the sixty-inch big-screen TV Kirk had loaned for the occasion. Taylor was fussing about the ambient lighting, though his gestures were slowed by age and arthritis, and Babette was shrieking laughter at something Miss Patty whispered. All in all, it seemed a typical Stars Hollow night.
Lorelai abruptly veered left, tugging Luke with her. "Sookie! Seats!"
"Promised to save them," said Sookie, and removed two alarmingly spiked items from the folding chairs in question. "I saved them. Aren't these amazing?"
"What," said Luke for the masses, "are those?"
Whisking the items into a large bag with mittened hands, Sookie said casually, "Jackson's African horned melons."
Several expressions fought for dominance as Lorelai repeated, "African horned… Y'know what? Never mind. Snacks?"
Luke tugged a bag from his ragged old coat's pocket. The mix of nuts and dried fruit would once have earned scorn. Lorelai squealed softly, kissing his cheek. "Oh, you put in chocolate pieces!"
"Look again," said Luke smugly, eyes twinkling.
Lorelai gasped. "Chocolate-covered coffee beans! Oh my God, if we weren't in public, I'd ravish you!"
Red-faced but grinning, Luke suggested, "Hold that thought."
Giggling madly, Lorelai cuddled tight into his shoulder by way of acceptable public ravishment.
The lights flickered.
"Let the show begin!" declared Taylor Doose grandly, and the super-huge TV screen sprang to life.
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An hour later, the lights came up as the television screen blinked to dark blankness.
The applause was thunderous, although Lorelai herself wasn't sure if she was clapping in praise of her daughter or in gratitude that the show was over.
Rory turned big blue eyes on Stars Hollow, lower lip caught in a hopeful pout.
Lorelai nudged Luke, hissing, "Say something nice!"
"She's your kid," was the cryptic reply.
As the silence stretched to uncomfortable tension, Taylor stood up and cleared his throat. Kirk Gleason beat him to it, leaping out of his seat to pump Rory's hand until Rory's shoulder popped. "As a fellow artist in the visual media, I congratulate you. That was meaningful."
Rory's forehead puckered. She turned toward her best friend of many years, but Lane was busy pretending to tie a shoe.
Mrs. Kim, steel-haired and steel-eyed as ever, announced, "Very good. No sex, no drugs, no inappropriate material."
"Did we watch the same show?" blurted Jess Mariano. "That was crap. How does a teenager get away with being more together than her mother, when it's pretty clear the mother had to have her…" Remembering his audience, Jess modified that to, "stuff together to buy a house and go to college and raise a kid all at once while she's working full-time. I mean, c'mon, the mom's a freaking hero, and you wrote her like a joke."
"Yes," said Lorelai sadly, so quietly only Luke heard. "She did."
"And those grandparents!" Jess went on, gesticulating energetically, while Rory wilted. "Who sues to adopt their teenage granddaughter after they disowned their daughter for having the kid? What is this, some screwball take on Cinderella? No, hold on…" Jess fumed, raking a hand over his dark hair in a manner reminiscent of his uncle Luke. "Little lost princess swept away to a life of grandeur and magic just when she turns fourteen? Where were they the first fourteen years? And how did the doting father turn out to be doting if she hasn't seen him in five years?"
Rory's pallor shaded into crimson.
"Were you trying for magical realism? I gotta tell you, Rushdie and Marquez do it way better, hell, Allende, Morrison, do I have to write you a book?"
"It wasn't good?" whispered Rory.
Lorelai drew a breath to throw herself on the grenade of her daughter's ego.
Lane stood, and put an arm around Rory, and said crisply, "I think what Jess means is… Maybe it was a little too autobiographical and wish fulfillment-y."
"Fulfillment-y?" questioned Jess.
"You want to do this?" snapped Lane, and Jess shut up, retreating to a folding chair to sit with folded arms and glaring eyes.
"Lane…?"
"I think the big question," said Lane heroically, "is what you do with it next? Like, she gets to the fancy mansion and finds out it's really awful and she ends up missing the little town and the Greasy Fork diner, and the pineapple-shaped fountain? Y'know, that whole beware-the-granted-wish moral of the story sort of thing?"
Sookie rubbed Lorelai's upper back, all she could reach with Lorelai hiding in Luke's coat as much as possible. "Yeah, is this the first course or the whole meal?"
"I don't know, I didn't write the second episode," said Rory unevenly. "I wrote the fourth one, and most of the fifth through tenth, but I haven't really talked to the other writers."
"Brilliant," scoffed Jess. "Collaborative effort at its best. So you haven't discussed backstory, character, story arc, continuity, any of that, with anyone else who's writing the show?"
"I'm a co-creator! I'm busy!" yelped Rory, looking wildly for help, and finding something suspiciously like pity, the evil twin of contempt.
"Aw, doll, don't worry," said Babette kindly, and heaved herself to her feet to offer Rory a comforting hug. "We'll keep watching, won't we?" She glared at the town, voice shrilling. "Won't we!"
People agreed, and began to gather up their things, chatting in whispers. Rory bee-lined to her mother and Luke. "Was it bad?"
"No," judged Luke, "they seemed like real people." After a moment, he scratched the back of his neck and suggested, "A little too much like real people."
"Mom?" whispered Rory.
Lorelai straightened, plastered on a wide smile, and hugged her daughter. "Look at you! Creating TV shows! Swimming pools and movie stars! Pretty soon you'll be blonde and tanned and look like, um, like…"
"A bimbo," suggested Jess dryly.
Luke swatted Jess's shoulder. "Be nice."
"Can't. I gotta be honest."
"Not everyone could get a job in Hollywood," Lorelai defended her daughter, or at least, the basic truth. "I think it'll be great, I mean, I'm sure Rory wrote a lot of political funny stuff into it, it's set in a wealthy suburb of Washington, DC, after all, lots of potential for goofy good times, and, um, Scarlett O'Hara accents!"
Rory sighed, embracing her mother hard. "Thanks, Mom. I knew you'd get it."
"Oh, she got it, all right, right in the..." muttered Jess, earning a not-so-gentle swat to the head from Luke.
"Like, not-so-real housewives," Lorelai gamely soldiered on. "And, um, scuttlebutt, which is a really funny word, who scuttles a butt?"
Luke met Jess's gaze over both Gilmore heads. "Got it," said Jess. "Triple chocolate milkshakes for them, beer for us."
"Yep," said Luke, "and if you see a mob with pitchforks?"
Jess held up a hand, the other over his heart. "Never heard of a Rory Gilmore, no idea where she is."
Eyes shifting to his chattering, overly bright-eyed Lorelai, Luke grunted. "Greasy Fork. Geez."
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AN: Magical realism as a literary genre is one of my favorites; all authors mentioned are real, and write in that genre. (Salman Rushdie; Gabriel Garcia Marquez; Isabel Allende; Toni Morrison.) Also, there really are African horned melons. Seriously.
There are also pineapple-shaped fountains. Charleston's Waterfront Park Pineapple Fountain. Once seen, never forgotten. Sorta like that Embracing Couple statue in London's St. Pancras station. Or a naked grandparent. Take your pick.