#gilrich

PTHBBB RICHARD & GILFOYLE!!! I have so many feelings about them and I desperately want them to be better friends canonically. Maybe S4 will grant my wishes, but probably the opposite. Here’s some misc. rambling about them:

Sometimes when Gilfoyle realizes Richard is going stir crazy cause he hasn’t left the house in days, Gilfoyle makes a point to try and get him out of the house – he’ll invite him along to go grab some coffee, or tell Richard he’s too high to drive and make him take him out for groceries or some other errand, just as an excuse to get Richard out of the house so he doesn’t go into complete meltdown mode or succumb to severe depression.

Gilfoyle doesn’t like to make it known he’s doing it for Richard, honestly won’t even admit it to himself, and certainly wouldn’t want to conceptualize it as a ‘friend date’. He’s actually very concerned about Richard a lot, and generally has a good sense of his breaking points when Gilfoyle isn’t more wrapped up in his own personal stuff. He likes preventing things getting messy cause Richard can just kind of explode if left unchecked (he frames it as his own self-preservation, Richard-tantrums interrupt his own work flow!)

He likes getting Richard to take breaks from work (like, jesus, take the fucking evening off!), and is fond of having a couple of beers with him at the end of the day, cause it gets Richard’s mind off stuff and makes him relax and makes him way more reasonable to talk to. He can get tired of Dinesh all day long (the antagonism is exhausting), and quiet, chill conversations with Richard (and/or Erlich) are things he very much likes once in a while.

They’ll play games together sometimes, just the two of them, or the two of them and Erlich (Gilfoyle likes making Dinesh feel left out because he’s awful). Mostly card games or board games (Risk is a big one for them) vs. video games. Richard and Gilfoyle are both Magic fans, and table top RPG fans.

Gilfoyle very much wishes Richard would loosen up more and stop being such a garbage boy. He’ll happily invite Richard out with him to do stuff a lot, like go to concerts, go out to a bar with a friend who’s in town (yes, Gilfoyle has long distance friends even if he won’t call them that), etc., even if Richard never takes him up on the offer.

Mostly Gilfoyle likes having discussions with Richard (when Richard isn’t in a mood and being argumentative and pedantic at least), because other than Erlich and Tara, Richard is the only person Gilfoyle’s found that kind of gets him on a certain level and that he can really talk to about certain things. Richard is brilliant and Gilfoyle really does respect that part of him, and it makes him appreciate Richard despite all the obnoxious things about him.

They talk about books a lot, I brought up before they’d both have a lot of discussions about The Silmarillion (which would often get heated). But he likes that Richard can be kind of a challenge re: discussion, because he thinks very differently than Gilfoyle, but also very similarly in other ways, and Gilfoyle likes how Richard can get him to think differently sometimes – Richard can be surprisingly insightful in ways that can be kind of lost to Gilfoyle. He’s also way more idealistic than Gilfoyle, which honestly, Gilfoyle finds refreshing to have the optimistic view point sometimes (it’s one of the things he likes most about Tara, too).

They would probably have some kind of unofficial book club, every once in a while, they read the same things and talk about it – Dinesh gets all pissy that he’s being left out.

Gilfoyle also gets Richard wrapped up in discussions to try and bring him over to the left hand path. Richard points out that his evangelism re: Satanism is mighty Christian and that’s what usually gets Gilfoyle to drop it. Mostly Gilfoyle continues to bring it up because really needs someone to talk to about his values and beliefs who’s a challenge, because he needs the challenge and finds it important. Richard is generally more impartial, which Gilfoyle appreciates (he’s gotten Richard to admit he’s agnostic and Gilfoyle considers this a personal victory).

Of course they talk a lot about programming, because they’re programmers and they work together, but that’s a given.

Gilfoyle is always keeping more of an eye on Richard than Richard ever realizes -- I love how in S1E4 he’s the one watching Richard and saying “Pace yourself, buddy.” But at the same time, he doesn’t want to control Richard and is mostly willing to let Richard make his own mistakes. At TCD he’s the one who immediately notices Richard is getting into trouble with that girl before anyone else, so I really do think he’s often keeping an eye on him.

He’d step in when he was honestly worried about Richard if Jared or Erlich didn’t step in first -- In S3 when Richard slips and bashes his face into the table, he goes to get up with Jared and Dinesh and then settles back down once he sees the other two have it handled.

I headcanon Gilfoyle as an INTJ -- an INTJ that is very observant and actually p. Good at reading ppl -- but who is desperately trying to keep empathy turned off because it’s Inconvenient. When he tries, he’s good at picking up on cues, better than the rest of them by far, and he’s really good at telling when Richard is even mildly agitated or when Richard is freaking out just cause it’s an anxiety attack or when Richard is freaking out because there’s something worth stressing over -- Gilfoyle immediately goes into stress-mode-SE-grip the minute he sees that Richard’s anxiety is from a place of real-world-rational-stress -- he knows when it’s bad (I need to make a Gilfoyle post soon I love him but never talk about him).

When my AU du jour includes Jarfoyle (even as just better friends), the two of them always fuss about Richard and Gilfoyle constantly has to nudge Jared into doing things to take care of Richard when Jared isn’t even being as observant because he doesn’t have Gilfoyle’s perception and can get too wrapped up in his work. Gilfoyle doesn’t want to admit to caring about Richard, but admitting to Jared to go care about Richard for him is fine.

To keep following THAT tangent, when Gilfoyle really cares about someone, i.e. being in a relationship with them, he kind of absorbs their wants and needs as his own when he’s around them because that’s What You Do and it’s the practical way to deal with his own weird relationship with empathy -- long way of saying, if Gilfoyle ends up in a relationship with Jared, he’d DEFINITELY be absorbing Jared’s feelings toward Richard and desire to fuss over him, without any of the desire to actually externalize it so Gilfoyle would be very mixed up over Richard lmao (this reading isn’t canon based to any real degree, just a pet headcanon).

Anyway, GILFOYLE LOVES RICHARD!!! He really, really does. And Richard has really, really hurt him but Gilfoyle stays loyal and it’s that’s … how does that not absolutely crush you lmao.

Richard makes him feel important and needed, but gives him the kind of space Gilfoyle is comfortable with -- Gilfoyle is pretty happy with the state of their friendship most of the time, except for the fact that Richard is not very mindful of him and he does have a bad habit of really fucking with Gilfoyle’s trust. Richard is always oblivious to how much he hurts Gilfoyle, cause Gilfoyle just does not externalize his feelings and it’s kind of on both of them with the not communicating problem.

IDK I really conceptualize their relationship as Gilfoyle being Richard’s big brother, and feeling kind of responsible for him yet not wanting that responsibility -- often wanting to guide Richard in a way. He wants Richard to be their leader, he doesn’t want to be the leader himself, but he seems comfortable advising. Sometimes (often) he wants to fuck with Richard cause it’s what you do and because Richard is the helpless stupid baby and is Erlich’s favorite and fucking with Richard means fucking with Erlich.

He’d often feel obligated to wanna do what’s best for the company, and for Richard, despite it not always being in line with what’s best for himself and it would make him feel pretty torn a lot because Gilfoyle is such a self-possessed person (e.g. “RIGBY”).

Gilfoyle thinks Richard is brilliant and really admires him and wants to be a part of Pied Piper -- he would NEVER involve himself if he didn’t really see great potential in Richard, didn’t see something worth going off his own path for. But Richard, being Richard, endlessly frustrates Gilfoyle by not living up to the potential Gilfoyle sees in him and Gilfoyle doesn’t have the emotional maturity and skills to nurture that potential in Richard or spend time fighting him. He bails sometimes, but he never really gives up on Richard and always comes back. They both need each other and neither would ever admit it.