Please talk more about Jeff x Shirley please please
AND I WILL-
Shirley is comfortable around Jeff not only because she doesn’t have to feel responsible for his decisions all the time, but because she can be herself around him. In the foosball episode he tells her the few times she’s “been a little bad” have been the times he likes her the most. And my point with that is not that promoting someone’s flaws or wrong decisions is a good thing, but that Jeff enjoys Shirley as person both when she is trying hard to do the right thing and when she slips up, because when she slips up, he relates to her more. She’s not angelic, but she’s always trying to be as good as she can be, and that’s more inspiring to him than Annie’s pedestal and Britta’s ideals. So she can breathe a little easier around him because he's not going anywhere.
OH. And Jeff feels exactly as pressured into Shirley’s way as the rest of the group does when she’s being manipulative, but the difference between the others and Jeff is that he doesn’t melt or bend backward as easily because he’s a lawyer, so he knows what being manipulative is really about—control. He knows Shirley has control issues because he has control issues, and he has control issues because he’s scared all the time, and he knows Shirley has control issues because she is scared all the time, so he can stand up to her and talk to her like an equal when she tries to control him. He calls her out for being manipulative more often than anyone else, and when he does, she wakes up and has to think about what she’s doing and why, and that’s improvement. AND IT’S THE SAME THING SHE DOES FOR HIM.
He changes his behavior for Annie because he cares what she thinks about him, because his ego can’t look at a person like Annie and allow her to think ill of him. Being part of her fantasies of a male lead is a boost to his self-esteem, and he’s very insecure. He changes his behavior for Britta because he A. wants to sleep with Britta, and B. because again, he’s very insecure, and if he can’t get the blonde to want him, or speak highly of him, what is he? It’s all about him him him him. And it rarely lasts more than an episode. The two other leading women have to literally whine and bully him into changing his behavior.
All Shirley ever has to do is ask. And sometimes not even talk, just be herself. Have you noticed that?
When Pierce tries to sue her over ownership of their small sandwich business, Annie urges Jeff to get involved, Jeff refuses, and Britta nods when Annie reprimands him. But later, all Shirley has to do is sit next to him while he’s reading, say hi, and he knows exactly what she wants. And he knows the way she usually starts manipulating: singsong sweet-talking, and he teases her for it, and when he calls her out and gives her a very cute gotcha look, she immediately drops the act, talks normal. He doesn’t say no, he at first maturely tries to help her with some peacemaking advice he knows she’ll understand (where was this suggestion when Annie told him to get involved?), but then Pierce is Pierce and it’s obvious he’s going to cause problems for Shirley regardless. Jeff hides behind his book and immediately takes the case for Shirley and she just giggles at him, it’s adorable.
When Shirley wanted Jeff to stop fighting a guy on December 10th, he did not let her tell him what to do (which is a rejection she needed to experience), and when he started talking to her like an equal, she talked back like an equal. She was mad at him, she kicked him out of her party, he went to the fight and the second he saw the bracelet she made for him on his wrist he decided Shirley was more important than what he wanted and threw the fight. Then Shirley (with the help of the group) decides to go and watch his fight, sees he is throwing it, and decides Jeff is more important than having her way and decides to back him (not my favorite episode message-wise, but super fun and the first time I think we see this ship flourish).
When Jeff is representing Shirley in that case against Pierce, he’s given the opportunity to back out of her corner to protect his future career, and before he can make any decisions, Shirley considers Jeff and the potential consequences for him of helping her without any hint from him, and she tells him straightforwardly that she wants him to have what he wants, and she genuinely does. And he sees that. And Jeff does not have to be ordered to do the right thing or want the right thing or think the right thing, because Shirley already is, and she is there for him, and he chooses to do the right thing because Shirley did the right thing, and he cares more about Shirley than about himself. Without hope of anything in return, which is not how we are shown that he thinks of that kind of transaction when Britta or Annie are on the other side of it.
When he insults Shirley by implying she never has anything he needs in Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism, all she does is look at him and he immediately backtracks and apologizes and realizes where he's wrong.
Shirley doesn’t have to do anything or say anything to bring out the best in Jeff. She doesn’t have to intentionally try to fix him or flirt with him. She’s just herself, and she cares about him unconditionally, and who she is as a person inspires the best in him. Jeff cares about Shirley for Shirley, not for anything she can give him. It’s a choice, and it comes naturally to him. That’s closer to love than anything he ever does with any other romantic interest.
One of my favorite episodes is Anthropology 101 (specifically because of the implications for all my lil ships in the show) within the last big fighting scene for the group. Jeff doesn’t lose his cool until Shirley says “What is wrong with you, Jeffery?” and then he loses his temper. Britta has been playing with him, Annie literally punched him in the face (deserved it), and he does not rise to either, but when Shirley’s opinion of him is loudly expressed, then he starts yelling at people. It’s almost like the person whose opinion matters to him most publicly lowering is what makes him snap. Or something.
More: In Social Psychology, we see that they have the same sense of humor and they find it just as hard to enter into small talk as the other person does. In Origins of Vampire Mythology, Jeff expressly describes Shirley as someone he invites to do things with him that he is afraid to tell anyone else about (also says she’s the only one who really understands him). In Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism, not only is it revealed that they briefly knew each other as children, but they recognize that they both admire the other person exactly as they are now and that they can, as ever, be 100% safe with one another. In App Development and Condiments, Jeff calls Shirley out on being manipulative again, and she calls him out over his need to be the center of attention, and they both recognize aloud that they want the same thing for the same reasons: control, because they’re scared, and again they see that the other person gets them and can be a safe place.
I could go on (about Abedison or TroyBritta or more of Jeff/Shirley or blahhhhh) but Tumblr legit will not let me write a lot in Asks for some reason, sorry! THANK YOU for the platform-
