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mrs-nate-humphrey · 3 years

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how do u think dan and blair's relationship would be during derena's loveless marriage? do you think that they would have a affair (even if it is not a physical one) or that dan would still be in love with her, for example?

this was such a fun qn! (answer's a bit depressing, as all post-canon stuff tends to be.) under the cut :D

it depends entirely on those 5 years, i feel. it's really easy (& fun!) to be like 'ah yes dan never stopped loving blair' (& it's not that unlikely, either) but five years is plenty of time to get over someone, too, so i think it's super ambiguous. when s6 ends, before the time skip, dan and blair loathe each other - and understandably so!! they both betrayed each other's trust in a really big way, so that would need to be fixed in some way.

my brain being mine, i am always pushing the dan in my head towards the nate in my head, because i really do think once we're post-canon, anything can happen! but yeah, i love post-canon dan/blair too for the reason of like... canon being the way it is, i don't think dan OR blair would be happy/satisfied in their marriage.

we see how chuck treats blair so much in canon. he prioritises his business over her, and that never changes, it's that way even in s6 which was supposed to be a chair fix-it of some sort, i guess. and at times he is violent and controlling and possessive of her. none of this is good, obviously. and i think in some ways, it would make sense for blair to gravitate towards dan, because dan has been a source of stability and help for her before, when her life was crumbling around her, he was her safe space ("i would never have survived the last month without you"). dan has seen her at her worst and still believed in her (despicable b, anyone?) so i do think just by the way derena/chair marriages work out, dan and blair would have ample opportunity to gravitate towards each other - especially given they run in the same social circles now or whatever, blair and serena are best friends, serena and chuck are step-siblings (everyone and their mother knows how i feel about that).

potential doesn't necessarily mean it would actually happen, though, especially given how things ended for them last time. dan could very well be like 'blair i'm not doing this for you again' or whatever - though it's very unlikely, just given his character, and how easily he forgives people he cares about (case in point, vanessa, when she returns in 1x06). dan and blair ultimately get each other on a wavelength nobody else gets them - which is what is so fun about them as a friendship or a relationship. they both have similar taste in art/movies, have engaging conversations, intellectually stimulate each other, and all that. i could see them both missing that, even when they're like "that relationship was a total flop i could never do it again", even then, they would be like "yeah but that museum we visited together..... the points that were made in that conversation...."

like i think they would miss each other, a lot. as people MORE than as romantic partners. dan would miss his friend blair, and blair would miss her friend dan. but they're BOTH incredibly stubborn, and they both also hurt the other REALLY badly. so that would need to be worked through at some point (maybe during the 5 year flash forward) then i think a dair affair is actually really likely. they've always been good at denial and warped logic, after all; i could see them falling into each other out of mutual dissatisfaction and loneliness in their own marriages and that eventually grows into love.

but my personal favourite dan headcanon is that he wouldn't really be in love with blair during his married life. like i don't see him really pining over her. i see him feeling completely wrung out and emptied and dried, where love is concerned. dan and blair both love with all their heart, and for dan, i think after blair, he would feel like he could never love anyone again (yeah, not even blair) because of how shattering that heartbreak is (and how little he really got to heal, to be honest.) i think that'd explain the derena wedding, even, because if he's never going to get the sparkly romance feel, why not go for a pale imitation of it with the one person who's in the same boat, the one person who's seen all his bullshit and seen him at his most cruel and somehow still loves him?

blair, on the other hand, is married to chuck. who is a black hole when it comes to blair's big heart. chuck likes the fact that blair loves so wholly and completely and with so much of herself, and he wants all of blair's love, and all of blair. i don't think blair would end up with the same issue as dan, of 'how can i love', i think she'd know that she has a big heart, but she'd feel caged in by it perhaps. in a very 'chuck is the only person i haven't scared away; maybe i am Too Much for anyone else.'

if dan & blair's loathing/resentment for each other and the hurt they feel has been resolved, i think it is possible they could, despite trying so hard to avoid it, despite doing their BEST not to become dan-and-blair again, despite ALL that, they could end up falling in love. and it would be different from the first time, because they know what the worst thing they could do to each other is; because they've already done the worst thing they could do to the other. in that sense if they are able to get together now, they'd probably communicate better and be more realistic and be extremely stable. perhaps they would leave their marriages for each other.

but i think it's equally likely for dan to go, 'blair, i can't do this again, i am not enough of a person to help you, i have my own problems and i just cannot be your support system or rock anymore,' and maybe blair would go, 'i can help you too, dan,' but i don't see dan accepting her help, or even believing she could help him. something i think about a lot is dan's entire thing with losing milo, and the parallel that exists with blair's miscarriage. it could've been so easy for blair to use that parallel to form a connection with dan, for her to actively talk about milo or let him know that she gets it. instead, we don't get that at any point. the only mention of blair knowing about milo that we get which i remember is her 'look, it's georgina's baby!' at w - which is really mean, actually! dan doesn't take it to heart because he's all 'blair waldorf, whatever' but it's a depressing line because it shows that blair knew he had been hurt in that way and yet never came back to it. i'm bringing this up because i think that could probably play a role into like, dan wondering if blair has ever actually seen him in a bad place where he's really hurt and feels totally lost, and dan wondering if blair knows how to navigate that. because, well... serena has!! serena & dan are very much always holding hands when one of them hits rock bottom (whatever else they don't have, this is something they always did.)

i mean. i do think blair's a natural caretaker, but i think it's extremely possible dan wouldn't let her take care of him, you know? so yeah. my answer remains: depends on those 5 years of flash forward, entirely!! 50/50 either way.

#anon #meta #dair #anti derena #anti chair #anti chuck #it felt........... so good to write an essay like this KLHFDLKHGH #i feel like i am tumblr user dancommablair again lmao

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blairwaldcrf · 3 years

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if you know me, no you don’t - dan/nate 2k

Summary: dan/nate alternate to episode 4x02 from Nate's perspective for @bisexualdanhumphrey

Comment and read here on Ao3

Notes: we're pretending here that dan hasn't told lily/rufus yet thanks

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Nate Archibald, for better or worse, knew Chuck Bass better than few people on the Upper East Side ever would or could. (Or, especially after the spring, wanted to). This is why he isn’t surprised when the not so little black book contains the contact info of more than females. What does surprise Nate is that he’s almost tempted to use them. He doesn’t. Gossip Girl is always watching, after all. But it tempts him, and the fact he’s tempted at all makes him have more than two girls over one night ala a foursome that tires him out for more than a day.

But being tired doesn’t fix things any more than trying to dry his hair without an expensive blow dryer. So, one night after he finishes his routine call with Dan in a bar outside of the city and on the outskirts of Chuck’s usual haunts where he’s sure he can get away with it, he hooks up with a handsome brunette.

Nate pretends he isn’t nervous as they kiss, and indeed kissing does help the usual process begin anyway, but Victor-- at least filed under said name in the book-- gives him a smile as he pulls away. “We don’t have to do anything, you know.”

Maybe it’s the permission to just be that makes him finally give in, but within less than a full minute of saying a finally confident “I want to.” they’re in bed and the broken ice lends itself into something much, much hotter.

Nate had expected things to be both more simple and fast than they were. While he was good enough at foreplay with women, he’d been told it was required by Victor in instances like this. Not that he’s complaining, but it does happen to relate to the fact that he feels more comfortable staying in the bed for a moment in the afterglow of the climax

“I’m not gay, you know.” Nate says slowly, staring at the ceiling. “Not that there’s anything wrong with-- I just mean I really enjoy sex with women and--,”

“Do you think your friend is gay?” Victor asks, an odd expression on his face.

“Chuck?” Nate laughs. “God, no. He’s just-- I mean he’s just Chuck. Pleasure-seeking doesn’t exactly have limits with him.”

Looking for an answer he can’t seem to find, Victor shrugs. “Maybe you’re just seeking pleasure too.”

Confusion is key to Serena Vanderwoodsen breakups, so who was he to say Victor is wrong? Hadn’t he already upped his body count by well more than a dozen in said name of pleasure seeking? According to Serena’s brother Eric, gaydar was a thing and both he and Victor would know well more than Nate about this.

Lamely, he tries to agree. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s it. Just trying things out.”

Victor gives him a discerning look that makes Nate jump out of bed in a way he pretended was nonchalant. Nate gives the same easy laugh and pretty smile he gave to all the people who try to claim he’s deeper than a pretty face and left the building feeling more brooding than he had before entering. A little bitterly, he had notes he hadn’t even made it through the alphabet in Chuck’s book and was already a different person like Chuck had unknowingly promised.

-----------

Juliet Sharp comes as a happy surprise to Nate, an interruption to the increasing craziness he had gotten himself into by worrying too much about his own sexuality. Hard to get like Blair, a coy smile like Serena, and an interesting twist of not being a part of the Gossip Girl elite like usual. When in doubt, let a bossy woman figure it out.

The problem, it turns out, is that she wants to take Dan out from the running for Serena’s heart and while Nate had to admit it would serve Dan a little right after the kiss he doesn’t want to do it. Not really. Still, he lets himself listen to her as easy as if he was listening to Blair back at St. Jude’s. Things are simpler that way, aren’t they? If loving someone as free and accepting as Serena had gotten him cheated on with someone like Dan who knew his own purpose in life so easily, fuck it. Maybe meddling would help.

Seeing Dan is much different than talking on the phone, though. Especially with the singing the Brooklyn guy must take after his mother for. While Dan is no lyricist when it comes to lullabies it seems, he is quite possibly the most adorable thing Nate had seen in awhile and he laughs in a free and familiar way that surprised him after a summer of escaping all family and friends.

Offered Milo, Nate panics. Is he supposed to know what to do with an actual baby? Is he holding him correctly? Sure, he had been around infant cousins before, but those were ones taken care of by nannies just like he was. How was Dan doing this, Georgina? Did that crazy woman even have a maternal bone in her body?

When Juliet takes Milo and Nate gets the chance to be alone with Dan for the first time since they shared a living space, it’s now there. That horribly familiar tug that made Nate nervous every time he felt it. Once upon a time he had felt it when trying desperately not to love Serena the almost entirety of being with Blair, and also now, faced with the one person who had been the ruin of him and Serena in the first place.

After living with Dan he knows things about the “lonely boy” one might miss. That he always wore plaid when he was especially stressed, as if it was a comfort blanket after years in Brooklyn. That if you unplugged his laptop from his charger for any reason he would immediately be angry that it might die and unsave his already thrice saved writing. That he especially hated the Italian place on the corner of his actual favorite spot because they had been racist to Vanessa. That he would normally have dark circles under his eyes after writing too long through the night on black coffee.

Most of all, he notices that all those things are currently at odds, unplugged charger and all, and that Dan was drowning in the midst of Nate thinking that his newly activated sex life was demanding.

“Are you okay?” he asks, knowing the answer. “I mean--,”

“Oh, this?” Dan laughs sarcastically now that Juliet is out of sight. “Absolutely not. But you know, what other choice do I have?”

“Tell your dad and Lily like I said.” Nate repeats, trying to give the good advice no one ever took him seriously for. Then, with a charming smile: “Afford a babysitter, or even a maid, every now and then.”

“Thanks,” is the flat response, but Dan’s lips had fought a smile for a second.

Nate smiles further, pulling the same response out of Dan slowly but surely. “Come on, man. You should know after years of Gossip Girl secrets always add badly. Especially the ones involving Georgina of all people.”

“Yeah, I know.” Dan nods, sounding so tired. “But right now I can live in my bubble where I just take care of Milo and have Georgina barking orders at me and no one else can tell me what a mess I’ve made.”

“Did that sound already as bad to you as it did to me out loud?” Nate asks.

Dan did laugh this time. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I mean Milo isn’t the mess, don’t get me wrong, it’s just I didn’t exactly envision this as my life. I was at least supposed to finish my second year of college.”

“I know.” Nate said, and he did. Because while Dan had the privilege of connections to so much wealth and ease of life, he’d never take them anymore than Nate would want to. They both had the same pride and respect for work each other did, Nate admits, it was just that Dan followed through while Nate tended to flounder.

“Have you spoken to Serena?”

Looking surprised at the mention of the name, Dan shakes his head. “We haven’t talked all summer, she’s doing her Paris thing and I didn’t want her to hear Milo in the background. Why? Did she talk to you?”

“No,” Nate says. He’d hoped the one thing that had always kept them at odds would still be available to push him further yet again. “No, she didn’t. I just wondered. Gossip Girl said she was coming back to go to Columbia.”

“Oh wow.” Dan considers, looking less hurt than the guy who had kissed said girl should have. “That’s-- I don’t know, that’s weird. Shouldn’t she have said something to either of us?”

Nate shrugs. “I don’t know, it’s Serena.”

With an agreeing nod, Dan answers Juliet’s call for yet another diaper change-- how often did babies really need to be changed?-- and the all too pretty girl came in to see him spy on Dan’s phone and spot the text from Serena.

For Serena and I, he tells himself as he lets Juliet begin a Blair-worthy scheme, but reality has never let him lie to himself for long.

The moment he sees Vanessa cuddle up to Dan like they’re married and Milo is their perfect newborn baby, he can’t help but stop pretending. As observant as Juliet is, she doesn’t know Nate, not really. All she can see is an archetype that she wants to believe in after knowing him for less than even a week. It’s all too easy to let her and pretend that his brooding glare at them is nothing more than anger at Dan for Serena, at least until Juliet’s lie involves Vanessa being shoved at Dan. Telling Juliet to stop, that he isn’t willing that will break hearts isn’t a lie.

… But maybe it was easier to pretend he was having a noble change of heart than to admit how completely jealous he didn't want to be.

So when Juliet says that Vanessa and Dan had been a great couple, Nate forces himself to admit that of all the former couples on the Upper East Side-- or ones by extension-- Dan and Vanessa had always made the most sense. Grounded Brooklyn loner thing aside, she still had more in common with him than Nate could ever hope to, so if Juliet thought Dan could be happier with her then who was he to stop them?

--------------

When Dan texts him I know what you told Vanessa, he leaves Juliet waiting without a thought. On the limo ride over, all he can think is how to explain things, what to say, anything to try and figure out how he absolutely could tell Dan that he was sorry without explaining the true reason he did things. Serena, he reminded himself. Just use Serena.

“Let me explain,” he opens with to Dan the second he enters the apartment and can see Dan’s characteristically judging glare, trying, “You two spent the whole day alone together and seemed like you were connecting--,”

“We weren’t alone, we were with you and Juliet.” Dan argues in a whisper.

“Why are we whispering?”

“Milo is sleeping for once. Why did you lie about me?”

Nate tries not to let his stomach drop as he directly asks. “Was it a lie?”

Surely he didn’t have to go through this again, right? Nate has tried desperately to sleep through Manhattan and still have good karma-- his expenses on every one night stand’s breakfast proved so in his opinion-- but here he is, dreading the one word that Dan says next.

“Is this about Serena?” Dan asks, looking confused. “It is, isn’t it.”

“I wouldn’t have even said anything if you hadn’t lied about getting that text from her!” Nate sidesteps.

Dan blinks at him, brow furrowed. “What text?”

“I-- When was the last time you checked your phone?”

God, everyone is right. I am an idiot. Nate thinks harshly at himself. Of course Dan hadn’t done literally anything normal when he was so wrapped up in Milo, takeout, and the disturbing Georgina.

With a glare, Dan snaps, “Obviously not as recently as you have.”

“I’m sorry, Dan. I saw the text and I--,”

Rolling his eyes and putting his phone back in his pocket, Dan sighs. “You’re sorry. I know.”

“Honestly, I don’t even know how I feel about Serena, I just--,” Nate fumbles, still feeling ashamed and embarrassed.

“You don’t have to say it.”

The forgiveness is so ready and kind that Nate has to admit he’s a little taken aback. He isn’t sure when he and Dan had reached that point, the kind where the tension of competition could ease back into friendship. Once Nate had thought he had that with Chuck before he’d really taken a look at who his friend had become. Even then, though, the tension had never been quite the same. “I think I do. You’ve been there for me through all of last year, and--,”

“And I kissed Serena when you two were dating. I honestly probably deserved something.” Dan offers. “Look, if anyone understands the craziness involved with having feelings for her it’s me.”

“That’s not what it was about.” Nate huffs before catching himself, unable to take back the words now they’re in the air. He’d been so frustrated with the situation, with his life, with who he was both becoming yet wanted to be that he had slipped. “I mean--,”

“What was it then, Georgina?”

“No, of course not!”

“Then what, Nate?”

Dan’s brow is furrowed in the way he doesn’t realize is attractive, and in the midst of the quiet argument they had become closer in the necessity of hearing each other, but still not close enough to bridge the gap Nate is terrified of. Praying that Milo wakes up doesn’t work, and he’s worried that if he walks out now it will seem like even more of a big thing than he wants to pretend it isn’t.

A charming smile won’t work this time. Even as he tries the casual shrug, he can see Dan begin to give a condescending glare to try and pull the truth out. Nate sighs and looks at the ceiling. “Can we just pretend I said nothing and I’ll owe you a favor?”

“Do I look like Blair Waldorf?” Dan scoffs. “Nate, whatever it is just tell me. Nothing’s going to be crazier than finding out Georgina and I made a child together.”

“Wanna bet?” Nate half-laughs.

The confusion dramatically turns to concern at that, and before the brunette could think he had another horrible secret hanging over him, Nate throws it all to hell and kisses him. It isn’t like he expects Dan to kiss back, it’s just the easiest way to explain something that felt impossible to-- well, explain.

Dan does pull back expectedly looking shocked, but he hasn’t completely pulled away from Nate’s orbit who’s a little intoxicated by that detail. “Nate... I’m pretty sure I’m not in Chuck’s book either.”

“Not quite.” Nate manages to get out, having to clear his throat a bit to even do so, nerves about to murder him. “Also, before you try and say it again, this isn’t about Serena.”

“I think I know you better than that.” Dan says softly, nodding. “And I know you well enough to know you’re too good at being a chameleon to your surroundings. I just didn’t know--,”

“This?” Nate offers. “Yeah, me either.”

Nodding, Dan pauses the conversation, eyes lowering with consideration. For a moment Nate thinks he might initiate another kiss but he doesn’t, instead asking quizzically, “Why me?”

“Because you’re the kind of man who would drop everything he wanted in life just to take care of a child you never expected.” Nate replies maybe too easily, gesturing around the messy apartment. “Because even the Upper East Side couldn’t change that when it really came down to it, you were a good person. You care about people and you prove it.”

“Nothing about my charming good looks?” Dan replies with a rather large smile and a casual shrug that Nate hadn’t quite realized he’d learned from him over the years.

Now Nate can’t help but laugh in return, only half hating the fact that he still hasn’t heard anything in response as long as they have this. “Come on, seriously--,”

“I guess we can try serious.” Dan says smoothly, and then they’re kissing again.

For once Nate isn’t afraid he’ll be considered just another pretty face to boss around.

#dan x nate #nate x dan #nate archibald #dan humphrey #danate #gossip girl #dan x nate fic #gossip girl fic #does it count as gg fic in 2021 if it's gay?#asking pls send help #all because of milo hours #i had to watch episodes for this lol #so yall better appreciate me and go comment on my fic

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isthemicon · 3 years

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Why as a Chair shipper I think Dair relationship was necessary and how it was completely ruined

Disclaimer: If you are Dair shipper please try to read it with an open mind. I’m in no way trying to show which ship is superior (they are equal, they both have fans that care and find them interesting) I’m simply trying to show my perspective and my disappointment on the way it was handled.

Okay let’s get to real thing.

Why I think that at point Blair needed to be with Dan and why Dan needed to be with her ?

Let’s first talk about where at the point Blair is in her life. Blair is a completely broken woman. Everything she believed in turned into dust. In a time span of like a year she got engaged, got pregnant, was hurt in accident, lost a baby, man she loved nearly died, she made a pact with God, was ready to give up her happiness believing that it is the right thing to do (I also have post touching that subject so feel free to check it out) and then she learned that all of that was for nothing. She was humiliated and in her mind that was all her fault, she was the only one to blame, that her decisions lead her to that moment where she isn’t sure of what might happen next.

She no longer wants that many emotions, she wants the world to slow down (kind of like when she got back together with Nate in season 2).

At that point she learns more about Dan’s book and about the character of Clair. Clair is a woman that didn’t lose a baby, wasn’t in marriage that was a sham, Clair’s world was simpler. Clair’s world was everything that he life wasn’t at that point. Clair is very much like Blair but she isn’t her, the “bad qualities” in Blair aren’t something that she pretends to have, her scheming, her love of the UES, it is all part of her. They also don’t make her bad, they just make her three dimensional character.

She can’t fully eradicate them but for a moment she can pretend that they are not there. For a moment she can be a women that doesn’t care for those things.

Because the truth is that she is not yet ready to be fully the proud Blair she really is. She needed time to heal and she couldn’t get back with Chuck. Not because he would hurt but because Chuck was part of the Blair she wasn’t ready to be.

So she gets together with Dan, he is there to make her feel like Clair, to make her see what a life could be. From the writing point of view, he is also the be a buffer between her and Chuck. Because at that moment she was not ready to have her happy ending with Chuck, she needed to heal and clear her head, to figure things out on her own. In a real life she would go to the therapy, would give herself some time but that would not make an interesting show, viewers wouldn’t understand why they aren’t together if no one isn’t standing in their way. That’s why she starts a relationship with Dan, he is her friend so she doesn’t mind spending time with him, they have common interests, they have fun together. She is in a way using him to see what could be and what should be. She needs that relationship, she won’t regret it but she also knows that it isn’t truly real.

That relationship was always supposed to end but the way it ended was frankly disappointing because they could have handle it in a fantastic way and have a really grown up story that understands characters and doesn’t just look to shock the viewer.

They’ve ruined it by handling the break up the way they wrote it.

The fact that they don’t actually have talk where they break up is awful and very inconsistent with their characters. In my opinion by the end of season 5 they should have talk, a sad but honest talk. Where they establish the future of the cannon relationships. Where for example Dan realizes that Blair will never be in love with him and he tells her about in something along “it was always him wasn’t it ?” lines. She with tears in her eyes tells him that yes, Chuck will always have her heart, that she will forever cherish the relationship she had with Dan, that it was important to her and helped her but wasn’t meant to be. She would then say something like “we both wanted this friendship to be something more because it would be easier than what truly is in our hearts” telling him that she also knows that just as for her it always be Chuck, for him it will always be Serena. Then they would both give each other a blessing, they would remain friends that they both needed each other and would support each other on the finale journey. It would be consistent with the way they were acting towards each other in the first half of season 5 and would actually show that they truly cared for each other.

Unlike what they’ve done. The fact that they had Dan sleep with Serena at the top of the bar at Sheppard’s party while still technically being with Blair is just awful. There is no way that after everything they have been through, both Blair & Dan and Serena & Blair, they would do something like that. They knew that it was the worst possible thing to do. They knew that it would hurt Blair, even if she didn’t have romantic feelings for him. That it would wake up the memories from a period of time that was difficult for her. And then for them to run away without a word ? For Dan not to let Blair explain even though she tried to contact him, showing that she still cared enough for him to do the right thing and have the closure. They’ve completely ruined the bond that they had and made their relationship unimportant, almost on the level of Marcus or Carter. As if Dan was yet another Blair’s romance when he clearly was more than that. They’ve also ruined all the development, taking them back to season 1 where the couldn’t care less for each other.

The thing is they haven’t done to make Chair work, or because it was the only option for it to end this ways. They’ve done to make a Dan in season 6 work and by doing that they’ve ruined not only their friendship and his character but also they’ve started this ridiculous battle that is in the fandom. I’m not talking here about him being gg thing, that could still work out without that shameful ending of their relationship (I think Dan should be a gossip girl, I also have a post on that), I’m taking about Dan writing the articles about his friends and turning into someone that is seeking revenge. Which is sad and out of blue because even with him being the gossip girl he still was a character that didn’t want to destroy that world but he simply wanted to be a part of it.

#gossip girl #blair waldorf #chuck bass #love #ship #dan humphrey #nate archibald #serena van der woodsen #chuck and blair #gg #chuck x blair #chair #overthinker

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xsecretblastsx · 3 years

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during the whole arc of her relationship with dan, b doesn't take into account serena's state of mind. but in s6 she states that if chuck and serena had gone out she would have "gouged her eyes out", don't you think that's just hypocritical?

Yeah it is, but that's Blair. Granted there's a complicated nature to her friendship with Serena that doesn'r allow her to concede to her, plus I can't see her being gracious and stepping aside without attempting something if Chuck had dated anyone and really meant it, she loves him and he's the only one that has really loved her and only her to top it all so to give up on that is unthinkable to her, is why even when she doesn't want to have a relationship with him she never lets him go and keep trying to have him close, is a door she can't close because deep down she knew eventually was going to want to get back together.

Now I love Blair but the way she hurt Serena with her relationship with Dan is my biggest pet peeve against her, because sure Serena may have told her she won't get in the way... but she should have realized that the timing of it was the worst and that Serena said it because she was sad and going through a really hard time and the prospect of not having either Blair of Dan in her life right then was even worse than the pain of seeing Blair and Dan together

I really get that Blair was also having a truly hard time, and I still believe the accident had an awful impact on her, the fear and pain she felt at the thought of Chuck almost dying had her running from anything that could hurt her and grasping to whatever make her feel somewhat better and also detached her from those who could hurt her, it was survival mode and sadly she didn't care who she hurt.

Is frustrating mostly because I wished their friendship had mature enough to the point of not actively trying to hurt the other, and I feel that there was a part of Blair that even if she may have attempted to restrain at first for Serena's sake would have eventually gone for it regardless because Serena had slept with her boyfriend once at a time when that was the worst thing that could have happen to her, and at least she now was trying to be decent about it but at the end of the day who was Serena to judge her for it. It was an unconscious way of evening the score 😪

#ask #anon #blair waldorf #serena van der woodsen #blairena #chuck x blair #chair

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randomestfandoms-ocs · 3 years

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Drop the Evie essay you wrote

okay so first of all it wasn’t really an essay the way some of my ramblings are, more like just me writing down all of my thoughts in a vaguely coherent manner bc my brain was running too fast to really organize it

and second of all, just to be on the safe side, these are the potential trigger warnings that I would give for the essay — I don’t know if they all actually come up or not, but better safe than sorry, so proceed with caution!

Potential TWs: being outed, parental neglect, character death (canon), suicide attempts (semi-canon), eating disorders, lots of mental health issues, and lots of general trauma and feelings of never being good enough, and canon typical references to drinking/drugs/partying/etc

so just like a fun fact, Evie’s vitamin water of choice is zero sugar strawberry lemonade and yes i spent too long reading reviews on different flavours all because gossip girl did an entire product placement episode

anyways now onto real thoughts let’s go lesbians let’s go

so okay evie has a... very negative experience with Lily’s various boyfriends and husbands. When Evie was younger she was always hopeful that this time would be different, that they’d be a family, that her mom would actually stick around, and every single time she’s been let down and left heartbroken. When her mom starts dating Bart, Evie is very against it but she just can’t be bothered to even try to talk to Lily — Lily will date him, maybe get married, play house, abandon her children, then get divorced, and the cycle will repeat, and Lily will never give a shit about how her children feel about it. Bart is just the latest rich man for Lily to set her sights on. Given the overall shittiness of most of Lily’s exes, Evie had figured she would be a lot more vocally against Lily dating again, but Bart...

Bart himself may terrify Evie, but Evie’s unwavering faith that Chuck will always protect her outweighs that fear, and Evie has long since given up on her mom caring about her opinions so she just takes comfort in the fact that Chuck will be there and tries to just ignore the rest — and the fact that Bart is pretty much always away does help with that. That being said, she was very distraught when Bart spends season 1 christmas with them, but then Bart’s “present” for her was flying Chuck home for a few days because Lily mentioned that Eric was teasing Evie about being excited about having Chuck as a brother, and he's trying to semi-win over the kids (aka bribe them into accepting him as Lily’s fiancé)

Evie speaks several languages! She started learning French and Spanish at a very young age, and then picked more up from Lily’s various husbands. She’s not fluent in all of them but she can hold conversations in eight languages — and four of them were from Lily’s boyfriends (and italian was half pieced together from French and Spanish), and she just keeps learning more because she tries to keep herself too busy to think at any given moment

Rufus is her favourite step-dad by far, but Chuck is her favourite step-sibling (and second favourite sibling, after Eric). That being said, Bart was surprisingly decent to her because even he quickly figured out that Evie has the innate ability to get Chuck to do basically anything, and he wanted her on his side, only he underestimated how much Evie hates him for treating Chuck like shit — as she says in 2x07, “if you want us to be a family, you should learn how to be a dad”

Evie has a bit of a thing for stealing coats lmao — it’s not unusual to find her stealing Chuck, Eric, Theo, or even Nate’s jackets when she gets cold or starts feeling particularly self conscious. At the housewarming party she actually gets to bothered by all the media watching her constantly that Chuck goes and gets her one of his blazers to replace the cropped one she was wearing, and she immediately feels a bit more at east

Evie is a jock like it’s understated but she’s on multiple sports teams at school and plays outside of school too — she’s also in dance classes several times a week, along with private vocal lessons, and being part of every theatre production at Constance Billard (musicals and plays), and is on the yearbook committee. Basically, Evie needs a fucking nap, and with a lot of pushing from Chuck and Eric and Theo (to balance out Blair “do absolutely everything in the name of Yale” Waldorf) she does eventually ease up on her extra-curriculars

She holds far too much power in the Constance-St Jude hierarchy. She’s a freshman, but it’s well known that Evie is completely untouchable. Some people (cough Jenny) might try to cross Blair, but no one is stupid enough to go after Evie — she’s not just Blair’s protégée, she’s also under Chuck’s protection. And when Jenny does try to cross her in season 3 (physical and emotional bullshit, public humiliation, telling the entire school she’d tried to kill herself and had been at Ostroff not “in florida”), well... she learns that even being family won’t stop her entire life from being destroyed

Speaking of Jenny... that’s a very messy relationship — I want to like Jenny, I really do, but I just... don’t so far. They’re a very sweet relationship early on, neither of them had dated before and they were just really smitten with each other and things were good. There were definitely some issues because of the Jenny-Blair war, but they’d been okay — or so Evie had thought, until Jenny dumped her by means of introducing everyone to her new boyfriend, Asher. Then of course there’s the party and Jenny outing her, and then just not talking to her for months until she needs something from them (an in to the White Party). Eric manages to convince Evie to play nice, but he does so under the impression that Jenny had apologized to Evie — he didn’t know she’d only apologized to him. Eventually Jenny does apologize and Evie tries to forgive her, and she keeps giving Jenny more and more second chances (especially once they become step sisters), but Jenny really just keeps hurting Evie to get on top because with Blair gone, Evie immediately becomes the new queen, and Jenny cares more about being queen than being nice. Little does she realize that part of why Evie became queen with no challenge is because she’s nice.

and regarding Evie’s other relationships... so serena was a really good big sister when Eric & Evie were kids — Blair was the responsible sister and Serena was the fun sister, but it was a good balance and it worked. But when the twins were around eleven and Serena was around 13, she became besties with Georgina Sparks, and everything went to shit. Serena started getting into partying and drinking and drugs and became just as flighty and unreliable as Lily, which takes a significant toll on the twins’ mental health — side note, one of their therapists at the Ostroff Centre believes that their significant codependency stems from the abandonment issues they have as a result of Lily and Serena just up and leaving them whenever anything “better” comes along.

And unfortunately for the twins, this was around the same time (grade 6) that Theo got sent to boarding school, so really they lost both their sister and their best friend at the same time, and Theo leaving also messed up the overall group dynamics and they half lost Nate too — he was still in their lives but he went from being the dad to Blair’s mom to being more of a big brother, and there was this sort of hole that didn’t get filled until a couple of years later.

And of course, a lot of it then fell to Blair to try to fill that hole and the holes left by Serena and Lily and went from being sort of “mom friend big sister” to “literally the closest thing we have to a mom”, which is also just a lot of pressure for a thirteen year old girl and part of why Blair and Chuck got a lot closer after he ended up becoming their dad was because she finally had someone that she could talk to too.

Also like full disclosure, Chuck never really intended to become their dad. He started off as a reluctant big brother because he was Nate’s best friend and Nate was the dad friend when they were younger, and Evie just kind of decided that she loved him and like no one can argue with Evie so all of a sudden he was part of the family. He doesn’t really become dad until the van der Woodsens move into the hotel because suddenly Eric and Evie are just always there, and he doesn’t even realize it until months later, after Serena is gone and he realizes that he’s been skipping parties to like play mario kart and shit with the twins and Blair is just like “lmao yeah buddy you’re the last one to get this memo”

and then there’s this list that I made of the NJBC’s roles in raising the twins and theo back when they were younger

Blair: holds their hands to cross the street, teaches them not to talk to people who wear sneakers or to strangers, teaches them how to dress themselves like respectable people, makes them finish their homework before watching tv, hates all of their nannies and only trusts dorota to take care of them Nate: teaches them to tie their laces and their ties, plays video games and sports with them, helps them with homework and doesn't get impatient when they struggle, lets them use his notebooks to draw in when they're bored Chuck: will destroy anyone who hurts them, teaches them street smarts and how to tell when someone is lying, is the one who lets them do dumb and reckless things because he'd rather they do them when he's there to get in trouble, still refuses to believe that they know what sex is Serena: reminded them that it's okay to have fun and draw outside the lines, stood up for them when lily was being a shit mom and always tried to protect them from the worst of her neglect, came up with games to play when they were sad to take their minds off whatever is upsetting them

And Theo!!!!!! Theo has been their best friend for their entire lives! They’ve known him since they were babies and the three of them have always been inseparable! Like highkey they were just a more functional NJBC lmao, and we love them for it! Theo getting sent to boarding school was really hard on all three of them but they stayed in constant contact and whenever Theo is back in the city, it’s almost impossible to see them not together. Theo does know that they were in the Centre, so once he’s back full time, he’s spending as much time visiting them as he can! Even when Eric and Theo are dating (and later when Evie and Theo are dating), the group dynamics really never change! It’s still always the three of them, and sometimes Jenny in s1, they’re still each other’s family, and they’re still just a bit too interdependent to be entirely healthy (it’s the trauma and neglectful parents)

on a slightly related note, neither of the twins drink anything other than champagne and sometimes wine, and neither of them touch drugs at all, and it’s entirely because of Serena. They’ve both seen how much she’s changed since she got into that scene, and especially since ‘liking partying’ turned into ‘alcohol addiction’, and they’re both too afraid of ending up like that to even take the risk. It’s something that definitely sets them apart from pretty much any of their peers, but they’ve gotten very good at just laughing it off with a “hey, I just don’t want to end up on Gossip Girl tomorrow” which people generally accept

(that being said, Evie did smoke for a while pre-canon bc cigarettes curb hunger, but she hasn’t smoked at all since ending up in the Centre, and once she’s out too many people have an eye on her for her to even try, and she does want to stop)

(TW ATTEMPTED SUICIDE, fairly detailed discussion) so okay the breaking point for the twins... lily had just gone awol again and Blair was away visiting her dad and evie was at the archibalds’ house hanging out with theo, who was home for a weekend, and eric didn’t want to call anyone because lily’s disappearance had left him in a spiral of feeling annoying and like people didn’t really want him in their lives and there wasn’t a specific trigger but instead of the spiral slowing down or evie/chuck/blair being able to pull him out of it, it just kept getting worse until he was slitting his wrist in the bathroom — only Evie had just gotten home and when he didn’t reply to her calling his name, she got freaked out and started looking for him and when she saw him, she just... couldn’t deal. She called 911 for eric but then she was just in the bathroom and covered in his blood and she didn’t know what to do and she needed to calm down so she grabbed a bottle of valium that she thinks was Lily’s but instead of just taking one pill she ended up taking all of them and downing them with a bottle of vodka serena had hidden — once she realized what she’d done she called Chuck and basically just said “I think I fucked up” and Chuck freaks out (understandably) and rushes to their suite and gets there basically just in time to see both of them being loaded into an ambulance; he claims he’s their brother and rides with them to the hospital where he calls blair, and arranges for his jet to pick her up asap, and then tries (unsuccessfully) to get in touch with lily

#lizziesxltzmxn #ask #answered #evie van der woodsen #about evie #freshman generation

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captainscanadian · 4 years

Text

Exception | Carter Baizen x Reader (Part 2)

My Masterlist

Prologue | Part 1

Summary: The Archibald Wedding was supposed to be your first public appearance in the Upper East Side since you had left fifteen years ago. But what you had not realized was that Nate was marrying Caroline Baizen.

Word Count: 4900+

Pairing: CEO!Carter Baizen x Lawyer!Reader, Nate Archibald x Caroline Baizen, Chuck Bass x Blair Waldorf, Dan Humphrey x Serena van der Woodsen

Warnings: Swearing, Gossip Girl References, Mentions of Drugs & Alcoholism, Underage Drinking, Mentions of Death, Capitalism (I HAD TO!)

A/N: This is my entry for @baezen‘s writing challenge. I am breezing through this fic because I am overly excited to be writing it. Don’t mind me! Tag list is open, just send in an ask to be tagged. I don’t own any of the pics/gifs I used. Love you all! <3

His fingers wrapped around his whiskey glass as he sat down at the bar of the Palace Hotel. With the final preparations of his sister’s wedding well under way, the Baizen’s and the Archibald’s were staying the night at the hotel before the wedding festivities were to begin. The rehearsal dinner had gone smoothly and hopefully, so would the main event.

Carter Baizen may be the current CEO of Baizen Industries, but he had never been the most responsible member of the Baizen family or even the entire Upper East Side if he was being honest. At least not until now, he was not. Like most of the spoiled brats who called this borough of Manhattan their stomping ground, he had been quite the reckless soul during his teenage years. Drinking underage and doing lines of coke were only the bare minimum of the atrocities that he had committed when he was younger. He was a liar, a manipulator and a womanizer. He had owned up to that by now. But there was indeed a woman whom he had fallen in love with, for real that one time. You really were his one exception.

Perhaps it was the fact that he had lost you that night in Santorini that had sent him on his downward spiral. After losing you the way he had, Carter had done the unthinkable. He had cut ties with his parents and left the Upper East Side for good, traveling all around the world in search of his long lost love. Your interest in French history and culture had brought him to New Orleans during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He had helped out with the clean up, in hopes that he would somehow end up running into you. He knew you well enough to know that you would have been there. But unfortunately for him, you were nowhere to be found.

His next destination had been Peru. For some reason, he had been searching for you there too. He had remembered you mentioning to him once that you had wanted to take part in the rebuilding of Machu Picchu. It had even been a part of your introduction during the debutante ball, for which he had been your escort. He had told you that you were crazy for wanting to be so... charitable. It seemed too unlikely for an Upper East Sider to be so sacrificial in the name of charity. Most people who he knew would simply write a cheque and call it a day.

Carter had mocked you when you had told him about this dream of yours at first. But then he had done exactly that, spending a whole year of his life helping to rebuild Machu Picchu and recording his experience into a documentary. He hoped that wherever you were in the world, you would have come across that film and you would have made your way back to him. He had done what you had always wanted to do, but you were still nowhere to be found. He had gone straight to London after that, knowing that you did have some family there. It had been his last resort. But he could not find you, as you did not want to be found.

Eventually, he had given up on his search for you. He had convinced himself that you must be dead, even though he had reason to believe that you were not. He concluded must have died that night in Santorini, for it was highly unlikely for anyone to just vanish into thin air. After all, it was what the Greek Police had told him when they had questioned him after your disappearance. They had found traces of your blood in your shared hotel room, but that was all the evidence that they were able to find. Serena van der Woodsen had been his alibi. She had confirmed that Carter was not with you that night, but with her. Not that it made much of a difference except end the budding relationship between Lilly and your father for good.

Carter had been detained for a while before your father had withdrawn his complaint and the Greek Police had let him go. He still did not know what had happened that night, for he had been extremely disoriented. That entire night was a blur to him, thanks to him and Serena’s joint venture into doing a few lines of cocaine. But he knew that there was a deep dark secret about what happened that night that your family had been keeping from him. All he had been told was that you were alive and well, and that you did not want to be contacted by anyone. He did not question it, for he did not know what to question.

But he had not been able get himself to believe that you were alive and well anymore. He should have at least tried to press further, but he had chosen not to do so out of respect for your decision. You did not want to be found and it was better that he left it that way. He just did not know why you had thrown him out of your life like that.

His financial situation had led to his gambling problem. His gambling problem had led to him returning to his parents. After his lavish trip to Dubai when he stayed in Palm Island and went pheasant hunting with the prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, it was only a matter of time until his gambling problem had turned into a rather huge debt.

Carter had been an idiot for trying to use Beth Buckley as a pawn into getting the Buckley’s to settle his debt. He had learned that the hard way though. Not only had he manipulated a woman by proposing to her and left her at the altar, but he had also returned to Serena in hopes of restarting what they had. He should have known that fate was going to bite him in the ass by then. But things had only gone downhill from there.

His choice to leave Serena and go off to work at the Buckleys’ oil rig was not just his attempt at redemption. If anything, it was far from that. As much as he wanted to be held accountable for his reckless behavior, he knew that he owed this much to you. Whatever the reason you had left him may be, he had hoped that one day you would come back to him. He hoped that you would find him again. And if that ever came true, then he had to prove that he was worthy of you.

Working in an oil rig, it would have taken him almost twenty years to settle the amount of his debt. But Carter had returned to the Upper East Side in just four years without even having to work off his remaining debt. As it turned out, the Buckley’s business had been shut down completely following their loss in a lawsuit. Their company had been dissolved, their assets liquidated or frozen, and somehow on the contrary, his debt had been settled and he had earned himself his freedom from them. He was no CEO back then, but he knew that there was something fishy about how the Buckley’s had been targeted by a certain British lawyer. It did not take him that long to go running to Bree Buckley for answers.

“This woman... she goes by the name of Y/N van der Bilt. She didn’t even come down to meet with us personally. She sent in a bunch of her associates to do the talking and the paperwork, came in through conference call with her demands. She had us by our necks, Carter. We were bound to lose. We have no choice but to sign over our company and most of our assets. We’re basically living in the streets now. She destroyed us.” The woman had told him, not knowing why someone would have targeted her family like that. Clearly, she was feeling very defeated by this whole thing. No one in her family could even seek revenge on this unknown lawyer. “My family has always had an issue with the van der Bilt family but I’ve never met someone who’s had a personal vendetta against us. I know I used Nate to get to you, but I don’t think even he would have been capable of pulling something like this. She was a ruthless monster and it was clear that she was out to get us. She was a total bitch in a suit, according to PJ. She hit us where it hurts and she was insistent that along with our company and our assets, we also give up our custody of you. She was very particular about that.”

Carter had always wondered why you had bailed him out like that, and why all of a sudden, you had made your existence known to him after all those years. He wondered if you still cared about him, for you had gone after the Buckley’s yourself and pretty much destroyed their family’s entire legacy to ensure his freedom. As a van der Bilt, you might have had your own reasons for doing what you had done. But why go so far?

A part of him had always known that you had been living in London, but Bree’s response to his doubts had only confirmed his suspicions. Yet he had chosen not to go looking for you once more. If you had willingly made sure that he was free, he knew that he owed you that much to not waste that freedom by going back to his globe trotter ways. Just because you did not want to be found, it did not mean that he could not find you at all. He did have some hope but he was not in a rush. If it had taken you almost a decade to make your presence known to him, then it was only a matter of time before you eventually came before him. And boy was he right about that.

Eventually, he did return to the Upper East Side. Following his parents’ tragic passing, it had been just him and his sister. He had taken over as the CEO of Baizen Industries and for once, he had become a responsible man. He did not live to spend anymore, but to earn. He knew that his freedom and the luxurious life he now lived were all because of you. He had to prove to himself and to you that he was worthy of having you back in his life.

Perhaps that was why he had jumped at the chance to buy your father’s failing company, because he knew that if there was anything that the man had cared about in this world, it was his family’s legacy. And you were inevitably his legacy. His target was not the company; it had always been you. He knew that it was only a matter of time until you would show up to save your family’s legacy, and here you fucking were.

He took a sip of his drink before he turned around to face his brother-in-law to be. “You better not be fucking with me, Archibald.” He told him with an eye roll. “I know Y/N’s my weakness but there’s no need for you to hit me with her like this.”

“And why the fuck would I do that?” Nate asked him as he sighed. “Whatever the hell we may have had back then, we’re family now, Carter. I care about you as much as I care about her. You know I’ve told you as much as I could tell you, man. Y/N’s back in town and she’s going to be here for a while.”

“I don’t think she’d want to see me.” Carter admitted, sighing as he set down his glass. “Her dad said she was pretty fucking clear about that when he bailed me out from the Greek Police.”

“She may have had her reasons to not want to see you. But I think we both know that the times have changed. We all need to move forward.” He pointed out, for he was the only one who knew the real truth behind why you had left.

As he had been your one trusted soul, he had made sure not to violate your trust by confiding in Carter of the whole truth. The truth was yours to tell when you were ready to tell it to him. But until then, Nate could only sit by and watch. “She’s coming to the wedding. Do as you please with her when you see her. But if you dare to hurt her, Carter, I will... I won’t even think twice about you being family. I won’t hesitate to fuck you up and run you out of town again.”

“I loved her, Nate. I really did.”

A bitter chuckle escaped his lips as he shook his head, for he knew that you had always believed otherwise. “You know, I’m not the one you should be saying this to.”

You stood in front of the floor length mirror in your childhood bedroom, taking in the sight of the reflection of you wearing the Oscar de la Renta evening gown that you had chosen to wear for Nate Archibald’s wedding. “The last time I had to dress up this fancy, it was for a gala that was being thrown by one of my firm’s clients. Even my presence at those events was a rare occasion. Other than that though, I was pretty much locked up in the estate in my pajamas and with my laptop. I seem to have forgotten how common it was for the Upper East Siders to be hosting a banquet every week.” You admitted, sighing as you took a sip of the wine that your maid had graciously poured for you the moment you began getting ready for your first public appearance in New York since leaving the city for good. “But weddings are supposed to be fun when they’re not yours and this is my little cousin’s wedding, after all. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

“It’s something to get used to, isn’t it?” Annalise asked you as she stood on top of a small stool to reach your height, being the short and plump woman she had always been. Truth be told, she was still not able to get used to the fact that you had grown past her height since the last time she had seen you in person. She hooked the Swarovski necklace around your neck before taking a look at your reflection in the mirror. “You look beautiful, Miss. Y/N.” She told you as she leaned over to rest her chin against your shoulder for a moment. “You’ve grown up to be a very beautiful woman and you know that.” And she had meant every word of it. She had been working for your parents ever since they had gotten married. Even after their divorce, she had been a significant part of your childhood. Whenever your mother was out of town or if your father was preoccupied with another girlfriend, she had been your primary caregiver and your closest friend.

“Thank you, Annalise.” You smiled at her as you turned around to face her. “God, you have been so good to me since the moment you got here. I wish I could have taken you to London with me when I had left.” You admitted with a soft chuckle. Being all alone in an unknown world, you had to learn how to live your life as an independent woman.

It had not been easy, even though you had somehow managed to push through your struggles. But there were often times when you had wished that you had not left this woman behind. She had been your pillar of strength for so long and she had kept this household together when everything else had turned into a complete shit show. She was the calm within the storm and you had missed her dearly.

The drive from your mother’s penthouse to The Palace had been a rather quiet one once again. You were beyond nervous this time, for this was indeed your first public appearance in the Upper East Side since your so-called disappearance from Santorini fifteen years ago.

Over the years of being a corporate lawyer in one of London’s most reputable law firms, you had managed to grow some thick skin. You knew that the prying eyes of Manhattan’s elite and the gossip were an inevitable part of life on the Upper East Side. You were well aware that your return would be the talk of the town in a matter of seconds.

If Gossip Girl had still been active, the blasts would have been sent out the moment you had even landed at JFK. Even the competing outlet, the NY Spectator, had not made exclusive news out of your arrival. You had Nate Archibald to thank for that.

“You look a little nervous.” Walter pointed out as he gave you a cheeky smile through the rear view mirror.

“Going to this wedding is pretty much the start of me stepping back into the life that I left behind fifteen years ago, Walter. If life had really been so hard for me back then, I know now that it’s going to be much worse now.” You admitted, sighing nervously as you fidgeted with your clutch. The tips of your fingers were sweaty, as were the palm of your hands.

A part of you wanted to bail on this whole thing and return home, perhaps just lock yourself in your childhood bedroom for as long as you were meant to be in town. But you knew that you could not keep hiding from this world any longer. You knew that you had to face your past and the people who had been a part of it whether you liked it or not. That was the only way you could move forward, and that was all an inevitable part of your redemption.

As your limo pulled up in front of The Palace Hotel, you let out a sigh of disbelief at the site of its exterior. It seemed as though nothing had changed in the last fifteen years, at least not much with the exterior of the hotel. The last time you had been here had been for your Cotillion fifteen years ago, when you had been debuted as a young woman in this high society.

“Y/N Y/L/N, escorted by Carter Baizen. Miss. Y/L/N hopes to spend a year in Peru, helping to rebuild the Machu Picchu before going off to attend Yale University.”

“Rebuild the Machu Picchu, really?” Carter teased you as the two of you danced around the ball room after you had been debuted.

“It’s a historically significant piece of architecture that needs to be restored and maintained in the name of preserving the Incan culture.” You replied as you rolled your eyes at him. “You won’t understand...”

“The one thing I don’t understand is how I’m supposed to spend a whole year without you when you’re in Peru.” He admitted, his lips curling into a pout. “It will be one hell of a long year, if I’m being honest.”

“I’m sure you won’t miss me too much, Baizen.” You noted, giving him a cheeky grin. “There are plenty of girls in the Upper East Side who would get in bed with you if you just flicked a fucking finger of yours.”

“But it’s not them I want. It’s you...” He confessed. “You’re my one exception. I can’t just spend a whole damn year away from you, just like that.” Needless to say, the two of you went on to spend fifteen years apart. And that fucking sucked, for the both of you.

As you made your way inside, you reminisced about your time spent in this hotel. Your family had been frequenting here for years now, since the time it was owned by Bart Bass. And now after his second death, it was owned by his son, Chuck Bass.

You were familiar with him as much as you were familiar with Nate, for those two boys had been inseparable since they were very young. Often times, you had babysat the two of them together while Bart had taken a business trip. To think that Chuck was now the CEO of Bass Industries and Nate was getting married. God, you must have been feeling so old right now.

“Oh... my... God!” Blair Waldorf’s jaw had almost hit the floor the moment she noticed you walk into the venue, her eyes growing wide as she nudged her husband. “Holy shit, Chuck! She’s still alive!”

Chuck Bass was quick to turn around to see where his wife had pointed out, and the expression on his face was quick to mimic hers. “Is that... Y/N?!” As shocked as he was to see you, he was happy to know that you were alive and well. He walked up to you with open arms, grinning widely as he greeted you with an embrace. “Oh my God, it really is you!”

“Chuck!” You exclaimed as you pulled him into a hug. “Good God, you’ve grown so much!”

He wrapped as arms around you tightly. “You’re... just the same.” He chuckled, shaking his head slightly. “It’s so lovely to see you. Nate didn’t mention that you were coming, I-” He paused to pull back from the hug, letting out a sigh of relief. “How are you? How have you been? It’s been so long.”

“I’ve been great. I’ve... been living in London now and I’m working... at my own firm. I’m back in town and I’ll be here for a while now. I’m sure, you heard about my dad.” It felt so awkward to be answering that question. You had no idea how to word it, for your entire life for the last fifteen years had been a long guarded secret that you wanted no one to find out about.

Surely, everyone you saw would have a lot of questions about where you had been for all this time. But you did not want to answer with the whole truth. Your truth was a lot more dark and twisted than what you let on and you wanted to keep that a secret for a reason.

“Oh yes, of course. I am so sorry to hear that.” Chuck gave you a friendly smile before he was approached by a curly haired man whom you had never met. But he really needed no introduction.

“Chuck, they need all of the groomsmen so that we can get started.” Dan Humphrey informed him before turning his gaze towards you. “Oh my God! I’m so sorry, we haven’t met. I’m Dan Humphrey.” He introduced himself politely as he held his hand out for you to shake. “You’re Y/N, right? You’re-”

“Gossip Girl’s biggest unsolved mystery.” You cut him off with a nod as you took his hand, a cheeky smile on your face as you shrugged your shoulders. “I must admit that I’m a huge fan of your writing.”

“Thank you.”

You looked behind the two gentlemen to see both of their wives looking rather nervous. Blair gave you a nervous wave while Serena completely avoided making eye contact with you.

You let out a sigh before you turned back to Chuck and Dan. “I should probably let you boys go.” You smiled politely at them before you made your way over to take a seat with your mother.

Lilly van der Woodsen- or Bass, since you’d last seen her, was sat next to your mother as you made your way over. “Y/N, it really is you!” She exclaimed when she saw you, a genuine smile plastered across her lips as you took a seat next to her.

The last time you had seen this woman, she had been a girlfriend of your father’s whom you did not approve of. But looking back now, you had to admit that she was the only one of them who had treated you like her own child. Perhaps you may have been harsh on her due to your strong dislike for her daughter. But this was, after all, your attempt to seek redemption. So, you might as well start with Lilly.

You smiled politely at her as you sat down, letting out a sigh of relief at the way she was treating your return. After all, the way you had disappeared from Santorini had not been kind to her relationship with her father. But your father had made sure to let her know why you had left and where you were. She did not know the role that her daughter had played in your sudden disappearance and you hoped to keep it that way. “It’s lovely to see you, Lilly. I see the years have been kind to you.”

“How is your father, sweetheart? I haven’t had the chance to go down and see him yet.”

“He’s alright...” You admitted, nodding your head as though you were trying to convince yourself that he was. “He’s recovering.”

It was the moment before the doors were to open and the bride was to walk down the aisle. The bridesmaids and groomsmen had made their way down the aisle. Chuck Bass, being the best man he was, he turned over to look at the groom in disbelief. “You could have at least told us that she was back in town.” He whispered into his best friend’s ear. “Does she even know?”

Nate Archibald bit his lip nervously, his gaze darting towards where you sat for a moment before he shook his head. “No, she doesn’t. I don’t think she would have even showed up if I had told her and I couldn’t get myself to tell her, not when she’s been back here for the first time in fifteen years.” He admitted with a sigh, disappointed in himself that he had let it come to this. “She’s not going to cause a scene, Chuck.”

“It’s not even her that I’m worried about, Nate.” Chuck admitted. “It’s him. If he sees her like this and causes a scene, it’ll probably be very ugly.”

“He already knows that she’s coming.” He admitted. “I told him after the rehearsal dinner last night. She had been asking about him a lot ever since he got back from the Buckleys’ and so has he. I could not give him an answer until now.”

“What?” He rolled his eyes. “Nate, it’s your wedding day. If either one of them causes any drama, I swear to fucking God...”

“Don’t worry, Chuck. The only one who could cause a scene today is Caroline. And believe me, she won’t do that either, because her wedding is happening today just the way she wanted it to. I put my mother in her place and made her interference in the wedding planning come to a stop. Caroline’s actually quite pleased with me so there’s nothing for us to worry about.” He admitted, rather confidently as the doors open and the music began. He looked down the aisle to see his bride walking towards him and his eyes welled up in tears.

As you stood up from your seat, you turned around to finally see who the lucky woman to marry your little cousin could be. The moment your eyes landed on Caroline Baizen in her bridal gown, your heart sunk, for the man who was walking her down the aisle was the last person whom you had been hoping to run into ever since you had returned to the Upper East Side.

Of course, you knew he was here. You had bailed him out of the Buckleys’ debt yourself. That was why you had been so hesitant about coming back to town in the first place, for you knew that you would have no choice but to have an awkward run in with him. You did not think you would have caught a glimpse of him at your own cousin’s wedding out of all places. Yet there he was, dressed to the nines in his designer tuxedo as he walked his baby sister down the aisle, Carter Baizen himself in the flesh. He was your apocalypse.

You turned back around to face the groom, your eyes growing wide in disbelief. “I...” You mouthed, shaking your head at him as you felt your eyes glaze over.

Nate gave you an apologetic look that was mimicked by Chuck.

You turned back towards the aisle, wondering if there was any way you could just duck out of the wedding without being seen by the crowd. The bride was already halfway down the aisle; you could not get out. It was too late now; you had no other choice but to face the worst part of your dreadful past. You quickly turned your head away as they passed you, hoping that the man whom you had once loved did not notice you standing just a few feet away from him.

But unbeknownst to you, as you had turned your head away from him, Carter had taken a quick glance at you. Seeing that you were indeed alive and well made him let out a sigh of relief. He turned back to look at Nate, his lips curling into a smile as he gave him a nod.

As he handed Caroline’s hand over to him, he leaned over to pull his brother-in-law to be into a quick hug. “Thank you.” He whispered in his ear, for Nate had been the reason why Carter was able to get a glimpse of you after fifteen whole years apart.

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tezcalt · 4 years

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Thoughts about Gossip Girl.

I had tried to see Gossip Girl once a long time ago but I did not get past the middle of the second chapter, i felt desperate in how all the characters were so horrible and I mean how they behaved. So... I never saw the series.

But now thanks to the quarantine and my enormous amount of free time I decided to watch the series, and I really found it interesting, not because of the characters (well not all of them) they were still horrible people, but now I was hypnotized because I wanted to know What was wrong with them (more out of curiosity than anything else lol), I was still desperate for their superficial problems but it was quite interesting to see the kind of life they lived and I suppose that was the appeal of the program. Now that I have finished the series I can talk about what bothers me and what I like about the characters. The plot, well... it's a series for teenagers, there has to be drama, so I won't touch that. I warn there will be Spoilers.

Dan aka the lonely boy. We are supposed to be Dan, that person out of that world of privilege, we see (at least in the first season) everything from his perspective and that's why we connected with him at the beginning, at least I did. This character causes me conflicts because he is supposed to be the morally reliable character but as the seasons go by, you notice how he really has an inferiority conflict, he always sees himself as someone out of that world of wealth. He was a character that I liked but over time his attitude began to annoy me, he maintained that he came from a much poorer family (in comparison it is true) but I hated when he told other characters that they had never worked for something or that they had never tried anything in their life that they did not know what work was, I hated it because it was quite obvious that Dan did not come from a poor family, his dad managed quite well financially, Dan never work, he had a lot of time free and many opportunities that not everyone can have like a private education. His character began to shine as the boy who complained about everything, did nothing, gave up when he should not and above all was a really horrible and selfish person who pretended to be a good person (which for me was the worst and it is why I hate Vanessa) and it was one of the reasons why by the end of the series I was disgusted to see him.

Serena was that character that fooled everyone at first, she was supposed to be our protagonist, the lost girl who always wanted to be better. The reality is that Serena is probably the worst character in the series, she was made to have a development where she would mature and make something of herself but we only see her try, triumph, and then surrender for some ridiculousness. Serena is that character that never developed and not for lack of attempts, she is a stagnant character, the worst thing of all is her friendship with Blair, Serena despite the fact that she always got what she wanted, she couldn't help but want something that Blair had and that she had worked for it, because of this she always tried to ruin something that in Blair's life was going well, that's why she sleeps with Nate, tries to ruin Blair's engagement, her fashion show, her relationship with Dan, her parties and any attempt by her "best friend" to get something that makes her happy. And on top of all that after she does something horrible to hurt the people who love her, when they don't give up and fight back, she gets angry and plays the victim an in the end she don’t take any responsibility, falling again in the same vicious circle where she promises herself to be different but is still a horrible person.

Nate is the character who has had the most ups and downs, he has gone from being the perfect rich boy, to having nothing and then having everything again. His character is by far the calmest of all, Nate is not very smart but he has social ability which helps him to deal with is chaotic friends, his lowest fall was when he cheated on Blair with Serena. The truth is that I do not have many problems with the character, for me his attitude is a breath of fresh air in the series and his dramatic plots.

Blair is complicated, it is that typical character of the popular girl who mistreats everyone because she feels insecure, but her development throughout the series is quite good, it is still a bit childish but her understanding of what it is correct and what is not grows noticeably. In each season she has one goal or several, sometimes she fails, sometimes she triumphs but she always finds a way to use her failures as a learning experience, she does not come out unscathed from her sins because despite everything I think she has solid father figures who are in charge of guide and punish her when it is due. Everyone knows that she can be misleading and pitiful when she sets her mind to it but unlike other characters I think she accepts that and she owned it, she doesn't pretend to be someone who she is not and I think that makes the character earn the respect of viewers . Her relationship with Serena, even if it conflicts me, seems to be something of the most important to her and she has to deal with her complex of being overshadowed by Serena, which leads her to set goals. Her relationship with Chuck is also something that causes me a lot of conflict because I understand her deep connection and I understand that it is Chuck who makes her want more things and not only come out of Serena's shadow and be the perfect housewife, but her relationship With ups and downs it makes me feel guilty about how they really complement each other.

Chuck is quite a drama. His character is introduced to us as the idiot rich boy, as a villain and it is very obvious that after the pilot they rewrote him, not only because in the pilot we see him take the bus lol, but also because in the pilot he basically assaults almost all the female characters but later, when he kisses Blair he asks if she is sure of losing her virginity with him and after the pilot we never saw him do something similar, although there is mention of this in the third season, even though they do not clarify this situation well . The first time I saw the pilot I hated Chuck, and I thought we would never see him again, but as the seasons went by we saw him go through different types of emotional crisis, the death of his dad, his conflict with Nate over Blair , when he takes charge of his family's business. His character had a lot of emotional damage that prevented him from being more honest with his feelings for fear of being hurt (I could identify with this and that is why I ended up loving him). As I mentioned before with Blair, we all know that Chuck can be manipulative, deceitful, and vengeful just like everyone but just like Blair he recognizes this aspect of him and accepts it, at least in the first few seasons, then he realizes that this It causes the people he care about to get hurt and tries to change. Her relationship with Blair helps him a lot, for him she has always been better than him and that is why he always hesitates to demonstrate his feelings since he believes that at some point she will leave him, that is why both she and he comment the mistake of not wanting to change that dark part of themselves which ends up hurting both of them. This separation actually helps Chuck, he realizes that in order for Blair to accept him he has to change and has to be better, many people make the mistake of believing that Juliet was the one who changed him when in reality it was the pain of his mistake the that made him want that change. For me Chuck is a very interesting character throughout the series, not only for his dramatic family relationships, but because of all of them he is the one who changes and matures the most.

Plus comments.

I can't believe that no one has arrested Serena's dad. He's a fucking psycho!

Dan's dad is the only character who does not lose his integrity.

Eric was a wasted character, they could do a lot with him if he had more time on the show.

I liked the friendship that Dan had with Blair and Chuck (especially since Chuck doesn't accept anyone as a friend) and I think it was a huge mistake that they made Dan a love interest for Blair.

There were many characters in Gossip Girl but many of them are not worth mentioning I think that with the main characters it is enough.

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thegunslingerletmedrop · 3 years

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I wrote this Dair fic 5eva ago.

This is not meant to be something more.

Dan and Blair. Two separate entities separated by something more permanent than a conjunction – life. They start out with serendipity in their skies like most star crossed lovers do. It’s got to do with a moment here and a moment there that defines how his hand rests upon her waist and she actually kisses him back.

They end up wanting more. They end up getting less (but that’s for later).

Right now, they linger in the stage of unfulfilled fantasy and rampant denial. He speaks into her neck about endless possibilities but she refuses to follow him. She whispers her apologies and all she can think is Serena, Serena.

Dan tells Serena, We have a real connection. He has neither the patience nor the will to spare her feelings, and in their brief meeting, he also says things he should probably regret. This is the end of Lonely Boy and It Girl. Among other things.

She slips over in the middle of the night and in her silence he fills it up with his declarations and feelings. She covers his mouth with her hand and he wonders if she knows that she makes him ramble. She makes him nervous. This is not something that ever changes.

Being together hurts more than it should. Serena can barely look at them. Chuck can’t stop talking about them. Nate keeps himself out of it, tries to at least. Half of the Upper East Side laughs at her in secret but she doesn’t care, because when he says You’ll have me, she believes it.

She shouldn’t.

He is his charming, wonderful self, and she remains intuitive and still weeps at Nights of Cabira. This is the best of times. He takes her to the park and she gets a pie to the face. For a little while (before they become other people) forever seems possible.

The work sends him to LA. Blair doesn’t follow. Her life is New York and LA is just temporary. They stay up the whole night before he leaves because sleeping is for the weak.

He doesn’t mean to change. She doesn’t mean to resent it.

Blair walks around the city with one all-consuming paralyzing thought. After the fourth time she gets his voicemail she winds up at the Empire. It doesn’t go too far, but it’s far enough for her to tell God, don’t blame me for this.

Blair loses everything. Her reputation, her job, Dan. They yell. She throws things. He blames her. But she isn’t sorry, not after the forgotten dates and the forced platitudes on holidays. She asks (nearly begs) him to stay, to leave LA and move back home.

She used to be happy. He did too. This was before three words and eight letters were spoken, and even a little after. What happens isn’t some diabolical scheme or life changing event. It’s time. It’s loneliness. It’s how he stops asking her what she really wants, and how she stops knowing.

Love doesn’t keep them together. He thinks he may cry - after she leaves of course, but soon her tears start his own. He holds her a very long time, her whispered apologies making his throat burn. All he can think is he never expected to be her hero, but he didn’t think he’d end up the fool.

When someone else walks away with the girl he wants, he doesn’t know what to do but lose himself in a drunken stupor and words. He has no one to blame but himself but he blames everyone else anyways, and when he’s finally done, he truly is on the outside of his life, alone.

This is their disaster. Their ending. It was never going to be anything else, and what will haunt him for the rest of his life is not that she’s with Chuck, but that somewhere inside that Dan-scarred skin is the girl of his dreams.

And she hates him.

#gossip girl #dair #blair waldorf #dan humphrey #cleaning out my proverbial closet(hard drive)#man i had some serious feelings about these two #i hate the cw

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terrencellovesyou · 7 years

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It’s time for one of my wonderful rants

I was bored ~still am by the way~ and I decided to go through both the anti-Dair and anti-Chair tags on Tumblr. Well, it has been a while since I’ve decided that I wanted to write my opinion on all of this, but with university and my internship, time wasn’t really something I had. Anyway, if you are bored as well and want to read what I’m about to say, I would be thrilled, especially if any of you have any opinion on it, regardless of who you ship.

So, Gossip Girl first episode came out almost 10 years ago, yeah I know, and I still watch it periodically. I first started watching the show when I was 11 years old and I instantly became obsessed. As the years went by I matured, when through all kinds of life experiences (especially in the last couple years) that made me view some aspects of the show differently. Since my Tumblr name is waldorfbasss you can infer that I ship Chair.

As I said, I was bored and went through both tags to read people`s opinions on both relationships, analyzing what Chair shippers thought of Dair and Chair, and vice-versa. It was clear that both sides are completely biased and I could say that Dan and Blair shippers are a little more delusional (I promise I’m not being partial, or at least I’m trying not to be). Why do I say that? Because if you go on the anti-Chair tag, one of the first posts you’ll see is a gifset comparing the terrible things Chuck has said to Blair to the good ones Dan said. I think it’s valid, honestly, but let’s not forget to do the comparison for both sides. I thought I had seen a gifset doing exactly that, but I did not find it, but anyway. You can point out things in a way that is more beneficial to prove your point, and that works for basically anything in life. Chuck did his share of dreadful things to Blair, I’m not even gonna try to deny that, but so did Dan, and worse, he was supposed to be older and presumably, more mature and he always pretended to be better.

There are two key points when it comes to Chair critics: Chuck was abusive and a horrible person, who manipulated Blair and made her be less than she was. First things first, I don’t know how many times I’ll have to say this but BLAIR WALDORF WAS NEVER A FUCKING SAINT. It amazes me how people in general forget who was the most manipulative and bitchy character in Gossip Girl and try to put on Chuck all the blame of being a “horrible person”. I’m not defending Chuck at all, especially when it comes to the Empire/Blair trade and the “you are mine” + accidently hurting her with glass. Both attitudes were despicable and way worse than anything Dan has done, but (yeah there’s a but), those were clear mistakes that he later on apologized for (and was forgiven), and most importantly, did not commit again, or anything remotely close to that. In spite of these two “episodes” Chuck and Blair’s relationship was not abusive. Yes, you read it write. If you don’t believe me just google “abusive relationship”. I’m not saying, though, that it was one hundred percent healthy or that those two very specific moments were not abusive. You can say Chuck was manipulative, but so was Blair. This was actually a trait that they liked about each other, together with their games and schemes. Since we mentioned the two horrible things Chuck did to Blair, I should also point out when Blair was blatantly abusive to Chuck. Do you guys remember when Chuck was dating Eva and minding his own business, when Blair did everything she could to put Eva down and destroy their relationship, just because Chuck was happy with someone who was not her? Or when Blair made him wait for her while she dated Dan? They were both abusive assholes to one another in specific scenarios and extremely manipulative on a regular basis (as said before, they weren’t in a healthy relationship for some of the time), but they both were and at first they didn’t mind, but later decided to grow out of it.

Argument number two: Chuck was a horrible person. There are a lot of things to say about this, inside and outside of the tv show context. It’s obvious that he abused two girls (Serena and Jenny) trying to rape them both on the pilot, but that was a fucking pilot, he even had a mother and rode the bus, so. I’m not trying to excuse him on this one, but when saying thigs like that, the whole context should be taken into consideration. He was still a pig on season one and on other occasions, but, fortunately, he matured and changed (I know, right? Unbelievable that people can actually change wow). Chuck was a horrible person, but he started to change and mature during season four and five, and it’s clear by the end of this extremely bad written tv show, that he had become a better person (by the way, best character development on the show). People change, grow up and mature (eventually), even if it is for worse, which was Dan’s case.

It’s ridiculous hearing people say Blair was weak around Chuck and that her goals revolved around him solely. Blair was strong and independent since day one, she never bowed herself for men (except when she dated Dan, an OOC moment). Season six was a mess, but don’t get me started on how much Chuck encouraged Blair on everything and I quote “Don't let anyone tell you you're not powerful. You're the most powerful woman I know.”. What a horrible selfish prick.

I wanna start off by talking about myself and my personal experience to justify what I’m about to say. As I mentioned before, I was 11 when I started watching Gossip Girl and I never kissed anyone until I was 18 and that guy ended up being my boyfriend for two and a half years. So, before the end of 2014 I didn’t even know what kissing was, let alone the dynamic of a relationship. Being broken up now for four months after two and a half years with someone, I can base a lot on my personal experience. As soon as I broke up I started rewatching GG for the 17th time and when Dair started happening I actually didn’t think they were as bad as I thought before [being in an actual relationship]. Not once, though, I liked it or thought it was cute, but I understood Blair a little better. If I had a friend like Dan was to Blair, I would probably give him a chance after my relationship ended, because I was fragile and missing having someone there.

The things I’m about to say, therefore, are based on what I saw of Dan and Blair’s relationship and on my personal experience. There are many things about Dair that are delusional and unrealistic (that I will gladly accept responses on) and with Dan himself. Again, first things first. Blair was in a really bad emotional place when she started dating Dan and that was so wrong and unfair to him, because, as you can see later, he fell for her and loved her, but she didn’t, she just needed someone to help her bounce back on her feet and he was there. The relationship started wrong right dair (got it?). Many of the Dair shippers defend that they were equals and that they liked the same stuff and, therefore, were perfect for each other. Well, trust me when I say that having things in common is not enough, especially when you are completely different people. Someone once said that Blair went from being an Audrey Hepburn fan to being a cult movie and art aficionado and I agree. This “common interest” was molded and created so that they would have something to bond over when they became friends, but even if we let the horrible writing aside, I’ll repeat, having things in common is not enough to neither make a relationship work or maintain a “good” relationship, let alone make it perfect. When you have different life perspectives, dreams and values it’s pretty damn hard to put those aside to consider only the points you think are good, and that happened a lot with Dair. Blair didn’t want to go to Rome for multiple reasons, but imagining that she did want to go, don’t you think that she would like to stay on the best hotel, eat at the most exclusive places and shop whenever she had the chance? And it’s clear to me that Dan would not be a fan of those things. As to the being equals part I don’t have to say much, I’ll just take Blair’s words from season six “tasks are for minions and Dan Humphrey”. They were not equals and definitely didn’t see each other as such.

What gets me the most about this relationship is that Dan never truly loved Blair Waldorf. As I mentioned before, Dan said his amount of shitty things to/about Blair, and he thought he was right. Dan built in his mind what he wanted Blair to be, cutting of all of the things he didn’t like and pretending they didn’t exist. He fell in love with Claire, his character from Insider. It was nothing other than an idealistic Blair that he manufactured to be what he wanted, but who in the real world had a lot of the flaws he despised.

Another aspect that is really interesting to me is how can people say that Chuck was horrible and put Dan on a “great guy” pedestal? Did you forget that he manipulated everyone around him? He was Gossip Girl for fucks sake. It was sociopathic the way he maneuvered the scenarios and planted the gossip that was good for him, such as posting that video on Blair’s wedding and posing as the victim, so she would think Chuck had done it and go running back to him for support. I’m not talking exclusively about Blair in here. Dan was creepy and in the end the most disturbing thing about GG’s finale was how easy everyone accepted the fact that he was manipulating information, plotting and using people to get what he wanted. Regardless of Dair, Dan was the worst character in the show, since season one, only getting worse with time.

I could go on and on about both relationships, but I just wanted, on this post, point out the mainly points I saw on those two tags. I am pretty aware of all the flaws Chuck and Blair’s relationship had, but one thing people don’t seem to get is that they were both disturbed and dark, but they matured and changed. They are extremely alike in more ways than one. I hate that people forget how bad Blair is and blame it all on Chuck. As for Dan and Blair, they just didn’t match and the only thing they had in common was their love for movies. The same way all relationships have flaws, theirs did as well, and quite a lot, mostly because of the fact that Dan loved Claire and Blair loved Chuck. She was fragile and lost after losing Chuck and the baby, and then Louis; she needed someone and Dan was there, she used him (unconsciously of course). Dan on the other hand wanted to be Blair’s savior, like he wanted to be for Serena.

One thing I like to make pretty clear: Chair should not be relationship goals. Serena once said, “two wrongs make a twisted right”. Twisted right describes them perfectly, they are dark twisted and troubled, but somehow, they are right for each other. Chuck evolved and matured and so did Blair, but neither are examples of great people. Nor is their relationship an example of healthy. Their evolution, though, is something to take into consideration. The way they wanted to be equals and have their minds set and focused on the relationship is awesome. Their relationship, especially in the end, has great lessons, both good and bad.

We are adults and should be able to spot the differences between fiction and reality, to be able to see what’s wrong on tv and try not to mimic in real life. This serves for all the relationships, not only the ones involving Blair or Gossip Girl.

#chuck and blair #blair and chuck #chuck x blair #blair x chuck #blair waldorf #chuck bass #gossip girl #anti chair #anti dair #Dan Humphrey #dair

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terrainofheartfelt · 2 years

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Serena uploading Blair’s diary entries to the Gossip Girl laptop was one thing (shitty, but maybe forgivable given that she didn’t actually intend to upload them and was Going Through It at the time), but what she did in 5x24 at the Campbell divorce party was something else entirely. Ignoring the dubious consent issues of Serena sleeping with a drunk Dan who wasn’t aware he was being set up or filmed (mega yikes), Serena intentionally set the scene to recreate one of the worst formative moments of Blair’s life. So many of Blair’s insecurities about herself and her relationships stem from Nate cheating on her with Serena on that fucking bar, to the point that it was STILL affecting her in the present day - we’re shown in season 6 that she still doesn’t fully believe that anyone could truly get over Serena, which is part of the reason she decided to get back together with Chuck. For Serena to purposely exploit those insecurities, to force Blair to relive that moment just because she’s mad at her for kicking her out? It’s indefensible. As much as I feel like the whole thing was majorly OOC, if we are considering it canon, then I don’t think Serena deserved to be forgiven by Blair at all - it really should have been the end of their friendship, as shitty as that would have been. But I just don’t see how anyone could get over their best friend doing something so intentionally malicious to them, y’know?

(And again, that’s without even acknowledging the impact that being taken advantage of in such an intimate way must have had on Dan!)

Oohf so I am trying to answer some asks today and I’ve left this sitting for a while because it requires many spoons and mine have all…been in the sink or something.

And yeah as you have I am going to put the Serena & Dan of it all (mostly) to the side bc it is SO egregious and I am not trying to justify what Serena does because it is awful

But because you’re bringing this back to Blairena, let’s take it there.

I’m actually glad I put answering this on hold bc now I can refer you to this excellent piece of meta by Jo. And it really does all come back to 1x04 doesn’t it? Blair thinks she’ll never be enough, but Serena just is, for that fact that she exists — and that’s not Serena’s fault, it’s just who she is, so it has to be Blair’s fault.

Ok wow I am making myself sad so like, when you frame the relationship this way, it just gives the s5 finale that much more power to hurt you, because Blair has spent her whole life reconciling with how she’s Too Much and Not Enough at the same time, and she finally reaches a moment of arrival with “Dan loves me for me,” bc she doesn’t have to do that math with him anymore. But then, in her eyes, (not what I think was actually happening in this moment in my own reading) Serena takes another person from her, because that’s who she is. And it’s the narrative, right? The story that Blair, more than any of the other mains, except maybe chip, has known how the story is supposed to end. And here it has. And then it adds this extra layer of her going back to chip: she’s never enough, but he hasn’t made that a secret really. The devil you know. Meanwhile Dan is grappling with his own issues of Never Being Enough and Always Being Too Much and gossip!Serena (#notmyserena) captures them both at their weakest moment and confirms their respective fears at the same time. God that is some shakespearean shit. Gossip! Girl! Is! A! Tragedy!

As for Blairena in the post s5 economy…I’ve been thinking about it a lot, it’s the next knot I’m trying to untangle in my post s5 au. the wounds they have inflicted on each other are so severe, but narratively, I still want them to love each other. So, I guess I’m suspending my disbelief a little bit for the sake of the fiction (which I think is fine! it’s a good thing in media!). And there’s is a friendship that is built for fiction. It’s the true Mythic Relationship of the show, the deep deep love they have for each other counterweighted by the deep deep loathing they have for their own selves, and constantly colliding and revolving and thriving and surviving and destroying each other.

But with all of that, narratively speaking, they still need each other.

So, it reads very homoerotic and romantic—which is valid, but if I may broker a pretentious cringe comparison born of another fandom obsession: I’ve always kind of thought of Blairena’s friendship as comparable to the notion of parabatai that is in Cassandra Clare’s Shadowhunter Chronicles Series (I know, I know just let me go there for a sec). So, leaving all the magic and warrior cult context of this fantasy series aside, the parabatai relationship is like a deep, binding platonic devotional bond between two people. They are tied together by faith and ritual, from childhood (that’s actually an important point in these books), a very specific kind of soulmate. Clare uses the ancient greek delineations of love to describe it philia (friendship, brotherly love) & agape (selfless universal love) but not necessarily eros (erotic and/or romantic – for the purposes of this illustration – love). She also references the biblical story of Ruth and Naomi “thy people shall be my people / thy god my god…where thou diest, I shall die, and there they shall bury me” etc etc. I don’t want to get to into it (because I will if I let myself, but this is all just to say, I don’t think the world would spin right if these two were to be estranged forever. They are bonded together, by their shared childhoods, shared traumas, the way they carried each other through their adolescence. The red string of fate is tying them together by their pinky swears.

So I don’t want the friendship to end, but I do think it needs to be given space. In calling back to my au, Mouthful of Forevers, that’s what I’ve done so far. To heal, they absolutely have to be apart for a while, Blair moves to France, Serena starts traveling, yadiyadiyadda. It’s distance that they needed probably since the Pink Party. To grow into themselves, so that when they next see other and really talk, they know enough about their own self that they aren’t threatened by the strength and self-actualization that their best friend now happens, the growth has to happen separately, or it won’t last.

Which also comes back to 1x04 (shocker), and the way they define themselves in opposition to the other. Because, in this world of wealth they grew up in, they were taught to believe in scarcity. If she has this, that means that I can’t have it too. If Serena is good, then I am bad. If Blair is smart, then I am foolish. If I love her, then I can’t love me. If he loves her, then he cannot love me. If he loves me, he can’t, because who will love her?

It’s a theological principle my dad and I have talked about (I know, let it go there) the gospel of scarcity vs the gospel of plenty. Ultimately, the gospel of scarcity is a fallacy. There is enough. These girls have enough love within them to give to each other and to themselves. There is enough in the world for them to both be happy. One does not need to tear herself apart to save the other, and she doesn’t need to tear the other apart to save herself. And they have to learn that by being apart for a while, and build a happiness that is outside of their friendship, so that they know when they come back together, that life isn’t going to go away in the presence of the other’s happiness.

I think what Dan and Serena’s friendship looks like in the aftermath is a whole other post, but I’ll say this: the way he and Serena are tied together is different, because they met at a different point in their lives and to a different end, so I don’t know if Serena’s betrayal of him is worse (given the history she and Blair have) but I think Dan feels it more keenly, and has less qualms about cutting Serena out of his life than Blair would have. Which is also something I am trying to tackle in MoF, once I get back to writing it. It’s all incubating right now while I’m working on the P&P au, but here, have a snippet:

She had been staring out the window, gazing at the Alps on the other side of the glass, Dan’s head pillowed in her lap while he talked.

I think – he’d said, After it first happened, I thought it was something we had done together, but the further I get away from it, the more I think she was using me. And I don’t – I don’t know what to do with that.

#gg meta #whoa how do I tag this?#asks #anon #blairena #anti derena #(i guess?)#in which liz does some pretty wonky intertextual analysis #baby i can synthesize ideas from all kinds of media

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mrs-nate-humphrey · 3 years

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So I have a curious question: as both a writer and someone who genuinely seems to care about Dan Humphrey and his character arc, how would you handle the concept of a "dark!Dan" arc, given the chance? As much as I HATE Dan's season 6 storyline and Sara Goodman's handling of the "dark!Dan" thing, I can't help but feel that there's a small nugget of something interesting there. S6!Dan was clearly written just to prop up Chuck, but I wonder what might have been if the writers still cared about Dan.

this is actually a difficult one to answer, mostly because i have too many thoughts. well, here’s to trying! (to the surprise of Nobody, this got pretty long!)

uh so, the thing i noticed about dan on first watch but became even more clear while i was rewatching certain episodes is that he’s very... passive isn’t the right word, nor is tolerant, but at the same time, something along those lines? dan keeps quiet when people hurt him or disappoint him - he doesn’t really do anything with that hurt. notable example is vanessa’s coming back? vanessa tries to pick up where they left off, and dan sorta goes along with it to the extent where both jenny and rufus need to tell vanessa that things aren’t how they were before when she left + that she actually really hurt dan - because dan isn’t telling her this himself.

basically, dan seems to be, by nature, VERY non-confrontational.

given this, i feel like dan’s whole exposé thing in s6 is very out of character - being like “oh yeah i’m going to actively ruin the lives of the people around me and show no remorse!” feels super uncharacteristic to dan, especially out of the blue like that.

when it comes to “tolerance” - i don’t know what better word to use, but throughout the show we see a few instances in which dan spends time with people he doesn’t like, for his own benefit or simply because it’s easier than getting out of that situation. for example, him hanging out with chuck for the charlie trout story, despite regarding chuck with the highest distaste - he puts all that aside because he needs that story, and he’s determined to get it, because he wants to succeed so badly. to some extent, i think that is bad writing (i don’t see dan forgiving someone who hurt jenny that easily or that casually) but at the same time it does fit in with the rest of dan’s character - imo he forgives georgina too easily in the s3 arc, which. does he really believe that she’s changed? maybe! but it feels weird to me because it’s like, while dan seems to have such high morals for himself he doesn’t really care what his friends are like, which i think is INTERESTING.

based on how you interpret the show canon, dan i think has had somewhere between 1 and 5 friends before the whole thing with serena, & most of these friends are his family (which is sad, i mean. rufus is rufus, alison LEFT, and jenny’s his little sister so there’s definitely things he can’t possibly talk to her about) or vanessa, who left pretty abruptly and hurt him pretty badly. i think given this, it makes sense that he would get into really weird and unhealthy friendships, because he doesn’t have much experience with healthy friendships and ends up just settling.

when we’re talking about dark!dan, these two things become super essential to me - dan’s non-confrontational slightly passive attitude to his friends, and the fact that he, potentially, could get in unhealthy friend groups and not realise it. i joke a lot about how the dan & georgina dynamic in s6 was my favourite part of the season, but it’s not actually a joke!! i can see how like. dan is still “friends” with georgina, and georgina loves to call the shots, and dan doesn’t mind doing what he’s being told. georgina for the most part seems sympathetic to dan’s problems, and dan, enabled by that friendship and her being there with him, goes and causes absolute havoc. sounds right! like, not the exposés themselves, but just the fact that someone needed to Be There Encouraging Dan to be Bad - i think That’s how it’d start.

i can imagine dan getting in with the wrong group of people, or whatever - like, dan having friends like s1 carter baizen. and it’d start innocently enough, like “oh these kids who are millionaires and billionaires don’t ever face any consequences for their actions and end up treating people from other class brackets like shit” and evolve into something like dan scamming nate at poker out of spite, and then realising that he’s in this group wayyy too deep, because, yes, he hates the rich kids as a matter of principle, and he’s been bitter about it for a long time, but “isn’t this going a bit too far, guys?” at this point though, much like jenny surrounded by her clique of mean girls, he doesn’t have an easy escape. “no,” carter will say. “we’ve only just begun. do you trust me?” and dan’s friendship is just Like That, which is not great, but he says yes and he means it.

so that’s one possible dark!dan arc i’d give him - joins a group and his intentions at the time aren’t even Inherently bad, and then just gradually slowly finds himself doing worse and worse things. at first it’d be reasonable stuff - maybe he does the anon call to yale that gets blair’s acceptance rescinded, maybe he’d find some way to mess up chuck’s business deal behind the scenes - things he can rationalise away as things they had coming because blair and chuck did something wrong and if they hadn’t, none of this would be able to affect them. then suddenly he finds himself sabotaging serena and nate and he’s like. holy fuck, what is wrong with me? that would be an interesting thing to explore.

another thing - i can’t believe i got this far into this response without mentioning jenny. but: jenny.

dan’s canonically not too pissed off about people treating him terribly. it’s what he’s used to, and he doesn’t expect any different! jenny, comparatively, is ready to say ‘fuck it’ to everyone and do whatever she wants to do to get what she wants, even if she hurts everybody around her on the way there - but that’s not what this is about, this is about how dan would never react recklessly and maliciously if someone was bad to him. but if someone hurt jenny???

unpopular opinion, but i can see him being gossip girl in THAT very specific context. girls in school are being cruel to his baby sister? he needs to shift the focus away from jenny. he needs to do something to keep his sister safe. so he creates a website, “gossip girl.” he starts blogging about one of the popular girls in his class, serena van der woodsen, because if people are busy sending tips about the girls in his grade, they’ll back off and leave jenny alone. i think if someone hurt jenny really, really badly, dan would basically go, ‘okay, i’m done being a good person’, and running gossip girl or doing something equally big that enables him to hold power over the group of girls who ruined his sister’s life? it could work.

the thing about dan being gossip girl is it makes no sense how the show did it. “a love letter”??? no, no way. dan and serena BOTH know that gossip girl is malicious and cruel and nasty in the early seasons. they both express their distaste/hatred towards the site and whatnot. dan’s “i could just write my way into the story” thing doesn’t sound right to me either, and his whole “i actually secretly wanted to be just like you guys” thing makes me shudder because. hey, whoever wrote s6, did you even watch your own show?

but dan being gossip girl because he’s bitter about the dynamics in high school, the privilege a few groups of people have, because he sees girls like jenny being treated terribly and harassed and pressured and coerced into things they don’t want to do, and he’s like, this is fucked up, why is nobody doing anything about this, what if i did something about this - and he starts gossip girl hoping that it’ll show people how none of their “friends” are really their friends, or that it’ll just form some sort of consequence for kids who never face consequences... like, i can see THAT happening and i think that’d be interesting to explore for a character like dan, especially if at some point jenny gets to like. smack him in the face with a handbag or something and go “you’re so righteous! you only made things worse with your stupid gossip site, dan!” and he’s like oh shit. but he doesn’t know what to do at that point - he’s been running the site for like 3 or 4 years and he doesn’t know who he is without it.

dan being gossip girl also makes sense given his non-confrontational nature - he can cause conflict without getting involved directly in the conflict, so it’s comfortable for him.

okay, so! wow, this got long, but you must’ve known that it would when you sent me this ask, haha. to summarise:

dan is very non-confrontational and often tolerant of the wrong people, this could be explored in a certain direction such as if he allied with toxic and dangerous people

dan never really fights for himself, but he’s naturally a protective person, so if something were to happen to jenny, i see that as the most major and natural incentive for a dark!dan arc.

wow, everything i said fits into 2 bullet points! who would’ve thought.

#gossip girl #anon #dan humphrey #meta #finally a nuanced take from me about this dude!!!#idk what to say like #dan isn't necessarily my favourite character #but he's the one i am most naturally symphathetic? emphathetic? to #i do genuinely like his character a lot #and i've always been fascinated by like #for the most part all gg characters aren't inherently good or bad #it's a lot more complicated than that #of course there are exceptions #but im not going there in the tags fdlflkhlkfdhl #long post

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getyourgossip0-blog · 6 years

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10 Casting Decisions That Hurt Gossip Girl (And 10 That Saved It)

New Post has been published on https://getyourgossip.xyz/10-casting-decisions-that-hurt-gossip-girl-and-10-that-saved-it/

10 Casting Decisions That Hurt Gossip Girl (And 10 That Saved It)

by Katerina Daley

– on May 12, 2018

in Lists

The early 2000s was truly the time to be a television watching teen. Formative high school hits such as Dawson’s Creek, Gilmore Girls, One Tree Hill, and The OC dominated the airwaves.

By the late ’00s, however, a noticeable shift in teenage media consumption occurred — and, as a result of it, teen dramas became less about high school and more about excessive wealth and destructive behavior.

Enter Gossip Girl. Premiering in 2007, the series challenged the way teens had been entertained, offering a view of a wealthier world — but also a more technologically savvy one, too.

The series was a soap opera, to be sure, but it was also a mystery and a thriller all along the way, no matter how mind-boggling and, truthfully, stupid a resolution to the mystery the series would eventually offer.

For six melodramatic seasons, Gossip Girl followed the lives of the residents of New York’s Upper East Side, including the members of the Non-Judging Breakfast Club – Blair Waldorf, Chuck Bass, Nate Archibald, and Serena Van Der Woodsen – as they found themselves plagued by an anonymous gossip blogger known only as Gossip Girl.

Just as the residents of the Upper East Side found themselves addicted to every juicy secret, viewers were hooked on the lives of these characters, too.

However, in the long run, how many of those casting choices really worked in the show’s favor?

Here are the 10 Casting Decisions That Hurt Gossip Girl (And 10 That Saved It).

20 Hurt: Penn Badgley (Dan Humphrey)

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When Gossip Girl began, Dan Humphrey was your stereotypical outsider who longed to be part of the exclusive inner circle of rich kids and experience the wealth and luxury that was their everyday lives.

By the series’ end, not only was he marrying one of the innermost members of that circle, he had spent six years tormenting each and every member of it by assuming the online identity of Gossip Girl.

He began as a character of modest means and earnest intellect and feeling – but, as a result of existing in so warped and wealthy a world, became a monster who never really faced any consequences for his blackmail and gossip. Instead, he was rewarded with the girl of his dreams, because logic.

It’s not exactly an easy task to play someone who transforms from rags to riches.

However, it’s an even more difficult task to portray someone who goes from innocent bystander to manipulative mastermind – especially when it’s clear that the show never really intended that outcome to happen.

Penn Badgley never really had a chance, due to the volatility of the writing and the clear lack of planning put into it.

However, beyond that disadvantage, he was also never particularly convincing as Dan, the series’ ostensible romantic antihero.

He worked better as Dan, down on his luck, than he ever did as Dan, social climber. But since social climbing proved to be the point of his character, it’s safe to say that the series could have done a better casting job on that one.

19 Saved: Robert John Burke (Bart Bass)

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In a series ostensibly about the world of teenage wealth and luxury, it comes as a surprise that some of the most magnetic characters are, in fact, the adults.

Ostensibly removed from that world of teenage foolishness, the parents nevertheless find plenty of ways to get themselves into soapy messes of their own – and perhaps none of them more than the series’ villainous Bart Bass.

A ruthless businessman, Bart’s contentious relationship with his son, Chuck, is one of the series’ central conflicts, resulting in Bart meeting his demise in the final season as a result of a heated argument that puts Chuck under scrutiny due to the compromising nature of their situation at the time.

It would be easy to turn so imposing and singularly evil a character as Bart into a caricature, a glorified mustache-twirling villain with a narrow view of only his dastardly deeds and nothing else.

However, thanks to the gravitas afforded to the role by veteran actor Robert John Burke, Bart’s threatening nature is never one that can be taken lightly.

His presence onscreen looms large, especially opposite his son, and his performance is captivating in each and every dynamic scene.

A veteran of series such as Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and Rescue Me, Burke has more than shown his dramatic power over the years, and it’s not at all wasted in the role of Bart.

18 Hurt: Blake Lively (Serena van der Woodsen)

Serena Van Der Woodsen just may be one of the most spoiled characters in television history. In a world full of privileged and selfish characters, Serena’s behavior is consistently the worst of them all.

She rarely ever thinks of anyone but herself, stealing significant others from so called friends and spreading rumors to enhance her own image.

She’s framed as the girl everyone wants to be or wants to be with, and over the course of the series, she racks up quite the impressive list of exes and enemies.

By series’ end, not only has she not grown in any way whatsoever, but she goes on to marry the man behind the monstrous Gossip Girl moniker, showing that there was never any real depth to the character either.

Blake Lively may be a red-carpet mainstay, and an aspiring lifestyle icon, but in the role of Serena Van Der Woodsen, she couldn’t have been more woefully miscast.

A more capable and talented actress could have found a way to imbue the overall unlikable princes of privilege with moments that garnered potential sympathy.

Instead, Lively spent much of her time as Serena gaping and pouting, over exaggerating emotion for the sake of soap opera theatrics. In recent roles, she has shown herself to be a stronger actress.

However, the years have not been kind to her performance as Serena – or to the character in general.

17 Saved: Kelly Rutherford (Lily van der Woodsen)

As yet another one of the adults who is far more interesting and sympathetic than the teenagers, Lily Van Der Woodsen is everything that Serena Van Der Woodsen could have been.

Over the course of the series, Lily perfectly dances the line between privileged but down to earth. Her romantic relationships are well-written and captivating, particularly with her first love and eventual (ex) husband Rufus Humphrey.

By allowing her to navigate the world of falling in love with someone of a lower socioeconomic class than Serena ever did, the series undercuts its own message of attempting to depict Lily’s daughter in a flattering light.

Lily is effortlessly graceful and unrestrainedly sympathetic, a hard balance to find in the world of so many callous Upper East Siders.

The world of the wealthy and dramatic is one that had long been familiar to actress Kelly Rutherford, who spent much of the 1990s starring on glitzy soap operas including Generations and Melrose Place.

Given her past experience, she brought the necessary poise and grace to the role that a matriarch such as Lily Van Der Woodsen required.

She was able to shift from maternal Lily to self-interested socialite Lily at the drop of a hat, always convincing and able to work well off any costar she was paired with for a plot, no matter how divisive response to the plots themselves may have been.

16 Hurt: Taylor Momsen (Jenny Humphrey)

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Dan Humphrey had a difficult enough time fitting in the world of the Upper East Side from the very beginning.

However, if he thought he had it bad, it was nothing compared to what younger sister Jenny Humphrey went through, including attempted assaults, falls from social grace, and spirals into edgy depression that the show tried to convey with the overuse of black makeup.

The character was once promising – a smart and enterprising outsider shows real potential in fashion and her prestigious school – but over time, the series lost the point it was trying to make with her character.

After she spiraled further, the show soon gave up on trying to do anything with her, and actress Taylor Momsen decided to leave the show.

Momsen leaving the show may have been one of the best things to ever happen to it. While she was a perfectly adorable little kid as Cindy Lou Who in the Jim Carrey movie version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Momsen’s work as an adolescent actor never came across in a particularly believable way.

Jenny was often criticized by fans for being whiny and annoying, always getting in the way of characters they felt deserved more screen time.

Much of that criticism can perhaps be directly tied to Momsen’s poor acting choices above anything else.

Following her departure from the series, she focused more so on music with her band The Pretty Reckless; and since departing Gossip Girl, she has not acted at all.

15 Saved: Katie Cassidy (Juliet Sharp)

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Every good teen soap series needs a whole bunch of characters who are allowed to be truly mischievous villains, and if there was one thing Gossip Girl did well in its twisty run, it was that.

The series had male and female villains alike in spades, most of them embittered socialites who were envious of all that the main group of characters had.

Take, for example, Juliet Sharp – a Columbia student with a vendetta against Serena Van Der Woodsen who will stop at nothing when it comes to bringing her down.

She wins over Serena’s onetime love, Nate, spreads as many rumors about Serena as she can, and generally sabotages her entire public image for some time with incredible ease and accuracy.

While Katie Cassidy may be a divisive actor within the world of the Arrowverse, there is no denying how spot on her portrayal of a scorned wannabe socialite is in the world of the Upper East Side.

Each scene is masterfully acted, whether she is being coy and manipulative as she strings along the likes of the dimwitted Nate Archibald, or whether she is admitting her villainous intentions to the likes of Vanessa, Jenny, or Serena.

Juliet may have struggled to find her place in the scene of Columbia and the New York elite, but Cassidy fit perfectly into a cast that truly could have benefited from her in a larger role.

14 Hurt: Kaylee DeFer (Ivy Dickens)

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In the absence of characters such as Jenny and Juliet, Gossip Girl was forced to quickly scramble and find a replacement amoral character who would be able to stir up trouble and get into ill-advised relationships.

Enter the beyond-annoying Ivy Dickens.

As part of an elaborate and aggravating scheme among the Rhodes-Van Der Woodsen family, Ivy first enters the series posing as Serena’s cousin, Charlotte.

When the truth about her identity is revealed, and the wealth she had deceptively inherited is stripped from her, Ivy assumes the role of a true villain, setting out to ruin the Van Der Woodsen clan in any way she can.

Ivy is an original character within the television series, which puts her at a character development disadvantage from the get go.

However, what makes her character most insufferable of all was the choice to cast Kaylee DeFer in the role.

Prior to starring on Gossip Girl, DeFer appeared in a few small movies and roles in low viewed television series; and following Gossip Girl, DeFer hasn’t done much else, even officially announcing a break from acting in 2013.

Based on the generally tone deaf and emotionless performances she turned in during her time as Ivy, that’s perhaps for the best. We’re not sure anyone could have made Ivy an enjoyable character – but DeFer certainly did the character no favors.

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13 Saved: Margaret Colin (Eleanor Waldorf)

Eleanor Waldorf is a hard character to get a handle on. She is at times alternately maternal and cruel.

Over time, she grows a considerable amount, becoming closer to her daughter in her times of need and eventually developing a healthy relationship with her.

However, in the earlier parts of the series, she is downright destructive to her daughter’s sense of worth and self, encouraging her eating disorder and criticizing her body image at every turn.

Thankfully, the series begins to see the error of its ways over time, especially with Cyrus as a mediator among the strong-willed Waldorf women.

Just as Kelly Rutherford’s performance in Gossip Girl was strengthened by her past in the world of soap operas, Margaret Colin was such a standout due to her own soap past.

In the early 1980s, she starred on As The World Turns for three years, originating the role of yet another strong-willed female character, Margo Hughes.

In her tenure as Eleanor Waldorf-Rose, even in her most unlikable moments, Colin was always convincing, providing the perfect amount of grace and composure and gravitas in every scene she shared, whether with her onscreen daughter or her onscreen love.

12 Hurt: Chace Crawford (Nate Archibald)

Nate Archibald isn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed or the brightest bulb in the box, but most of the time, he really does have a good heart.

Sure, he can be pretty selfish, as are all of his friends, but he makes the most earnest efforts over the course of the series to put the needs of others before his own.

While that often gets him into trouble – as he gets manipulated easily by seasonal villains, love interests, and friends alike – it also makes him one of the most forward-moving characters in the series.

He has some of the clearest development out of the teen cast, as he transforms from aimless high school student, to newspaper editor, and all the way to candidate for the mayor of New York City.

Nate’s character may be particularly interesting, and overall, he has a pretty compelling narrative on paper. But unfortunately, the interesting aspects of his character are owed entirely to the writing, and not at all to the portrayal by actor Chace Crawford.

Crawford is better taken in small doses. In comedic moments, he’s stronger, and is often quite boyishly adorable.

However, in serious dramatic moments, he always falls flat, never living up to the strength of his onscreen partners.

Nate is shown time and again to be a perfectly malleable character – but perhaps some of that was unintentional and can instead be attributed to the wishy-washy portrayal by Crawford.

11 Saved: Wallace Shawn (Cyrus Rose)

In a show full of so many cutthroat people who are only looking out for themselves, there has to be a character or two who truly represent all things good in the world, even if they’re hard to find within the series’ setting. For Gossip Girl, one of those characters is the adorably affable Cyrus Rose.

As a lawyer to the stars, Cyrus had every reason to let fame and fortune go to his head. However, he never did, instead remaining one of the most down to earth characters in the entire series.

As Blair’s step-father, Cyrus was constantly a source of support, love, and warmth. And with all the positive warm and fuzzy feelings came a little pinch of comic relief, too.

After all, it would be impossible – if not unforgivable – to have the comic genius of the one and only Wallace Shawn in the role of Cyrus Rose and not make him a truly humorous character.

Shawn’s comedic timing and generally adorable old man demeanor make him the perfect choice for a role that was considerably expanded – and softened – from the Cyrus Rose in the Gossip Girl book series.

Shawn provided a welcome veteran talent source to the cast of mostly rising young stars, strengthening their work whenever he shared a scene with them.

10 Hurt: Connor Paolo (Eric van der Woodsen)

The Van Der Woodsen family is a truly dysfunctional bunch, whether you’re considering refined but emotionally complex matriarch Lily, generally disastrous wild child Serena, or any of the number of father figures that have come in and out of their lives.

Among them all, Eric Van Der Woodsen may have been the strongest, despite being the youngest.

Realizing at a young age that he identified as gay, Eric struggled with others’ criticism of him, even briefly being institutionalized due to his identity.

He consistently has a strong sense of himself and is proud of who he is, but later in the series finds himself getting caught up with the wrong crowd, before being written out as attending school in Europe with Jenny.

In many ways, Eric was a revolutionary character at the time, one of the first gay male characters to feature prominently on a popular teen drama series.

However, no matter how innovative and progressive his character itself may have been, the fact remains that his portrayer – Connor Paolo – was never very skilled in his portrayal of the complex emotions and traumas that Eric faced over the course of his young life.

Eric’s strength was portrayed more through the writers’ intentions than through any of Paolo’s interpretations.

9 Saved: Matthew Settle (Rufus Humphrey)

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Besides the second season introduction of the recurring Cyrus Rose, Rufus Humphrey is possibly the closest thing Gossip Girl ever offered in terms of a strong, kind father figure.

While he made his fair share of mistakes, and especially in the romantic department (do we really need to relive that Ivy experience?), he always had the best of intentions with his children.

Then again, they did both turn out to be problem children in different ways – with Jenny spiraling into self-destructive behaviors and depressive episodes, and Dan being, well, Gossip Girl.

So maybe, despite having their best interests at heart for the most part, Rufus is perhaps also a cautionary tale about parenting in this world.

Part of what makes Rufus such a strong character is the boyish warmth and charm brought to the role by the incredibly likable Matthew Settle. He plays well on screen opposite both his children, no matter Badgley’s and Momsen’s own limited acting talents.

He also shares considerable chemistry with his on again, off again love interest, Lily, as played by the wonderful Kelly Rutherford.

He is the series’ best representation of the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum (as far as the series is concerned to display, at least) and shows the potentials of social mobility and integration, all while maintaining his own self and integrity all throughout.

8 Hurt: Desmond Harrington (Jack Bass)

The Bass family truly caused more problems than they were worth throughout the entire run of the series.

However, if you thought Bart Bass was bad, you really hadn’t seen anything at all until you encountered his younger brother, Jack.

Yet another criminal member of the family tree, he runs the portion of the family business in Australia, but frequently visits New York to cause as much trouble for his brother and nephew as he can.

Perhaps what he is most infamous for, however, is an agreement he arranged with his young nephew – in which he would sign over all rights to The Empire to Chuck, if the teenage Blair agreed to spend the night with him.

It would be pretty hard to make Jack a remotely likable character, given how despicable and disgusting he is.

However, by casting the ever reliably cast as a villain Desmond Harrington in the role, Gossip Girl never once gave audiences the chance to wonder what Jack’s intentions would be.

To be fair, he was quite effective in the role, domineering and threatening just as his brother was.

Harrington took his villainy to an over-exaggerated level, though, leaning too heavily into the soap opera-esque nature of the character, while Robert John Burke’s portrayal of Bart never once did.

7 Saved. Zuzanna Szadkowski (Dorota Kishlovsky)

In Gossip Girl, few characters are genuinely, truly good and kind at heart.

The world of the Upper East Side is so focused on ambition and power and financial gains that it’s hard to find someone who truly puts the needs of others above their own needs, or someone who is willing to stand by your side through thick and thin.

For the Waldorf family, they were lucky enough to have not only Cyrus Rose among them, but also their faithful maid Dorota Kishlovsky.

As Blair’s constant supporter and confidant, she was often the mother that Blair lacked, whenever she and her mother were on the outs.

She also proved to be quite the mischievous and reliable ally when the time came for fun schemes to be enacted.

It would have been easy for this series to turn one of its primary maid staff workers into the butt of a joke, or to keep her as a stereotyped, cartoonish character.

However, through the casting of the Polish-American actress Zuzanna Szadkowski, Gossip Girl was lucky enough to avoid falling into those tired tropes.

Szadkowski made Dorota into one of the series’ most iconic characters, full of heart and humor and warmth, and every bit as vital a member of the cast as any of its regular characters.

6 Hurt: Michelle Trachtenberg (Georgina Sparks)

As we’ve already mentioned, Gossip Girl knows how to make a good villain. If anything, the series’ success depends on the need for the core characters to have villains they’re trying to defeat.

Maybe it’s a bit of a laughable concept for a show about spoiled elite teenagers in New York, but nevertheless, villains are lurking at every turn.

One of the show’s earliest of them is Georgina Sparks, a dangerous party girl who arrives in the Upper East Side intent upon causing trouble and danger wherever she goes.

At various points throughout the series, she is alternately fixated on each core member of the group, though her fixation on and twisted joy in tormenting Serena are perhaps the signatures of her character.

Michelle Trachtenberg has a long history of playing polarizing characters who are, more often than not, passionately hated by their series’ respective fan bases.

After spending years as Buffy’s annoying younger sister Dawn on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Trachtenberg once again got the chance to annoy teen television viewers everywhere as Georgina Sparks – a role so laughably over dramatized in its conception, but one that Trachtenberg still managed to overact in each and every scene.

If there was a female equivalent of mustache twirling cartoonish villains, whatever Trachtenberg decided to do with Georgina Sparks would be it.

5 Saved: Kristen Bell (as Gossip Girl)

The role of Gossip Girl herself – or, as the series finale reveals, himself – is perhaps the most crucial role in the entire series.

As the voice behind the longtime anonymous blogger intent upon wreaking havoc within the Upper East Side, Gossip Girl’s witty commentary keeps both the viewers and the characters within the universe on their toes at all times.

Gossip Girl is uncensored, attacking any and all citizens of the Upper East Side with equal opportunity, and revealing all the dirty little secrets that the public both wants to know about and wishes they never even had a clue about.

Of course, it’s eventually revealed that Dan Humphrey has been Gossip Girl all along, which makes the voice only embodiment of the gossip blogger more than a little confusing when you realize the voice belongs to none other than Kristen Bell.

However, logical leaps aside, the series absolutely hit the jackpot with the casting of Bell.

Having previously spent years offering wry and insightful narration of her own light noir series Veronica Mars, Bell is a pro at the dramatics of narration, making even the most bizarre of situations fascinating as long as she’s the one reading the update.

When Gossip Girl allowed Bell the opportunity to finally appear onscreen in the series finale, that was just the icing on the cake.

4 Hurt: Jessica Szohr (Vanessa Abrams)

In a universe filled with annoying characters who are painfully not self-aware, you’d be hard pressed to find a more obnoxious, ultimately useless characters than the perpetual waste of screen time Vanessa Abrams.

Vanessa offers more of a look at the world of the socioeconomically average, which is something the show struggled with all along.

But while the show tries to portray the insanely wealthy in a positive light, Vanessa is almost constantly viewed negatively, existing as an obstacle or distraction in countless plots that are bogged down and slowed down due to her presence.

Her wit and honesty make her a unique presence within the series, but beyond that, her main function seems to have been to aggravate characters and viewers alike.

Adding to the unbearable nature of Vanessa’s character is the way in which she was so terribly miscast.

Jessica Szohr brings absolutely nothing to the table in an already weak cast of young actors and actresses.

Her delivery of lines alternates between gratingly over-acted and aimless, as though she is barely trying at all.

She never comes across as having any chemistry with the many characters Vanessa is forced into having relationships with. However, thankfully, she exited the series after season four, allowing for a reprieve in the final two seasons much as Jenny’s departure did.

3 Saved: Sebastian Stan (Carter Baizen)

Initially introduced as a grungy gambling college student with a secretive past, Carter is then revealed to have become a humanitarian.

When he’s framed as having stalked Serena, it turns out that he spent the summer with her and supported her through a rough time in her life.

When it’s revealed that he once took advantage of a fellow socialite and her family for the sake of paying off gambling debts, he does everything in his power to make amends and repay them.

Yet since he is so briefly recurring a character, he never gets a full arc or the attention in the narrative that so richly layered a character deserves.

Perhaps part of what makes Carter Baizen such a successful character is the fact that Gossip Girl was ahead of its time in realizing the star power of a young Sebastian Stan.

Riveting and mysterious in each and every scene, Stan’s Carter always has a slight edge to him.

While the show may delight in the illusion of him being an untrustworthy character, only to reveal his many good sides in the end, it’s through Stan’s masterful juggling of emotions that this entire feat is accomplished.

2 Hurt: Ed Westwick (Chuck Bass)

It’s hard to watch Gossip Girl and not walk away without any sort of passionate feelings regarding Chuck Bass.

Some viewers walk away feeling devoted and protective, considering themselves proud Chuck girls who think he’s tortured and misunderstood. Other viewers walk away seething with rage and wondering how a predatory, selfish, cruel man could be portrayed as a suitable romantic hero.

Regardless of what your feelings about him are, it’s clear that Gossip Girl succeeded in creating a character that stands out among the rest of male leads in the genre of 2000s teen television – for better or for worse.

At the time of the series, Chuck’s popularity could be largely attributed to the strength of actor Ed Westwick’s performance.

Skilled at emotional manipulation and genuine emotional displays in equal measure, it was easy to fall sway to Chuck’s charms all while being aware of how despicable he was.

However, recent revelations have now cast Westwick’s performance in an entirely different, harder to stomach light. Within the last year, as a result of the #MeToo movement, multiple women who were once part of the industry have come forward to accuse Westwick of assault.

Any potential enjoyment once derived from Westwick’s performance is therefore fundamentally ruined.

1 Saved: Leighton Meester (Blair Waldorf)

What would Gossip Girl be without its Queen B? We don’t even want to think about it.

Fundamentally fascinating and wonderfully flawed, Blair Waldorf is the true center of the Gossip Girl universe.

As brave as she is brilliant, she overcomes so much in her time on the series, including repeated betrayals from her so-called best friends, betrayals from the so-called love of her life, betrayals from her family… We’re starting to notice a theme here.

However, at the end of the day, Blair is the strongest and the very best of them all.

Inspiring in her independence and commitment to pursuing her dreams of becoming part of the fashion industry, Blair is one of the only characters to emerge from the series as a true icon worth revisiting.

However, as strong as Blair may be on paper, she would have been nothing without the flawless, near effortless portrayal by Leighton Meester.

Arguably the most talented of the young cast of actors whose careers were launched by the series, Meester has long gone overlooked and underappreciated for her work in the series.

In recent years, she has had roles in smaller sitcoms and movies, but that does nothing to dim the brightness of her stardom. She alone made Gossip Girl worth tuning in for. The thought of anyone else filling Blair’s always stylish shoes is the definition of unthinkable.

—

Where do you think Gossip Girl went right or wrong with their casting choices? Let us know in the comments!

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mrs-nate-humphrey · 3 years

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I don't quite get what exactly happened in The Ex-Files. Can you explain? How was Chuck paying someone to pretend to be a student supposed to "decrown" Queen B? Why was Serena looking so mean in the end? I was so confused

Okay, I’ll try and keep it brief because I hate this episode, LOL. First day back at school for senior year. Dan and Serena have officially broken up, and though things are awkward, neither wants to hurt the other. Chuck’s attempt to sabotage the Marclair relationship has failed, so he decides that if he can topple Blair from queen post, that’ll help him in his quest to Get One Over Blair Waldorf ‘cause he loves her. He sees the Derena post-breakup stuff and actively causes problems between them by paying some girl called Amanda to pretend to like Dan, so that that’ll make Serena jealous, knowing that if Serena wants to get one over Dan, she’ll use her popularity as a means to do so, and if Serena uses her popularity as a weapon, who gets fucked over by it? Blair Waldorf, of course.

Dan and Serena just - both of them are hurting and sort of still processing the break-up. Dan does a lot of the ‘deflect your issues with sarcasm’ thing, but he’s basically really rude to Serena, who eventually snaps and is really rude to Dan. But none of this would’ve happened if not for Blair trying to sabotage Dan getting a new girlfriend - because she’s protective of Serena - and then Dan getting pissed off that apparently being SVDW’s ex means he can’t date anyone. Serena didn’t even initiate this, it was Blair who did, so she’s hurt and tries to apologise and fix it, but Dan doesn’t believe her, etc etc. There’s a lot of Derena drama and angst in which both of them try to be the bigger person, and then try to be the meaner person. It’s partly hilarious to watch and partly awful and I maintain that at least 60% of it is entirely out of character for them, but whatever.

Meanwhile, Vanessa snubs Nate and tells him that they weren’t even friends (and the way Jessica plays her is just phenomenal, you can tell how much it hurts V to do this.) Catherine gives Vanessa money as a thank you and runs off before Vanessa can return it. Vanessa goes to the Duchess’s place to return it and sees her *gasp* having an affair with her stepson. She takes a photo of it immediately, and talks to Dan to ask how she can use it against Catherine to get Nate out of the situation he’s in. Dan tells her to ask Blair (’Google revenge, you get Blairwaldorf.com’). Vanessa goes to Blair with the photo, but doesn’t trust Blair enough and accidentally sabotages Blair’s takedown. Nate gets to know, and he’s upset and hurt that Vanessa wasn’t talking to him / confiding in him, and that she spoke about the situation to both Dan AND Blair while ghosting him. He throws her words back at her, like, “we were never friends, right?” and that, folks, is how you do romantic angst right. OUCH!

This is the episode in which Lily keeps popping over to Brooklyn because Bart’s on business and she’s lonely and she just wants a friend. And Rufus says, no, he can’t do that, she made her choice when she chose Bart.

Yeah, I think that summarises it all!

#love-geeky-fangirl #2x04 #i hate this episode so much #but i think this is a killer summary #posting in case i left something out -#if someone wants to add #OH I FORGOT THE NAIRTINI #yeah that's a thing that happens #meta

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randomestfandoms-ocs · 3 years

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Drop the lyric by lyric breakdown for Evie + Mirrorball & This Is Me Trying

wellll if you insist lmao! Putting this below the cut because like... no one deserves to have to scroll past the entire thing if they don’t want to lmao

I’m going to start with Mirrorball bc it’s more the overall vibes and some lyrics whreas This Is My Trying is like, every other lyric oof!

I want you to know I'm a mirrorball I'll show you every version of yourself tonight

okay so like right off the bat, the idea of the mirrorball as a concept is very fitting to Evie — she exists in other people’s light and reflects everyone around her, especially early on. We see this a lot with Blair, where Evie finds comfort in just existing in Blair’s world and mirroring her (but being nicer lmao) because as long as she’s a reflection of Blair, she isn’t Evie, and that protects her in a lot of ways. She’s so terrified of not being enough and being hated and being judged that she finds comfort in that mask because if people don’t like her then it’s the mask that they don’t like, not Evie herself. This is very much tied into her mental health issues and part of her recovery process is letting people see who she is without the mask

I'll get you out on the floor Shimmering beautiful And when I break it's in a million pieces

as I’m sure you know, “when I break, it’s in a million pieces” could basically sum up her entire story. Evie manages to hold it together through a lot of really awful, traumatizing shit, but when she reaches her breaking point, she absolutely shatters. Part of why most of the people who know she’s been in the Ostroff Centre are so surprised is because basically no one realized that she’s actually been breaking for a long time.

Hush When no one is around, my dear You'll find me on my tallest tiptoes Spinning in my highest heels, love Shining just for you Hush I know they said the end is near But I'm still on my tallest tiptoes Spinning in my highest heels, love Shining just for you

Okay so this obviously makes me think of my boy Theo bc he’s an angel, but it fits the two of them really well because Theo has always seen past Evie’s mask. They’ve been best friends for their entire lives, and he’s really one of the few people that Evie trusts enough to be herself around! No matter what happens, when it’s just the two of them (or with Eric lmao, we love our codependent children) she can really just let down all of her walls and be Evie, and “evie who feels safe enough to just be evie” is exactly who Theo fell in love with

I want you to know I'm a mirrorball I can change everything about me to fit in

Oof the way this fits her just hurts me tbh! This goes back to what I was saying at the beginning, but Evie is an actress. Prior to her breakdown, she had always intended to become an actress. If there is one thing Evie can do, it’s pretend to be someone — anyone — else. Whether it’s to fit in, or to protect herself, or just because she doesn’t know how to be herself, changing herself based on her surroundings is something that has become so natural to her that she doesn’t even realize she does it.

You are not like the regulars The masquerade revelers Drunk as they watch my shattered edges glisten

We’re going back to Theo with this, but frankly this also very much fits with Eric, Blair, and Chuck, even Nate, and tbh even Serena. This is the Upper East Side; this is gossip girl. Watching people falling or being torn apart is everyone’s favourite form of entertainment, and the more public, the better. But Evie has this small group of people, her family, who don’t enjoy it. Ivy Week, as you know, is the perfect example of how even the fights between the NJBC get put on hold for the sake of protecting the younger siblings. Serena’s horror during the dinner with Georgina, Blair not sending the texts between Eric and Asher until Eric gives her the go-ahead, Chuck dropping everything whenever Evie is in trouble, Nate making a deal with Catherine to protect Theo, like... They’re all generally self-serving people who don’t hesitate to screw each other over, but all four of them will put aside any of their own issues and any fights they may be having in order to protect the babies — especially when it comes to protecting them from the rest of the UES society who would be all too happy to watch the golden children be torn apart

(already broke this one down lmao)

And they called off the circus Burned the disco down When they sent home the horses And the rodeo clowns

This one is more the overall vibe than the specific lyrics but you know how I feel about Evie in the housewarming party episode and honestly this just makes me think of how it ends with Serena still pissed at Lily and Bart and now also pissed at Evie for “giving in” and trying to act like a family (as Evie would say, “Chuck and Eric are my family, it’s the three of you who need to step up to the plate”), and she storms out which leads to a very abrupt end to the party, with Evie still sitting on the couch just kind of frozen because she was trying so fucking hard to hold everyone together and to make this work and it still feels like it wasn’t enough, like she wasn’t enough

I'm still on that tightrope I'm still trying everything to get you laughing at me

This takes on a bit of a double meaning for Evie because it fits really well with Evie wanting to be an actress and even during and after her breakdown, when she’s no longer sure if that’s what she wants, she still keeps going through the motions to work towards that goal because she really doesn’t know how else to be

But it also fits really well with Evie in her legal family (her bio family, the Van Der Basses, and the Van Der Humphreys) — Evie is always the one trying to put her own issues aside for the sake of her family. She keeps quiet about things that hurt or upset her because she doesn’t want to cause problems, she’s the one who just quietly accepts Lily’s relationships no matter how much she hates them because she knows that at the end of the day, Lily will always put her boyfriends first. Hell, when Lily and Rufus get closer, Evie tries to put her issues with Jenny behind her to make things easier for everyone else. Even in S3 when Jenny is tormenting her at school (Evie is the queen and everyone knows it, and she’s managed to put a stop to a lot of the drama, but Jenny is still trying to overthrow her and bring back all the shitty politics so that she can be on top), Evie just quietly takes it and refuses to tell anyone or retaliate until Jenny goes after Eric.

I'm still a believer but I don't know why I've never been a natural All I do is try, try, try

oof this is just... so Evie. For people like the NJBC, all the politics and scheming and everything comes naturally, but so does the effortlessly flawless illusion they put up. They turn seeming perfect into an art form, and the only time it takes any work is when they’re also trying to destroy each other. Evie has never felt like she has that. She doesn’t turn heads and part crowds just by walking into a room, she doesn’t have Serena’s magnetism or Blair’s ability to always get the last word, or Chuck’s “do not fuck with me” vibe, or Nate’s ability to convince people that he’s fine. She tries so hard and always feels like she comes up short, but she just keeps trying.

“I’m still a believer but I don’t know why” also fits really well with both the fact that Evie always tries to see the best in people, even when they’ve hurt her, and the fact that no matter how many horrible, traumatizing things have happened to her, Evie tries so desperately to hold onto the hope that it’ll eventually be okay

I'm still on that trapeze I'm still trying everything To keep you looking at me

I mean, this one honestly might be the most obvious? Her eating disorder. Going back to my last point, Evie doesn’t feel like she has the same natural magnetism or charisma as Serena and Blair. She doesn’t have the ability to make everyone fall in love with her with a smile (at least in her mind; Theo would beg to differ). She looks at her two older sisters who are just so stunning, at the way Blair always looks perfectly put together, at the way Serena can make being a mess look deliberate and desirable, and she feels like she always falls short in comparison, and she goes to dangerous lengths to try to achieve it.

Because I'm a mirrorball I'm a mirrorball I'll show you every version of yourself Tonight

And woo okay then onto This Is Me Trying, be prepared for some Evie angst!

I've been having a hard time adjusting I had the shiniest wheels, now they're rusting

Okay so this sort of goes back to the last point I was making in Mirrorball, with how hard Evie tries to feel like she belongs in the UES, and more importantly how hard she tries to look like she belongs, and that while Evie was always the dreamer and the optimist, she’s starting to lose that as she gets older.

But quite frankly, this relates even more to Serena leaving. Before that, Evie was always the hopeful one — no matter how flakey Serena got, no matter how often she bailed on her siblings for Georgina and a party, Evie always held onto the hope that Serena still loved them and would still be their sister again, eventually. But then Serena left, without so much as a goodbye, and that dream shatters for Evie, and she gives up on that hope — and as you know, that plays a big role in her pre-canon breakdown, as does her inability to adjust to not having her sister around, however unreliable she might have been.

I didn't know if you'd care if I came back I have a lot of regrets about that

Keeping with that last point, this is actually more Serena’s POV about Evie — with how she left things with them, especially with Evie (who she fought with just before meeting Georgina the night of the wedding), she really isn’t sure if Evie would actually want her to come back, and she really does regret the way everything happens (especially as she realizes that she really doesn’t fit into Evie’s family anymore)

Pulled the car off the road to the lookout Could've followed my fears all the way down And maybe I don't quite know what to say But I'm here in your doorway

This is another bit that’s more about the vibes and images that it gives me than the specific vibe, but the first two lines here always give me the strong vibe of someone standing at the edge of a cliff or rooftop, trying to decide whether or not to jump, and that fits painfully well with Evie and how desperately she tried to hold on through everything that happened pre-canon, no matter how tempting it was to just give in and get away from it all.

I just wanted you to know That this is me trying I just wanted you to know That this is me trying

Going back to Mirrorball, part of the tragedy of Evie Van Der Woodsen is just how hard she tries, at everything. She tries to fit in, she tries to be perfect, she tries to be okay, she tries to just keep pushing through every single bad thing that’s happened to her, even as she’s falling apart behind her mask.

They told me all of my cages were mental So I got wasted like all my potential

Again, there are really two meanings to this when it comes to Evie. First is just... Evie has a hell of a lot of issues, clearly, but people tend to be very dismissive of them. Once upon a time, Evie used to actually reach out for help, only to get met with “poor little rich girl” and being brushed off because her life seemed so perfect, what could she have to be upset about it? Eventually Evie starts to believe it too, and her own belief that she has no ‘real’ reason to be upset becomes a big part in her reaching her breaking point.

But also... There was a point when Evie tried to talk to Lily. She tried to tell her about how not okay she was, and tried to ask Lily for help, but Lily just dismissed her because she wasn’t willing to take responsibility for her own role in Evie’s issues. It became so consistent for a short period that eventually Evie found herself wondering if maybe she really was overreacting, which in turn led to her not asking anyone else for help or telling anyone else what was wrong — and unfortunately for Evie, this was such a pervasive element of her ongoing breakdown that ultimately no one would be able to help her with the rest of it without first helping her with this, and no one could help because she never told anyone else because she became convinced that she really was just being overly dramatic and sensitive

And my words shoot to kill when I'm mad I have a lot of regrets about that

I know I was just telling you about this (hence, I assume, this ask lmao) but like, this is very Evie. Evie is the nice one. Evie chooses to be the nice one. She could easily destroy basically anyone with a text or two to Gossip Girl, but she actively chooses not to, because she doesn’t want to hurt anyone else the way she’s been hurt. But when Evie does snap, she’s merciless. She throws Serena leaving them back in her face when Serena starts talking about how Lily would leave without saying goodbye, she tells Lily that she’s even worse at being a mother than she is at being a wife, she tells Bart that if he wants them to act like a family then he should learn to act like a father, she tells Dan that his complaints about the UES would hold more weight if he were’t so desperate for the advantages that come with it... hell, she gets Chuck off the ledge of the roof by going straight for the kill and reminding him that he promised he wouldn’t leave her — and then by throwing in a “but then again, I’m used to people breaking their promises.” And afterwards, she always regrets the things she says. She feels like just because they’re hurting her doesn’t mean she needs to hurt them back.

But the best example I have of this is with Jenny. In general, Evie does tend to lash out more at Jenny than at most other people, because Jenny hurts her more than most, but more specifically this goes back to what I was saying in Mirrorball about season 3. Evie holds her tongue as Jenny torments her, because she doesn’t want to cause problems between everyone else. But then Jenny goes after Eric and Jonathan, and Evie reaches that breaking point — and, well, Evie did learn from the best. She’s well aware of Eric’s plan to steal her cotillion date, and she helps with that, but more importantly she stops Nate from stepping in. She waits until the announcer has been informed that Nate will be escorting her and then asks Nate to talk and tells him what’s been going on with Jenny — Nate is furious on her behalf but also doesn’t want to leave Jenny without an escort, at which point Evie pulls out her phone to show him that Eric had just given her an all-clear, that Jenny’s turn had already gone. Later Evie feels bad for humiliating Jenny like that, but as much as she regrets it, her bigger regret is that she knows that if she had a second chance, she would do the exact same thing.

I was so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere Fell behind all my classmates and I ended up here

Evie has always been the exception. No freshmen at the masquerade — except Evie. Ivy Week is for juniors — and Evie. Cotillion is for juniors — and Evie. So on, so forth. Because of their connections to the NJBC, and their parents, the twins and Theo have always been able to be ahead of the rest of their classmates. And most of the time Evie doesn’t mind it, she’d rather do all these things when she has Blair to help her. But then you get to things like the s3 cotillion and, even though her own was absolutely perfect, watching all of her classmates go through the preparation without her leaves her feeling hollow and disconnected.

(tbh, as far as I’ve been able to tell — though I might be wrong — you can be presented at more than one cotillion, so Evie might end up persuading Lily to let her register again, despite having done it two years ago, more for the connection to her peers than for the actual cotillion aspect)

Pourin' out my heart to a stranger But I didn't pour the whiskey

I mean this one feels like it might seem a bit obvious with regards to pouring her heart out to her therapist, but in all honesty, she never really did. What it really makes me think of is the scene in Poison Ivy, when Eric, Jenny, Theo, and Evie all talk, and Eric and Evie tell Jenny about the Ostroff Centre and everything. At this point, Jenny is still basically a stranger to them, but for some reason they both end up opening up to her all the same

And as for “but I didn’t pour the whiskey”, it’s actually a very important part of Evie’s story! Evie doesn’t drink anything harder than champagne — she’s seen Serena, she knows that Serena’s drinking is more of an addiction that she would ever admit, and she’s terrified of ending up like that, so she just doesn’t drink. Right up until Chuck disappears after Bart’s funeral — and when Eric is trying to explain to Chuck that they’re still his family and they still want/need him in their lives, the first thing he says to try to drive home his point is to tell Chuck that Evie has started drinking.

I just wanted you to know That this is me trying I just wanted you to know That this is me trying At least I'm trying

(already talked about this!)

And it's hard to be at a party When I feel like an open wound

This is honestly just an overall vibe for Evie! I don’t have a specific party in mind or anything (or I do but there are several — namely Jenny’s party, the opera, the housewarming, the masquerade, every thanksgiving, and like many more but I’ll leave it here for now) but Evie has a very hard time with being expected to go to these parties and be totally put together and play the perfect daughter even when she feels like she’s completely falling apart and just wants to curl up in bed for days

It's hard to be anywhere these days When all I want is you

This also applies to a few different situations, both romantic and platonic! The first scene it made me think of was Jenny’s party, when Evie is still heartbroken over the breakup and then Jenny outs her and it’s just rough. But it also makes me think of the White Party and how Evie is feeling guilty over her crush on Theo because like, ex boyfriends are off limits, and feeling weird and uncomfortable with Eric having brought Jenny despite the fact that things between Evie and Jenny haven’t gotten better since Jenny outed her. Honestly though it also really makes me think of the opera in s2 but in a platonic sense, because Chuck is there and all Evie wants is to be able to talk to Chuck and really have her brother back, but Chuck is still holding her at arm’s length because of how guilty he’s feeling at this point for everything that’s happened since Bart’s funeral

You're a flashback in a film reel On the one screen in my town

This one gave me more White Party vibes, specifically with the moment that Evie sees Jenny and then Jenny saying hi, which is the first thing she’s actually said to her since the Outing Incident, and how hard it is for Evie because god she’s still so hurt and Jenny’s never even tried to apologize but then at the same time with Jenny there and Theo and Eric also there it’s too easy for her to feel like it was the beginning of Freshman year, when all four of them were the best of friends and almost a functional version of the NJBC and as much as Evie is still hurt and pissed she also just really misses the way things used to be, back even before any dating started within the group.

And I just wanted you to know That this is me trying (Maybe I don't quite know what to say) I just wanted you to know That this is me trying At least I'm trying

(already talked about this!)

And anyways, there are my lyric breakdowns for Evie Van Der Woodsen, now I’m feeling all sad about her again

#lizziesxltzmxn #ask #answered #evie van der woodsen #about evie

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xsecretblastsx · 4 years

Text

1x10 - High Society

Finally I’ve reach a double digit episode, and what an episode, I feel this is where I really start questioning characters decisions, but I also love drama so, withouth more preamble, here’s the recap. Again it got insanely long.

Thoughts I had while watching the episode:

I love “comin home baby”, so right there this show is making me so happy.

I’ve actually paused the episode to see the date of the debutante ball a.k.a Cotillion

I love Blair’s red tigh outfit, also where did that guy Prince Theodore came from?

Chuck’s proud face when Nate mentions how happier Blair seems lately, and also, dude really you don’t miss your girlfriend haha

Honestly I feel this scene with all these parallel conversations about Cotillion is great, right up my alley.

All the subtle drama in that rehearsal, the secret glances, Chuck and Nate keeping their eyes on Blair all the time, this is the kind of content I’m here for.

I would like to know why everyone is in their preppy uniforms and then there’s Kati and Is who look like they’re part of Flashdance

Lilly rolling her eyes the moment she sees CeCe, and then really enjoying Cece’s mortification when she realizes Dan is a Humphrey. I love Lilly.

And from Cece’s horrified face we go to hottest PG-13 make out ever. For real though I love this scene, they both look so good and so into it, and they’re so deliciously flirty and their chemistry is out of the charts. Great choice in music too.

I don’t know who is more frustrating by Nate interrupting Chuck or myself.

Chuck’s little smile when Blair says to Nate they should move on, only to be whipped out in the next minute

Two things about the heart pin: that was an incredibly smart move on Nate’s part, and if you had any doubt Blair Waldorf is such a hopeless romantic.

Cece such a manipulator, it’s unbelievable. Imagine if Serena was more like her family...

Nate’s tux fitting deserves an honorable mention just for the fact that Blair’s actually wearing jeans. Also he kind of deserves she’s lowkey ignoring him

I mean, Dan is so annoying, like yeah I get his point Cotillion is such an elitist unnecessary event, but the way he goes about it gets on my nerves.

Hello Carter. I actually don’t mind him this episode.

Out of all the seasons I feel like Season 1 is the one where it’s weirder for the final reveal of who gossip girl is, right now it makes the guy really look like a sociopath, with all the stuff he pretends not to know.

Oh Nate! This scene is so fun, like Chuck is so done with the conversation and then “you guys are still pretty close aren’t you?” Dude you have no idea. And the Cherry on the cake “Could you find out who she’s seeing? - Me” he told you Nate, he told you.

Cece’s words to Dan are cruel, but it is the crux of their relationship,, right until the very end and he deals with it in the worst way possible, and why in his mind, every issue in their relationship is always Serena’s fault. Ugh.

Between Dan and Carter, yeah she should have ended with Carter, too bad Cece’s word weren’t profetic.

I wish we had a clearer view of Blair’s outfit in that scene she’s talking with that New York Times guy, because I think it’s purple, and I wish we had seen her using that color a bit more.

Chuck is so jealous and Blair’s like yeah whatever as if. But a jealous Chuck is scheming Chuck.

I love Rufus, you go Dan (just for this one time)

I’ve always felt Serena’s look for Cotillion was a lot of gold, not in a good way, but right now? I’m kind of feeling it. And she looks gorgeous.

I mean I think there was probably a better way to say that Grandma Cece is evil, but still I’m not sure it would have matter Serena didn’t want to listen, she never does actually now that I think of it, the end of S3 comes to mind.

Blair has the funniest lines “I’m gonna go Naomi Campbell on you” Is so sad though that we got to see so little of that Erickson Beamon necklace, it’s lovely.

“Hey Beatiful” oh the things one notices when one no longer hates Carter and VanderBaizen is your second Serena ship.

Lily and Cece’s faces at Serena’s presentation stament are to die for.

The pretty little liars song! But since I haven’t watch that show, this one is going to remain a Gossip Girl song for me.

Seeing Cece and Lily at Cotillion makes me think that Blair’s parents are the worst, it’s their daughter debut and none of them could be bothered to attend the event

It didn’t remember this was the first time they mentioned the Santorini incident, less of all in the way Carter tells it, I thought this was first mentioned in S2,

Not exactly a fan of Lily’s scene with Dan, because yes I agree at this point for the most part Dan is a good influence, but she almost makes it look like Serenas change is thanks to Dan, and that’s not the case. She had decided to change even before she met him.

Also this is feeding Dan’s ego and his belief that he’s the best thing to happen to his girlfriends.

Oh Chuck finding out than when it comes to Blair scheming is not an easy feat, and to think this in only the first time this is going to happen.

Poor Chuck, that hurt. Nate’s wink adding salt to his wounds ouch.

That phone between Ruflus and Lily, yes you shouldn’t have let her go!!!

Oh how I used to like that last scene between Dan and Serena.

Seeing that scene of Cece taking her pills made me think of S5, and that’s probably the episode I hate the most in the whole show.

Blair and Nate finally get to it, but seriously Blair doing it with Nate while wearing the necklace Chuck gave you, is tasteless. Also compared to a certain scene at the start of the episode, this looks a bit dull..

Chuck running away, also him looking at the news paper where Blair is happily smiling with some guy, reminded me again of S5.

Ending this episode with “Apologize” was so 2007, remember how popular this song was?

This was a really packed episode. It introduces us to Cece, and gaves a bit more insight into Rufus and Lily’s history. We have Jenny picking the UES over her family, she’s changing. A dash of Van der Baizen, and our first glimpse to their shared past. Dan and Serena having another clash of worlds, that ends with Lily finally acepting Dan for real; and finally the end of Chuck and Blair 1.0 and the star of Nate and Blair 2.0.

While interesting Jenny’s and Rufly bits this episode, they’re a small part of the episode, Jenny’s in particular feels like a setting up of events to come and as such I feel I have not much to say about it right now. So this episode Dan and Serena had to deal with quite an opponent: Grandma Cece.

Cece while manipulative did raised some interesting points, mainly how out of place Dan feels in the UES, all those things she mentioned are things that Dan resents about the UES, and he may be brushing it up aside for now, but that doesn’t mean it won’t linger and fester in his mind. And then we have Serena who for some reason (which i can’t help but feel is related to Dan) has decided to ditch Cotillion, the even that according to Lily she wanted to attend since she was much younger, and sure people change, Serena is proof of that but in this case I feel her not going is in part to annoyed her mother but also to prove Dan she’s the girl he thhinks she is, i know I may be projecting my dislike of Dan and Derena on this, but it just feels like that to me, and it’s a troubling aspect of their relationship. Also when Dan mentioned to Serena about Cece’s ploy, she doesn’t believe him, doesn’t want to hear it at first, and I just feel for her because sadly is not the first time she’s going to have to accept that her family is not who she think they were.

Last but not least there’s Chuck and Blair. So their secret fling lasted only a month, since the beginning it took Chuck much less effort to embrace the situation, for all his playboys ways the morning after their first time... he wanted them to get breakfast, and it took him Nate messing up again for him to convince Blair of giving them another chance. So when Nate shows interest in Blair, this is Chuck’s worst nightmare come to life, Blair had her whole life with Nate planned out since she was a little girl, she only gave up on that dream when it was clear Nate wanted no part of it, and sure Chuck knows the potential they have, he lowkey always knew, and that’s why he falls so fast, because subconciously he was halfway there since foreve, but it’s very hard to compete with years of Nate, Nate Nate, in Blairs head. So he panics, he gets jealous... and he plots. And it backfires horribly. And for the first time in his life he gets his heart broken.

I don’t judge Blair on this one though because well she knows Chuck, he has an agenda always, and him being Chuck Bass it never occurs to her that he may be realy into her beyond just sex, to her all they being doing is fooling around, she tells Chuck that he needs to learned to behave for them to move to something more, and Chuck behaving is an eufemism of so many things: trust,knowing that she matters to him enough, that he cares. And that’s a big step and it’s a conversation that needed to happen.. and then it doesn’t. Thanks Nate. But really having Nate finally wanting her, and then Chuck seemingly only caring for himself and his own amusement is not suprise she picks Nate.

I do feel for Chuck because when he gets desperate he doesn’t think properly at all, he knows Blair, how smart she is and that she’s a good at him at plotting and manipulation,and yet he fails to take that into account, like this episode, he wants Nate to cause a scene to shatter Blair’s image of Nate, because she tells him he would never, so it’s not hard for Blair to see that Nate only caused one because Chuck manipulated into it, it’s transparent. And this is a lesson that sadly he’s not going to learn anytime soon.

Random bits I would like to mention: ( a bit surprised I got so many for this episode)

So Blair’s birthday is the 15th of november, this means Chuck and Blair version 1.0 lasted a month. Common knowledge I suppose, but I’ve read fanfics where the timeline is much shorter.

A bit of personal trivia: I love the song “you’re a wolf” (the one playing when Chuck and Blair are making out) and last year was kind of weird for me and I had like a thousand mood changes so anyway, so there was one week I started listening to this song, and I just couldn’t stop re playing it, just so out of nowhere, I played it so much, it ended up being my most played song last year according to Spotify.

I remember when the type of purse Jenny has was on fashion, and it was cool because it got to the point that street markets they were sold really cheap because they made them out or recycled materials

Chuck tells to Nate that “like the book says she’s just not that into you” and it made think that this was so long ago that there was only the book, the movie wasn’t out yet, wow..

I wonder what would have happened if she hadn’t fight with Dan, because then Carter wouldn’t have been at Cotillion, and then the drama between Chuc, Blair and Nate could have ended up in a completely different way.

The Palace does likes like a good place to have the Cotillion, not sure that would have been the case in real life, but here it fits nicely.

Irrelevant but apparently Kati and Is do everything together at such an extent they were scorted by two guys that I guess were brothers because they had the same last name.

You won’t believe but The Pierces have a 2020 version of Secret, it came out on my new releases list on Spotify last week.

#gossip girl #gossip girl recap #gossip girl rewatch #1x10 #high society

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