#dair asks

this is my ultimate fave serenate hug <3

she says you’re the best and she hugs him and he literally has his oh… moment. like this is when he realises that he’s still in love with her <3

also this one. he was waiting for her. she launches herself at him <3

then there’s the dair hugs and they’re all literally soo angsty. they’re about comfort and about blair’s life being so loud but she finds these moments of safety and warmth and quiet with dan. they’re literally all i need you you have me.

serenate:

1. season one - i love their s1 arc!! it’s all just very tragic and angsty and messy and i just think it was interesting and the whole blairenate s1 arc was so well done

2. season three - self-explanatory

3. season six - okay yes i hate s6 in general but it was a good serenate season. they were friends and they interacted throughout the season, nate following through on ‘serena deserves a guy who would sacrifice anything to be with her’, nate’s face at serena’s wedding

4. season two - i don’t actually know how to rank s2 because they literally only interact in the 1st and last episodes but i do love 100% of their interactions so i’m putting it here

5. season five - we see them interact and they’re friends and their stuff in la is so much fun and we see the nate always trusts/choses serena thing when lola believes that serena’s gossip girl.

6. season four - broad shoulders comment, nate not caring that serena overdosed, reason for their breakup being retconned, triangle with dan literally i hate their s4 stuff. the one interesting thing was nate being truly mad at serena to the point where she’s no longer his priority for literally the first time and seeing him being so conflicted over being cold to her and seeing her deal with the fact that she’s no longer his priority for the first time and seeing her jealous of juliet. like that was actually an interesting serenate arc but it was ruined a few episodes later where it’s retconned into nate was only mad at serena because juliet manipulated him and all that complexity is literally gone and it goes back to there was literally nothing good about the s4 serenate arc.

dair:

1. s4 - the perfect dair season <3

2. s1 - literally the hallway scene and the fact they find understanding in the last place they ever expected. also i love their s1 antagonism!! literally cedric <3

3. s3 - i’m literally obsessed with all their nyu stuff. like the play and she sits down and is like here’s what’s going to happen and he just sits there like uhhh.. also ‘humphrey i’m surprised this isn’t horrible’ and ‘don’t get too cocky humphrey, we still have your subpar acting to deal with’ and ‘it’ll be fine, blair’ and ‘did you bozos have a threesome or something?’ they’re so fun in this episode. then there’s 3x18 and it’s again about finding understanding.

4. s2 - i love the art gallery scene so much! like serena thought that dan could help blair be brave and express her feelings and he did!! again it’s about finding complete understanding in the most unexpected place. also dan helping blair seduce chuck was so much fun.

(their s1, s2 and s3 stuff all rank roughly the same for me though. like i have slight preferences but they could still be switched)

5. s5 - i do love a lot of it like literally you just said my name and met steps scene but like idk as a whole i just don’t like their s5 stuff as much as their earlier stuff

(the all of them doing things together stuff exists in a world where they do not have a very complicated romantic history between all of them)

- i think dan drags blair mini golfing and she obviously makes a face at him and says, ‘really humphrey?’ but then when they get there blair gets super into it and they both get super competitive and like trash talk each other and they keep going mini golfing and have a running tally of who wins each time. one time serena and nate tag along but they spend the entire time laughing and making out while dan and blair are super seriously mini golfing in front of them.

- you know that kitchen scene where nate’s like, told you i’m good in the kitchen? yeah i think they decide to take a cooking class so they go but it turns out they’re both really bad at cooking so they spend the classes laughing and having mini food fights without the teacher seeing. and even though they’re both bad at cooking they still go home and play taylor swift (because i think they both totally listen to her) and try and cook so they’re in the kitchen dancing and singing and just having fun.

- nate and serena go hiking. and they start getting into thrill-seeking type stuff like scuba diving and skydiving. they both become really outdoorsy people.

- dan and blair basically have a book club that’s just the two of them. they’ll take turns choosing a book (and they’ll mock each other’s choices but secretly (not so secretly) love the chosen book) and they’ll sit in the same room and read. (mini speed reading competitions) and after they’re done they’ll discuss and debate and criticize the book together.

i’m literally in love with the parallel between the vows dan wrote and nate’s reasons why he loves serena speech. like, ‘blair waldorf, you taught me how to live.’ and ‘serena, you’re the most beautiful amazing alive person I’ve ever known.’ alive!! alive!!

and this parallel makes me sad. like dan/nate watching blair/serena marry chuck/dan who they perceive to be the star of their epic love story.

also nair/derena leading into dair/serenate interests me. like nair/derena were both to an extent relationships based on idealizing someone rather than seeing them for who they truly are. and than there’s dair/serenate which are about seeing someone and loving them because they see them.

i think with dair, it does bother me so much that they didn’t end up together. like dair as a relationship was all about healing and real love and blair getting happiness and fulfilment our of a relationship. like the direction dair took blair’s character in was amazing and she had so much development and she was finally in a beautiful relationship that wasn’t completely soul-sucking for her. she finally got pure, simple love and somebody who made her feel safe and strong. and it bothers me the most that ch/air ended up together. blair ended the show with her abuser which is the shittiest thing the show could have done it is literally horrifying.

with serenate though, yeah it is the retconning that bugs me the most. like i would have loved a serenate endgame but honestly i would have been just as okay with serena ending up alone and finding herself. (with serenate hinted at in the future). which is why the pretending that serena never loved nate was probably the most annoying thing. that retconning was truly stupid. like i could’ve been fine without a serenate endgame but i am definitely not fine with the retconning of serenate.

with d/erena, the retconning bothers me so much. like the line ‘even if i end up with dan, a part of me will always love nate,’ literally exists and dan was clearly still completely and totally in love with blair. also they literally hated each other. so it will always be ridiculous to me that they push this idea that they were the only people each other had ever loved. it literally made no sense and i was sort of just like... did you watch your own show? the retconning was literally so ridiculous.

okay i’m going to be referring to before the weird blair still has feelings for chuck storyline which made no sense because like a few episodes before she said that he doesn’t have her heart but anyways i digress.

i think a part of it was what she said, i don’t remember the exact quote but it was something along the lines of, ‘i said it too soon to louis, it was a battle saying it to chuck. i want the next person i say it to to be the last.’

also i think chuck and the ‘i love you battle’ truly hurt blair a lot.

also and this became clear to me in s6 i think blair was terrified of dan leaving her for serena/loving serena more. blair obviously had a lot of insecurities surrounding serena and i think with nate, she knew he loved her but also she saw him loving and looking at serena like she was the sun and the moon and the stars. and dan is somebody who had loved serena and i don’t think blair thought that anyone other than chuck was capable of choosing her over serena. and i think that’s demonstrated by her saying something along the lines of “he’s a man he’s probably going to go back to her anyway” “every man wants to marry serena van der woodsen” multiple times in s6. i think a part of her was scared that dan would never love her like he loved serena and that made her scared of saying it back - she had already been burned before by someone she loved loving serena.

i think people who watched the show could see that dan looked at blair like she was the moon and the sun and the stars and that he loved her so much and would choose her over literally anyone. but i think blair, who had spent her life feeling second best to serena, couldn’t see that and believed he would go back to serena eventually and always love serena ‘more’ so she viewed not saying ‘i love you’ as preemptive protecting herself.