I spent the weekend re-watching the most delightful show

It was about two people from different worlds who start off the series believing they hate each other only to unexpectedly develop this adorable screwball comedy-esque friendship before falling in love. It is also known as the the "Dan and Blair show" and you can find it on Youtube. #NO REGRETS

Okay I mean. Gossip Girl is easily the worst show I watch on TV. The writing is regularly atrocious, the characters only very rarely have realistic emotional reactions to the traumas that happen in their lives, Chuck has been the worst for five seasons, and most of the actors (understandably given the writing tbh) now seem to phone in half their lines. Which begs the questions: 1). Why do I tune into this every week and then unfailingly return the next week for MORE?; 2). How did the perfection that is Dan/Blair come out of this show?; 3). Omg how long before the writers ruin it and turn me into someone who has an emotional meltdown over a plotline on Gossip Girl??

Ugh, I don't know what to do with myself anymore. Here is a meta.

When Dan/Blair first started happening, I knew two things:

1). I would enjoy the hell out of it.

2). It would not be endgame.

Even before I started watching Gossip Girl (and I only started after S4 finished airing), I knew that Chuck/Blair was endgame. I mean, if there is anything that a non-fan knows about Gossip Girl, it's that Chuck and Blair is the show's OTP.

And I mean fine WHAT IS AN ENDGAME IF THE STORY IS GOOD, right? Except that since S6 will almost certainly be the final season of Gossip Girl (with the abysmal ratings the show gets now + all the mains actors' contracts expiring, I just can't see a S7 of this show happening), I think it's worth speculating on where Blair's character arc is going.

TBH if there is anything the writers can do at this point to impress me/salvage the show, it would be to NOT have a Chuck/Blair endgame. (Obviously I would love for Dan and Blair to live happily ever after BECAUSE THEY ARE THE MOST FLAWLESS AND DO THINGS TO MY INSIDES but I would be okay if they weren't).

Two themes that stuck out for me during my "Dan and Blair Show" re-watch this weekend:

1). Blair wants to be happy.

2). Being with Chuck means that Blair has to sacrifice her own happiness.

I mean, this dialogue here from way back in S3:

Blair: ..it's not just what he did. It's what I did. This whole time I was blaming him but it was me too. I've become the person you've always thought I was.

Dan: Look, Blair, I don't think you're that bad of a person. Maybe not my type, but you're not... terrible. And whatever is that happened between you and Chuck, I'm sure you'll fix it because if there's a pair meant for one another, it's you two.

Blair: You're absolutely right. Chuck and Blair. Blair and Chuck. Who else could love me after what I've become? Thank you for helping me see that, Humphrey.

WHAT IS THIS DIALOGUE? THIS IS THE SADDEST THING I HAVE EVER READ, JESUS. It makes me want to wrap Blair up in bubble wrap and tell her it doesn't have to be that way, that great love doesn't have to come at the expense of her happiness. D:

The whole Chuck/Blair relationship is defined mostly by their misery (both when they're together and apart tbh), and in Blair's mind it's "worth it" because Great Love is supposed to entail sacrifice. Blair said it herself last season:

What we have is a great love. It's complicated. Intense. All-consuming. No matter what we do and how much we fight, it'll always pull us in. What's mere happiness in the face of all that, right?

And OF COURSE these two can't ever make each other happy, Blair believes that she is so terrible that Chuck is the only person who can love her.

Chuck/Blair might be inevitable as endgame. But it wouldn't be a happy ending. At least not for Blair.

The thing that gives me hope is that the Dan/Blair story this season has been constructed in opposition to the idea that Loving Chuck =/= Happiness. It's been ham-handed at times and has jumped forward improbably in other places (how did we go from "I love you more and more every day" to "I'm not in love with you" in about three days? LOL. Though I have my own theory about that given the way Blair has almost deliberately and intentionally been keeping her and Chuck apart, first with marrying Louis, then the pregnancy, and then the "pact with God" - because that was easier to face than the idea that she could/had fallen out of love with him BUT ANYWAY TANGENT) but it feels like the natural conclusion to Blair's arc.

Blair choosing happiness.

Blair choosing someone who loves her for her.

Blair choosing someone who doesn't think anything about her could be bad, because it's her.

Blair choosing someone who just wants her to be happy in turn.

Not to mention, Blair actively getting to CHOOSE, to reject Chuck, and to fall in love with someone else... rather than Chuck being the one to push her away for her own good or whatever.

i.e. BLAIR GETTING HER HAPPY ENDING.

THIS gifset on tumblr is probably my favourite one that I've seen because it just sums it up so perfectly.

And I know, I KNOW, this is Gossip Girl, Dan/Blair could be messed up in ten different ways in the very next episode. And I certainly don't have any faith at all in the writers. But I do have some hope that maybe I was wrong about Chuck and Blair. Maybe they aren't inevitably endgame? Maybe this is, after all, the story of how Blair chose happiness?

TL;DR DAN AND BLAIR ARE RUINING MY LIFE AND IT'S NOT FAIR BECAUSE IT'S GOSSIP GIRL.

I took way too many screencaps of that last scene in 5x17 because it seemed like a sensible way in which to channel all my emotions. So here are some screencaps of Blair's beautiful beaming face AKA THE VERY BEST FACE OF ALL THE FACES:

BERJAYA