#dan and serena use each other as coping mechanisms all the time

[mrs-nate-humphrey]

the lily-carol sibling murder plot is unironically more compelling than the actual carol-ivy-lola plot we got lmao. i wonder how lily would have gotten away with killing carol, was it just covered up? did she get off on a technicality? does ivy keep working with lola to seek vengeance, or does she decide to assume her identity full-time in want of a family, like she did in season 5? how does serena react to finding out her mom killed her own sister?? so many possibilities lmao

oooh, okay, so we're doing this, huh? well, i'll try my best. and if any of my followers/ anons with galaxy brains more galactic than mine wanna add or pitch in, PLEASE do!

so, van der woodsen women, you know. queens of concealment or whatever. we KNOW in canon that lily & cece specially are very "must protect the family name." i bet cece would find a way around it, assuming cece knows. it's very possible that cece knows and is like, whatever, because cece honestly loves her grandchildren 5000x more than she loves her daughters KLHFDKLGH.

alternately (& more likely) - lily kills carol, and then goes, fuck, what did i do!!! and she goes to rufus. nobody loves lily the way rufus does - and she knows this. he's engaged to alison, the last thing he needs is his ex (who he never quite got over) showing up at his place in complete disarray. but hey, is that blood under her fingernails? also her hair has never looked this awful in all the time he's known her. so:

"lil, what's going on? yeah, i can spare a minute. shit, okay, stay calm. if they don't find the body, they can't incriminate you. we'll find a way to fix this, okay? what's the murder weapon? i'll help you hide it. don't panic. come on. deep breaths. okay, let's go."

fast forward to now.

ivy dickens is shady, morally grey and lonely, and she immediately befriends lola rhodes, because lola doesn't take her shit. "oh, your family didn't love you? at least you had a family," lola tells her, smiling pleasantly while her eyes are stone cold. and ivy is like, holy shit, this woman.... anyway, they become best friends and then girlfriends. but ivy just can't get over it. "it's impossible that you don't have a family," she says. "now that you're 18, can't you find information about them?"

so they do that. at some point, organically, they bump into nate archibald, at the library. he hates reading, but because he's a himbo, has somehow become the ceo of a NEWS OUTLET of all things. this is their shot, so lola pretends to be ivy, finds a way to seduce nate against the bookshelves (not very difficult) while the real ivy just goes "okay, that's hot."

anyway, they use nate for information. once things fall into place, lola realises that she doesn't actually want to do confrontation, because it's just Too Much. her girlfriend goes, "hey, what if i pretend to be you?" and voila! charlie arc, babey.

lily freaks the fuck out when she sees "charlie" because she knows what's going to happen. lola meanwhile is busy building her case and... ends up genuinely becoming friends with nate. "if you're unhappy here, why don't you just leave?" she asks him at some point. he frowns, wondering what he's doing at a news outlet.

"what about the spectator?" nate asks.

"didn't you have writer and journalist friends?" lola asks.

nate immediately thinks of vanessa. calls her, and goes, "hey, how would you like to be the CEO of a news outlet? i ended up here and i hate it." and vanessa's like, "how do these things happen to you nate! but i don't wanna be a ceo, im a freelancer. i have friends and colleagues who might be up to task though, i'll give you a reference list and you can interview them or something." so he hands over the spectator to someone who actually knows what they’re doing.

meanwhile, ivy ("charlie") gets close to dan and serena. and then, at a coordinated time, she introduces them to lola. lola and ivy fess up to dan, serena and nate about their scheme and why they did it. dan and serena lose their shit over rufly, as expected ("my mom killed her sister??" / "my dad helped her get away with it??" ) - remember, both dan and serena are elder siblings, and fiercely protective of their little sibs at that. this is GENUINELY unforgiveable to them. they confront rufus and lily. van der humphrey drama unfolds.

im rolling with the "cece doesn't know what happened" arc here, because it makes more sense. she thought her daughter just ... ran away and abandoned her kid. she did not know that carol was actually dead. however, when ivy and lola show up, they both befriend her, and eventually tell her the truth. cece supports them, and BOTH ivy and lola get something they never expected - a sense of family. cece is like a grandmother to BOTH of them. when she dies almost Everything she owns goes entirely to ivy and lola. lily doesn't get a penny. serena and eric get a part of it, as expected, but not as much as ivy & lola. dan, also, surprisingly, gets things from her - things that used to belong to her late husband, vintage books, because even in death, cece is a derena shipper. anyway!

dan & serena don't know what to do about their parents being completely different people from who they thought they were, or how to break this news to their siblings. i imagine finding this information out would bring them closer together, and honestly, just following the general pattern of dan and serena behaviour, i feel like they'd begin dating again, or something along those lines.

ivy & lola spend the money they've gotten to travel, to go somewhere else. they're both actresses, after all. having trust funds means they can relax while they're at it.

nate..... i don't know what he's doing. but he's one step closer to happiness than he was before.