#i actually wrote a little something about the whole blair/movie lens thing on ao3

[sparklycardigan]

out of curiosity, what’s your particular fanon version of blair waldorf like?

The truth is *drum roll*: I'm not the biggest Blair fan out there :/ and I do know it's a big time plot twist of a statement coming from me ("C'mon her face is smiling at me from your profile picture Miss Sparkly Cardigan!!!!" you must be thinking), but it's true... and I'm even more certain about it now... I'm currently rewatching the show and I'm having serious trouble liking her... as opposed to Nate who I like even though I didn't during my initial viewer experience. My journey with Blair had a very Dan tone to it? Because I basically started to like her around s4 (early s3 maybe?) which is precisely when Dan began to feel that way about her (though I've always loved 1x04 it's! so! good!). Finding a character fascinating (I just think Blair is sbjehdjwudiejisis she's so interesting to think about, dedicating my brain cells to her specifically is always such a treat) and actually loving them for who they're painted to be are two very different things, let's leave it at that. But none of this was your question so here's my version of Blair:

The thing with my Blair is that she's still canon! Blair, it's just that she gets to learn more, understand more, focus on more than just the details, focus on the details of somebody else. Because for Blair, everyone's a cartoon character for as long as she can keep thinking about them that way. It's easy, it's familiar, it makes her feel like she's the main character, even though deep down she knows every single one of these personalities is more than just a trope or a plot device or a chess piece (Why is Blair's mind presenting itself as a giant chess board to me????? Anyways!). What's particularly interesting to me is that by doing this, Blair is reducing herself to someone she's not too and not in this glorifying narcissistic manner. The main character's role and story aren't up to the main character. They're up to the storyteller. And I think there's a certain part of Blair that's like: all of my life has already been written down for me ("Dan's a writer!!!!" Dan dares create his own narratives... huh... Dan's a person... oh). And if I'm the antagonist, I might as well play the role. (being with Dan makes her feel like she's somehow breaking the pattern which is why she comes back to Chuck, in my opinion. I touched upon a fragment of that in my tags here. (queues in one of my favorite posts on this app🥰)

And I don't know if I should categorize this as an interpretation or my fanon version of the character, but Blair is a lot about seeing things through a movie lens if you ask me? That's why her dreams sometimes lack color and sometimes have too much of it, either way it's an exaggerated version of her life. On top of that, the dreams are always a shout out to her favorite films and the thing with favorite films... you know how they're going to end even if you don't like the ending. And for Blair, it's good as long as it's familiar (even if it objectively sucks for everybody involved). It's the "I know something's off with Nate, but it's fine as long as we're together." logic. And she does express revolt against this destiny concept but she still believes in it despite everything she says on the matter and she hates that she believes in it, but she does... (Chuck's whole "two people who are meant to be together bla bla" speech can be interpreted... in a different way, let's say)

OKAY, this is turning into Blair meta, I was supposed to be writing my happy Blair headcanons here... guess I'm just not in the mood. The main bit is, my Blair gets to classify her mistakes as mistakes, learn from her experiences and grow to be a better person... not to become this caricature of her initial self like she did on the show... I just hate s6 so much...