#i really can't get away with saying anything anymore the anons call my bluffs

[terrainofheartfelt]

You keep saying S6 of Gossip Girl is fake, so how would you have done it? Considering the same constraints the writers had (only 10 episodes, many characters, the loose ends in the S5 finale and the fact that it’s an ensemble show, so you can’t get someone away to deal with stuff)

It IS fake! As my dear friend Ivy (natearchie) said once, “canon is in the eye of the beholder,” and if every branch of christianity ever can cherry pick which parts of their mythology they deem to be true, then why shouldn’t I do the same with this cw soap about pretty people kissing?

Of course, the answer I want to give is that you can find my rewriting of the story following s5 on my ao3, but that shit’s long and you’re talking within the same 10 ep order so *cracks knuckles* let’s do this.

Oh but first lemme tell you of a god-tier s6 fix-it by S (strideofpride) here. It Healed me.

Disclaimer: since s6 is fake I don’t really remember all that happened in there so I am painting with broad strokes here. and I'm putting it under a read more because once yet again, my loquaciousness got the better of me.

Oh, for starters, let’s just get this out of the way now: Dan is not Gossip Girl. No one is Gossip Girl. The identity of Gossip Girl shall not be revealed. Because I think narratively-speaking I don’t need to, and because giving it to any of the GG mains would mean retconning like 99.99% of the show. So.

I’d open the season with both Serena AND Dan hiding away from New York, having cut ties with everybody. Blair is the one to track down Serena, finding her...not shacking up with a dude twice her age, but in a small town, anonymous, maybe she has a part-time job, maybe she finally got her yoga certification and is teaching classes. She’s doing the GOOP thing she pretended at doing between s2&3 and s3&4. Her unhappiness isn’t because she doesn’t belong in the world she’s run to, or that she’s pretending to be someone else (just a different shade of herself), it’s that she left at odds with so many important people in her life, and doesn’t she want to fix that? -- here let’s flashback to Blair tracking down chip whiskers whereverst he pranced off to, and the conversation that follows, and Blair realizing “this isn’t what I want” -- okay and we’re back to the Blairena show somewhere in...Maine or whatever.

Nate tracks down Dan still living in Italy - Georgina fucked off halfway through the summer when he gave up writing. He’s just been a barista ever since. Nate gives him a variation of the “you can’t run away when things get hard” speech, and Dan throws all the drafts of Outside (was that the name? idk) in Nate’s face. Dan’s hiding because he’s too ashamed to come back. Because he wrote this. And Nate points out: but you stopped, you’re not publishing it.

The episode ends with GG blasts that note Serena & Dan’s respective returns to NYC.

Okay here’s the broad brushstrokes coming in:

Rather than have Nate be the one with the Howard-esque scandal, let’s make it Chip. Hell, throw his resurrected dad in there too. I don’t support the prison system but I do love locking up fictional criminal rich white men. And let’s be real, any attempted coup chip would make to take his dad’s company would rely heavily on white collar crime (I think it’s nevertothethird’s fic that rightfully points out that chip barely got a high school diploma, what the fuck is he doing running a company).

I’d gut a lot of the extraneous side character tomfoolery, get Ivy out of there, get wvdw out of there, they are barely relevant as it is. Instead I would center the episodes around the core four, and their friendships with each other, and where they are going in life.

And to that point, with such a limited timeframe to work with, I don’t think I’d have any endgame pairings at all. Except Lily/Rufus. They stay married. Because I said so. (maybe the hijinks that put the derena friendship back on track is pulling off another parent trap). I’d have Dan and Serena and Blair and Nate all be friends with one another, and maybe there’s some backsliding (this is a CW show after all) or hey, maybe let’s give the Gays what they want and have a blairena and/or date hookup, just for funsies. But I think any of that tomfoolery would still be brought back to, we need to just be friends/ I need us to just be friends right now.

And I’d end the series on that friendship, with them having one last night in New York before they all go their separate ways. They are all getting out. Serena is moving to LA, because she realized that is where she’s been the happiest in the past six years, but this time, she is leaving on good terms, and her friends and family know where to find her. Blair is moving to Paris for a new job at a fashion publication (isn’t this how Friends ends??? S? Only nobody stops Blair from getting on the plane, she and her people know it’s the best thing for her). Dan is going to graduate school in the midwest (I think it was waldorfhistoria who told me he does this in the books, let’s bring in that energy!), because he wants to be a writer again, he just needs some better role models than noah goddamn shapiro. Nate, new college graduate, unemployed, is about to set off on an around-the-world sailing trip. He’s been plotting it for months, and he’s very excited. He’s not thinking too far ahead in the future, but that’s okay.

Okay okay okay I will go ahead and do a time-jump. Let’s have it be about the same length as the show one, which was what - ten years after the series began? Maybe a little longer? Something is happening to bring the gang back together: maybe it’s a Constance/St. Jude’s reunion, maybe Rufus and Lily are renewing their vows, idk, it’s something.

Serena is working her way up the ranks of a production company in LA, she’s happy and healthy and loving her life, maybe she’s doing some writing of her own. Blair is flying in from Paris, after closing another fabulous coverage of fashion week, she’s a high-ranking editor now, near the top of the ladder, and loving every second of it. Let’s allude to Jenny and Eric, too. Jenny, celebrating success with the debut of her own label (with rave reviews from Blair’s publication, and Eric, who is helping direct and provide counsel to a nonprofit centered around LGBTQA+ youth with…*drumroll*...Nathaniel Archibald. And, last but certainly not least, Daniel Humphrey, visiting NYC from Chicago to promote his new novel (his 3rd!), hitting the top of the NYT bestseller list (because he deserves it!)

They all keep in touch to varying degrees, some closer than others. Serena and Nate are too on the move to really keep up, but they make a catch-up coffee not-date which turns into lunch which turns into dinner which turns into drinks and they show up to this party as each other’s date.

Dan and Blair really only keep track via instagram, never really talking to each other directly, though he did personally congratulate her on each of her promotions, and she’s sent him a lengthy and brutally thorough review of each thing he’s published in the last few years. But they both go to this aforementioned vague event (it’s late I’m tired just go with it), arriving separately, and then at some point, while they’re catching up with other people, they spot each other, and lock eyes across the crowded room.

Roll credits.