#if nobody got me i know tumblr user strideofpride got me

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Dair + 9

Dair + 9…in public.

I wrote this as a sequel to this flash fiction I wrote for the last time I did a tumblr prompts meme. what can I say, I was inspired. and I could have written a wayyyyyy better breakup arc than the show. there I said it.

it got long (typical) so continue reading the whole bit under the cut <3

The party is already in full swing by the time Dan and his group get there. The subway would have been faster, but someone insisted that the lowest she would stoop to get to Bushwick was a cab. 

“Why did we agree to this again?” Dan asks out of the side of his mouth. 

“Not like she gave us much of a choice,” Vanessa mutters back. “Maybe we can get her to do something really low brow, like drink PBR or sing karaoke.”

Dan snorts, watching as the third member of their reluctant trio stomps into the crowd, clad in the tunic and pleather leggings Vanessa loaned her. 

A lot has happened since Dorota and Vanya’s wedding: Serena skipped town and came back with her dad, Eric hasn’t spoken to Serena since she came back with her dad (or their dad, but only in the biological sense). Vanessa got into Tisch, Dan didn’t. They evaluated their relationship at the three-month mark and decided that it just wasn’t working.

And, strangest of all, in the wake of her breakup—and Dan decking her ex across the face in public—Blair has seemingly attached herself to Dan and Vanessa and NYU as a whole, like she’s using the whole of Greenwich Village as a shield against the reach of Chuck Bass. 

“Hey, by the way,” Vanessa adds under her breath, “Willa is probably gonna make a move on you tonight.”

Dan blinks slowly, unsure how to answer. Breaking up was the right choice, he knows that. He spent most of his time as Vanessa’s boyfriend missing his best friend, Vanessa. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel weird about how she’s been pushing him into the path of other girls ever since. Like he’s a loose end she needs to square away before she starts at Tisch. 

“I’ll try to stick to a minimum six feet distance then.”

“Better make it ten,” Vanessa advises as they approach the bar, “she seemed pretty determined.”

Dan inwardly cringes, then orders two shots of tequila. Tequila and Vanessa have been somewhat of a dangerous combination for him these past six months, but if he’s going to endure the awkward ordeal this party is turning out to be, he cannot be sober for it. 

Vanessa’s pulled into a conversation with other Tisch people soon after, and Dan lets her go and tries not to feel too bitter about it. 

He’d really wanted it, but honestly, he can’t really explain why. He guesses that if he had to, then he’d have to admit it was because if he could break into the prestige of the Tisch name, it would make losing out on Yale sting a little less. Which is just fucking embarrassing—that was a year ago. What is it with Dan’s inability to move on anyway?

“Humphrey,” Waldorf greets him with a cursory nod, “holding the wall up all by yourself?”

He tips his beer bottle towards her. “Tough job, but someone’s gotta do it.”

She gives him a withering look. Fair, not his best material. 

“This has been a bust so far,” Waldorf declares, unprompted, slumping against the wall next to him. “The so-called art here is terrible, and there isn’t a single guy in this room I would even think about kissing.”

At a loss for how to reply, Dan just asks, “What?”

Waldorf heaves out a sigh. “To get around Chuck’s fatwa? That was the whole point of this exercise, Humphrey!”

He shakes his head, like Waldorf’s obstinance is something that’s possible to shake off. “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

“Whatever,” she huffs, crossing her arms over her chest. “The point is, no matter what I do, or where I go, he’s just –” she gestures wildly, “there.”

Dan follows the direction of her wave, and nearly spits out his drink when he sees Chuck Bass lurking in the corner. There could only be one reason for Chuck to come to Bushwick, and it’s certainly not to see Willa Weinstein’s performance art on corporate coffee chains.

“That’s…” he trails off, searching for an apt descriptor, “fucked up.”

Waldorf snorts at his eloquence, hands tightening around her elbows. “Yeah. It just – makes it impossible to move on. Him being around all the time.”

Dan looks at her carefully, holding herself in that defeated-yet-determined way she had been at Dorota and Vanya’s game night, and feels that same impulse to reach out, to try and make it better somehow, even though he hasn’t a fucking clue where to start. 

“It’s hard having an ex that’s always around,” he offers, eyes finding Vanessa in the crowd, laughing with the theatrical writing majors they met at the cabaret. “It’s not even that you want them back, you just…could do without your history popping out around any corner.” 

Blair looks at him curiously, her hard protective gaze softening into something more contemplative. Dan gets a sudden flash of deja vu, to a different year, a different heartbreak, a different warehouse wall. 

“For what it’s worth, Blair, I’m sorry.”

Her eyes cast down at the floor, at her boots that are disproportionately expensive to the rest of her outfit. She hasn’t said any more about why she and Chuck broke up, but Dan’s seen enough to know that it must have been really bad. 

“And – you know –” he stammers, “if there’s anything I can do –”

Blair’s eyes shoot back up, questioning. “Kiss me.”

“What?”

“Yes. Yes that would do it,” she continues, as if that explains anything. “Come on, Humphrey, hop to.”

“I…”

“Don’t worry, I’m not expecting you to write a sonnet or whatever it is you do. This is just a favor.”

He arches an eyebrow. “A favor would imply that we’re friends. Are we?”

She blinks at him, nonplussed. “Does it matter?”

He shrugs. He doesn’t really care about the answer, it’s just that it’s easier to debate Blair on semantics. It’s a dynamic that makes sense to him. 

“Fine,” Blair huffs, “if it helps you sleep at night, then yes.” She pushes away from the wall, turning to face him. “So?”

Dan blinks. “Like – now?”

“That would be the idea, yes.”

“Okay,” Dan lets out a breath, and turns to face her, eyes dropping to her lips. She is pretty—it’s not like he’s never noticed—and there’s something about seeing her outside her typical Edith Head dress code that heightens it, or shines a light on her from a different angle. Or maybe he’s just drunk. 

He’s apparently stalled too long, because Blair mutters. “Oh, for crying out loud, Humphrey,” and yanks him in by the collar. 

A shock runs through him, then another, then another. First from: oh, she’s kissing him now, then from: oh, he’s kissing Blair Waldorf, then finally: this is actually a really good kiss. 

He opens his mouth on instinct, her lips moving with his. She tastes like cheap booze and expensive lip gloss, like every contradiction and complexity that makes his life interesting, that’s ever made him want to pick up a pen or sit at a keyboard. 

They break away to breathe at the same time, inhaling in tandem. It’s hard to tell in this lighting, but Dan’s sure Blair’s face is ruddier than when he was last looking at her. 

“Thank you,” she says bluntly, stunned.

“You’re welcome,” Dan automatically replies, blinking dumbly as Blair turns tail and disappears into the party. 

He’s going to need another drink. 

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Hi okay. So opera is like. One of my biggest cultural blind spots. And I wanna start trying to get into it but at you know…reasonable prices lol. Any tips on where to start? Maybe in terms of where to watch operas online? And which operas are more easily digestible for a newbie lol

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! waking up and seeing this in my notifs made me sooooooo happy! S! there's a beautiful, wondrous, extremely problematic world of art awaiting you!

Alright, so I'm gonna try to take your question bit by bit but this is my specialized field and I love to talk about it but I'll try my best ok ok

pricing is definitely a valid concern - I totally get it. good news is there are still lots of options to see opera live that are not in A-level, top dollar houses. try googling and poking around instagram for what's called "storefront" companies, ie, smaller companies. there's less star power and production value, but you can see great performances for $20-$60 a ticket, depending on the house and your neck of the woods. another great option is the MetHD series. The Met Opera in NYC is an institution that I have....lots of thoughts about -- and we can talk about those too if you like -- but a decent thing they've done is that for about half of their season, they broadcast performances to movie theaters all over the world. I haven't gone since the Before Times (pre-covid), but I think the most I paid was 40 bucks. and it is a great way to see opera that's low stakes. wear comfy clothes, bring a big sweater, stuff your purse full of snacks. my friend and I went to Tristan and Isolde with numerous smuggled snacks and big old fountain drinks and it rocked!

online stuff: possibilities are endless. MetHD does have a catalog of past performances - you have to pay, so take that for what you will, but you can find whole ass operas on YouTube! and once you figure out what kinds you like, and which singers you like, you can get pickier and choosier. And of course, check out your local library! big city library systems likely have lots of digital subscriptions to peforming arts things. some names to look out for: Alexander Street Press; medici tv; naxos. a cursory google brought up this NYT article that has some resource possibilities too!

and, my recommendations for a new viewer!

disclaimer: I am a sucker for big, bombastic, romantic grand opera, but I understand that that can be A Bit Much for a first timer, so while I love all of these, not all are my top faves, but I think they are a great primer, and hopefully if you like them I can go on and on about the heavier-hitters later.

I personally think the best starting point for someone looking to get into opera is Puccini. He was a bit of a bastard (weren't they all) but his music and stories all unfold in a cinematic kind of way. Opera was written to fit a specific kind of theatrical/musical structure for a long time, and Puccini and his era was where that structure kind of broke down, and he just wrote to move a story and characters and music forward, away from this speak-sing, solo, repeat, speak-sing, ensemble, rinse repeat kind of thing. for a specific title, I highly recommend Tosca. The political battle for Italy's unification is the backdrop for one hell of a story. The title character is a boss ass bitch. She sings well, fights well, dies well. I think it rocks. and it's a very popular one, so finding an online version or a live performance should be easy going!

and S, since you are a theatre kid, I'd steer you to checking out La Boheme as well -- its the og source material Larson based Rent off of, though it's considerably more tragic. music is gorgeous though. Zefferelli (yeah, that one) directed a production at the Met that they mount every other year. it's beautiful! another I think you should try is La Traviata. aka the basis of the classic film Moulin Rouge. this one is by Verdi, based off the Dumas Lady of the Camellias. a courtesan in Paris who falls in love with this young man, and the forces of fate that pull them apart. it's got that aria that you hear in Princess Diaries 2 Royal Engagement, and there are moments of music that are just so fucking SUBLIME. Puccini also wrote his own spin on Dame aux Camellias called La Rondine, and it is a delightful, gorgeous, romantic piece, definitely worth checking out.

Okay one more rec and then I'll stop myself. and this one will be contemporary! mentioning the Met reminded me that this season they've swung big and put Dead Man Walking on their list. this is an opera that's been very important to me for like, 10 years. I learned one of the arias in undergrad, and I even met Sister Helen Prejean, and a few years after that, I got to see it live in kansas city, and even though we agreed that the lead was kinda meh, my friend and I were still so moved that we were sobbing. it's so so so powerful. idk if it is part of MetHD, but if so, I highly encourage you to see it. so, it is based off of Sister Helen's memoir Dead Man Walking, about how she came to be a spiritual advisor to inmates on death row, and it follows her starting this new -- phase? i guess? -- of her nun career, through to the inmates execution. it is not for the faint of heart, and I would say read the wikipedia and mind the content warnings, but god what a great opera. and one more note about the composer, honestly I don't think anyone else is doing it like Jake Heggie. he understands this concept that I think many modern composers don't, is that he's creating a dramatic work. and whether is comedic or tragic, it's got to move people. I've dealt with a lot of shitty modern opera, and I think those are mostly composed as if they are university assignments. llike, prove how well you understand this music theory concept by writing it. I say it's more like they are writing math problems instead of music. but Jake Heggie writes music. and that's what makes DMW such a standout to me. That and a low-voiced woman plays the heroic lead (rarer than one may think rip)

I am so so happy you asked and I am always open to talking more if you're curious! (and that goes for S and anyone else reading this <333)

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12, 21, 32, 55!

12. name of your favorite playlist?

a very difficult thing, to choose my favorite, but I'll go with: "Sometimes you just need to hear a woman WAIL." bc it is very true.

21. obsession from childhood?

horses. I was a horse girl. I took riding lessons for like...4 years? I went to Girl Scout horseback riding camp. I had terrible anxiety as a child and hated sleepaway camp / couldn't even do slumber parties but for the horses, I braved it. I had a collection of those plastic horses that my barbies and polly pockets would ride. you can imagine.

32. top five favorite vines?

"Road work ahead? Uh-huh, yeah I sure hope it does!"

"I want to see my little boy!" / "herehecomes" / "I want to see my little boy!"

"I saw you hanging out with Tiffany yesterday!" / "Rebecca it's not what you think--!" / "I wOn'T hEsiTaTe BiTcH! *draws gun*"

"I love you bitch." / "Oh my god." / "I ain't ever gonna stop lovin you. Biiitch."

"THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU! *BARK BARK BARK*"

55. favorite fairy tale?

well, as far as fucked-up-ness goes, nothing tops The Juniper Tree for me. I played the evil stepmother in the opera version. Brothers Grimm. look it up. it is fucked! up!

ask game!

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If you’re still adding to your 2023 watchlist may I suggest the following: Are You There God It’s Me Margaret, Asteroid City, Maestro, Polite Society, All of Us Strangers, and Passages 🫡

Oh for sure! thank you love!!!!!

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Okay like…I could see a Fellow Travelers AU with Nate as Matt Bomer, Dan as Jonathan Bailey, and Blair as Alison Williams.

S......

S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Okay ignoring all logic - a show about Gossip!Dan and Jenny taking down these rich kids would’ve been such a slay. What the reboot tried and failed to do but even better

Dude I would be so into that actually. The Humphrey siblings in Cahoots. Jenny is the spy that infiltrates the mean girl ranks, Dan is the boy behind the blog….that would have slayed

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Liz!!!! Happy birthday love!!! 🎉🎉🎉

Thank you love!!!!!!! 🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷

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You unlocked a core memory for me, which is that while I never watched House, I did read up on and watched a bunch of clips of Chase & Cameron’s fail relationship when I was like 15 or whatever. And it made me so depressed I spent all day in bed crying and my parents thought there was something wrong with me and I couldn’t tell them I was crying over a fictional couple on a show I didn’t even watch. Teenage hormones are so wild.

S. I love you.

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💌

Your big beautiful brain!!!!! Your sense of humor is hilarious and jives with mine in the precise right way, and I love hearing your take on everything. Even if there’s taste and analyses we don’t 100% agree on, you always get me to think about things in a new way and I sooo appreciate it. And I love your encouragement and your generosity that have made our lil community such a happy place for me. 🩵🩵🩵🩵

mutuals send me a 💌 and ill tell u something i love about you

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It’s not a dair fic but i need everyone to know there is a fic where Dan & Serena’s daughters date and it is phenomenal https://archiveofourown.org/works/847097

OOOOOH thank you love! this author has some bangers!

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Orchid, Abelia, Jasmine

orchid ⇢ what’s a song you consider to be perfect?

from my personal papers, an unscientific, incomplete list of Perfect Songs: “Dancing in the Dark”; “A Case of You”; “Lover, You Should've Come Over”; “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)”; “Don't Think Twice, It's Alright”; “Dancing on My Own”; “Silver Spring”; “How Will I Know?”; “The Best”; “The Modern Leper”; “Virgo’s Groove”; “Ain’t No Way”

abelia ⇢ do you have a particular piece of jewelry you always wear or can’t part with?

I don’t really have a piece that I always wear, but I have several sentimental pieces. There’s the sailboat earrings I bought at the Lungotevere in Rome, and the bracelet that my best friend gave me for being her bridesmaid, and I have never worn it (because sizing reasons) but I have my grandmother’s wedding ring. And for my 16th bday, my other gma gifted me a necklace she had, a woven chain of gold and pearls and she said “I’m giving you this because you’re going to be a star,” and I basically wore it to every audition (and several performances)

jasmine ⇢ do you have a movie or book you loved but will never watch/read again?

lol does h*rry p*tter count? those stories were so important to me growing up, but I don’t think I can ever read or watch them again.

if that doesnt count, twilight. I was in a phase ages 13-15. I had a great time, but that time has passed. My taste is refined now.

flower asks

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9, 12, 19!

9. Favorite pairing you wrote for this year? the dan/carter/serena threesome was real fun. i had fun with that one :)

12. How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year? oh dear. hold on i'll count.

conservative estimate: 6. there's technically several more but i didn't wanna scroll that far.

19. What’s one pairing you want to explore next year? everyone is asking lol! hmmmmmmmm what else could I say....writing something eric centric sounds interesting. maybe eric/jonathan?

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Serenessa + 19

Serenessa +19…for luck.

“What if they hate it?”

“They won’t.” 

“What if they don’t applaud?” 

“It’s Cannes, babe. Everyone gets a standing ovation at Cannes.”

��What if this work is the rare exception? What if no one stands? Or worse—the standing O is only five minutes?” 

Serena grins, coming up behind Vanessa to do up her zipper. “Impossible,” she says confidently, setting her chin on Vanessa’s shoulder and meeting her eyes in the mirror. “You made it.”

Vanessa’s blue eyes soften, but anxiety still pinches at the corners of her mouth. She reaches back, clasping the hand Serena has settled on her arm. “This is the biggest thing I’ve ever done,” she says softly. 

“I know,” Serena presses a kiss to the crook of Vanessa’s neck, before turning her around so that they’re face to face. “But no one else here deserves this as much as you do.” 

Vanessa’s lips twist up in a reluctant smile. Her eyes close, and she takes one deep steadying breath. 

Serena smiles at her, tucking a wayward curl behind Vanessa’s ear. 

Her eyes flutter open at the touch, crystal clear trust, and Serena has never believed in anyone this much. 

“Wish me luck?” Vanessa sks, coyly slipping her arms around Serena’s waist. 

“You don’t need it,” Serena answers confidently. “But just in case,” she cradles Vanessa’s face in her hands and brings her into a kiss, sweet and easy, easier than she’s known with anyone else. “Good luck.” 

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lilac, fern, mint 🩵

S! 🥹🥹🥹🥹

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Idk what Rake’s Progress is but you’ve piqued my curiosity!

bless you S, both you and @andthatscanon prompted me to answer this...

Okay so, my unscientific and loosey goosey (pun intended) thoughts on Dan & The Rake’s Progress 

So, the original is a satirical series of illustrations that were printed in the 18th century (we covered them in one of my college lecture classes — satire through the ages or something like that. I was a junior and had too many things going on I barely remember the class, which is a shame because well, here I am writing intertextual analysis on it and gossip girl)

ANYWAYS the initial set of illustrations was a satire on the book A Pilgrim’s Progress, a title my Little Women fans may recognize. It’s the book Marmee gives the girls for Christmas, to help them grow into virtuous christian women (ugh, I know. the beauty of Gerwig’s adaptation is that she was able to keep LMA’s proselytizing at a minimum) so. The obvious twist is that instead of a Pilgrim’s journey into heaven, we have the journey of a Rake into Bedlam. 

So the story told through the prints is that the hero, our Rake, goes to the city to seek his fortune, is charmed by a devil to invest in unvirtuous things to get rich quick, and the idiot falls for it. In the following illustrations, Rake falls further and further into morality, chasing the advice of this devil, and blows whatever fortune he might have had on gambling and Women of Questionable Morals, and in the final installment, he ends up in Bedlam, an insane asylum—his quest for fortune and to join the world of decadence has literally driven him mad.

Now, in the 20th Century, Igor Stravinsky (of rites of spring fame) painted more context into the story with his operatic adaptation. Tom, the title Rake, leaves home and his True Love (aptly named Anne Trulove) to seek his fortune and get rich so he can marry her etc etc, and then he meets Nick Shadow (aka the Devil) and is seduced by the decadence of the big city. Shadow tricks Tom over and over again, first by bringing him to Mother Goose’s brothel (now does my pun make sense?), and marrying him to a bearded lady (a disappointingly but not surprisingly extremely racist turn of events), and Tom sinks his money into a scheme at Shadow’s direction, only to lose it all. The opera ends with Anne heartbroken, the Devil Triumphant, and Tom in the madhouse, having lost his love, his happiness, his money, and his mind. 

So to bring it all back to GG — Dan begins his journey, his Progress, an outsider looking in, but he ventures into this world of luxury for the sake of true love, and once he’s in, the goal posts keep moving. The rules to find his happiness keep on changing—the rules set by a Devil who always seems to win out. Dan fights and adapts and fights and adapts, until his character is virtually unrecognizable from where he began; he’s descended too far, and lost himself. 

And what is season 6 if not Dan’s own personal bedlam? He goes the 2012 equivalent of 1780 “mad,” pulls a personality 180 and acts out against the people around him, the people who dragged him into this progress in the first place, but in the end, his only choice is to work for the Shadow that betrayed him. 

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Oooooh I’d love to hear some of your natessa thoughts! Your fic has been making me remember why I liked them so much

lmaooo whoops I started answering this immediately and then I had to do Work or something, and then time really got away from me BUT! here we are <333

it's reminded me too!! lol. but really spending time having to actually think about them and how they fit together has made me discover some stuff that I really love about their dynamic that maybe I felt, but was never cognizant enough to articulate it before.

for me, they hit something similar to date, but in a different way, and it's profound in a different kind of way, if that makes sense. which essentially boils down to this: Vanessa gives Nate the space and permission to take himself seriously, and Nate gives her the space and permission to take herself less seriously.

Leila's articulated this well before, how parallel their journeys end up being, not in literal circumstances, but in the emotional state they are in when they first connect. They've both grown up with parents who -- to varying degrees -- emotionally neglect their kids

obviously I would rate anne and howard archibald as Worse, but Vanessa must have decided to move back to New York and in with her sister for a reason, and I have to assume that at least one of those is that she felt unhappy and smothered and trapped by her parent's expectations, much like how Nate feels. but what's interesting is that they are outwardly on the opposite ends of the spectrum, like the vdb expectation was that Nate go to an Ivy at all costs, and Vanessa nearly didn't take the SAT because of her families opposition to privatized higher education. She tells Nate not going to college is the expectation of her parents.

I wouldn't say that the Abramses (and really we only meet Gabriella) are wrong for pointing out the system's faults, but from what we see, they put the onus of saving the world and being So Very Virtuous All the Time on Vanessa's shoulders, to the degree that she feels like a failure if she doesn't live up to those ideals. When Dan tells Gabriella "She loves you, she does, I just think she wishes you spent half the time listening to her that you do strangers" (I'm paraphrasing bc I don't feel like looking at the quote) It is a little bit of March Parents Syndrome, if that makes sense, they put so much time and energy into saving the world and assuming that their kids will be just fine that they kind of...fail to check in and make sure they're fine.

So Vanessa holds herself to this standard that she always be unassailable. and then we have Nate, who has all this pressure on him, but it isn't focused pressure, he doesn't have direction, and every time he makes an effort to find it, he's essentially told not to worry his pretty little head about it. the unspoken collective assumption is that he isn't smart enough or capable enough, so his parents and grandparents and blair and chuck all try to smooth his way at some point, probably not knowing that they're diminishing him. (I think you just said this to me in fic comments, but when chip says "your only problem is worrying whose hair is shinier.") Because he's beautiful, and not conventionally intelligent, Nate is written off, but Vanessa never does that.

and, while I was thinking about this response, I thought (yet again) of that speech serena gives in s4 when she's "trying to choose" between dan and nate, and she decides, "I guess I just need to find someone who gives me what I get from both of them." and the more I thought about it, I think that's Vanessa for Nate. Like Blair, she challenges him and brings him out of his intellectual comfort zone, and like Serena, she doesn't come to him with any expectations of The Great Golden Boy. He's just Nate with her. A good guy, but Vanessa doesn't have "good guy blinders" that keep her from calling him out when he needs it, just because he's relatively better than most men.

So, that is the core of what I really love about them. Vanessa challenges Nate, but not in a way that makes him feel small or stupid, like the VDBs do, but in a way that shows that she sees him and what he could be, and that he doesn't necessarily need to stay in the feedback loop he's known his whole life. And Vanessa, who is working so hard all of the time, Nate gives her permission to relax, to find joy without having to pick it apart for all its problems first. They complement and settle into each other in a way that I don't think any other partner they have in the show does.