#I know every time morgan's queue spits out a new post pre canon dair we say

[terrainofheartfelt]

why is s3 dair so good??? honestly, what is it about them (both as individual characters and relationship-wise) that makes it so... good, for lack of a better word?

it's the Narrative Foils, babe!

no, but really, this plot had EVERYTHING: there's first the setup that they're both at nyu even though they didn't want to be - it's where the ended up after their respective Yale dreams fell through.

then, there's the role reversal of Blair, who's always used to being on top, sure she was caught up in power struggles at Constance but there people still cared who she was, and now, nobody does. she's just another freshman. and Dan, who was used to a certain invisible kind of existence, is noticed on his very first day for being a Writer - and a good one! and he makes friends who actually like him as a person! it's him with the social capital now, and the first thing he spends it on is to help out Blair. (insane. they are insane. they should kiss.)

🪑 aside, this is also the first time in the show ever that Dan is unattached narratively to Serena. I mean, they're friends and on the verge of being family, but they'd been given real romantic closure in s2, so they start off the college arc truly as just friends, which means for the first time in the show, Dan's romantic arc prospects are openended, which in my unexpert opinion, pours a little extra sauce on his loaded interactions with Blair.

also he and Blair's roommate fuck and Blair sees him shirtless in his post woodchuck todd glow up and idk how a girl doesn't have strong feelings about that ya feel me?

AND (I think Nads has touched on this before?) Constance/St. Jude's was pretty...partitioned, I guess you could say, so with the exception of The Essay Contest, I don't think Blair and Dan were put in the position for any competition, but at a fully coed school? And with their similar interests they were bound to end up in classes together, and I swear it is such a CRIME that we didn't get any classroom hijinks with these ding-dongs. competing for top grades and rankings, fighting over a TA position, checking out all the material in the library on a topic to sabotage the other's research, it could have fed us Damien Darko vibes a season and a half earlier and I am BITTER.

I think ultimately it's how the beginning of college presented a twist on their previously perceived social standings (and understandings of each other), and that the sheer potential of starting over in a new place opened up windows of story that didn't/couldn't exist in the high school ecosystem. was it ultimately underexplored and underutilized? absolutely, but at least we have that s3 dair FWB fic on ao3...