#Season 1 Chuck Bass ??

[clarkgriffon]

The Best of the Best: IMDB’s 10 Best Ranked Episodes of Gossip Girl 

[queerbolg]

going to be brave. succession is gossip girl for people who want to feel like they’re too smart for gossip girl

[istandwithrussiaandpalestine30]

Spike and Chuck are so entitled when it comes to Buffy and Blair.

[mailmiocuoredipietratremaancora]

I’m 24 but the fact that the writers made Chuck’s papillon match Blair’s outfit at Lily and Bart wedding still makes me smile

[not-inappropriate]

[nevvaraven]

Chuck and Nate using the bus in the first season of gossip girl is so unserious

RIGHT 💀 The writers had to figure out some way to put them in the same vicinity as Dan loser Humphrey and they were struggling

Just imagining Chuck Bass swiping his gold card to get on a public bus is taking me out

[cumberlandfarmz]

Gossip girl is raising my standards impossibly high

[idontknowreallywhy]

Just chucking my rambling about the soundtrack of SOS2 in a separate post rather than buried in the showdown reblogs… mostly because I’m impressed by how many things there are to say even though I don’t feel like I mentioned half of them!!

🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵

Musically (which is my particular obsession, especially as I also listen to the episodes a lot in the car so don’t have the picture to tell the story)… SOS2 though is next level.

It has all the themes, plus the new ones from Calypso/Braman but it shifts and develops them.

We have Four launching to the theme in 5/4! That’s so clever, it really sets me on edge as it makes it clear something is OFF. The scene before when they are discussing Braman adds to this edginess because the quiet tremolo strings in the background just tip it off comfortable.

The search / chase / trap cues are brilliantly executed… the chaos crew themselves could have been written a lot better, but the theme is a very clever and flexible one (much like the mechanic’s was - the Fosters clearly love a baddie) and it’s well incorporated here, especially in how it is blended with the ‘underwater’ soundscape and then with the tension music as the choir backing happens and the pulse increases… your high panic from the upper voices, strings and solo trumpet… the sense of inevitability and hugeness from the lower end of the orchestra… till it all culminates in what is effectively a musical scream… and then the strings give us quiet pain.

Then the silence.

Oh the silence.

There is no musical background as Fuse approaches. It’s just water and rocket noise. Which in such a musically rich episode is jarring, it makes me hold my breath.

Then when he sees Gordon and we hear the start of the string and horn backing for the elegy… I like to think it’s a turning point for Fuse, him realising this is bad, having regrets at the same time the audience are desperately worried for Gordon. But they are brave - they start the mourning song but they stop it! When it cuts back to the Chaos Cruiser and the Hood deserves no music.

It’s only when Fuse asks whether Gordon will be ok that we get the music back and… oh my.

THAT ELEGY.

Look I know I have raved about this before but holy moley it’s beautiful.

But but - notice - where the hood got only engine noise & no music, once the chaos cruiser is gone and it cuts to Thunderbird 2 we have all music no sound effects. I believe it’s the only time in all 3 seasons where the soundscape is entirely bare but for music. The Fosters talked about what a privilege it was to be given sole charge of what the audience hears at that key emotional moment. Thunderbird 2 silent??? The Tracys silent - they communicate only by looks. The music speaks their agony for them. The rockets on Thunderbird 2 fire but there is no sound from them. Virgil says Thunderbird Two is Go but we don’t hear it fly overhead.

The Thunder is gone.

The theme develops as FAB 1 is in shot and the sound effects coming back is another little shock - like you’re waking from a bad dream to find out it’s real.

The Rescuing Gordon cue gives us part of the elegy theme with Gordon’s launch again, back it’s back in a slow 4/4. Because Two is there and Two is safe and stable. BUT… it’s still not quite right - listen to the strings… not the semiquavers in the bass but the single broken notes over the top - slowly rising and then falling - they aren’t on the beat! Every time the note starts just a little sooner than it feels like it’s supposed to. They have a plan, they know what to do, but agh they are also in a rush and there’s a sense of fumbling desperation. So. Flipping. Clever. I didn’t notice it until maybe the 30th time of listening.

The strings climax at the point the pods lock on and we hold our breath… and as Penny cuts Gordon free so does the music - they really play around with the speed here, the new string tune that comes in… with too many notes to fit into the 4/4 pattern it’s like the beat pauses but the melody continues until with a *gasp* she has him and the pulse restarts.

When they get him into Two’s med bay it seems like the music is gonna stop, like it does on the Chaos Cruiser but no. There is a single, quiet, sustained note… the orchestra doesn’t let Gordon go.

I mean I could go on all day… Shadow V Chaos, wonderfully scored too… the fact the Braman’s Sacrifice theme (from when he steered the Calypso into the sea) soars in and combines with Kayo’s theme as she gives up her advantage over the Chaos Cruiser to turn and save him. Lush. The soft family theme at the hospital… aaah.

But one final thing…

The ending.

Because I have listened to this hundreds of times and STILL the goosebumps.

Brains brings up the data - We have the insistent pulse of the familiar theme but then a slow minor key string version of Braman’s sailing sailing song. Then as they start to realise what’s going on that fades and Jeff’s theme starts! Are we going to get it? It’s not totally clear… as Brains is trying to decrypt the hidden message the notes are held but as we see FAB we get the end of the melody! At last! JEFF TRACY! And it all rises and climaxes into the main theme at the end. PERFECT! BRAVO! *leaps from chair and dances*

[nineteenthmay]

My top 20 Gossip Girl episodes: 20. “Hi, Society”, Season 1 Episode 10

Spotted. Chuck Bass losing something no one knew he had to begin with - his heart.

[evansbby]

Gossip Girl Chris 😭

Thank you for making my night with that tag.

He’s fit in gossip girl so well 🥲🥲🥲 I mean this gif is literally giving season 1 chuck bass 😭😭

[strideofpride]

Hi! I was going thru my likes and a while ago saw you recommended a GG video essay, have we out grown gg, I was wondering if you have any more video recs or think pieces? Thanks!

Anon...I feel like I was born to answer this ask.

Okay, so, I'm going to divide this up...

Fashion Analysis:

Couldn't not recommend for the millionth time @sudsnewsletter's incredible Gossip Girl columns

Video Essays:

Have We Grown Out of Gossip Girl?

Why Chuck and Blair Deserve Each Other (this is not what you think)

Think Pieces:

Obviously have to start with the Constance Grady piece that's practically gospel for this little fandom corner: How Gossip Girl became TV’s coldest teen soap

As well as How Gossip Girl broke the fantasy of being the world’s most special girl

Brett Kavanaugh, Chuck Bass, and How "Gossip Girl" Portrayed Sexual Violence Within the World of Prep School Privilege

Gossip Girl and Framing Affluence

Blog Posts:

This Trio: Books on TV: Gossip Girl and The Talented Ivy Dickens, Sticks and Stones: Abuse and Gossip Girl, and Books on TV: Gossip Girl and The Beautiful and Damned (AKA Really Long Thoughts on Serena's Arc)

The Tragedy of Blair Waldorf, Part 1 & Part 2

Actual Essays:

The Mike and Tracy Redux (comparing Gossip Girl & The Philadelphia Story)

And I haven't read these two but Ivy recced them a while back and I trust them: A sociolinguistic analysis of gossip among female characters in Gossip Girl season 1 and Ambivalent aspirationalism in millennial postfeminist culture on Gossip Girl

[sophiesonlinediary]

chuck bass season 1 <<<<

[sansalicents]

Gossip Girl for that ask game! If you want to :)

thank you 💕

favorite male character: dan humphrey

favorite female character: blair waldorf

least favorite character: chuck bass

prettiest character: they're all so gorgeous!! i think i'm going with blair, but honorable mention to vanessa and juliet

funniest character: blair, again lol

favorite season: season 1 had the best writing but as a dair stan, season 4

favorite episode: the townie (4x11)

favorite romantic ship: dair ofc <3

favorite family ship: dan and jenny

favorite friendship: dan/blair, serena/blair or dan/nate

worst ship: nate and catherine, dan and rachel or serena and tripp

[somethingoriginal127]

so i know why we hate chuck bass on normal human standards (sorry for the sake of story telling i can’t hate his character bc i’m genuinely SO bored whenever him and blair aren’t together myb lmao) but why does everyone act like jenny is SUCHHHH a victim when she sleeps with chuck in that one episode? like before blair banishes her or whatever ? chuck was at MOST 3 years older than her and everyone acts like he was this old ass man preying on a child ?? there is sm genuine reasons to have a problem w chuck and i don’t rlly think this is one of them ? they were both at a super low point and made a MUTUAL choice to sleep together he didn’t take advantage of jenny (IN THIS EPISODE) (i’m NOT talking about season 1 chuck !!)

[terrainofheartfelt]

out of curiosity, what are the readership numbers like for pairings like date or jennate that aren’t fully rare pairs the way haizen is, but aren’t dair/chair/serenate-tier either? outside of dair stories, which have gotten the most hits for you in the gg fandom?

It's hard to say. I mean, I'm not the data scientist in my friend group (though we do have one!), and I can really only go from what my ao3 stats are and what I know of my own information behavior as a fic reader.

my date fic with the highest amount of hits is 1.3k hits, and that is significantly less than the fics with the highest numbers. but, those high number fics - while all centered around dair, are long, multi-chaptered stories, and the date fic mentioned is a smut oneshot.

my big jenate fic has a pretty decent hit count of 1.1k, but I also tagged dair as a background ship, because they are present in the story, so a reader, though they don't seek out jenate fic on the reg, would see it in the dair tag and maybe take a glimpse at it.

And, when looking at the ao3-generated bar graph of stats on my most recent fic, my last four completed works are all oneshots of various fic genres, but 2 are strictly dan/nate, 1 is nate/dan/blair, and 1 is dair. The three non-dair oneshot have only about one-third of the hits that the dair oneshot received.

which is just to say, there's a lot of variables to compare, and while I love love love that ao3 has a statistics page for writers, the way to get that kind of granular data just is not readily available.

maybe is just because of my little fandom ecosystem, but there are more date shippers about that are reading and writing for that pairing, so I'd say that's my second most popular main ship with I write, but to be fair I have not written much outside of that.

but this discrepancy isn't only about ship to ship comparisions. fics that aren't romantic-ship-centric get significantly less hits. my all time lowest numbers are for character study oneshots that have nothign to do with said character's romantic relationships. (like I have one about jenny and my tattoo headcanons for her, and one that is JUST about dan & milo. only dan and milo. not date and milo or dair and milo).

but that makes sense, right? the tags that I have pinned to my ao3 homepage are ships, and that is typically how I browse. because GG has a wiiiiiiiide range of ship preferences, so the main tag has got to be pandemonium (that's also why I never check the main gg tag here on tumblr. if a post is good it will make it through S's peer review process <3). So, the only way *I* know about new fics that aren't about the ship tags that I have my eye on, is if one is written and posted by one of my writer subscriptions. aka, like all my mutuals [affectionate]

and maybe another reason is that dair is a very unifying kind of ship. It's sort of the umbrella under which many GG meta opinions fall, such as: Season 6 Is Fake; Dan Humphrey Is Not Gossip Girl (unless it's funny); Chuck Bass Is Terrible, Actually; She [insert name of any woman character here] Deserved Better; End the Girlbossification of Blair Waldorf; and Rufly is Endgame -- dair kind of intersects with all of those opinions, so it's sort of a gathering point for fandom. I know it was for me, and from there I've branched out into exploring so much more about this garbage fire of a teen soap [affectionate/derogatory]. Dair is perhaps the most universal of the non-canon GG ships, so it's a common point for many people, which could explain why, as a point of intersection, it gets more vested interest from fic writers and readers. And, speaking as a writer, it's easier for me to write dair because I know people will care about it, it's hard to put in the time for something - even if you love it and the idea - if you feel like it's not going to reach anyone.

But all that said, I don't think any of these circumstances are an overall Bad Thing. I mean, of course I would hope that if someone liked my dair fanfic enough they would like to read something about another ship, or maybe something i wrote that's not "about" a ship at all, but the lovely wonderful thing about ao3 is that you can construct your searches to your own preferences, you can choose to exclude themes and ships and tags that you don't want to read about, and in a fandom like this one where there are so many strong and polarizing preferences, it is so unbelievably nice that if you choose too, you can section yourself off from what you don't want to see, and explore what you do. And I too, am extremely picky about writing quality, if I click on a fic I want it to be good and take me out of my cynical head for a minute or two, so I tend to stick to writers that I know do really great work (and if I follow you then you are one of them that's just how that works <3)

I guess if there's a moral to the story it's: if there is a dair fic writer you love, check out their full list of works and see if there's something you missed because it wasn't in that tag, and if you like it, tell them! they will love it!

[lady-of-imladris]

9 people you would like to get to know better

Thank you for tagging me @deadlymistletoe, I decided to make a separate post because that was a LONG reblog chain

1. 3 ships: Gaari, Eowyn/Faramir, Blair Waldorf/Chuck Bass

2. first ever ship: probably Will Turner/Elizabeth Swan

3. last song: Margaret by Lana del Rey

4. last movie: The Death of Stalin, I watched that with some friends <3

5. currently reading: Beren and Lúthien (maybe I'll finish that today)

6. currently watching: (NOTHING because for some reason the WiFi doesn't work) Gossip Girl, Foundation Season 2 and Wheel of Time Season 2 (although I can't remember the plot of season 1)

7. currently consuming: leftover spaghetti for breakfast

8. currently craving: that smoothie I have in my fridge 🥰

9. tagging (no pressure <3): @wareagleofthemountain @starlady66 @fenharel-enaste @vellichormybeloved @coraleethroughthelookingglass @niennawept <3