#i'm having flashbacks to all the shit my friends with garbage bfs would do to like make up for their bf's shittiness like STOP

[whiskeyswifty]

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[mrs-nate-humphrey]

it's no secret that the writers neglected some relationships in favor of other (*cough* chair *cough*)

what relationships do you wish had been featured more throughout the show? are there aspects of any relationships (like how Blair's treatment of Jenny effects her relationship with Dan) you wish had been explored more? ((I'm talking both romantic and platonic))

oh this is such a fun question!! i wanted to really sit and get to it, hence the long wait time (sorry!) so here we go!

relationships i wanted more of:

first, and this is a popular opinion, i think blair and serena should've been the focus of the show, instead of blair and chuck. a dynamic that was strongly platonic, but with blurred boundaries and romantic implications like the books, where romance is neither confirmed nor denied but all the subtext is there - i think that would've given the show actual backbone. blairena for the win!!

something i have said a lot on my blog is that the danessa friend breakup SUCKED. it was really shitty (and racist!) that dan can forgive his white friends ANYTHING (serena did that whole revenge porn thing - which i think is really ooc but that's another conversation - and dan marries her) but vanessa is unforgiveable for... what exactly? stealing his story and publishing it without his permission? dude, she did that to you before in 1x11 (?? i think it was 1x11) and you were DELIGHTED that your story was being published. you can't blame her so harshly if you never set that boundary. anyway dan and vanessa should've had a blair and serena kind of friendship (& the first two seasons really implied that that WAS how their friendship was) where there's a certain coming back to each other no matter what, even if it's unhealthy.

i've said this before on my blog, too, but i wanted more sibling stuff!! serena&eric and dan&jenny were like. my favourite things about the early seasons. their dynamics were so real and it was so nice; it brought out a different side to the characters that was really refreshing and interesting to see. dan & serena were both so protective of jenny & eric respectively, in a way that they weren't with anybody else, and jenny & eric had a really candid and honest kind of relationship with their elder sibs, which they didn't have with their parents, and it was just. it gave the show so much more HEART, ok.

i also really wanted more platonic jenny and nate! my 2 favourite jenny and nate moments are that bit in seventeen candles (when will it stop? / it'll stop when you stop it - or whatever it is that quote is, cant remember it verbatim right now) and also that moment in.. the empire strikes jack, i think it is? where nate's comforting jenny and she's like 'what's wrong with me' and he just. looks at her with quiet disbelief before he says, firmly, 'nothing is wrong with you'..... nate & jenny had that thing i love about dan & serena, where they could have REAL conversations with each other, and be fully honest AND vulnerable with each other. and while there was a lot about their dynamic that was canonically not the healthiest, i felt like. they both had a really special type of platonic intimacy? and i really liked that. i wanted to see more of that.

i would've liked to see more nate & chuck, but minus the glorifying chuck. as the show goes on, it's like there's two nates, the nate who actually cares about people and respects women and you can trust, and the nate who shares whiskey with chuck and looks the other way when chuck is being abusive, even if it's with blair. this is a bad writing choice, obviously. i would've liked to see nate grapple with being chuck's friend, and realise that he CANNOT possibly support chuck and still be a good person. though of course that is too much to expect from this garbage show.

nate, blair and serena as a trio!!! i wanted more platonic scenes like that thanksgiving flashback from s1. in the books, they were childhood friends, but in a very 'their childhoods were totally intertwined' and the show scrapped that, which i think is rlly sad. there was something so special about nate, serena and blair knowing each other in a way nobody else does, because they've seen each other grow up, and their childhoods are SO merged, and they are just. so close. that would've been SO good.

and well. platonic nate and blair specifically! they've dated for so long, they obviously know a LOT about each other. i think it would be cool if there was more of like. nate knowing things about blair that nobody else does, and blair knowing things about nate that nobody else does.

aspects of relationships to be explored more...... hmmm

the nate & chuck thing is there. i mean. how can nate be besties with jenny AND with chuck. HOW. for a long period of time he canonically is. but that doesn't seem right.

idk if this goes here but i wish that things like the catherine stuff and the rachel stuff and the ben stuff had been handled with appropriate gravity, and we'd actually seen what it meant for those characters, instead of it just being there for the ~scandal~ and then tossed aside.

something i remember from seventeen candles as well is jenny talking about how it's uncomfortable being at home because of her parents. so that follows that nate knows something nobody else really does - which is that the humphreys have a complicated home background as well. like their lives are not perfect. i think it would've been neat if that came up more, in say, nate's friendship with dan. like him just being like "i know your mom leaving was hard on you" and dan being like "what the fuck who told you that????" and nate being like oh shit because he didn't think before he said it and this is dan not jenny

i think it's really interesting how much dan and vanessa don't feel at ease with their own parents, but feel at ease with the other's parents. like the way vanessa is around rufus - weird accidental romantic undertones aside, she actually likes his company and appreciates his advice, and her relationship with her mom...... is not like that. but the way dan tries to fix vanessa and gabriella's relationship........... it's obvious that he's closer to vanessa's mother than he is to his own mother. i think there was potential for some really interesting stuff there.

oh ive said this before, too, but. we didn't get ruby abrams!!! :(

i also think tv!dan should've gotten a boyfriend. i mean. book dan did. but i think now im getting distracted

there's probably more, but this is all i have for now!

oh. i wish we'd had more carter, and specifically, more carter x serena. those two were so absolutely and wholly on the same wavelength.... carter>>> dan OR nate as serena's bf in my humble opinion.