i think i’ve made this post like 15 times but you see the thing is that blair and serena and nate were best friends and they were each other’s home and nate truly loved blair and blair was everything good in the world to serena and serena had been pointedly changing the subject in her mind whenever she felt the small changes that had developed over a long period of time in her feelings for nate like she would just refuse to think about it and nate had been feeling and letting his mind wander and imagine but it was theoretical because he loved blair and they could never hurt blair but then there’s the shepard wedding and they’re both drunk and alive and everything under the surface pushes past they’re blocks and they’re not thinking about blair or consequences or anything they’re just feeling the feelings they’ve buried and then serena runs because she’s just betrayed her best friend the person she loves more than anything else in the world and she can’t face that so she leaves the wedding and then later that night she can’t face herself either so she leaves and she doesn’t talk to blair for a year because she can’t. she can’t face that. she can’t face the hurt she caused the person she loves so much so she ignores it and her. and nate spends the year waiting hoping for serena to come back because now that he’s opened the door in his mind he can’t close it and he doesn’t want to try but serena’s gone and blair’s here and she’s his best friend and he doesn’t want to hurt her for nothing because he loves her so much in whatever way and he doesn’t want her to leave so he lies to her for a year and that lie along with his newfound knowledge that he’s fallen out of love with her causes him to push her away and then blair and suddenly in a night her best friend and the person she loves most in the world leaves and refuses to talk to her and her boyfriend best friend is pulling away and clearly keeping a secret and then her dad leaves and her world keeps blowing up and she’s all alone and she wants to talk to serena more than anything but serena won’t talk to her serena was the first to leave her so she goes on and starts building her empire and clings to the perfect vision of herself and her life and she doesn’t let anybody see that none of it’s perfect because her best friend left and her dad left and while her boyfriend is technically still there the real connection they had is fading away and she’s losing another best friend but she pretends because he’s part of her perfect. and then serena comes back and blair hates serena for leaving her alone she’s so angry she’s so hurt she tries so hard to want serena to keep away but she can’t she doesn’t want that she can’t want that blair was so alone serena being beside her being her best friend was always where she had felt safe and warm and home and blair hadn’t felt that in so long and she wants so badly to feel that way again so even though she’s still angry with serena for taking it away in the first place she misses it more and she after fighting with herself and with serena for a while she lets herself have it and be vulnerable in front of serena and let her back in. and then nate the second he hears serena’s back knows that he wants to risk it all and throw the mapped out life course he’s on down the drain she comes back and he feels more awake than he had felt the whole year she was away and he wants to say fuck consequences and be with her. but serena doesn’t want to fuck consequences. she’s determined to be a good friend and to be a good person and she chooses blair. serena loves blair more than anything and she hates herself for betraying her and she’s determined to be a good friend. and she won’t say fuck consequences with nate. she won’t choose him. and nate who had been happy and hopeful at her return is so hurt by that he spent the year choosing serena by not telling blair anything and then when she tells him that she doesn’t want his choice he in an act somewhat driven a tiny bit by spite and driven a lot

by hurt but also by a fear of losing both of the people he loves most in the world both his best friends he then chooses blair and tells her what happened at the shepard wedding. and blair sure is hurt by nate but like it’s not the most painful part about this by far for a year he’s been lost to her anyway and more representing the perfect golden future she’s determinedly marching towards rather than their once meaningful bond still meaning that much she’s hurt but like that’s overshadowed by other hurts most from or involving serena. involving in that blair has felt second to serena always and now in this too? nate pressed down on her biggest insecurity and she’s angry and hurt. but that’s also not the biggest hurt. because even though she’s always felt second to serena, serena had still always been safety and home and love to blair. and now that’s gone. blair learns that serena betrayed her she did something that would of course hurt blair so much. blair’s best friend in the entire world who she trusted more than anything betrayed her. blair’s alone again. and she’s angry and she’s hurt and lashing out and trying to make serena hurt as badly as she does but nothing she does can compare to the hurt serena caused her but she keeps trying because she hurts so much. she air quotes forgives nate to get back on her perfect future track but she cannot ‘forgive’ serena in that same way because even though they both betrayed her betrayal from serena hurts a million times more. serena betrayed her. it’s not about nate for blair it’s about serena. it’s about the fact that serena was willing to hurt her. that hurts way more than nate’s willingness to hurt her. okay back to nate so he’s ‘trying’ to fix things with blair and blair tells him not to talk to serena and at first he doesn’t want to hurt her so there’s his i needed to talk to her secretly in chuck’s bedroom to tell her that i can’t talk to her moment but then well he sees serena and dan and he sees how much serena has not chosen him (she chose blair) and he’s so so hurt by that so well now driven more by spite and even more by hurt he sticks to his earlier choosing to fix things with blair even harder and again spite and hurt like literally does not speak to serena. and serena’s really hurt by that she’s hurt when she’s learns at brunch that he would consider not speaking to her and she’s really really hurt when he just literally does not speak to her and it’s like serena chose blair and she’s determined to fix things with blair and to do that she needs to not speak to nate but that doesn’t change the fact that it hurts her so so much that he won’t speak to her.

I know I tend to take things dark places but one thing I will NOT be doing is pretending that Rebecca and her house boat man was a bad or heaven forbid "dangerous" plot I LOVED it. We got to see a whole new side to Rebecca, a side that throws caution to the wind and decides she deserves a chance at not even love necessarily, but just a good freaking time.

There is also something there about how different this was from her story of how she meet Rupert. Rupert won her over by wearing her down. Persistence and repetition. Boat man won her over by just being good and kind. Chucking his phone into the water alongside her, throwing caution to the wind but not expecting anything of her. He took a chance and it made her feel comfortable taking chances, too.

In a nutshell: the first day Rupert showed up at the bar, Rebecca's gut instinct was to say no; and she should have stayed with that gut instinct. I think she's spent a hell of a long time regretting that, and second-guessing all of her choices. But on that houseboat, her gut instinct was to stay. So she stayed.

nueng + chopper trading wary looks after kit storms out of the press conference NEVER LET ME GO Episode 1

travis is so brave for sticking with blink for so long, i would have been outta there after six months

if you’re still doing mutual bingo may i please get BINGOED :3 (only if you want/are still doing it hehehe) also here are 2 lil memes that reminded me of you as a little treat………. P.S. GOOD LUCK ON YOUR MYSTERY FIC I’M SO EXCITED TO FIND OUT WHO IT IS/READ IT!!!! MWAH MWAH MWAHHHH 🙂‍↕️🩷 - @dollsuguru

KAIROOOOO MY BESTIE <333333 OFC YOU CAN GET BINGOED!!!!!!! AND THANK YOU FOR THE MEMES SOBSS I AM COLLECTING THEM ….. jinshi n kenny our silly little guys…… they’re so Me

ive come to the conchlusion that nimona 2023 was REALLY overhyped. like, its a nice good film but everyone was talking about it like it was something revolutionary! when its just kinda. a more shallow version of the sea beast

Ah, yes, the difficulties of writing fic closely following ATSV canon. Do I mostly stay true to canon and just shift some motivations and backgrounds? Do I drag things out more, change some things entirely? Will Hobie quit the society the second Miles is on the run, or does he stick it out this time due to "i gotta watch out for this kid" and "he's almost like other-me for real" and "i know where to go potentially so it's not quite as dire to get away now" or does he quit anyways and just keeps showing up with the web-warriors watch driving everyone nuts? WHO KNOWS? NOT ME! doesn't matter whether it's the characters or me we're all having a crisis lmao

Seedling is such an interesting little story that i love, but i´d be lying if it wasnt almost completely sprouted (hehe) from the visual of those character duos that are a small child + big scary looking creature who acts as their guard, top tier trope frfr

(also huge shoutout to @ashrayus for hearing me out and adding onto the rambles so long ago, bestie the robot story wasnt working, we got plants now 🌱)

27 years of his youth, and you only knew him for three.

as frustrating and lonely and isolating as it was being single for 21 years thinking about it now it was the best thing for me. ive never been heartbroken and i dont have relationship trauma and most importantly all my mental issues come from within me and not bc some guy caused them

it’s 2 am and all i can think about is insaneduo

i see “your parents actually werent around much” and say “that isnt angsty enough and doesnt channel my personal trauma in a way i want”

my sincerest apologies to the person who played zelda’s lullaby on their little instrument while i cosplayed botw zelda several years ago and i froze, all the while screaming in glee in my head but had no clue what to do with my outward self

This is a super minor thing…

… But tbh, the way Eliot describes his father to Hardison… Kinda makes me think of Nate? He says the store looked like a mess, but that his dad knew exactly where everything was, which kinda makes me think of Nate and his complicated plans and obsessive tics. The way he talks gives me the impression the guy was pretty gruff and reticent himself, which also kinda lines up w/ Nate.

But one of the big differences between them is that his father wanted him to take over the store, and I don’t think Nate ever expects Eliot to take over as mastermind.

Nate and Eliot absolutely become very close and there is absolutely a different tone to their relationship than there is w/ Hardison and Parker. Behind Sophie, I think Eliot is Nate’s closest confidant, and definitely a surrogate father figure and not just bc of the similarities I get the impression he has w/ Eliot’s… Non surrogate father. Eliot’s the lieutenant, the left hand, the enforcer, the bodyguard—but he’s never the heir, and I think that’s bc he never wants to be.

Eliot and Nate have a very good sense of each other, and I think that despite their closeness and the type of relationship they have, Nate knows immediately that Eliot has no interest in taking over as leader and Eliot knows he knows that. Eliot never vies to run point like Hardison does, isn’t as inquisitive about everything else as Parker is. He’s comfortable where he is, as the lieutenant, contributing exactly when and how he needs to, stepping in whenever it’s required and keeping things running. He has no interest in taking command, and that’s why (I think) it’s quite clear Nate never even considers him. Bc he knows Eliot well enough to know that.

not that they were on the ships list but some of the boring default m/f ships reminded me of how much I hate wq/jc. like 🤢🤢🤢🤢🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪

I'm not trying to be an asshole but I think the funniest thing about fandom discourse is that the same kinda people who will tell you to kys for "liking incest" all because you ship two characters with the same mentor are the SAME PEOPLE that will bend over backwards to defend the most uninspired, bland, and toxic ass ship you've ever seen just because it's canon and het.