Débat #1: Il y a toujours une inévitable guerre entre shippeurs

Hahaha

Sérieusement, j'espère me réconcilier avec le Chair (surtout qu'il y a 8 chances sur 10 qu'ils seront endgame maintenant) déjà Sophie va me faire une cure Chair lorsque j'irai chez elle ^^

Débat Dair vs Chair très plaisant que j'ai eu sur Tumblr hier avec maribells (en anglais) :

Citation :: Anonymous: "Which couple IS your OTP though?
And what are your reasons for shipping the two? It's just rare to find
people who ship both so I'm curious."

ahundredcupsofcoffee : Between Chair and Dair? I guess that now it’s Dair, but it was Chair for years before that.

I ship Chair because of the ‘epic’ thing, and I used to be really
into the ‘messed up’ relationships but now that I’ve grown up a little, I
really fell in love with the really adult relationship between Dair,
the ‘pure and simple love’ thing.

I also think that both Chuck
and Dan are good for a certain side of Blair. Blair has a really player,
scheming side of her and Chuck is perfect for this side of her
personnality but Dan is great for her other side, the one that I think
is more important beneath the surface, the soft side, the one looking
for the great love story, the more adult!Blair, the intelligent one, the
one that gain many levels very fast at W, etc…

So yeah, I think that both are great for her for a certain period of
her life, I think that in the end, Chuck was perfect for her ‘Queen B’
days, but Dan is perfect for her new adult/mature business woman life.

That’s pretty much it.

Citation :: maribells:
"I'm not sure how a guy Blair doesn't love can be "perfect" for her at
any stage of her life? Regardless of whether you think she *should* love
Dan, she doesn't. And I would never want Blair to settle for someone
she doesn't love, just to satisfy someone else's preconceived notions of
what's best for her. (Not hating, just stating my opinion, since you
posted this in the Chair tag)."

ahundredcupsofcoffee : Well, I posted in the Chair tag because I said that Chuck used to be perfect for Blair (and that’s a good thing, right?)

Also, the thing is, we strongly believe that Blair does
love Dan, she just couldn’t say it, just as Chuck couldn’t say it to
Blair back in Season 2, are you then saying that it means that Chuck
didn’t mean it back then just because he didn’t say it?

I know that Chuck loved Blair in Season 2 just as I know
that Blair loves Dan now, even if she did chose Chuck in the finale
(yes, I am aware of that, but I’m also aware that the show changed its
showrunner, and I really think that Safran was going towards a Dair
endgame. Savage is definitely a Chair shipper and I guess that it’s her
right to end the show the way that she wants to but it doesn’t mean that
I have to agree that it’s the best thing for the characters.

I have never seen Blair more happy than she was with Dan, I mean did you see how she smiled all the time. Please remind me of a moment that it happened back in season 3?

I really wanted Chair to work back then, but we clearly saw that when
Blair matured, Chuck wasn’t a good fit anymore for her and Dan is now
way better suited for her, IMHO. That’s just the way I see it but I’m
always interested to read different point of views as long as there’s no
hate, so if you want to, I’d be glad to read about what you think it
was that made Blair choose Chuck except maybe fear of changing/growing
up and deep nostalgia for old time’s sake.

Citation :: andsmile:
"YES to all you said to anon and actually, I'm so SURE S5-DB were
written to endgame and the network didn't agree, so that's why they
fired Safran. So sure. It makes me even more bitter about them because
it's only a matter of preference and not what's better to the character
they created.. :\ Chuck needed to find someone like Dan too, someone to
make him happy. All he doesn't need is epic all consuming thing."

ahundredcupsofcoffee : I believe the same thing. I actually still love
Chuck a lot. By the way, I’d like to say that I never believed, and I
still don’t, that he tried to hit Blair in the ‘punching the window’
thing, for me, it was always about hurting himself. But anyway, I got
sidetracked, but I just wanted to show that even though, I now ship Dair
more, it doesn’t mean that I started hating Chuck

I really hoped that Chuck could find a right girl for him, I actually
liked him a lot with Raina, I was sad to see her go, Chuck was really
happy with her, the same way that Blair was happy with Dan and it would
have made a beautiful endgame, IMO.

Citation :: maribells : Well, you can believe whatever you want, but it won’t make it true

The comparison between Chuck being unable to say “I love you” in S2
and Blair not saying it to Dan in S5 is a completely false one, IMO.
Even though Chuck couldn’t say it, it was obvious to the viewers that he
felt it- he told Nate, he eventually told Serena, and Chuck and Blair
both essentially admitted it without saying the actual words (“just
because we can’t say it, doesn’t mean it isn’t true”). Furthermore, the
reason why Chuck was afraid to say it was obvious as well, since Chuck
being a coward was basically his entire S2 arc. He’d never loved anyone
before, never experienced being loved in return, and never truly made
himself emotionally vulnerable to another person- and it scared the crap
out of him.

So… what would be Blair’s excuse for not saying it now? She’s
certainly experienced love before, and she’s had no problem saying “I
love you” to the three guys she actually did love. She had no reason at
all to “fear” her feelings for Dan, because as she herself said, he
makes her feel safe. She knew he loved her, she knew he would never hurt
her. She had absolutely no reason not to say it back- except that she
didn’t feel it.

So, no, Blair doesn’t love Dan. If she’d loved him, she would’ve said
so, and she certainly wouldn’t have unceremoniously dumped him the way
she did.

I have never seen Blair more happy than she was with Dan, I mean
did you see how she smiled all the time. Please remind me of a moment
that it happened back in season 3?

Basing your interpretation of Blair’s happiness on how often she
smiles is just superficial and completely devoid of nuance, IMO- after
all, she smiled plenty while she was with Louis, she had a huge grin on
her face while she was crowned Prom Queen alongside Nate, but is anyone
*really* arguing that either of them made her the happiest? The thing
is, there’s a difference between being content and being truly happy,
and as Blair *herself* said, Chuck made her happier than she’s ever
been. So that’s indisputable- it doesn’t matter how much you want to
pretend 5x24 didn’t happen, it did, and it’s canon. And I could point
out many, many instances in S3 when Chuck and Blair seemed incredibly
happy together- really for most of the season, up until 3x17- but what’s
the point? I mean, here’s a shot of her happy and looking incredibly in
love:

I could easily find dozens more, but it’s downright silly to base a
discussion of who makes her happier on gifs of her facial expressions.
(For the record, there were many, many instances during her relationship
with Dan when she was not smiling- surely even you have to recognize
that- but like I said, I don’t think that’s an argument even worth
having).

I know that Chuck loved Blair in Season 2 just as I know that
Blair loves Dan now, even if she did chose Chuck in the finale (yes, I
am aware of that, but I’m also aware that the show changed its
showrunner, and I really think that Safran was going towards a Dair
endgame. Savage is definitely a Chair shipper and I guess that it’s her
right to end the show the way that she wants to but it doesn’t mean that
I have to agree that it’s the best thing for the characters.

I hate to break this to you, but the show was never headed towards a
Dair endgame- it was never even an option. I’m not just saying that in
hindsight, or to be cocky or smug, but it’s based on actual info we
heard from people behind-the-scenes. We know the writers wanted to take a
break from Chair for awhile, and they wanted to explore Dair (and yes,
they did intend to do so all along), but the intention was always to
return to Chair. There were no last-minute changes to the script or the
storyline. It was never a question of “If” Blair and Chuck would
reunite, but rather “when.”

And regardless of what you think Safran wanted, the decision was
never up to him- Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage have always been the
EPs, so it was always their call to make. So even if Safran had stayed
as showrunner (the current showrunner isn’t Savage, btw, it’s Sara
Goodman), it wouldn’t have made any difference. Schwartz and Savage
created this show, produce this show, and were always going to end the
show the way they wanted it to end.

I really wanted Chair to work back then, but we clearly saw that
when Blair matured, Chuck wasn’t a good fit anymore for her and Dan is
now way better suited for her, IMHO. That’s just the way I see it but
I’m always interested to read different point of views as long as
there’s no hate, so if you want to, I’d be glad to read about what you
think it was that made Blair choose Chuck except maybe fear of
changing/growing up and deep nostalgia for old time’s sake.

Yeah, I have several “points of view” on this paragraph, haha. First
of all, I think the assertion that Blair matured is wildly inaccurate. I
mean, between playing out her Fairytale Princess fantasies, making
pacts with God to keep Chuck from getting run over with a taxi,
repeatedly stabbing her best friend in the back, throwing a temper
tantrum when her boyfriend got more attention than she did, etc, S5
Blair was less mature than I’d seen her since S1. Her whining about
losing her fairytale (as opposed to, you know, her baby), followed by
Dan putting a plastic crown on her head was kind of the cherry on top of
her immaturity sundae, IMO.

Secondly, the argument that Dan is “better suited” for her seems to
be based on two things: common interests, and what a super great guy he
is. But sharing interests with someone doesn’t make you suitable as
lovers, it makes you suitable as friends. And Dan and Blair
actually were good as friends, before Dan decided to force it into a
relationship. The fact is, friendship doesn’t always translate to
romance, and attempting it to force it usually just results in losing
the friendship entirely (which is exactly what’s happened- and
coincidentally exactly what happened with Dan and Vanessa as well).
Regarding Dan being a good guy, I don’t really agree, at least not based
on S5, but I’m not going to get into all the reasons I think he’s been a
douchebag lately…. because the point is, it *doesn’t matter* how good a
guy someone is, love isn’t a merit competition where the “best man”
wins. Love is a feeling, not a logical decision, and you can’t make
yourself love someone just because they did X, Y and Z for you and
because they share your interests in random pretentious crap.

Which brings us to the final point: why Blair chose Chuck.
You apparently think it’s because of her fear of changing- which makes
very little sense, given how she spent the previous several months. So
you’re saying that she wasn’t afraid of changing in 5x17, and then
suddenly developed a fear of it a few months later? Yeah, no. Especially
given that Blair herself said that what she was scared of,
what she was running away from, were her feelings for Chuck. So what
you’re claiming is almost the exact opposite of what the show has told
us.

Her relationship with Louis, and with Dan, all had the background
theme of Blair attempting to “kill” or “run away” from her love for
Chuck. After all, the best way to get over someone is to get under
someone else, right? But in the end, she couldn’t keep denying her
feelings for him, especially when she finally accepted how much he’d
changed.

And if you look back at the entirety of S5, it’s very easy to see
this thread: Blair clinging to the idea that Chuck hadn’t changed (5x07,
5x09, 5x19), because for her to accept that he had meant that she had
to face her feelings for him; Blair trying to “choose” who to love- with
both Louis and Dan- and Chuck giving her the freedom to do so, despite
the fact that she herself realized “you can’t choose who you love”
(5x12); Blair being so afraid of losing Chuck that she’s not willing to
take the risk- “I’ll lose everything before I lose Chuck all over
again”, “just because we can’t be together doesn’t mean I won’t love
you” (5x11); Serena being remarkably perceptive about Blair’s feelings,
including “you’re afraid to take a chance on a life with the man you
really do love” (5x13), and “you’re still in love with Chuck, and you
still won’t admit it” (5x24), etc, etc.

The 5x10 towncar scene was particularly compelling, but the alternate
version of it contained an even more telling piece of dialogue: B: “I
love you. And I’m sorry for ever doubting it, or making you doubt it.”
C: “I never will again.” It harkened back to the apology scene in 5x06,
when Chuck says “you never give up on the people you love”, which
foreshadowed that Blair was going to do exactly that.

And that’s it, in a nutshell- the Dair relationship arc was basically
intended to test Chuck’s love for Blair, to make him keep the faith and
not doubt her love. She chose Chuck in the finale because, no matter
how hard she tried to push him away and kill her feelings, she couldn’t…
and she didn’t want to anymore. She chose Chuck because she loves him
and because he has the capacity to make her happier than anyone else.
And none of that is fanwank, it’s actually canon. So this theory that
she was “afraid to love Dan” and went back to Chuck out of fear or
“nostalgia” is not only illogical, it’s completely inconsistent with
what we were told and shown by the show itself.

In other words… it’s Dair fanfiction.

Apologies if you find any of this snarky, that’s just how I roll.

Thanks for reading

Citation :: ahundredcupsofcoffee : Maybe I wasn’t clear in what I wanted to point out. I don’t think
that Blair was afraid to begin a relationship with Dan or to like him,
she had no problems calling him ‘my boyfriend’. I think that she got
scared abouthow seriousit got, really fast andhow hardshe was falling
for him.

As of ‘she certainly wouldn’t have unceremoniously dumped him the way she did.’

When did she dumpedhim exactly? The worst thing about the Season 5
finale is not that Dair didn’t finish the season together, honestly many
of us thought that it would happen since, you know, there had had been
Chair in every single season finales of the show thus far, but it was
how it was thrown out, without any break-up scene whatsoever, the
character are just left to supposethat they aren’t together anymore, no
goodbye, no nothing, that’swhat a great part of the Dair fandom is
really angry about, not the separation of the couple.

As of everything else, I think that it’s really funny how 2
people can see a show, a couple, a character two very different way, and
you know what? Sometimes, none of them are even wrong, it’s just two
sides of the same thing. Sure, IMO, Blair is not perfect, neither is
Dan, God knows I may be angry at them for some actions that they
previously have taken but at the end of the day, yes, I honestly think
that Blair has matured and it’s pure nostalgia that sometimes bring her
back to scheming (often asked by the NJBC by the way, not her own idea
(sometimes yes, but not often recently.)) and stuff like that. At the
end of the day, we see them two different ways, both that have been
explored by the show, so, none of us is completely off-track, it also
means that we’re not looking for the same things in life, and absolutely
nothing is wrong about that.