#serena;

[evzrest]

❝ que bom te ver sóbria... e durante o dia. recostou-se contra o batente da porta do apartamento de @serenarchx​ segurando dois copos de café. ❝ tenho um presente de natal. balançou o sapato que fora perdido na última noite que a viu, encontrou-o antes de viajar mas não teve tempo de devolver.

[yagaymi]

@philosophiesofwar

░░░░░░ ☾ serena gives blair a short grin, as if she’s about to laugh but it doesn’t quite reach her mouth. “i know you weren’t being serious, but i reckon we really should run away, if only for a weekend. who needs boys when we have the entire world to explore, anyway?”

[yagaymi]

@heelbound

░░░░░░ ☾ serena’s always been one to leap before she looks. maybe it’s just that she’s tired of relearning songs that makes her think of someone else; that sometimes she hears a song that brings her back to lydia’s bedroom, or secret beach trips, or presents that are far too expensive to be just gifts. maybe she’s just acting on impulse. maybe it’s muscle memory to end up back on lydia’s doorstep, waiting out in the cold for a girl who might not even answer her knock.

for someone who always leaps before she looks, serena doesn’t want to end up feeling like a fool.

[yagaymi]

@starhaze

░░░░░░ ☾ "well, this is only a little awkward,” serena admits, a small and apologetic smile stretching her lips. “i think awkward might be a bit of an understatement, though.” it definitely applies to the situation; coming across your ex, stood-up on a date is always exactly that.

it could be because of pity that serena takes the seat opposite him. “just long enough for you to make your escape.” her smile reaches her eyes this time.

[yagaymi]

@philosophiesofwar

░░░░░░ ☾ serena grins, her gaze fixed on blair. she seems to be mulling over something for a few moments, and she rocks on the balls of her feet in concentration. and then ––– “come on, i know exactly what’s going to make this all better. forget ROMANCE ––– let’s go get frozen yoghurt.” she nudges blair with her shoulder, her smile never leaving her face. “come on, b, you know you love it!”

[himbohours]

Also Starter Call For Nero & Kyrie’s Daughter Because I Have No Self Control

[yagaymi]

monsters are always hungry / jenny @ serena or someone

X. ANSWERED

░░░░░░ ☾ in this world, only gods can save them. and serena just might be a goddess.

at least, that’s what people think – they whisper it amongst themselves, behind gloved hands, like children in the playground. they say she is a goddess, and so serena grows up believing it to be so. a golden girl with her golden hair and golden smile; the daughter of apollo and lily van der woodsen, a golden girl in her own right. some might say a picture perfect replica. a lineage of shimmering perfection.

when serena looks into her vanity at night, her hair back and her head tilted, she’ll admit she doesn’t see it. lily is silver-blooded, a daughter of the moon. ambitious and kind in small doses, her life’s behind her now. whatever raw sensuality lily had was sucked from her while serena was in the womb.

that doesn’t mean serena doesn’t love her mother, wouldn’t kill for her. not that she’d ever need to. here, in their kingdom of the upper east side, they are a christmas card: three beautiful, golden people, smiling big and wide and bright.

–

contrary to popular belief, serena van der woodsen is familiar with jealousy.

one may think: what on earth does serena van der woodsen have to be jealous of ? as if being beautiful means she can’t be anything else. she can’t be wild, or bad, or passionate, or unavoidable, or rash. she can’t want to take risks. she can’t wish that she could learn from her mistakes. she can’t be happy with what she already has.

so yes, she is familiar with jealousy.

not quite so much as blair, whose lips spill with it, always aching for something more in a way that is so, so different to serena’s hunger for the world. to kiss that boy behind the hedge, to flirt in france, to show off just a little bit more leg.

looking at jenny for the very first time, at her resemblance, at her smile, serena suddenly understands what it’s like to be blair.

– 

the resemblance doesn’t stop at their looks, serena quickly finds. it also extends to their choice in boys.

jenny’s still just a child, really. so far from their manipulatory ideals of beauty ( golden-girls, silver-lipped, bronze-skinned ) . so it’s amusing at first, to watch her stand on the sidelines, trying to catch nate’s eye. serena gives blair a knowing smile when jenny eventually musters up the courage to talk to him, ducking her head shyly once or twice – blair leans in to serena and says, ‘darling, you don’t stand a chance’.

but then nate starts acting distant, slipping off early. jenny starts swaying her hips as she walks the marble-lined halls. blair starts sizing up the competition. little by little, jenny starts taking the ground where she can get it. it’s not even that she’s feeding them their own ideas, it’s that she’s coming up with her own. she wears her own dresses to the balls. she wears black, then silver, then gold. blair can’t decide if she should dignify it with one-uppance.

serena doesn’t care, not really. jenny can have her leftovers – and not just because they were blair’s first – she can do whatever the hell she wants. jenny is just something to look at, then move on from. serena’s always been so responsible when it doesn’t involve herself.

–

nate and jenny break up. blair turns her nose up at her, she who was almost-but-not-quite-a-friend ( because what is friendship on the upper east side if not some kind of temporary truce, until someone oversteps and pisses the next person off ? ), the three of them flocking to nate to lick at his wounds.

“it’s nothing to think about,” nate says, even though they all know that’s simultaneously the truth and a lie. nate, for all his fairy-tale prince-ness ( because he is one, after all ) can be so cold and so cruel.

but serena agrees with him anyway. “you can always do better.” she goes. because for all her worth, jenny doesn’t shimmer in the sun.

–

jenny is sent away to live with a spinster aunt, in the end. it turns out there is too much innocence etched into jenny’s face, around her eyes, on her mouth.

serena thinks, looking into her vanity that night, her reflection taking up the entire frame, that you need more than just teeth to make it on the upper east side.

you have to be something else entirely.