#If bellarke had been allowed to be good and canon

[she-who-the-river-could-not-hold]

scrosciare [a bellarke ficlet]

scrosciare - the action of rain pouring down or of waves hitting rocks and cliffs [from this prompt list] Clarke-centric, implied Bellarke | setting: season 3 inspired canon divergent, if the plot had simply been a survival story and Arkadia was a settlement just like the others | wc: ~900

The water churning below the cliffs echoed the anxiety that’d taken deep root in Clarke’s body. Crashing violently, upheaving, tumultuous. It was life on Earth personified in her and expressed in the waves below. She watched it in a daze. Hypnotized by the swirling, angry blue below. When Octavia had said the color of it reminded her of Clarke’s eyes, it hadn’t quite felt like a compliment.

She had to keep telling herself that they were doing the right thing, that Floukru coming to help them was not the destined disaster that Luna so clearly believed it to be.

Maybe she was right.

But the war against Azgeda was impending and Arkadia, while comfortably established as a settlement on the ground now, wasn’t prepared to fight. Trikru was of assistance but they needed more. Reluctant or not, the numbers spoke for themselves and alliances had to be made, no matter the feelings on either side.

A spray of saltwater speckled Clarke’s face as one of the bigger waves crashed against the wall of rock below. As much as she missed the woods surrounding Arkadia, the trees she’d come to covet, she couldn’t deny the pull of the ocean. The ground had always been a mystery, but water was something else entirely. Rain had been startling but welcome. Lakes and rivers a source of resources. But the ocean––she’d never imagined something like this. Angry, powerful. A source all of its own. How Luna and her people had come to connect with it baffled her; it left her intimidated if she was honest. Clarke had felt a lot of fear since reaching the ground, but this seemingly bottomless body of water was unsettling in ways she struggled to describe.

“Don’t fall in,” voiced someone behind her. Teasing, but not.

“I won’t,” she answered Bellamy, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth despite it all.

He carefully emerged into the corner of her vision and she took the moment to steal a long glance at him. The dampness of the air had flattened his curls down, though they fought valiantly to return to form. Despite his good-hearted warning, she couldn’t miss the grimness etched into the squint of his gaze. The firmness of his jaw, clenched in that sort of way it had been for a while. A detail she never missed. Impending war did that to people. Especially the more his status eclipsed those previously in the command in the armies and his sister continued to pull away.

“Well, you’re standing pretty damn close to the edge. Can’t blame a guy for getting nervous,” he said, eyes finally flicking to her. Catching her in the act of staring.

Clarke quickly looked away. “I imagine some people wouldn’t mind.”

Biting anger, lashing against nothing. Maybe she was the ocean. Did that make Bellamy her rock, her cliff that she raged against?

“Hey,” he said quietly, startling her as he carefully reached out and touched her. He’d been doing that more since he’d admitted his anger to her. Since she’d initiated a hug that still lived in her skin. Maybe he was the waves, leaving imprints behind and shaping her forever. 

“We’re going to get through this. Together,” Bellamy continued. “And we––” (here a deep breath) “––I would definitely mind if you fell in. If you want to see the ocean more, we can come back some day after all of this. Maybe one day there will be trade routes and someone will have to keep relations good between everyone. Maybe there will be towns here again, like it used to be back before the bombs. We can come back then and actually explore it all, but in order for that to happen that means you’re not allowed to fall, or jump, into the ocean.”

It was an image of a future that made tears prick at her eyes. Would she see the ocean differently if they were no longer at war? Could it instead be a source of respite, villages dotting the horizon and people walking alongside the ocean? 

Could it be her and Bellamy… guns and strategy left behind alongside the weight of humanity?

It took a few hurried blinking away of tears to realize that he had gently pulled her further away from the cliff's edge, only then registering that she really had been standing frighteningly close to the soaring cliffside and ocean below.

Bellamy’s hand was warm against her arm, his solid presence a comfort she hadn’t realized she’d needed so soon already. Not long had passed since their recent embrace before going to meet Luna, but she feared she was craving more than before. She’d been introduced to his touch, as well as the ocean in a short span of time. And like the rocks below, knew she’d be forever changed by it.   

“Thank you,” Clarke said quietly, quickly wiping at her eyes as she turned to face Bellamy. When he looked at her curiously, she gave him her own watery smile. “For forgiving me. For all of it, really. I’m not sure I deserve it.”

“You needed it, it’s yours. I’ll always give that to you,” he answered, voice rough yet soft. 

They fell into amiable silence, a quiet filled with promise. His hand still lingering on her arm as they turned to both gaze out at the crashing waves, filling the quiet with the suddenly comforting, repetitive churn of the water below. 

Being like the ocean didn’t have to be a bad thing. They’d simply need its resolve so that one day their futures could intertwine again.

[riosnecktattoo]

Everyone: James & Teresa we can tell you're in love it's obvious

James & Teresa: iTs jUst BuSiNEsS

Who is this reminding me of...........

[deliahscrush2003]

You know what they say, no? An ask a day keeps the boredom away 🎉😌

So here I am, again yolo, with another question for you: what is your favourite writing trope (es. time-travel, found family, etc)?

~ I'm considering valid both writing and reading ~

Hey there, sweetie! Thanks for the asks, boredom has officially been swept aside by your lovely question 🌺

[ [ P.S. You are truly a marvellous person and I really do appreciate the time and consideration to drop by my humble inbox! It has been most graced by you, my dear friend! ] ]

FANFIC QUESTION

What is My Favourite Writing Tropes?

(P.S. this is going to be a long ramble so I am sorry in advanced �� )

Time Travel

I absolutely love love love Time Travel fics and I have written a few myself:

- Into the Anomaly (the 100)

- Lessons of Needles and Blades (GoT)

I also have projects featuring Time Travel:

- Farren Emerson in The Vampire Slayer (BtVS)

- Louise Hammond in Blooperverse (X-Men)

Not just like regular time travel where the characters go back to any random time period, but time travel where the characters go back to the beginning of the story with the aim of fixing things. So, I think it would be more accurate to say that I love Time-Travel Fix Its.

I got into Time-Travel Fix-Its when I started reading Game of Thrones fics, usually where Sansa Stark went back in time to prevent the deaths of her family members.

However, the first Time-Travel Fix It fic that I read was a Fairy Tail fic but it was where the writer technically broke fourth wall and introduced a character from our world who after they died, was allowed to choose any fictional universe to live in as a character and they chose Fairy Tail. My OC Kindred Blanche and her story was inspired by that fic, so check it out if it perks your interest!

Fix-It

Another thing I love to write is straight up Fix It fics. I find this is usually more tolerable with an OC, so you can say that it is Fix-It fics that ignited my passion for writing and delivering OC content like:

- Breathe for Me (Teen Wolf)

- A More Savage Narnia (Than The One You Left Behind) (Narnia)

You can argue that all of my OC projects are intended to be Fix-Its, including Agents of Fate (Kindred Blanche), The Seda Series (Serina Seda) and Blooperverse (Louise Hammond). They were the most intended to be Fix Its. If I had to pick the least Fix It OC I would have to pick Indianna Taylor from my True Blue project.

You can all thank the showrunners of the 100 and Game of Thrones for my relentless changes to canon. And by thank you, I mean tell them a fuck you for me 💕 (not you, sweetie, not you)

Found Family

A big trope that I love to see and write is Found Family. I really like putting the whole "It's the friendships we make along the way" ideology into perspective in my fics. Just writing about a big support system full of unique and sometimes (always) dysfunctional people is the best way to go some days and its always great to write these raw and ever-developing dynamics. Its my goal to finish a whole series and to read through it so I can see the journey of people who were once strangers who would now die for each other.

I think my fics with the biggest Found Family trope would be Breathe for Me and Into the Anomaly, but also: Agents of Fate, Blooperverse, The Seda Series and Minds of the Damned project (Persephone Shaw).

Slow Burn

There is nothing I like to see more than a good ole' fashioned relationship development. Sometimes in order for that to get done, we need the slow burn, the one that takes six seasons or over a hundred years to see us get a kiss (even if its during a CPR scene - looking at you, Bellarke).

Because I like to write big, multi-chap series, I really drive home the slow burn. There needs to be a solid level of friendship, communication and trust before they're - for a lack of a better term - going at it like rabbits. For me, that could take until the end of the fic or that could take another two instalments (lmao, my Narnia fic).

Rest assured, I do fill that gap with lots of mutual pining, trauma bonding, totally platonic hand-holding and slow dancing, totally friendly concern for their welfare, angst, conflicted feelings, as well as some cute background relationships unfolding to give them a little push.

Anyway, I think you get the picture 😅

Special Mentions to Tropes:

+ Mutual Pining.

+ Friends to Lovers.

+ Childhood Friends to Strangers to Enemies to Lovers (super specific - I know😉)

+ Enemies to Lovers.

+ Rivals to Lovers.

+ Opposites Attract (e.g. Sunflower Child and Dark Horse)

🌺 WANT TO KNOW MORE? DROP AN ASK! 🌺

[sometimesrosy]

Hi Rosy, I have a question if you feel comfortable answering. I followed you back during S3/4/5 and you were always super adamant that Bellarke shippers were too negative and that the story is leading up to them romantically being together (even if it ends in a tragedy). Obv, things didn't work out that way, but looking back do you think those shippers had a point/were actually right? Do you wish you put less faith in JR and in the story in general?

I actually do NOT think those shippers were right. I think it WAS leading up to romance and it was being played as a romance, confirmed by Bob and Eliza. 

There was a big swerve in season 7 to take it away from romance. And taken only in itself, season 7 was NOT romantic Bellarke. There was no story leading to Bellarke romance in season 7.  Period. It wasn’t there. They weren’t doing it. 

But there WAS Bellarke romance written into the story from season 1 to season 6. 

Something happened between season 6 and 7 that changed the story from Bellarke romance to nothing. Season 7 ERASED the Bellarke romance.

But in order to erase something, it had to have been there to be erased. 

In fact, it was so imbedded into the story that in order to erase the Bellarke romance, they had to erase Bellamy completely and erase Clarke’s strength of character, and erase Octavia’s guiding character traits, and erase Echo’s loyalty. Season 7 was like a different show. The core of the show was gone. The spine. It was told in an entirely different way. It became an ensemble show instead of one with a hero and a dual protagonist, who had been there since season one. They literally took him out of the show and relegated him to a minor character who had no emotional connections to the other characters. Weird. Very weird.

They erased “the head and the heart”. Which was the center of the narrative of The 100. They just erased it. And pretended that it wasn’t a part of the story to begin with. Along with that, they erased Monty’s insistence that they be the good guys and do the right thing. They erased CLARKE being the hero of the story. They erased Clarke saving humanity but Bellamy saving Clarke. It was a dumb move and just deciding that Clarke and Bellamy weren’t the center of the show meant that they denied the audience the catharsis that we had been waiting for for seven years. Even WITHOUT a romance, we still needed that catharsis, because Clarke and Bellamy were the spine of the show. They held it together.  But removing that romance meant removing Clarke and Bellamy nearly completely.  If it wasn’t there to begin with, they wouldn’t have had to do such a hatchet job on the main characters to get rid of it.

It is the unfortunate truth that a lot of the time, Hollywood stories sell out. They start out strong and then somewhere along the way, they swerve and sell out for money or politics or who the hell knows, a desire to be edgy. I don’t know why they do it, but it is a known phenomenon and you can go back over decades of good stories that go down the tube by the end of the series.

I DID trust JR to tell a good story, and I thought it was evident that he was staying true to his story as he began wrapping up storylines in season 5 that seemed to say he had a Bellarke, Clarke and Bellamy centered storyline to finish. And we got that, all the way up to the second to last scene in season 6. THAT was romantic, no doubt. 

But in season 7 it was gone. As if it had never happened. 

I consider that a failure in storytelling, because you can’t erase canon. You can CHANGE it, but you can’t erase it. And since they didn’t change it to undo the bellarke romance, just erased it, they messed up. They could have stayed true to their story and had Bellarke TALK about their feelings and address them, and then say “but we aren’t romantic and we should stay platonic friends.” There were many ways they could have done that addressing the romance written into the story. They did not. They just pretended it wasnt’ there, and in so doing, removed the main characters and their effect on the story. I ended up being wrong about my prediction, not because the story wasn’t going there after all, but because it was, and JR changed his mind and swerved. Or maybe he never intended for them to actually achieve a physical romance and he just wanted to tease us with it. Although if Bellamy was supposed to be there on that beach, then that would have given them end game even if they never consummated it in the series. Is that why he refused to allow Bellamy to be there? And contorted the story to make him absent? IDK. Seems particularly vengeful.

Do I regret trusting JR? no. Because it meant I could enjoy the story as it was, even up to mid season 7 when it became clear he wasn’t pulling the story together, but ignoring it and erasing the main characters so he could do that.

I honestly don’t analyze a story that isn’t there. Bellarke was there 1-6. It was not there in season 7. None of us can tell the future. We don’t know where people are going to take things, but good stories are supposed to be consistent and follow through with the world they’ve built. If they don’t, that’s a failure. So it was a good story, but it failed to stick the landing, ultimately falling apart at the end in a spectacular way. 

Why it fell apart? Why JR dropped Bellarke and erased Bellamy and turned Clarke into the only person not worth redemption I don’t know. Maybe some day we’ll find out why.

[travllingbunny]

Having spent a couple of years in The 100 fandom, one of the things that always strikes me is the gap between the canon characters and their fanon versions. Almost every character has at least one, sometimes two doppelgangers in fanon. These fanon versions often contradict each other, since the fandom has apparently been sharply divided for years. In other cases, there is one definite fanon creation that’s widely popular and mostly uncontested. 

Which of these fanon creations do you find most boring, and which ones may be actually kind of fun?

Fanon!Clarke 1: The show’s main villain. This character is completely selfish, spoiled, tyrannical, absolutely loves murdering people and committing genocide, and spends all her time scheming and manipulating people so she could achieve her evil goals (which are to keep her friends and family alive). Likes to risk her life and “sacrifice” herself just because she always wants to be the center of attention. Has always been abusive to Bellamy by.. telling him nice and supportive things about himself, but not nice and supportive enough, and cruelly allowing him to go on a mission that was his own idea and his plan (an example of how unequal their relationship is and that she always orders him around). Doesn’t care about anyone, except maybe her adoptive daughter Madi, which makes her annoying and a traitor for not prioritizing her friends’ safety over her daughter’s, except for the times when she’s prioritizing her friends’s safety over her daughter, which makes her a bad mother.

Fanon!Clarke 2: Minor character, notable for being Lexa’s love interest. (See below.) This young, occasionally confused lesbian was a damsel constantly in need of saving by the show’s hero, Lexa, and didn’t do anything important until  meeting Lexa, and learning from her how to be a leader. Still not too good at it, probably due to the bad influence of the show’s villain, Bellamy (see below), with whom she has an unhealthy, toxic platonic relationship but for whom she doesn’t really care, at the same time. Had a bunch of things happen to her, such as losing both her parents and a bunch of other important people in her life, having to mercy kill her first love minor crush (at the time when she still thought she was into men), constantly fighting for survival, being left almost alone on a deserted planet for 6 years, having her body stolen - but none of this ever traumatized her, the only thing she’s ever been affected was Lexa’s death, which she spends all her time talking about, 24/7, even 6.5 years later. 

Fanon!Bellamy 1: The show’s main villain. Evil, violent white man (as a consequence of having a younger, white sister, which makes him white because biracial people don’t exist), constantly angry, goes around killing people in bouts of rage. Racist and hates Grounders (who, naturally, are a race - as descendants of a group of people from a cult that used to live in a bunker). Super into killing civilians and committing genocide. Probably stupid and uneducated. Killed his sister’s boyfriend and somehow indirectly killed the show’s hero, Lexa. Is indirectly to blame for anything wrong that ever happened in the show. Also likes to abuse Clarke (see Fanon!Clarke 2). 

Fanon!Bellamy 2: A very unusual character that consists of two different people: in seasons 1-4: the sweetest, most sensitive and softest clean shaven boy in the world, who wore his heart on his sleeve and spent all his time telling Clarke how much he loves her (even without ever actually having told her anything like that, or asked her out on a date, and even while sleeping with other women, but that’s this character’s special power). Never killed people, except when he did, but that only happened because the writers hated him and he was OOC. As of the start of season 5, turned into a cold, unemotional bearded man who is totally in love with evil Echo (see below) and doesn’t care about Clarke at all (which makes his actions in a lot of season 5 and all of season 6 a complete mystery).

Fanon!Octavia 1: The most perfect human being in the history of the human race. Has never done anything wrong in her entire life. When she beat up her brother savagely, it’s because he deserved it, everyone she’s murdered deserved it, and she was never a tyrant - people just didn’t realize that, as the perfect leader, she needed to have absolute power. She was also a victim of manipulation by evil Abby (see below), who made her decide to force her people to become cannibals. But forcing people to become cannibals was also the right thing to do. Was betrayed by everyone, including her treacherous brother and all the other traitors who didn’t appreciate her leadership.

Fanon!Octavia 2: A monstrous epitome of white supremacy, this character enjoys going around beating up various people of color just for kicks, enjoys cultural appropriation, and even decided to be born because she knew this would be an act of aggression against her MOC half-brother, whom she emotionally abused by her very existence.

Fanon!Abby: One of the show’s main villains, this character is incompetent and clueless but at the same time a vicious schemer, manipulating and exploiting the younger women in the show. (See above.) Can’t take responsibility, as seen by the fact that she didn’t blame herself for everything Octavia ever did. Messes things up because she still wants to mother her 18-year old daughter, which makes her annoying. At other times, pays more attention to trying to save her dying boyfriend than to trying to mother her 24 year old daughter who seems fine and able to take care of herself, which makes her a terrible mother.

Fanon!Lexa: The show’s main character and hero. Even though she was in just 16 episodes, didn’t join the show until halfway through season 2 and died 4 seasons ago, the show is still all about her. A pure cinnamon roll who never did anything wrong, the greatest leader and strongest fighter, able to single-handedly defeat all the bad guys, but also a visionary peacemaker who did the unprecedented action of doing what Clarke advised her to do. Actions like betraying her allies, throwing people off the top of a tower, letting her own people die, were all wise leadership choices and therefore morally right. (Anyone who feels differently is probably homophobic.) Possibly a woman of color (because of a mismatched foundation and/or because you can’t be a part of a technologically underdeveloped society and be white). Will come back in the series finale to save the day, in spite of having been dead and cremated 131+ years ago.

Fanon!Echo 1: The show’s central character since the start of season 5. An epitome of pure, 100% unadulterated evil, this character has no appealing, redeeming or just human qualities, but nevertheless, possesses an incredible screen presence that makes the fandom obsess over any second of her screentime and talk about every single thing she does or says (or even about her hairstyle) more than about anything else in the show.

Fanon!Echo 2: The strongest  and most badass of strong female characters, as seen in the fact that she is good at fighting and killing people and at carrying out other people’s orders (including that of her boyfriend’s). Has never been portrayed as a villain or done anything wrong that could possibly make any of the viewers dislike her - the only possible reason for anyone to dislike her is jealousy over her great, epic romance with Bellamy.

Fanon!Pike: Worst person ever, this villain was just racist towards Grounders (who are a race, see above) with no reason whatsoever and never had a sympathetic or tragic backstory to explain his views and decisions. He imagined that his people were in danger when in fact, everyone else was peaceful and tolerant and it was just him ruining everything. Invented a story about Azgeda being genocidal against his people and murdering the majority of them, including 15 children, right after they fell on Earth - which never happened because we didn’t see it. Somehow he manipulated everyone else into remembering that, too. Probably a cannibal and definitely a Nazi and Donald Trump 2.0, comparisons which are perfect because Pike is the epitome of racism because he not only killed Grounders, he executed a black guy by shooting him in the head. Strangely, Pike also looks like a black guy, but he can’t be one or this is unimportant, because using guns makes you white and only Grounders can be POC because they use medieval weapons.

Fanon!Roan: Clarke and Bellamy’s best friend. Spends all his time hanging out with them just because he likes them and really wants to see them get together. May be an Azgeda king or something, but that’s not important, because it’s not like he has political motivations for his actions. Super loyal to Clarke and never did anything like break alliances or kill his allies or march on Arkadia to attack her people or do any political scheming. Probably has a secret “Bellarke Forever!” tattoo.

[lightcomingthroughthedarkness]

Why we had to see that Becho Flashback and the Bellarke of it all

Alright, this is going to be a long one. 

That flashback, and the way it is presented to the audience, exists for two reasons.

1.      To enhance Echos’s storyline and struggles

2.      Frankly? Because Jason was answering the criticism that we never saw Becho get together. Whether we like the Flashback or not, he doesn’t give a crap.

Basically, two birds. One giant stone, lol

Bellamy approaches Echo, they immediately start to joke around, indicating that while Bellamy hasn’t necessarily had a close relationship with her, he also hasn’t been openly antagonistic either. However Bellamy is still Bellamy, so they gave him 3 years, lol. Bellamy makes an effort to connect with Echo and the way to do that is to talk about the things that have made Bellamy dislike and distrust her in the past. It is afterall what binds them, their (shared) experiences. Echo’s actions that caused Bellamy pain. Octavia, Gina/MW. Echo has since season 2 looked up to Bellamy and we can see in this scene that she does feel some sort of way about her actions (her reluctance to look Bellamy in the eye). But Echo actually opens up the POSSIBILITY of working through those experiences when she starts to talk about them. 

Bellamy shuts her down though. Bellamy’s intention here is to reach out to Echo, to be the leader he needs to be to keep them alive, to be the head and the heart the way Clarke asked him to be, to make sure that Clarke’s death was not in vain. That means Bellamy needs to grow and he needs to forgive. He cannot live with anger and resentment. It won’t keep them alive and it won’t help them work together to achieve Bellamy’s greatest goal between season 4 and season 5; TO GET BACK TO EARTH. That’s why Bellamy is all ”family this, together that, unit here” bla bla, lol.

Next up. Their strengths and weaknesses.  Bellamy believes Octavia is his weakness because of the lengths he is willing to go for her and everything he’d do for her (Bellamy has since learned that Octavia is not his responsibility and love does not bring you down). Echo says Octavia is his strength. However they are coming at it from two different perspectives. Echo looks at Bellamy’s LOYALTY and dedication to Octavia as his strength. Someone to fight for, to commit to. It’s not that Echo is thinking ”Bellamy’s LOVE for his sister is the strength”. It’s what Bellamy does with it and how he shows that love that Echo draws from. Meanwhile from Bellamy’s point of view, it’s his unwavering love for his sister that motivates him. LOVE. Not a sense of loyalty for the sake of loyalty. It’s not that Echo can’t see love as motivation, it’s that Echo has no control of her feelings and how to express them or separate them. To Echo loyalty is love, dedication and commitment. And they are, depending on how you use them a way to express that love. So Bellamy being loyal to Octavia and going above and beyond for her, is his way of showing love, in Echo’s eyes. Even if Bellamy has to do horrible things for Octavia. Bellamy however does not see it that way. Perspective, people.

Which Bellamy points out to Echo. Her weakness is her loyalty. She will do things she knows is wrong for the people she is loyal to. That’s not right. You also have to do the right thing for the right reasons. Blindly following someone and not question them or yourself is how you end up with.. well, Echo. Or how Bellamy could have ended up had he stayed with Pike. Echo is taken aback by Bellamy’s comment here. ”How can loyalty be a bad thing”. ”it is when you do the wrong things because of it”. Bellamy has already learned this lesson. We’ve seen how loyalty is all Echo knows. She has done horrible things for other people because that is how Echo functions and how she shows love and dedication. But love does not destroy you. Love lifts you up. For Echo right now in season 7? We are seeing how losing Bellamy, her king, is detroying her because her overwhelming grief right now is the chaos that are ALL her feelings ALL AT ONCE and she does not control them or understand them and she does not know how to seperate them. Bellamy learned to separate his love for Octavia and feeling responsible for her. Echo has not. Who the fuck is Echo and what does she feel?

Which is why Bellamy ASKS Echo to be loyal to him and spacekru. Bellamy believes that Spaeckru are a family and will do things for the right reasons because he/they have learned after their experiences on the ground to do better (in season 5). Bellamy will go back down to the ground, be the leader Clarke wanted him to be and they will do things differently and better than before. If Bellamy and spacekru can show Echo a different way, then Echo will learn and do differently too. Right? 

Shape-shifter Bellamy calls it like it is. Echo is a shape-shifter. She will become who she needs to become for other people. That’s dangerous if you do not have a sense of self. And we have seen Echo become who she needs to become because of the people she follows. She was who she was for Nia, for Roan, for Bellamy and for Spacekru. When she follows them, she is what they need from her. Which is why Bellamy belives that Echo has changed when we get back on the ground in season 5. Bellamy is running around all like ”Echo has changed. She proved herself on the ring”. And everyone was like ???? The irony that Bellamy called her out on being a shape-shifter and then he couldn’t see that Echo has become one for him as well. (Which is why Bellamy yells at Echo in 6x04 because she isn’t acting the way Bellamy needs her to act meanwhile Echo doesn’t know how Bellamy needs her to act because she can’t separate those feelings and because she doesn’t know that Bellamy actually wants her to act like Clarke). So why can’t Bellamy see that or understand Echo?

The Bellamy part of the flashback Like I said, he is trying to be the man and the leader he needs to be in order to make sure Clarke’s death was not in vain. He carries Clarke with him and he can’t bear the thought of letting Clarke down. So The Head we must become. 

Notice how Bellamy barely lets Echo speak. Notice how Bellamy interrupts her and is all ”Echo, Echo…” when she is trying to actually say something. Every time Echo brings up the past, Bellamy is there to push her to the future. Basically ”lets not look back, we’ve all done bad things, we need to be a team, we need to move forward” etc. Bellamy cannot stay in the past. That’s where all his pain is. That’s where he had to do horrible things. That’s where he left his sister alone. That’s where Clarke is dead. Bellamy is so traumatized by what happened that he is desperately pushing for the future. By the grace of God herself, Bellamy will bring them home and he will not allow Clarke’s death to be in vain. Has Bellamy admitted to himself why he is runing towards the future so hard? On the Surface, sure. But I Think any deeper would have been too painful for him. Logically he knows they need to move on and survive. But admitting to himself that Clarke’s death broke him and that’s why he is so adamant to push everything aside probably would have made it worse for him (see how he lashed out at Murphy for mentioning Clarke’s name in season 5).

The kiss Well… Why did we need to see them kiss? First of all, straight up because of the backlash from fans that we never got to see Becho get together. Here we kill two birds with one stone. They were gonna do a flashback either way, might as well answer that question too. Bellamy and Echo could have had that conversation without kissing and nothing would have changed, we would have understood the message. But you don’t spend time and money in Hollywood for nothing. You got the actors, you got the set, you got the time and you got the (new) chance to explain an undeveloped story? You kill two birds with one stone. But I believe there is a third stone in this equation. 

”How do we show Echo becoming a shape-shifter right in front of us while also showing the audience where her complex relationship to Bellamy came from?”

You make Bellamy make the move on Echo. Bellamy shows her kindness, willingness to give her a new home and a new leader. Echo is willing to become loyal to Bellamy (shape-shifting moment from Echo kom Azgeda happens right in front of us, she becomes Echo kom spacekru) BUT how do we also make Echo confused about her feelings for Bellamy as we have seen her question in 7x01? They kiss and turns their spy/king dynamic on its ass. But also, most importantly, it keeps Bellarke from becoming canon. Echo pulls back because she did not expect that kiss from Bellamy. Bellamy is literally pleading with her, look at his damn face, he needs this, he needs to move on, he needs to work towards something or the past will swallow him whole. He literally kissed her so she’d stop talking about what is ”real”. Echo questioning what is real on the ring, means quesationing Bellamy’s belief that Clarke’s death will not have been in vain, they will do better, they must do better so they have to believe in it too. And thus begins Echo’s very complicated relationship with Bellamy. She gives him her loyalty and he becomes her leader. But they are human, alone and both attractive and she likes the kiss, so they both give in to that attraction. And it keeps Bellamy motivated on the future he so desperately thinks they can have; by moving on, by surving, by going back to the ground, by showing Clarke’s ”spirit” that he did it. Her Death was not in vain. Bellamy’ s intentions are good but oh boy did they come from his Clarke trauma. And that’s not fair on Echo. But she also needed him to follow and it worked on the ring, where nothing could touch them and there were no risks. Doesn’t work with Clarke back in Bellamy’s Life. Bellamy came alive when he got Clarke back. Echo lost her mind when she lost Bellamy because she lost her identity. Which Octavia talks to her about too, since Octavia lost her identity when Lincoln died.

In that one flashback we get to see how Becho got together (problem fixed), where Echo’s ACTIVE identity struggles started, where the lines between her king/her boyfriend are blurried, where Bellamy is desperately trying to be the man and leader Clarke asked him to be and ultimately the very real reasons Bellamy and Echo do not work. Bellamy told her that her loyalty is her weakness and still she has not worked through that, which we now get to see and it is not pretty. That’s not to say that they didn’t grow to love each other and become a family too (”We’re family and nothing will change that - 5x01). They did, they had to. Spacekru shared 6 years. But Jason wanted to tell us where Becho came from and why they came to be. Rooted in trauma. And instead of helping each other grow the way Bellarke do, they instead hold each other back. Echo needs to break free for herself and Bellamy needs his person, Clarke.

[bellamyblake]

I dont wanna be mean but I Have been rewatching lately and I realized that Clarke's live is tragic it is but Bellamy's more Fucked up

in many ways i agree with this mostly because i’ve been thinking about it since he died a lot. 

and yes i do think clarke’s life is very tragic but what i do think also happened to her is that the SL itself punished her unnicessarily especially in the last season, in ways that...if you count all of eliza’s scenes, about 80% of them are her crying and it honestly got very very exhausting. even to watch. as good as she is and she is great, it gets repetitive. she sells it but you start wondering gd why?? you become indifferent at some point to it all.

that aside, i do agree because of a few major points.

bellamy’s never had a happy childhood. 

of course we don’t know what his life was like before O.ctavia was born. i like to think that maybe there was a glimpse of hope there. i think and hope too that bob wanted his filipino heritige respect though it never was but in my headcanon land he had a filipino dad who loved him dearly and who died tragically after which things went very wrong. but i believe he was loved dearly. 

yet canon and the writers i think tried to instill the idea that aurora slept with random men so neither his nor o’s father are known. however i do believe aurora must’ve loved him a lot when he was born and i think he was a mama’s boy before O was born and everything concentrated solely on her.

so yes, he’s had a very unhappy childhood. a childhood marked by mostly FEAR and that is no way for a child to live and whilst Clarke has had a tragic life we have seen her past and we know she had a family-a dad and a mom, a father who loved her dearly, she was clearly a dada’s girl, the apple of his eye, he understood her, they were connected, which is why she sees him so often in memories or when she is in situations where she almost *dies*. and as complicated as her relationship with her mother is, it’s clear abby’s love for her is very strong even if their relationship was strained by Jake’s passing.

so clarke had a family, she lived in Alpha where we know conditions were better and she was best friend with the chancellor’s son. i’d say up to the point where her father died things were probably pretty rosy.

meanwhile bellamy became a parent more or less at the age of seven. a child was placed in his hands in the way a mother passes a newborn to her husband, and he becomes responsible for a life that technically-

is not allowed to exist.

just let that whole part sink in cause that’s the tragedy of him.

he lived in absolute fear of the worst happening.  forced to become a guard so he could protect her, share rations with his forbidden sister so she could live and help his mother out.

then his worst fear happened.

because of HIMSELF!

the one moment he dared reach for happiness it was taken from him. and it killed his mom who he clearly loves very much and locked his sister who we know he loves beyond himself.

a year of absolutely lonliness, guilt-rideness and pain passes.

then he goes to earth and his sister who’s finally free decides to have a life of her own and split like every child does at some point, from her family. be free because she’s been locked up all her life and he’s left..confused?? doing irrational things, trying to control what he no longer can control.

trying to hold on to love.

because in all the pain and suffering he did have a family-his mom and his sister.

but now it’s gone.

then he grows to love and care for the 100. for clarke.

and he goes into a mountain to save them.

but instead ends up committing genocide.

meanwhile his sister runs off with a grounder (which...i have thoughts on o’s love life but i wont go there now).

and then he’s left alone by the one person he still had in his life. and let’s be real i love the blakes but they were never truly resolved. they came close to it in season 6 but it wasn’t truly done well. so i think it’s fair to say that from the moment he touches the ground, even though he does it for his sister-

he loses her.

and he only has clarke left.

but clarke leaves.

so he’s loveless, empty, broken and absolutely destroyed by the fact that he killed a mountain full of people some of whom were good and tried to save them.

he’s destroyed inside.

and then on and on-the pike manipulation, the massacre, more guilt, more pain. the death wave and a weightless loseless fight that bears no meaning but he tries he tries he goddamn tries

though he doesn’t know why, surely not for himself. for O? for clarke? for the others? for his people?

what is there left for him to do.

aurora blake raised no suiciders. no losers. he can’t kill himself as much as death seems alluring.

what i find the saddest is that he has no real love in his life. yes he has clarke and yes we know they were written as romantic but it was never canon canon so he doesn’t have this great epic love story that all the other characters have-clarke with L, o with Lincoln, raven with f/nn, jasper with maya, monty with harper, lastly john with emori which i think was the best written one.

and that is the tragedy indeed. 

because he IS the character who is the MOST heart even at his *head*-est and yet he is denied love. he’s denied a great love story (again bellarke-aside here). he is DENIED his heart being loved the way it loves, he is denied the gentleness of a soft, kind, filled with extremes-ups and downs, or even challenges, love.

he’s denied it.

the heart is denied love.

i don’t count e/cho. im sorry but that just as clarke killing him was done purely out of spite. there was no real love there, no emotion, no romance. it was a time jump relationship just like his one with gina. he’s REFUSED a great love story. 

he has it with clarke. but he’s denied actually going there too. 

i find it sad because love spills out of him in waves, all of himself he gives out, all of his softness kindness, even his flaws, he lets out in the open and says this is me, i am not ashamed of myself. i may hate myself but i love. 

and there’s no one to love him back.

and then in the end of course im saddest because we’ve seen the craziest shit on earth and he’s still denied understanding from his friends. but i wont go there because it hurts too much.

so yes clarke lost a lot. she lost L and she lost madi in a way and she lost her dad and her mom. but she’s had happiness in her life, she’s had a family, she’s had great love, she’s even had the cutesy teenage drama romance with f/nn and then a good love and then yes death and pain. she is separated from her friends, she is punished unnecessarily like he is too.

but she’s known it.

and she’s known the peace from those 6 years on earth. peace he craved and strived towards in the end. she’s had that with madi. whilst he’s spent that punishing himself over leaving her behind and once again trying to keep their people together in her abscence to honor her.

i’m sure he’s had happy moments. maybe glimpses. like bob said, glimpses of peace. maybe he’s had glimpses of happiness too. when he was baby boy and his mom picked him from his crib or his dad carried him arround or when he carried O around and talked to her. or when he was hugged by clarke.

but he should’ve had more. 

he deserved more. 

[bellamygateoldblog]

I haven't heard about siblings brollarke in a few days and I just wanted to poke you for some content.

LMAO @rosyrosalie the source of all your siblings!bellarke needs (is this one bellamygate 3.0?)

lately i’ve actually been thinking a lot about some bellarke ‘evidence’ and how for shippers, it’s proof of romance and eventual canon, but for me and with how they tie to octavia, it’s proof of the psudo-siblings theory of bellarke and of bellamy as a protector of clarke whenever octavia is out of reach.

take this: “he’d do anything for her, to protect her.” clearly spoken about octavia but shippers take it to be about both of the women (even going as far as to examine the filming and the way the scene fades into i think clarke’s face?) but take off the goggles and it’s so easy to take their own logic and observe that line as him acknowledging clarke and octavia in the same way.

how about “the head, the heart and the soul”? imo this idea works much cleaner if all the pieces are of similar status, that being two sisters and a brother, otherwise add in “soulmates” and “the other half” and octavia is cut out completely as a third wheel annoying little sister tag-along lol.

in s6, the way bellamy was behaving about clarke versus octavia...i can see how that could be interpreted romantically, but he’d abandoned octavia in the beginning of the season. he specifically tells us he’s thinking about octavia at her party while watching clarke dance. he's piles all his hurt onto octavia and lets clarke off easily, even defending her and walking back his development he had while away from them both, back to treating murphy like he did 6 years ago, failing at his own consistency because she’s the only “sister” he has left. where that dynamic is most similar to the bellamy/octavia one than any he has with the women in spacekru. he couldn’t save octavia but maybe he can save clarke.

he’s being torn between the two girls constantly, struggling to find a balance, making himself smaller to allow them both to take up so much space they keep crushing him. and he forgives them, they hurt him or leave him to do their own thing and he “always comes back for more” to BOTH of them, not only octavia who the line is spoken about. when octavia isn’t there (or when she’s detached from him) he’s clarke’s “good little knight” and that role for him is always strongest when octavia isn’t in the picture.

and unlike octavia, clarke does need someone to help her and fight for her.

i don’t spend time around the bellarke fandom and also do not want to lol so i think i don’t know enough of their takes to fully form this idea with evidence and such, but i can tell you when i was watching this before i joined fandom THIS is how i was viewing the relationships. i never had trouble with bellarke because to me it was dysfunctional siblings 2.0, and that’s how i was able to enjoy it. now fandom has spoiled it lol.

but whenever i see those gifsets of bellarke proof where octavia is involved in the original context it just makes my head grow bigger.

[t100ficrecsblog]

an interview with @changingthefairy-tale​

What are you working on right now? Right now, I’m focused on BellarkeFic-for-BLM (I just got an amazing canon prompt I’m really excited to finish). I’ve also been participating in this round of the Chopped Challenge, which has been fun and challenging. In between prompts, I’ve got two WIPs that I’m slowly cranking through. Shoutout to every single reader who’s been incredibly patient while I’ve been so slow on those updates — though, reminder that you can donate to a BLM organization (even a $3 donation works) and request an update to get those higher on my prio list while I’m focused on that initiative.

What’s something you’d like to write one day? My absolute dream job and the ultimate goal is to become a showrunner for a prime time TV show. I love TV shows — I love the way actors and directors and crew take a script and breath life into it, I love how you take a general idea for a story and mold it into something amazing as you go, I love how a series gives a story more time to be fleshed out and explored, I love the concept of a writers room and collaborating on a story. It’s a different ballgame from fic writing (which I do for fun) and travel writing (which I do for a living), but I’m determined to make it happen. JRoth, I’m coming for your job, babe. 😉

What is the fanwork you’re most proud of? I’m still really new to fic writing, especially compared to some of the powerhouse writers in this fandom. And I’m sure one of my WIPs (when finished) will probably supersede this. BUT, my one-shot about Madi calling Bellamy on The Ring (She called you for 2,199 days) is something I’m really proud of. I’m a long-winded writer, so one-shots have never come naturally to me. This one just…clicked. It’s got some good lines in there that I’m proud of, and based on the feedback I’ve gotten, it really made readers feel something and connect to the story. It’s not my longest story or my most thought-out. But it shows my growth as a writer these past few months, and I’m proud of that.

Why did you first start writing fic? I started writing fic as a creative outlet for my writing. My day job is writing about travel and credit cards. And while I enjoy that, it’s just not as creative. My dream is to write for a TV show though, and I was craving a way to flex my creative writing muscles in a low-stress way. I started watching The 100 when it first came out, but I didn’t really get into the fandom until I came back to the show during the S5/6 hiatus. That’s when I started reading fics and reblogging stuff about the show on Tumblr. During the S6/7 hiatus, I had this idea for a Greys Anatomy AU, and my sister (who is also a major fan of the show) was like, “You literally write things for a living. If you want to write a Grey’s AU for t100, there is absolutely nothing stopping you.” I published my first chapter on that The Choices We Make in Dec. 2019, and the rest is history.

What frustrates you most about fic writing? For me, I think that the most frustrating thing isn’t even about fic writing itself; it’s the fact that it’s a side-hobby and not something I can dedicate my full attention to. When you write all day for your day job, then do some for your freelance gig, and then turn around and try to write for a few hours every night for fic… that gets hard sometimes — especially since starting quarantine where I’m not traveling, going out with friends, getting a break from it, etc. Fic writing is a creative release for me, and I absolutely love crafting and writing these stories that involve some of my favorite fictional characters. And I love interacting with other writers and fic readers, I love talking about ideas and exchanging headcanons and fangirling over my favorite writers’ works. But (because there’s always a but), sometimes I just don’t have the mental energy or capacity to write at the end of the day when I’ve turned in 3 deadlines for work. I’ve got all these ideas floating in my head, but only so much time and mental energy I can dedicate to it.

What are your top five songs right now? Oh boy. So I live alone, which means I’ve got either music or Netflix on in the background 24/7 because ya girl doesn’t like silence. I have a different playlist for different moods. I’ll share my fav song from each of those playlists. Lol Fvck Somebody by The Wrecks (On my “Summer state of mind” playlist for when I wanna dance it out in my kitchen like an idiot)

Don Quixote by Drapht (On @talistheintrovert​’s “My Good Bitch Murphy” playlist for when I’m feeling *edgy*)

that way by Tate McRae (On my “Pandemic Jams” playlist bc I like angsty music and this song is a Bellarke MOOD)

Washington on Your Side from Hamilton (On my “Feeding my Broadway Obsession” playlist for when I wanna sing show tunes and plot overthrowing the government)

Tea by Noah Davis (Shameless plug for Noah bc it’s a bop and I literally dated Noah’s older brother in junior high — so proud of this kid for making his dreams a reality)

What are your inspirations (books, songs, other fic, really good cake)? All of the above, except I like pie more than cake. lol But really, I kind of use everything around me for inspiration. “The Choices We Make” is inspired by my love of Grey’s Anatomy. “Intertwining your soul (with somebody else)” is inspired my the first draft of my YA novel (though the setting was adapted to a grounder canonverse AU). “The Day He Shut That Rocket Door” and “She called you for 2,199 days” were inspired by @historyofbellarke‘s headcanons that were brought up in S7 speccing conversations (shoutout to her for enabling my angsty ass). My most recent WIP “There are some things written in the stars” that I started as part of Chopped (but will continue because I’m obsessed with the idea) is inspired by my love of Timeless. And I have an entire Notion database filled with fic ideas — some one-shots and some multi-chapter fics — that are inspired by quotes, songs, conversations with friends, books I love, shows I adore, random HCs that pop into my head while I watch, my own life experiences, etc. I take inspiration in any form it decides to come in. 💕

What first attracted you to Bellarke? What attracts you now? I’m a ho for enemies to lovers — the idea that you can put your worst foot forward and show someone all the ugly parts of you… and that they’ll see that and somehow look past it to see the good stuff too, falling in love with your whole self instead of just the pretty parts. Yeah, it’s my favorite romance trope. And that tension is what originally drew me to Bellarke. Now, it’s a combination of things. I love each of these characters in their own right. I relate to Clarke in a lot of ways, and I aspire to be her level of badass. I straight adore Bellamy Blake (flaws, stupid decisions, and all) and would marry him in a heartbeat if he were real — I’m not even kidding. lol But I also love their dynamic. They are partners, best friends, perfect compliments to the other. They see each other in a way no one else does, and they are the one person the other constantly risks everything for. They are both so driven by their responsibilities to their people, yet that all typically goes out the window the moment the other is at risk. I don’t believe in soulmates in real life, but it’s nice to get to believe in this fictional world that they are just made for each other.

BESIDES Bellarke, what character or pairing do you like best on t100? My favorite character besides Bellarke is John Murphy. His arc has been BY FAR the best on this show, going from that little shit in S1 to this “asshole we love” in the middle to now a true hero in this final season. And through it all Richard Harmon has been amazing to watch on screen.

My favorite pairing besides Bellarke is Linctavia. Yes, that ship is problematic in a lot of ways, but I still loved their dynamic. Lincoln helped Octavia navigate this new world that she was so desperate to be apart of while being mindful of her safety. And I thought they were a good match — he helped tame her fire without putting it out, and she helped challenge the way he was raised. Given time, I think they could have become one of the most stable and loving relationships on t100. Of course, that couldn’t happen because Jason needed Bell’s actions in 3A to have heartbreaking consequences, O to spiral for her own character journey, and whatever mess happened off-screen between Ricky and him. But they still remain my favorite ship aside from Bellarke.

Why did you decide to start writing for bellarkefic-for-blm? The second I saw that Sam was planning on doing this, I reached out to ask how I could help/write/be involved. The BLM movement is so important, and this is an amazing way for me to contribute while pursuing my passions. It’s a way for the fandom to get involved and do something good. And ultimately, this helps organizations that need donations. Shameless plug for everyone to please go check out the Bellarke Fic for BLM page — check out the many amazing writers and artists we have participating, and send in prompts. Most of us are allowing WIP chapter update requests, and there are a number of us (myself included) who are matching donations made! No donation is too small, and you’ll be supporting a movement that is a necessity in the U.S. and beyond.

What’s your writing process like? My mind is literal chaos, so I plan and outline like hell in order to make sense of everything. When I get an idea for a fic, it goes on my Notion database. Within Notion, I write down my inspiration for the idea, and a pretty in-depth summary of where I want the fic to go — dialogue ideas, any feelings/emotions I want to invoke, literally just a brain dump of all my ideas. From there, I’ll arrange that brain dumb into an outline. If it’s a one-shot, I’ll generally write the whole thing in the Notion doc. But multi-chapter fics will get a checklist within Notion for me to keep track of progress, and I’ll actually write the fic in Google Docs. I generally start writing from the beginning of a story, but if I get stuck or have an idea for a later scene, the fact that I’ve outlined heavily allows me to jump around as ideas come to me. I’ll read each one-shot or chapter after I’m done to make sure it flows before publishing. I post chapters for my WIPs as I write them, which I should really stop doing. lol For my readers’ sakes, I should work ahead and publish on a schedule rather than making them wait for my slow ass to finish chapter to chapter. But right now, that’s my process!

What are some things you’d like to recommend? Oh goodness, too many fics to possibly name. Instead, I’ll link to my AO3 rec bookmarks (which isn’t all-inclusive of the amazing fics I’ve read in this fandom, but it’s got some good favs in there) and shout out all of our awesome Bellarke Fic for BLM writers. Y’all should check out their work (and send in prompts)!

Where’s the best place to find you (twitter? tumblr?) I’m @changingthefairy-tale on Tumblr and @changingthefairy_tale on AO3! My ask box is always open for anyone who wants to scream about the show, ask about specs, talk about my fics, etc. Come say hey!

[lyssbelle]

💜 Ships that have meant a lot to me and took over my life at somepoint and what they teach me. Every ship here I have recieved online abuse and harrasment for shipping them but I don't give a shit, I'll do what I want.

There is WAY MORE such as many of my thai, Korean and anime pairings and I am so sad not mentioning them but you know tumblr only allows 10 images per post which is bullcrap😭💜

* BELLARKE * The ship that makes me believe that if both sides put in equal effort, love will work.

( I feel like a walking corpse waiting for these fools to finally admit their love. Even the actors got married before them. Btw I don't even know why there are antis of this ship like? Whats there to hate lmao 😂)

* REYLO * The ship that makes me believe that love helps show who we truly are.

(.....yeah.........if your a reylo, you'll know the utter heartbreak and trauma we are going through right now. They meant so much to me you don't even know. I habe recieved nasty shit from people over the last 4 years. This is the ship that I have been hated on the most which is ridiculous. To survive as a reylo you have to learn to be strong and to ignore the entire anti community. )

* TAEKOOK * The ship that makes me believe in soulmates and that some love is meant to be.

(They have taken over my entire life and soul. You have been warned. That's all I can say. Btw I prefer to ship this in private and don't really engage with it online as much as I used to. Its more of a personal thing. )

* KIMCOP * The ship that makes me believe that your love can also be your friend.

(Cuties. They have amazing chemistry in dramas. KISS ALREADY)

* YOONMIN * The ship that makes me believe no matter how different you are, it will work.

(My darlings. I love them so much. They are the complete opposite and thats what makes their interactions so much more sweeter. The Yoonmin community are filled with lovely people btw)

* THIAM * The ship that makes me believe in the idea that forgiveness might lead to love.

(Yeah....if you don't ship them and if you can't see then wtf is wrong with your mind. )

* BUBBLINE * The ship that makes me believe that its okay to love your friend.

(LISTEN. I shipped them for YEARS and no one believed me when I said they were a thing. I felt SO validated when that last ep aired. )

* DRAMIONE * The ship that makes me believe that love can make us better people.

(Yeah I know they aren't canon but I'v read some pretty good fics. Plus its enemies to lovers. These characters have been shipped together for YEARS and the people who are still butthurt about it should get a life 😂)

*CLEXA * The ship that makes me believe in being brave for love.

(They were cute when it lasted. I can't help ship them even if I'm a hardcore Bellarke. )

* BETHYL * The ship that makes me believe that love can help us get through hard times.

(They destroyed my soul. It's been 5 years and I'm still not over the trauma. Back when I shipped this in 2013, you had to deal with the major ship war that went on which was just NASTY)

[ragnarssons]

Y’all are really out there saying we didn’t get good Bellarke last night- I’m- Listen. I’m like Murray Bauman right now “CHILDREN, CHILDREN, CHILDREEEN” okay this is the best Blarke we’ve ever had. And why? Oh because the script and the screen and the camera and the acting, and all of this worked together and didn’t fucking shy away. The only ones still circling around this idea are Bellarke and Bellarke only: yes, these two dumbasses in the story. There is no “oh this is platonic” anymore and I swear to God if Jroth were to come out right now saying “nah they’re platonic soulmates” I would LAUGH (I mean, I was already chuckling until now, but this time it would be an explosion of laughter at the ridicule of this statement). It’s NOT platonic and the story is VERY NOT telling us “oh maybe it’s platonic” anymore. No, nop, sorry, I know I’m a dumb blarke hoe but I studied cinema okay, I know when I see some shit that is meant to be UNDENIABLY meaningful in a precise direction. It’s called directing, editing, writing, production, framing, story-telling, and the ONLY one we could keep with this is-

THAT ONE. And Josephine is NOT talking about platonic love or “oh the love of all her friends”. No, she’s talking about Gabriel’s love. Gabriel who bent the physical laws of life and death for the woman he loved. Gabriel and Josephine who were explicitely paralleled to Kane and Abby in their actions. And ARE too paralleled to NONE OTHER THAN BELLAMY AND CLARKE IN THEIR DEVOTION TO EACH OTHER. So yeah, I mean if you were dense like some antis you could be like “oh but Josephine is just telling a story and oh look the camera is showing us that Bellamy is listening like a good boi” OH BUT-

Oh but- but- what is this? A direct camera frame on Bellamy’s face? As some of my mutuals already pointed out, a close shot like this is meant to indicate intimacy and to expose a certain character’s feelings. That’s why you have close shots when a character is sad or angry or joyful. These are usually close shots of the character targetted by said emotions, ONLY. These are called “close-ups” for a reason, because they’re here to allow the audience to see and dissect a character’s FEELINGS. And what does Bellamy do may I say? Wow he’s taking the blow like he did when Octavia literally did the exact same thing, last season. Bellamy, reacting the same way, to a character, ONCE AGAIN joining Clarke to the word LOVE. His reaction? Conceiling said feelings from Josephine, like he did with Octavia last season (you can see him also turning his head away from Octavia’s gaze). Now back to the first shot, how do we know that Josephine’s little story was targetted at Bellamy and meant to emphacize Bellamy and Clarke’s love/story? Oh well, because of the camera. And that camera is a BIIIIG Bellarke shipper this season. I mean, it has been for a while but goddam, she isn’t holding any punches this season. This whole story is said through focus. While Josephine is talking, the camera is focused on her: we listen to her and she even shares her emotions. Why? Have you learnt, students? Because of THE CLOSE-UP. But oh, she’s also a little smug about it, I mean it’s clear. Well because she isn’t just sharing a personal story with someone, she’s literally sharing a personal story that resonates in a particularly intimate way with said person. And the word LOVE out of all this, is the most interesting of all. Oh LOOK AT HOW THE FOCUS SHIFTS AT THAT WORD. Love, making the whole world shift from Josephine to Bellamy. Now I would argue that the difference of emotions and how the camera left Josephine for Bellamy to the word “love” could mean that Josephine doesn’t LOVE Gabriel anymore. But idk, it’s hard to tell because she’s basically, really a sociopath. But tbh I could say that while Gabriel and Josephine’s love story that went through the ages for two hundred years (heyyy you know? Bellarke’s love story is almost as long as that by the way, what a weird... coincidence, huh?) is about to end, there is another one, that is about to leep through the screen and kills us all, and that’s Bellarke. Thing is, the camera framing on the first gif is literally meant to BIND Bellarke and Gabriel/Jospehine at the same level of love and devotion they had/have for each other. What do we know? Oh, only that Gabriel cheated death for Josephine. Literally what Clarke and Bellamy did for each other during this entire season. And on s4. What do we know? Oh, that 200 years later, Gabriel is still in love with Josephine. And that, tbh, under all of this, Josephine is probably still in love with Gabriel (hence, Russell playing with her feelings on episode... whatever, the one where already, Josephine and Gabriel’s love was paralleled with Bellarke). Oh, just like Bellarke after a six years time jump + 150 years nap. It’s funny how it takes two 200 years old star-crossed soulmates to point out the canonical love between our 150 years old plaTTTonIC soulmates, y’know? Josephine KNOWS, Josephine saw, and even, Josephine was shooketh to her fucking CORE by Bellamy’s love for Clarke- did you see her face after the “I won’t let you die”? Bitch, she literally saw her lover aka Gabriel in Bellamy. He’s that devoted to Clarke, they’re THAT kind of love story and hey, remember what Josephine told Gabriel at the very beginning of the season, during their first scene? “Fine, play hard to catch, I know you’re obsessed with me” THE END. (gifs by historyofbellarke)

[otp-armada]

So, as of tonight, we're approaching the end. 

It seems as good a time as any for a bit of reflection.

I know what I've wanted to see for Bellarke for the longest time- the established couple route.

I wanted all the admissions of love. I wanted every kind of kiss imaginable. Each type of hug and cuddle. All the intimacy of a long, domestic life. Tackling issues as a couple. Coming home to each other at the end of a hard day's work. Date nights. An engagement. A wedding. Surprise pregnancy announcements. Delinquent hijinks throughout it all. Raising their four kids, watching them grow up. A perfect kind of chaos making up the Griffin-Blake household. Spoiling their sixteen grandkids. A peaceful life that allows for celebrating all their milestones and all their quiet moments, just because they can. Growing old together. 

I have wanted every lovely canon-compliant scenario our talented fanfic writers have dreamt. 

If I lived in a fantasy world where I could have a 24-episode Bellarke epilogue of a complete life filled to the brim with endless love and friendship and family and peace, I would treasure it with my whole damn heart. 

But we don't live in that fantasy world to have such a gift.

In the months since August 4th, I've reconciled my hopes with Jason's measured pacing. And I won't say there isn't value in the route Jason has opted for. I don't want the show to end. But if six seasons of war sound taxing to me, God knows how exhausting it feels for the characters who endured it. As bleak as the show can be, it's never been shrouded exclusively in doom and gloom. There have been bits of light peppered in. I hope for them to achieve a peaceful, fulfilling life. Though Jason may have put them through the wringer, I think he wants the same for them too. Because of what they've had to endure, not in spite of it. Maybe it's my wishful thinking. But I can't bring myself to care. I'm going into the final season with hope, and there's nothing anyone can say to stop me. It is the year 2020. We could use a good dose of hopefulness. 

So it's not that I'm not ready to see the story come to a close.

No, it's that I'm not ready to see Bellarke's love story end, particularly not without the illustrated details above.

But you know, who's to say I won't be satisfied with Jason's ending? With every fictional work lies the risk of a disappointing ending. But this show has made a habit of surprising me, as far back as early season one. 

I started The 100 back in late 2015, early 2016, sitting at my dining room table, casually Netflix surfing on my tablet for something to fill the time until my regular programming came back from hiatus. And I happened to catch a title sparking my memory of a CW tv spot promoting its upcoming third season. With nothing else inspiring interest, I quickly gave in to impulse. 

I may be one of the few viewers drawn in by the pilot episode. I mean, I knew what network I was watching. My entertainment selections at the time usually either revolved around teenage protagonists or appeal to the demographic of a younger audience, so The 100 was right up my alley. I expected- and didn't mind- a fair bit of cheesy campiness. 

I tend to appreciate levelheaded, kindhearted characters, so I immediately liked Clarke, Wells, and Abby. I liked Octavia, the newly-freed, spontaneous, loveable renegade. I liked Jasper and Monty, our young, quirky goofs. And I liked Finn. There. I admit it. A few exchanges with our beloved Ark princess and the epithet of the foolhardy, charming heartthrob slash alleged romantic bad boy hero hoodwinked me. By contrast, I fell into the narrative's trap of initially hating our seeming antagonists- Murphy, Kane, and *cries in shame* Bellamy. I enjoyed the moral quandaries brewing on the Ark among the adults- the struggle between Abby and Kane was of great intrigue to me. It was probably the best storyline of the episode. But when Jasper took a spear to the chest, and I responded with, "WTF?! WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN NOW?!?," I knew this show had reeled me in. No hesitation in letting the next episode play. Not a thought of stopping it there. 

Bellarke's transition, inching from political rivals to partners as their new world becomes increasingly more dangerous, as they recognize they need to rely on each other's strengths is *chef's kiss.* In six seasons, Day Trip remains one of the most masterfully done episodes this show has done, in my humble opinion. Taking the golden princess and the rebel king and peeling back the layers of both characters to expose their muddled greys. The meeting of two previous extremes slashing at each other's weak spots for superiority. Compromise derived from compassion and care. Strength in unity.  I started Day Trip as mostly indifferent to Bellamy and ended it loving him. 

When the characters turn light and dark and back again, throughout this winding story with its twists and turns, I've overturned previous impressions of almost every one many times for better and worse. It only became more prevalent when I began lurking in fandom and reading metas. If nothing else, the narrative has kept me on the edge of my seat, wondering what comes next. 

So, yeah, lots of surprises in this show. Good ones, I think. And I expect, quite a few more in its final season.

The season 7 trailer was spectacular. One of the most eye-opening lines for me, "...the last war mankind will ever wage." Because that's the dream, right? For humanity to learn from its errors and do better. Is violence what they do, or is it who they are? Have they truly learned nothing after all this time? I guess we'll find out. But I'd like to think Jason hasn't taken his characters on this evolution for the moral of the story to be the latter. In all the excitement, I convinced myself to conduct my first series rewatch. I'm not embellishing when I say the instant I saw Clarke in the opening sequence, the nostalgia welled up in my eyes. 

Who would have thought a story of 100 teenagers dropped from the sky into hostile territory would evolve into this? Temporal anomalies? Wormholes? Other worlds spanning the universe? A chance to save Earth before the bombs, possibly? Incredible. Our babies have all grown up, and their stories have come full circle.

84 episodes down. Only 16 episodes to go before the show is off the air forever. I will be metaphorically chewing my nails to the nub for Bellamy and Clarke's fates, but, I don't know about anyone else, I want to enjoy every second we get before its gone.

I won't spiral into a panic each time Echo is in the vicinity of Bellamy. Or Bellarke is temporarily separated like in every previous season. Or Jason breathes or whatever other source that causes mass hysteria in this fandom. I exist on the fringes of this fandom, but I have stood here long enough to have ascertained that it is overpopulated with too many Chicken Littles. I've never been more grateful to not have to deal firsthand on the front lines with the antis. Because if there was ever a time to enjoy the show instead of agonizing over whatever new development fandom considers just cause for panic, that time is now. 

[alltheworldsinmyhead]

MAKE MY MESSES MATTER (MAKE MY CHAOS COUNT)

THE 100 / BELLARKE/ CANON DIVERGENCE SINCE S2 FINALE

AO3

{First letters come when frost finally lets go of the river. / a.k.a. clarke leaves to heal herself; it doesn't mean she abandons anyone }

This fic is dedicated to the best reviewer, best beta and best friend in the entire world - Lana, darling, I don't deserve you <3 <3.

**********************************************************************

I‘ll see you in the future when we’re older

And we are full of stories to be told

Cross my heart and hope to die

I’ll see you with your laughter lines

- Laughter Lines, Bastille

I.

First letters come when frost finally lets go of the river.

It’s not spring yet, and Echo told him not to let anyone get their hopes too high-  weather is unpredictable and cold can come back quickly and violently, but – fuck, winter was so hard and now there are flowers blooming in-between ponds of mud and still-remaining snow. People are laughing again, letting yellow light of spring sun kiss their pale, frostbitten faces and Bellamy slowly, very slowly lets himself take a breath. It feels as if he was holding it ever since first snows hit them, when they were so epically unprepared and if it wasn’t for Lincoln, they’d probably all be dead by Winter Solstice (what an irony- Bellamy thinks sometimes, looking at Lincoln wrestling with kids, helping Abby, kissing Octavia- what an irony indeed).

And even with Lincoln, there was nothing easy about those last few months and Bellamy’s hands are calloused and rough from digging too many graves in the frozen ground. And then flu hit them and there were too many bodies to bury, so they burned them instead. He can still almost smell it; this strangely sweet smoke smelling like meat, which was making their empty stomachs growl, which in turn would make them sick.

There was nothing easy from the beginning till the end and the hardest part was that there was a huge hole with jagged edges where Clarke was supposed to be and where she wasn’t, his ‘together’ haunting his dreams and hers ‘you won’t be by yourself’ mocking him over and over again.

But now spring is finally truly coming, days become longer and he manages to sleep more than an hour or two during most nights, so he decides to focus on positives.

Letters come when Bellamy’s on a hunting trip deep in the forests; they are waiting for him in Arkadia along with Echo. She was a frequent visitor during the winter; serving as their link to the situation between clans, telling them all about Lexa’s trial, about the fall of the treaty, about wars coming and ending and beginning ( because all this world is war, war and war, constantly. Never stopping, not even to take a breath). The only thing she wasn’t telling them about is, well.  

Clarke.

Bellamy knows Echo knows where Clarke is. Or at least, has a general idea. She slipped it, once or twice, mentioning some ‘Wanheda’ in a tone living legends are spoken about, but the person she described didn’t seem like his Clarke at all. His Clarke was soft eyes and steel turned skin and blood under her fingernails because she was saving somebody, not because she strangled someone with them. His Clarke was hummed lullabies and her father’s worn-out watch and grace with every movement…  but his Clarke is gone and he doesn’t know if she’s ever coming back and hearing about new Clarke is too painful, so he’d rather not know anything at all.

Echo is sitting in front of his cabin, eyes closed, facing the sun and well, it turns out that not only Sky People are done with winter. She greets him with a simple nod and tells him that she has something for him. He expects everything, but a small package haphazardly wrapped in some kind of green cloth, smooth under his fingers and tied with a piece of string.

“This went through a long journey”- Echo informs while handing him the bundle. “One of the traveling clans from North brought it to my village, asking if anyone still keeps any kind of contact with Sky People. They really didn’t want to bring it in here themselves. “

Echo draws abstract lines on the fabric of her pants with her index finger, looking down and apparently thinking how to tell him something, while Bellamy fights with an urge to smile grimly. Apart from Echo and Lincoln, they haven’t spotted a single Grounder during winter. Not that Bellamy complained about it- they certainly had enough trouble even without them- but he had found it strange, until he realized that the legend of Clarke is not only a legend of Clarke but also the  legend of Sky People- Those Who Burn, he heard Echo saying one time, Those Who Burn everything standing in their way.

(what an irony)

“Just- just open it.”- says Echo eventually, raising her head to look into his eyes. “ And if you want to send anything back, let me know.”

She waves to him goodbye before he can get a chance to say anything and turns around quickly, her boots making soft, cracking noises on wet snow and mud. He is left standing in front of the hut with the package still in his hands, frozen in time and space, a good few minutes before he manages to move again.

He leaves the bundle by the doors and just - goes. To do things that don’t really need to be done, supervise people who are doing just fine without him hovering, piss off O ( ‘’What the fuck is wrong with you, Bell’’ ) and have yet another unnecessary shouting match with Abby before he’s able to come back and dare to unwrap it.

The string lets go easily, the cloth parts and Bellamy can see pile of – paper? Is it really paper?- few dried flowers, which slip from his knees and land on the ground and a greenish, nice smelling thing, which appears to be some kind of bark.

Half of the sheets of paper- which is also gray-green and there are tiny plant veins visible on their surface – turn out to be empty. The other half is full of words- words spilling on the margins, words on words, words chaotic and wild and crazy and-

II.

Dear Bellamy,

It’s been twenty –two days and I think I’m losing my mind. I bumped into a Grounder hunting party today; they just dropped their weapons and things and ran away from me, so I took their things I guess I’m a thief now, why not, actually so they had this paper and a pen, it must be from before the Apocalypse and it still works, can you believe? And I started to write this, I heard people used to write letters to their loved ones when they were away-

Dear Bellamy,

It’s been thirty –seven days, I wonder how Monty’s doing, how you are doing, how are you all doing, it’s so cold, I fell asleep on a tree branch and now I can’t feel my fingers, it hurts, Bellamy, it hurts to even-

Dear Bellamy,

It’s been fifty days, I found a bark which works miracles on frostbites you should give it to my mother or Lincoln, or I should’ve given it to them, but I’m not with you, I’m alone here, I think I’ve lost my mind-

Dear Bellamy,

It’s been exactly fifty-eight days-

I miss you

I miss you

I miss you

I miss you

Dear Bellamy,

I’m haunted by myself.

III.

First, she catches a terrible cold. Then she slips on a thin layer of ice while hunting and injures her head and she doesn’t even remember how she manages to crawl into the cave she has been living in for some time and collapse on the fur. Her head is spinning, burning red and she sees Wells and Finn and her dad and Bellamy-

“Are you dead?”- she asks, confused and then he looks at her and she sees his body drained out blood, his eyes desperate, his hands stretched out, reaching for her:

“You told me to go.”- he says and his voice makes her shiver.” You told me to go and I went, was it worth it?”

Was it worth it was it worth it was it worth it Clarke was it worth it tell us Clarke tell us weren’t we worth it was it worth us – dead men of her life repeat and repeat and Clarke screams and screams and screams until her voice dies out and she drifts into a blackness and there’s nothing and nobody around her anymore.

IV.

Dear Bellamy,

I’m on the coast now, in Luna’s clan village. Their language is like a song on a wind; you’d love it. Luna sends her love to Lincoln. I had- rough time during winter, you can probably tell from the other letters. But those people helped me and –

Bell, they don’t seem to be afraid of me. I don’t remember them being involved in Mount Weather war, but they must’ve heard of it, heard of me. Still, nobody here treats me like other Grounders. Travelers stopped in a village and they agreed to bring my letters to Camp Jaha, even if they didn’t seem completely comfortable with it. I hope you’ll get it. It’s not much –and I don’t expect to get anything back – but that’s the best I can do now.

I just want you to know I think about you every day. All the time. And I’m so, so sorry, Bell.

Out of all the terrible things I’ve done, I’m most sorry for the ones I did to you.

I miss you,

Clarke

V.

“She doesn’t get to do this shit!”

Octavia’s all flaming anger, standing in the middle of his hut and waving her hands.

“Not after she left.  She left us, she left you; she doesn’t get to write you things like that!’’

But Bellamy’s angry too, anger to match Octavia’s, slowly burning his insides.

“Who the fuck allowed you to read it? How do you even know I get this, huh? You’re going through my stuff now, O?”

“Yes, because apparently you’re not capable of making rational decisions like burning this shit without reading! You’re probably already writing her a reply, aren’t you?”  

“It’s not your damn business, Octavia!”

They circle each other like wild dogs thrown into the pit, ready to fight with their fangs and claws. Octavia’s still holding Clarke’s letters and she throws them into his face, bares her teeth and fucking hisses.

“You know it’s all her fault. Everything that went wrong, is because of her. She killed all those people- TonDC, Month Weather, it was all her. “

Bellamy sees red and he could never, ever hurt his sister, but he feels his hands fisting, muscles clenching, bloodthirst swallowing him whole and he’s just so angry.

“I killed all those people along with her, Octavia.” – he says lowly, breath heavy and head low, facing her like a charging bull. “If Clarke’s a murderer, then so am I.”

“Because she made you this way!”- Octavia shouts so loudly, that her voice breaks in half and his fists drop to his sides and he just looks at her. He feels his lungs collapsing, his heart-stopping, entire freaking world freezing for a moment.

His sister is shivering like a leaf on a wind, hands outstretched towards him and shining eyes.

“She sent you away.-“ she whispers, stuttering like a little child and then she turns around so he won’t see her crying. “She sent you away and you went for her and I could- I thought I- I could lose you.”

Her shoulders are shaking and she wraps her arms around herself, sobbing and Bellamy’s standing still, hearing white noise in his ears and suddenly coming back to the times, when Octavia had bangs and curious eyes and clean hands and he was her only lifeline, the only thing connecting her with the whole wide world bigger than two chairs, two bunk beds and endless darkness under the floor.

“Octavia..”- he wants it to sounds like an apology, but instead it comes out like a plea.

Understand. Please. I can only forgive myself, if Clarke’s forgiven too.  

He hesitantly takes two steps and raises one hand to touch her back, to comfort her, but something stops him halfway. His hand’s frozen in its track, frozen in the air, hanging between him and Octavia like a blown-up bridge between two worlds which will never be connected anymore.

She hiccups, wipes the tears with the palm of her hand and turns around. Her braids are coming undone and the dark make-up around her red eyes is smudged, but she stands straight, with chin up high and says, clearly and calmly:

“She doesn’t deserve you.”

O marches out of the hut and he doesn’t stop her.

Instead, he kneels down to pick up the letters and puts them in order.

And then he takes the pen he asked Lincoln to bring him from the last trade and presses the tip of it to the clean sheet of paper.

Dear Clarke,

Winter was fucking awful and spring’s not much better, but at least it’s warmer now.

VI.

Clarke decides she likes the ocean most.

It’s big and wide and endless; silver-gray waves with white manes,  cool sand under her bare feet, wild wind and the smell of salt, smoked fish and crown made of finger-cutting sharp seagrass -  it’s everything she dreamed it would be, long, long time ago, and so much more and nothing less.

She wasn’t planning to stay, truth to be told. For the first few weeks she was constantly waiting for this sharp tug of ache inside just go, just go, far and far and never come back but it never came and Luna’s people are more gentle and kinder than anyone who she has ever met and they’re the only ones who seem not to be afraid of her. So she stays.

She patches up hunters and delivers children along with the old, nearly blind healer; she kisses scraped knees of kids and learns how to knot fishing nets and breathes in, breathes out, washes her face in icy, salty water.

One time,  girl from the village brings her charcoals and she spends hours on playing with them, morbidly fascinated with how different they feel, when her hands are no longer soft and white, but callused and cut and scarred and short on one finger and red, so, so red.

Clarke draws sea and people and a little, chubby boy chewing his fist and before she can even notice, she draws constellations of freckles and messy hair and soft, sad eyes; brown ponytails and sharp elbows and braids; goggles and gentle smiles and she wants to weep, she misses them all so much.

She wonders about her package, she wonders if it ever reached Bellamy, she wonders if it even matters at all.

She –well, she’s healing. But she’s still aching, something is still tearing her apart from the inside and she still can’t seem to let go of so many things, so she can’t go back.

She hasn’t had any hallucinations ever since she’s been around humans again, but her nightmares still have brown eyes and are holding a little football ball in their clawed hands.

VII.

“Bellamy, Bellamy tell us a story!”

Bellamy stares at the fire as kids are chirping loudly in his ears; he keeps his hands on his knees, palms out, fingers outstretched as if he was holding something.

“Once upon a time, there was a princess-”

“Clarke! Clarke!”

“Okay, okay!” – she laughs, with her head thrown back, but her eyes sad when she says-

“Once upon a time, there was a rebel – “

“-turned queen-“

Octavia’s bright eyes, narrowed lips, sharp pain in his chest.

“-turned king.”

Flames dancing on a pile of sea wood, her voice full of nostalgia.

VIII.

By the next spring, Clarke has a baby inside of her.

She doesn’t know whose it is; she doesn’t really want to know, to be honest. There were few,  men, women, nothing to grow attached to, just a tension relief, fuck and forget. She needs to get rid of it, but she spends too much time thinking about what she needs and what she wants and about Ark and Octavia Blake and then she can feel it move and everything in her screams mine mine mine.

So she lets it stay.

She lets it grow.

She lets herself grow bigger; soon enough her spine starts to hurt like a bitch and her eyes water when she sees little kids, little birds, little dogs and apparently every single damn little thing in the world. Her feet swell and her breasts ache and she suddenly craves wild mushrooms and tuna and apples.

She goes through twenty- hours- long labor, clutching Lila’s hand all through it and crying for her mom and Bellamy, delirious with pain, sweat and tears and blood and then-

A pair of very brown eyes,  strangely calm; a cloud of delicate blonde hair.  They look at each other and it’s like the world stops turning and for a moment there are just Clarke and this tiny alien thing covered in her blood,  small starfishes of her hands fisted, small feet kicking the air.

Clarke’s daughter has long lashes, pink, wrinkled skin and a nose like a tiny button and Clarke can’t stop looking at her, won’t stop looking at her. She feels some kind of –oblivion. Everything that was messed up before, everything she couldn’t deal with, now perfectly in order and she can’t remember being in such peace ever in her entire life.

IX.

Dear Bellamy,

Her name is Julia.

Bellamy clenches the paper in his hand, head thrown back and just- breathes out.

X.

When Julia’s eight months old, Clarke slowly starts packing.

It’s unintentional, at first; cleaning her hut, throwing some things away or giving them as a gift to those who needed it more than her anyway, packing the rest in sacks, trading with travelers for material for a travelling carrier for an infant– she does all those things before even realizing what she’s doing, until one day Aidan walks on her while she’s asking Rhea where she could get a horse, or maybe even two and how can she pay for them.

“So you’re really leaving, huh?”- he doesn’t sound accusing, but a bit sad and like he has been expecting it for some time now.

And Clarke… Clarke takes a deep breath and nods.

Dear Bellamy,

It’s been three years now. I think it’s time to go home. Would you like to meet my daughter?

The reply comes fast as the wind,  two lines written on a piece of paper apparently torn from the bigger one, letter bold and honest.

Dear Clarke,

Can’t wait.

XI.

They leave at dawn, moon and stars still visible on the golden-pink sky, Julia napping in her sling. Luna hugs her tightly and then Lila and Mara and Devon and Rhea and then the whole village kissing her cheeks and touching her hair and saying thank you and Clarke has such a lump in her throat that she can barely breathe, because she’s the one that owes them everything she has now.

Aiden helps her up on the saddle and pats her thigh.

“You’re always welcomed here, you two. And I have a feeling we’ll see each other again.”- he winks, a wide grin spread on her face and she suddenly remembers why she even let this man, those people, get closer to her in the first place. “Also, I want to meet this man of yours and remind him how lucky he is. Being loved by a woman like you, Clarke- tragedy, but what a privilege at the same time.”

And to that, she can only blush.

XII.

She comes back at sunrise;  appears like a ghost from between trees on the white horse,  baby strapped to her chest, sacks hanging from both sides of her saddle.

He abandons his post near the gate and runs and runs and runs and she jumps off the horse and runs too,  but when they’re ten feet apart from each other, they slow down.

It’s been three years -

( but when Bellamy looks at her beaming, all golden hair and blue eyes and pink-cheeked baby glancing at him curiously half-hiding his face in the crook of her neck,  he feels like not a day has passed since dropship)

“Hi.”- she says, breathless,  taking one tiny step closer.

“Hello.”- he responds, taking another.

She looks him in the eyes, smiling, and she has damn laughter lines on her face. God, he wants nothing else but to spend the rest of his life giving her more. He raises his hand and traces them delicately and she shivers under his touch, leaning into his hand.

“Bell.”-   her voice is hoarse with emotions and low, just above a whisper. “ I  missed you, Bell.”

Sun is setting, casting reds and goldens on her hair as he wraps his arms around her and her daughter and she presses her face to his shoulder and the forest is so wonderfully, wonderfully green.

And in this one moment, they are everything and nothing and Bellamy knows there are storms in the future and broken hearts and bloody hands; but right now, when he can feel her lips on his skin and her baby’s little hand fisting his shirt,  all they are is right and real and exactly, where they are supposed to be.

[kinetic-elaboration]

November 1: Mad Women, Writer’s Commentary

Now that Chopped reveals are complete, I thought I’d write down some thoughts on the writing process for my fics, before I forget them entirely.

I’ll start with Mad Women, the first one I wrote. Technically, it was my second idea. But they came pretty close together, both originating the first night the tropes were revealed. I was excited to sit in bed, read through the themes-and-tropes document, make some vague notes, and brainstorm, as I always am.

The first even semi-concrete idea was for the fic that would later become The Wanheda Tape, but I was also attracted to the Sci Fi theme and the idea of doing Horror in Space. I’ve also long loved the image of Mad Scientist Raven, and since that was one of the tropes, it seemed like a great opportunity. Of course, that was only one trope, and one image. So I had to build a whole fic around that.

Just as I was going to sleep, I had another idea, a scene that came to me fully formed but bizarre as I was already half-dreaming: Murphy and Clarke in the cafeteria of a space ship, Murphy realizing with slowly-dawning horror that Clarke is not Clarke at all. I found it very scary myself, although its form then wasn’t quite its form in the final version: I think Clarke’s eyes turned black and some kinda black smoke-tentacle came out of her sleeve or something lol. Something that would have read as funny if I’d actually written it.

Nevertheless, I liked the scene in general. But at the point when I went to sleep I really only had these two disconnected concepts: possessed alien!Clarke reveals herself to Murphy; Raven is a mad scientist. I didn’t have many great ideas as to how to connect them, and so I initially thought that The Wanheda Tape, which at least had the outline of a complete narrative (Blair Witch + frame story) would be easier.

Then I talked through it with my mom and did some brainstorming with her, and she convinced me that Mad Women might be simpler--I think she was thinking about how it didn’t have a frame, which was an intimidating aspect of my other idea. Or she just liked it better. At any rate, I decided to pursue the science fiction concept.

The tricky thing was building a bridge between the two concepts. I had a variety of ideas for the two additional tropes--I knew that once Murphy found out Clarke wasn’t Clarke, she’d immediately be a threat to him, he’d be running from her, searching out help, etc., so dead communication device seemed obvious. And ‘cliffhanger’ was also on my initial brainstorm list. I was also considering ‘the fright beside you’ but I didn’t think I could quite make that work, and I didn’t really need it.

Forming a narrative that included both mad scientist and alien was hard, though. I liked the idea of them being thematically linked: both the alien and Raven are messing with something they shouldn’t out of a desperation to restore life/return to their loved ones or return their loved ones to them. They have similar desires and similar attitudes and they both wreak havoc as a result. (Admittedly, Raven’s havoc comes after the cliffhanger...but there is implied havoc imo.)

But how to connect them on a plot level? I obsessed a lot about this: why does Raven need tech to do what the alien did so easily? And why does she have to build it from scratch? Because humans aren’t aliens? But then if the aliens don’t need tech to move their non-corporeal selves to a new body, why do the components of such a machine even exist? I won’t honestly say I solved these problems, so much as I figured exact answers weren’t necessary for my goal: a decently short and simple narrative, with a strong creepy feel. The aliens are mostly mysterious in the fic and that’s okay. In some sense, the more inexplicable they are, the more alien they feel, and the better the overall mood.

What was important to me, and I think this was an idea that came from my mom originally, was to have Raven and the alien in on it together. Raven either didn’t stop or actively helped the alien possess Clarke, with the the promise that the alien would give up the body when she returned home, and because the alien promised her the raw material to potentially bring back Finn. Again, how or why this material exists isn’t super important, but I think it goes something like this: the aliens can exist in a non-corporeal state, but they need bodies to do things like physical work or travel. Thus they have technology that can resurrect dead tissue, so that their physical forms can exist as long as their...spirit essences. The physical breaks down before the spirit, perhaps, or is more easily damaged. The tech does not re-create the soul, and it wasn’t meant for humans, so what Raven is messing with is not for her. It won’t bring back who Finn is, and it will have unforeseen consequences when used on Earth material (the incredibly hungry, weirdly powerful, quickly growing plants). But she doesn’t care, and the alien doesn’t care either, because she’s using Raven to get what she wants: vessels (in the form of both Clarke’s body and the ship) to get back home.

(While this fic is pretty much the opposite of Star Trek in terms of aesthetic, I will say that the idea of a non-corporeal alien taking on a human body temporarily comes from the excellent and underrated TOS episode, Return to Tomorrow.)

The second and even more difficult problem, which caused me an embarrassing amount of stress given how easily it was solved, was: how to anger the alien. I knew that everything would fall apart when Murphy realized who Clarke was, and that at the point of his realization, all of his companions would be immobilized already in some way. But I also knew that the status quo we enter in scene one would include Clarke already possessed. So why does the status quo break? Why is she no active threat to them in one scene and then suddenly chasing Murphy down the halls in the next?

So this is like Storytelling 101, honestly. She’s not a threat when she and the ship’s crew have the same goal, or at least when the crew has no reason to actively thwart her goal in any way. Hence, the distress call from the Arkadia: a reason for Murphy et. al. to tell the alien no, we’re turning the ship around now. Now actually threatened, the alien retaliates, immobilizing the crew however she needs to in order to regain control of the vessel. Pretty simple!

Originally, I wasn’t going to include Bellamy in this fic, because my instinct was he would see something wrong with Clarke too quickly. But my mom convinced me that their close relationship would actually be more of a reason for Bellamy NOT to figure it out. He sees what he wants to see. He’s vulnerable to manipulation because of his feelings. I was convinced, and added him in. And honestly, it was genius of her, because having Bellamy and Bellarke created a parallel with Murphy and Murven that I hadn’t initially seen: both men have all the evidence they need to see something is deeply wrong with the women they love, but also all the motivation to NOT see it, to not want to see it.

I also knew that alien!Clarke would have to kill or disable Bellamy, and I thought I might get a lot of shit for writing anything in which a person resembling Clarke caused harm to Bellamy, given...the actual canon (”canon”). So first I decided no one was going to die because I am a WIMP and I can’t do that. And second, I decided to include a ‘fuck you JRoth’ line where Bellamy says his big clue that Clarke wasn’t Clarke was that she tried to kill him--something we all know Clarke would not do! I don’t know if that came off lol but that’s what I was going for.

Before I settled on Bellamy, I was going to have the rest of the crew be Octavia, Jasper, and Monty. I knew Murphy needed someone else to talk to, for exposition purposes early on, and O an Jonty are a good dynamic. But when I added Bellamy, I really didn’t need anyone besides Octavia--5 people in the first scene, turning into 4 people to dispose of later, would have been too much. I’d already decided that Raven was going to experiment on Monty’s plants (because a mad scientist needs to start on non-human living things before she moves on to the human-experimentation stage, but I also, again, I am a wimp, and didn’t want to imply Raven was killing rabbits or whatever), which made me hesitate briefly to cut Monty. But then I realized I didn’t need to show Monty at all to get his plants on the ship, and thus the passing reference to bootleggers entered the story.

Even though the Clarke and Murphy revelation scene came to me early, I didn’t actually know what would tip him off that Clarke wasn’t Clarke until I was literally writing the scene. Like I sat down to write that scene and didn’t know, and just let it come together as it would. I’d toyed with her not knowing something about the ship, but the thing is, it had to be a human factor she was missing--first because alien!Clarke has been practically living in the ship’s archives, learning everything about the ship and all the general stuff that allows her to pass most of the time for a human. But she doesn’t know Clarke’s personal life. So it makes more sense that she would get tripped up on Clarke’s family. And second, it’s more emotionally resonant: of course a Clarke who doesn’t care about her own mother, her own people, can’t really be Clarke! It also allowed me to reference the past Memori again, which I liked doing.

I didn’t initially have a concrete reason for picking Clarke to be possessed--that was just the image that came to me, of Clarke and Murphy, plus it worked with her being the captain of the ship. I was about halfway through writing when I realized I’d uh accidentally re-written S6 with the Josephine-possession story line. In my defense, I didn’t watch S6 lol. But really it just made it more fitting!

As I mentioned, this fic was very slightly TOS inspired, because I’ve been watching so much of it lately. Both the alien-possession, and the lines about “haunted space” or space legends are from Star Trek. But obviously I wanted the exact opposite aesthetic, so I reached for Wolf 359, a podcast I was listening to over the summer while working on a boring, brainless project at work. There’s really no connection between the two, but the grungy, dark space station with the limited staff was the closest aesthetic I could draw from to overpower the shiny-sci-fi aesthetic that’s dominant in my mind because of TOS. I very briefly toyed with the idea of including a character who was an AI but that really wouldn’t have added anything to the story lol.

...And I think that’s it!

[sometimesrosy]

I haven’t come to your blog in quite some time... after t100 ended, I lost interest in tumblr for a while. But I was active here once, and we had many a discussion. I came to see if you enjoyed bridgerton, despite the not so accurate clothing and such. I think it’s super cheesy and really fun to watch, and I know you enjoy period dramas

Yeah, I’m still here-- mainly because I work online, so when I break from work I make the rounds of my social media, and tumblr is one of them. It’s less active here because the fandom has mostly disappeared, not that I blame people. I also have a hard time posting about the positive aspects of The 100 because it just imploded so spectacularly. Still a big disappointment.

BUT

I have moved on. I was honestly ready to be done with intense fandom, because it’s just not good for my mental health and I was tired of the negativity. I don’t understand why people get angry when other people enjoy a thing, and think they have to come in and ruin it for them. Like, buzz off, we’re working on coping skills to get through our dumpster fire lives. 

AND YES I love Bridgerton.

Actually, I love the book series Bridgerton and it was one of my favorites in the last couple of years.

And this is related to my The 100 fandom experience, because for a while, I wasn’t reading books, I was only reading bellarke fanfic, but then, due to a shift in the fanfic community and my discomfort with the fandom (knowing that a lot of them didn’t like me) I began to feel weird about reading and writing fanfic. Like when I liked someone’s story, was I giving kudos to someone who bullied me on anon? I didn’t know.  And at the same time I’d begun ghostwriting romances, so to do research, I started reading published romances.

The first one I read was a secret baby trope, because that was what I was writing, and I fell into historical fiction. I read Kleypas and Dare and Milan and Maclean and yes, Quinn.  That took the place of my fanfic reading. To be honest, I wouldn’t have been able to be a ghostwriter if I hadn’t been a fanfic writer first, because, even though I have writing education and training and experience, fanfic taught me to write for audience, to do it fast without that certain...anxiety about perfectionism, and immersed me in romantic tropes, which it turns out, I really love. 

This is a lot of chit chat to say that yes, I saw Bridgerton and I love Bridgerton. 

I would suppose that historical romances have taken the place of my the 100 obsession. I read probably one a day. I should keep track on goodreads or something, but I do a lot of rereading. Like I’ll reread a beloved book or series five or six times. And when I forget the details of ones I liked, I’ll reread those too. Also I’m probably dealing with my internalized snobbery about the romance genre. Let me tell you, getting an education in creative writing in college installs some “issues” with genre. Everything is supposed to be lit fic, or it’s lesser. I’ve been kind of pugnacious about the sff genre and haven’t let the snobbery interfere with my love of it, but I haven’t gotten over the romance snobbery, which is not JUST snobbery but also internalized misogyny.

But I mean, fuck it. I am so sick of grimdark and tragedies and “cool edgy” dudes thinking women should be destroyed and tortured and betrayed in movies and sff and fiction in general. 

I don’t WRITE historical romances. I write contemporary romances for my ghostwriting gigs (I have one client and I’ve written like 18 novels and novellas for her in the last two years. It’s fun, but it doesn’t make very much money and the deadlines are VERY tight.) However I don’t READ contemporary romances, I read historicals. I like the level of fantasy involved and the distance from reality when I read it, but I am bothered too much buy the imperial colonialism and classism of regency or victorian british settings to write it. Also, that would take so much research to write to my liking. I am involved in romancelandia (romance writing twitter,) but not very active. Mostly I just listen and learn and sometimes comment. 

In fact. I follow a woman who judges regency and victorian costuming in film productions. https://twitter.com/BillAndTedTest She has not gotten around to doing Bridgerton yet. 

How do I feel about the costuming??? Well, I’m divided. I am bothered by the fact that Daphne never wears a pelisse and always has half up hair. I am bothered by the fact that Simon almost never has his cravat tied properly and has a shockingly bare neck. And the fabrics and stitching are visibly cheap.

But I also feel that except for the cheap fabrication which was an element of budget and time, a lot of the design choices were stylistic in nature. Like, if you look at the background characters, I feel that their costumes were more accurate, but with the main characters, they really went for character over accuracy. They didn’t want Daphne in any of the buttoned up outfits because they wanted her to be a girlish, romantic ingenue. They wanted Simon to show as a dashing sexy rake, so the buttoned up thing wouldn’t work for him, and they gave him the open neck that would be more appealing to a contemporary audience. (although while Simon is very handsome I actually find Anthony more sexy. He’s buttoned up...but it’s holding back all passion inside. BUT THAT’S a story for season 2. I can’t wait. I liked book 2 better than 1 mostly because of the rape, tbh. But I also love books 4,6 and 7 and I don’t know if we’ll get there.)

They wanted Lady Featherington to be crass and pushy so they gave her a nonsensical victorian silhouette. I mean. ???? It was SO different from anyone else’s. Weird choice, but for the character it kind of makes her appear to be a more aggressive character type from LATER in time? IDK. Of course Penelope is canonically dressed in awful gowns that are not flattering and I’m looking forward to how they end up dressing her for her book. And praying that we get a season 4. But I mean, the costume choices for the Featheringtons are BASED on Lady F’s bad taste, so there’s some leeway with her not being in style.

So. That is A LOT when you asked a little question. I guess I wanted to talk about it. I’m not allowed to talk about my ghostwriting or the stories I’m writing because I signed a hushhush contract. I’m not accustomed to being in a fandom for reading books-- remember I only joined fandom in the last 5 years for The 100, and then had some bad experiences so didn’t get into other fandoms. I don’t really even know how it would work especially not MULTIPLE books and authors instead of one series, so I haven’t really had conversations about the historical romances, except for a bit of twitter discussion. 

[marauders-groupie]

4, 14 and 15 for the ask game!

Thank you so much!

4. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?

Oh God, I always have too many fic ideas. I don’t think I’m allowed to share my Chopped fic idea, so I’ll just say it’s Clarketavia and leave it at that. I’m fascinated by their dynamic and canon parallels/mirrors.

I’ve also been working on my Bellarke superpowers/detective AU - Unsettled Creatures - for the longest time. I have 16k already but it’s so hard going to work on it because I want to linger in its atmosphere, while also making sure that I do justice to the mental journey of Clarke Griffin who has the power of reviving the dead. 

It’s definitely one of the grittiest things I’ve ever written, but the idea itself has been swimming around in my mind since 2016. It’s come a long way from a simple superheroes AU where Clarke is a nurse and Bellamy is a detective. In the first version, no one had shitty coping mechanisms or argued that much. But I really love seeing redemption journeys unfold now, so it is what it is.

14. What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?

I feel like every piece of writing advice has the power of simultaneously being the best and the worst writing advice, and it all depends on the type of a writer you are. 

My pet peeve is Stephen K/ing’s advice because he really has a distinct content production style that doesn’t vibe with a lot of writers out there, and yet, his ideas are preached everywhere. I don’t think it’s his fault per se, but it’s wrong to take any kind of advice in a bubble, without fully understanding the context.

Having a set limit of words to write every day seems like a good idea on paper, but it doesn’t work for everyone. Sure, go for anything - experiment with writing advice, and find what feels good. Please, try all kinds of advice and have fun testing the waters. But if writing starts feeling like a chore, then you’re not in the business of artistic writing with emotional merit. You’re in the business of content. 

Also, there’s this piece of advice that goes something like: “Write what you know.” I think every writer out there should take that advice and set it on fire. Write what you want to write. The whole point of writing is offering unique perspectives on all kinds of topics. Every reader is invited to suspend their disbelief before reading, so you’re good. 

Really, the worst thing that can happen is someone closing the tab or chucking your book through the window and saying: “This fucker is wrong.” And that isn’t that horrifying at all, you and your writing can’t be universally liked. 

15. If you could choose one of your fics to be filmed, which would you choose?

God, I love this question!

I already wrote why I’d like Here’s What I’ve Got (Reasons Why Our Marriage Might Work) to be filmed here.

Now I’m going to say Atlas Hands because:

1. I imagine the visual aesthetic of the fic as pale-blue, bleached out and wind-whipped. Plus, just imagine all that open ocean. That’d be calming as heck.

2. I’ve really paid attention to how the scenes are formed in Atlas Hands. I wanted them to form complete wholes, which I think would translate well to screen. There’s also enough adventure to make it an interesting movie.  

3. Honestly, I want Atlas Hands to be filmed because it’s my love child.

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