#ooohhhh i have never wanted content for a ship i like more in my entire life

[raisinushigher]

because…………… joan being the one pining after abe in s1 but that being flipped around in s2 and that leading to parallel gandhi pining after abe in s1 and that being flipped around to abe missing gandhi…………

[inessencedevided]

Ah, but what scenes in particular did you enjoy? The wangxian ones in general? Or were there any particular ones that stuck with you?

-the axe cultivator

Oh, ac, I missed some of your question last time didn't I? So sorry. My head is kinda in the clouds these days

There are so many scenes that stuck with me, so I'll make a bullet list and probably still miss some ^^

It's such a small thing but in ep 1 the transition from the tale of how wei wuxian was killed transitions to the tea house via a shit from within sizhui's trea cup as he's pouring tea "onto the camera". It's nothing special but remember loving that shot so much the first time I watched that it was one of the things that kept me watching

Wangxian-wise in the first two episodes, I'd be remiss not to mention that handgrip when wei wuxian plays wangxian to calm wen ning down. Because it goes on ... and on ... and on. When I watched it for the first time I was like "ooohhhh so it's gonna be this kind of gay". You know the endless-longing-stares kind. And now when I rewatch it's just devastating. The last time they saw each other before this scene, they also held onto each others wrists but wei wuxian let go and fell to his death. And here lan zhan is, holding on for minutes and only let's go once jiang cheng threatens wei wuxian. Just ... 💔

i started shipping xiyao from their very furst sxebe together. Those two actors (i try to remeber their names but i always forget them again. My memory is shit when it comes to names :/) really just did want some of that sweet sweet homoerotic tension. Also, their first interaction stand out to me as the moment i really started to like lan xichen. In a setting that was shown early on to be highly hierarchical, he exhibited in the very forst scenes that he is willing to disregard someone's standing and look at their character and abilities instead. I just really love xichen ❤

Okay, i can't name one scene per episode, so let’s sum them up a little

I adore this progression during the cloud recesses and the yin iron arc from a flirtratious rivalry to genuine deep freindship and love. There are so many little moments that stand out because of the subtle acting joices made my wang yibo and xiao zhan, as well as the script, The lantern scene, when Wei Wuxian doesn’t betray the yin iron secret to huaisang and lan wangji goes “hu, so your bullshitting has reasons”, when they are in the market and lan zhan actually communicates that he doesn’t like crowds and wei wuxian pulls him closer but not into the crowd and so many others. When you watch closely, you see them realising little details about each other and I’m honestly so impressed with how amazingly the process of their falling in love was portrayed

fast forward a bit: obviously, the freaking montage quasi-fan vid in the middle of the cave scene set to their freaking love song. I remeber when I first watched this scene I actually, literally screamed. I could not believe it because their was no fucking way that this could be read as anything but romantic and I was not used to that much blatant queer romance!

A little less happy (okay a lot). The entire destruction of the jiang clan with a special mention to the scene when Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian just saw the bodies and run into fields where they fight and Jiang Cheng chokes Wei Wuxian and then they just fall back in exhaustion and sleep right there under the open sky. Everything about that scene was brilliantly done and also soul-crushing. The loss of innosence in that moment devastated me. It was so obvious that in the moment of deepest despair, all of these children’s traumas and deep-seated fears reared their ugly heads. So Jiang Cheng directs all his grief at the easiest target for his anger and Wei Wuxian just takes it because that is what he thinks is his job. And the real tragedy? This dynamic will not be broken until Wei Wuxian’s literal death. These children need therapy so goddamn badly and all they get is more trauma on top of their excisting trauma.

“The single log bridge” scene. I. Am. A. Sucker for the found family trope, especially for characters who cronically think they have to do everything on their own. So there Wei Wuxian is saying he will walk his dark path alone, but instead he finds lit lanterns and a humble feast prepared for him by people who love him. That juxtaposition kils. me. every. time. YOU ARE LOVED WEI WUXIAN! FOR YOURSELF!

(Shout out to the second time his word are refuted, this time by lan wangji and *gasp* verbally. Because there is NO better love declaration than that scene in front of basically every leader of cultivation world who politely wait for their turn to attack them)

Luo Qingyang removing herself from the narrative. I literally cry every time.

Talking about women: jiang yanli defending wei wuxian and calling him her brother. That moment is the "three things all wise men fear" quite incarnat, only it's the anger of a gentle woman

“Let me go” So ... I have SUCH a thing for couple who grapple with questions of when it is time to let go and when it is time to hold on. So Wangxian hits all my buttons. I will go further into this in my last bullet point (about the very last scene)

Oh god, this list is gonna get so long and i’m still going to forget things

In the present timeline:

Again, to sum it up, all the gentle wangxian moment where they look at each other and their entire face grows soft. Every almost-smile lan wangji sends wei wuxian, every "oh. He really loves me huh?"-look from wei wuxian. Especially in the Jingshi just after lan Xichen's loredrop. These two intensly guarded people (yes, wei wuxian is guarded,he just hides behind smiles) are so open with each other. I only have to see a guf of lan wangji with his heir down and I go feral!

Talking about that episode, the lan family backstory as a scene does things to me. And I remember watching that the first time and so much of lan wangji's behaviour suddenly making sense. Especially little lan zhan kneeling in front of his mother’s house and that being how he showed his grief really drove home just how this man exhibits emotion. I'm pretty sure that that was the moment he really became my favourite character.

Same episode and a start juxtaposition to the domestic scene between wangxian before: the talk between lan xichen and Jin Guangyao just afterwards. You could probably write an essay of meta about the parallels and differences between those two scenes and I think that's deliberate because they're back to back. The lan brother's share tea with the person closest to their hearts. One is finally able to open himself fully, the other closes up more than he ever has before with this person. The framing in that scene alone drives that message home, never mind its content. It's heart-wrenching and so well done!

Talking about xiyao: jin guangyao's death for similar reasons. Just ... arrrgh

I'm sure I've missed a ton but thus is already so long so I'll close with my favourite overall: the last scene. The parting and subsequent reunion on the mountaintop. I've stated before why this means so much to me. It is such a reassuring message to me: to have two intensely different people learn to understand and love each other exactly as they are. Being who they are, the occasionally walk different paths. But they don't limit each other. They learn to improve each other by just being there when they are and therefore know and trust that their love will return.

This was mostly cql because you asked for "scenes", but have some honorary novel mentions:

Lan Wangji: "The face says nothing. Listen to the heart-beat." 😭😭😭

The moment when wei wuxian collapses after the second siege and lan sizhui expresses surprise over this, lan wangji says something like "We are all human." I love that moment for many reasons. 1) it's one of the rare direct insights into lan wangji's thoughts. No matter how brief he is here, you don't say something like that just because. 2) and it's significant that he is the one saying it because he, too, is placed on a pedestal. In fact, I think a lot about mdzs boils down to the conflict between the inner self and outer perception and how that dichotomy can be both a deliberate shield (lan zhan being the perfect example) and a curse

I hope you and your axe are having a wonderful day 🥰

[sometimesrosy]

I saw an interesting thing on twitter. So jason posted a pic with eliza and a new girl saying “love seeing these two together. You know and love one (which is 101% clarke) and you’ll know the other one”. That girl on tw remarked the fact that jason didn’t say the same thing for the other girl. He did’t add “love” for her character too. He just said that we will know her. So maybe she’s an antagonist or she’s part of the leaders of the new earth Or someone related to clarke and who will (1)

betray her ? ( bc why shouldn’t we love her?) And that makes me pretty confident of the fact that she won’t be her new love interest. Bc why should we always jump to conclusion? As you said, the 100 isn’t a romantic comedy so not every character has to be the “new love interest” But ye who knows (2)

The thing is, it is true that sometimes new characters are romantic interests. So there’s always the possibility. Or love interests for OTHER characters. I mean Diyoza is closer to being a love interest for Kane than for Clarke or Bellamy, but when fandom sees a character, they immediately relate it to their OTP.

Before season 4 people were freaking out about B/E as a possibility. And I couldn’t tell them no because yeah it was a possibility. I actually refused to talk about it, because with shipping, there was no way to talk about it as part of the story, only as part of everyone’s personal panic about their OTP being killed.

I really love shipping. It’s fun. But if you want to understand the story instead of just getting lost in your ship, you have to be able to look at that story OUTSIDE of the romance. At least in a story that is not a romance genre story. Because a romance genre story has shipping at it’s center. The reason WHY you tell a romance genre story IS the ship. As long as you have the right, canon romance, you can be accurate with your analysis through shipping. Because that’s the point of the story. 

HOWEVER, in science fiction, like The 100, the point of the story is NOT the romance. It is the action, adventure, survival and science fiction. And if we only interpret it through shipping, we will NOT be capturing the whole story and we’ll get lost and lose the story thread.

It gets tricky, though, because, while The 100 is NOT a romance, there are a lot of romance side stories in it. People have gotten very disappointed, though, following those side stories as if they were the main story, expecting the HEA and for the romance to continue to be a main narrative. But, so far, all the side romances have faded to the side to become part of other stories, or died, and turned into character development for the mains. 

It gets even trickier though, because there is one ship that has not faded or died, but has in fact gotten stronger and stronger, more romantic, and more important to the central story. YES OF COURSE IT’S BELLARKE. 

Bellarke IS the central romance of the story. You CAN analyze this story through Bellarke. HOWEVER it does not follow the conventions of the romance genre. It does have a lot of tropes, so we get our expectations up, but it doesn’t follow the pacing, which leads to the frustrations. And also the WAY it relates the romance to the narrative is different.

In a romance genre story, everything leads back to the central goal of the story– getting the lovers together. So it’s a lot more likely that new characters are there to either aid or hinder the romance story. ALL ROMANCE STORIES HAVE ROMANTIC OBSTACLES or it’s not a romance story. ALL romance stories have a point where you think they won’t get together, where the stakes are high, so it’s imperative you have characters or narratives that get in the way, whether another lover or disapproving parents or a war.

But in a science fiction, post apocalyptic, now space colony story, especially where we’re meeting an entire new culture, chances are the the new people are all there to tell the new story of the new planet. We MUST have worldbuilding. We must have a new society and that means lots of new characters. 

COULD the new characters be part of the story that hinders or aids Bellarke in getting together. Yes, I have to say. Yes. But it’s more likely that they are there for worldbuilding, to be The Big Bad, to be sympathetic characters, to help Clarke and Bellamy on their way to being the heroes. Also note that I said hinders OR aids. Having another love interest is only one tiny possibility for any of the new characters. As far as we know, they’re Diyoza calling Clarke Bellamy’s girlfriend, right? Or Cooper who was probably jealous of them and their relationship to Octavia (that just occurred to me, that’s why she was such a bitch.) Or McCreary who wants to torture and kill them. Or Vinson who never meets them. Huh. Look at that, you CAN analyze the new characters by their relationship to Bellarke. Diyoza was NEVER a romantic interest. But she WAS a parallel to both Bellamy (terrorist or hero?) and Clarke (never know which side you’re on–could say the same to you.)

Shipping blindly makes us jump to conclusions about what things mean. And sometimes, when our conclusions match the story, we might be right. But if you close your eyes to the rest of the story and only look at the romance, getting things right is mainly chance, not analysis. Maybe that’s why people think nothing in stories makes any sense and it’s all random and we’re reaching or delusional when we come up with evidence to support our theories. Because when you analyze a story with an inaccurate genre or hypothesis…. well, it won’t make sense or connect. When it does connect, you won’t see HOW it got there, because it didn’t get there through your logic process. You just got lucky that your theory matched for a time, you hit on one storythread, but don’t understand how that thread is supported by the rest of the narrative. So the whole story seems random, and willy nilly, the writers are bad, they hate you and want you to suffer. I think you might FEEL the inevitability of Bellarke, but because your theory is not supported by canon, it all seems very much left to chance and the whims of a hateful god. 

So how do you follow Bellarke’s romance without losing track of the story????

Easy. SHIP, yes do. But not blindly. If you see the romance? Ok. Double check with the canon to see if you’re making it up. Find the scenes where the tropes match up, where the cinematography supports your theory, like with eye contact and closeups and touches. Yes those are evidence. But take it further. Look for dialogue. Look for interactions with others. Look for CHANGES. 

Once you find those ship supportive narrative details, now take off those shipgoggles and STOP looking for romance. What is the overall story? What are the themes and over arching questions? What is the main objective and how are they kept from that? Recognize that independent character development is important and check on Clarke and Bellamy’s growth. What are their goals, weaknesses, strengths? How do the other characters impede or help them develop? How do they change? Check on the characters OUTSIDE of Clarke and Bellamy, because they are important, too. What are their stories? 

You know, I think sometimes that people think if they examine the story outside of their OTP it will be boring and not romantic and not interesting, but if I JUST looked at the onscreen interaction of Bellarke and romance in that, I would be lost. Because the characters are constantly struggling and changing and regressing and learning new things and being afraid and suffering and healing, I would lose the perspective of what is going on in the story as a whole. The GOAL. Where it’s heading.

BUT because I’m a boring english teacher doing boring english teacher stuff (ugh not symbolism again! the curtains are red because they’re red, sharon, it’s not meaningful,) I figured out that the symbolism in this show, the head and the heart, the dark and the light, the yin/yang, the chess king/queen, actually sets Bellarke up as soulmates, the backbone of the story, the main relationship, the mother and the father, which has, as the seasons have gone on, been CONFIRMED by both the narrative and the author. While y’all were flailing around thinking CL was endgame and your OTP was dead, I was like, no no, Bellarke IS the love story and they MUST be together. 

By NOT shipping when you analyze The 100, you actually get much more shipping content. That’s why my theories have not wavered in 4 years, but have only gotten more detailed, complex, and confirmed. 

Let me tell you why.

Because The 100 is ABOUT Bellarke. It is, actually, The Bellarke Story. Because while not every single story line is ABOUT their romance, almost every single storyline leads back to Bellarke. To their partnership, how they need each other, and how they save and redeem humanity. Together. Which means, when I look at other ships, I can connect them to Bellarke. When I look at the big bads, I can connect it to bellarke. When I look at they symbolism, it goes to Bellarke. When I look at worldbuilding, yes it helps develop bellarke. When I look at Clarke alone, it goes back to bellarke. When I look at Bellamy alone it goes back to bellarke. When I look at Raven, it goes back to bellarke. When I look at Octavia, it goes back to bellarke. Jaha? Bellarke. MW? Bellarke. The grounders? Bellarke. Allusions? Bellarke. Psychology? Bellarke. Mythology? Bellarke. 

And then Bellarke feeds back into the plot and science fiction and hero’s journey and defeating the enemies and redemption of humanity.

If this fandom paid attention to the boring english class stuff, they’d feel a lot less anxious about Bellarke.

OOOHHHH!

Look at this guys. All those people calling me and you delusional when we come up with evidence for Bellarke? They have an investment in us NOT doing boring english teacher stuff. Because the boring english teacher stuff supports Bellarke and debunks their OTPs as endgame. 

The story, the narrative, when using standard, boring, academic discipline and analysis IS ABSOLUTELY BELLARKE’S LOVESTORY. I’m not delusional. I’m not drunk or on drugs or the devil or brainwashing people. All of which I have been accused of.

I am a boring old english teacher and literary geek. 

And it is being the boring non shipper sci fi geek that has led me to understand that The 100 is the most epic, incandescently romantic post apocalyptic science fiction survival story I’ve ever seen or read. Bellarke saved humanity together, and they’re going to REDEEM humanity through their love.

This is mythic in nature. 

And that’s why I will never stop being a boring old english teacher and sci fi geek. Because I see stuff other people don’t. And it’s glorious.

If you ignore the “boring” stuff that isn’t shipping, you miss out on all the deep, intense romance. I think people think I’m doing this blog to give people faith, but I am so not. I’ve given up, I don’t care what they think. Their antishipping doesn’t change the story. I’m doing it because I am IN AWE of this love story, and the more I analyze it like a boring english teacher, the more excited I get for the next part of the story. OMG, it looks so good. I am simply geeking out. I’m not a shipper, I’m a geek. And I am OBSESSED with this science fiction love story.