the-100-meta-library

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hi! do you know where i can find some more show!critical metas? like ones that analyse the bad parts and talk about how it could be fixed?

Hi nonny! :)

To be honest, due to personal stuff going on in my life, I wasn’t really able to follow that much meta in the last couple of months.

However, I know that the ladies on @truthbeetoldmedia are about to write a “roundtable analysis” of season 5 and thus might be your best shot.

TBT consists of @blakeperalta, @perpetualbbps, @ginalou16 (among a few other ladies) and are joined by @yanagrebenyuk as well as @wordyblerd and @revolutionarvie (Twitter) for said article. Most of them are a bit more active on twitter at the moment as far as I know.

They might even be able to pinpoint you to other people who also have been looking at the show a bit more critically in the last few months or might even answer you questions specifically.

I hope this helps you at least a bit and apologies that I couldn’t be more helpful in that regard.

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So uh quick question do you know why people put L*xa or L or whatever instead of just saying her actual name? Is this just like extreme pettiness or is there an actual reason? P.s. I'll understand if you don't answer this because it would start The Discourse on your blog

Hi, nonny!Some tumblr blogs decided to alter names of characters for a reason. You specifically mentioned Lexa here but it's not only limited to her. Personally, I also saw posts mentioning B*cho (Becho for Bellamy and Echo) or BR (Braven for Bellamy and Raven), M*rven (Murven for Murphy and Raven), Klork (Clarke), or however creative people can get. Most of the time, those people simply want to use their right for freedom of speech without starting another discourse (like you said) or, more importantly, getting attacked for their personal opinion. People tend to agree or disagree with things and as a result start to argue with the original posters. Those arguments may develop into fights instead of fruitful discussions and some tumblrs have had some bad experience with it. That's why they go for the easiest way to still talk about the show they're interested in without deliberately filling tumblrs search function by changing the names of characters or ships a bit.There might be additional reasons of course but those are the ones I know of.

[the-100-meta-library]

Jasper in ‘I Am Become Death’

Man, it’s not normal for me to feel this disappointed with a @metastation podcast. I guess I’d been waiting for them to analyze this episode and I’d really been hoping for something more than the same “Let’s take the LOW HANGING FRUIT line out of context and ignore everything else that Jasper says and does in the episode” interpretations that I have already read all over tumblr. Maybe I should let it go. I’ve been out of The 100 fandom for months now but listening to the Meta Station is my last connection to the show. I really respect the girls that do this podcast and while I don’t necessarily hope to change their minds, if they read this post, I hope they may at least expand their perception of Jasper’s story in this episode. This isn’t going to be me arguing that Jasper is not acting like a dick in this episode or defending his use of anti-feminist language. It’s going to be me arguing that Jasper’s dickish behavior has other motives besides being an entitled nerd who wants reward sex with hotter chicks.      

This scene in the tent is actually one of those moments where I feel like fandom exaggerates Jasper’s flaws while completely ignoring Monty’s behavior. Notice how Monty doesn’t scold Jasper for the infamous “low hanging fruit” comment? No, Monty scolds Jasper for not using Harper for reward sex when he had the perfect opportunity to do so. It’s also only Monty who suggests that Jasper is still expecting something from Octavia, not Jasper himself. It was shown in Jasper’s reaction to Octavia/Lincoln hugging on the bridge that he’d accepted, however heavy-heartedly, that Octavia was unavailable. @metastation talk about Jasper being an example of the nerd fantasy of becoming more popular, being seen as the hero and getting hot chicks, etc, but throughout this episode there are more examples of Monty projecting this nerd fantasy onto Jasper and Monty wanting to experience this popularity vicariously through his friend.

It was Monty who was enjoying Jasper being the hero, getting them a bigger tent and having a hot girl offer herself to his friend. But was Jasper really enjoying it? Watch the tent scene again. Jasper isn’t mean to Harper when she tries to get him alone. He looks squirrely for a moment, then rebuffs her with an impersonal “I’m busy later”. When Monty questions Jasper about his disinterest in hooking up with Harper, Jasper puts on his macho persona. Meta station were right that Jasper puts on an act of false bravado throughout this episode, but I think they are wrong about the purpose of this persona. They claim that Jasper uses this persona because he wants to get hotter chicks as a reward for his heroism. Yet there are no examples from this episode of Jasper trying to use his fake persona to score with girls. Harper comes to him, Jasper does not go to her. Neither does Jasper go to Octavia who it’s assumed he is still holding out for (again, we only get this as Monty’s take on why Jasper rejected Harper). Jasper himself never suggests he’s still pursuing Octavia in his own words or actions.

Also a quick word regarding Harper’s motivations in approaching Jasper. I personally didn’t feel like Harper wanted to get close to Jasper purely because he was a guy who’d suddenly got popular and cool. I think that’s a discredit to Harper and not the story they were telling. She may have had little personality when first introduced but the main thing she keeps saying in this episode was she was scared. I think she may have been looking at Jasper as an example of somebody who had (seemingly) overcome their fear of the Grounders, thinking she could overcome her own fears too if Jasper was with her. Of course, if we look at this in light of later seasons then this is consistent with the Harper who lured Monty away from his computers to seduce him in S3 (which was also partly because Harper wanted a distraction from her fear). This motivation for Harper seems far more believable than her being a shallow girl trying to score with the new camp hero because his social status went up.

Moving onto this Jasper and Harper moment (pictured above) from later in the episode that most fans ignore. IMO, this is the real scene where Jasper is a dick to Harper but for reasons that contradict the typical readings of his “low hanging fruit” remark. During this scene, Jasper puts on his heroic persona to tell Harper “Don’t worry, I got your back” and Monty tuts, knowing that Jasper is showing off for a girl he’s (supposedly) not attracted to. But here’s where typical readings of Jasper in this episode fall apart for me - if Jasper really thinks that Harper is not hot enough for him then why is he publicly showing off for her? If Jasper’s real goal was to capitalize on his newfound popularity, I think he’d be behaving in the opposite way, i.e., Jasper would sleep with Harper privately then reject her and act like she wasn’t good enough for him in public. Instead Jasper puts on the pretense of being interested in Harper in front of other people while in private he has no intention of following through with anything sexual.

Which brings me to the real purpose of the Jasper Jordan asshole/hero persona. IMO, he doesn’t use it for popularity, status or sex. Jasper uses this persona to hide. Because Jasper shooting the Grounders at the bridge wasn’t a moment of heroism but a moment of “sheer pants wetting panic” as Octavia puts it. It was a PTSD episode. And that’s why Jasper wants to hide, using his hero persona as armor. I think the reason Jasper didn’t want to be alone with Harper (especially sexually) was because he didn’t want his hero mask to slip and his fear and trauma to be exposed. I think this is the reason Jasper tries to banish Monty from his tent also. When Jasper gets deeper into his PTSD during S3 he mostly wants to be alone. In S1 he can’t be alone. They are all trapped in that tiny camp with Grounders beyond the walls that want to kill them. So Jasper must resort to pushing people away (Monty, Harper, etc) and pretending to be cool in front of everybody else. In fact it’s telling that Jasper stays away from Octavia in this episode, because Octavia was the one who saw through his persona and was prepared to call him out on it. Monty wasn’t at the bridge summit and seems to think that it’s a good idea for Jasper to showboat this unhealthy heroic ideal of himself. In this sense, both Jasper and Monty make mistakes this episode (yes, even perfect cupcake Monty is a dick sometimes!).

Jasper’s mistake this episode was putting on a dickish attitude to push people away (something that correlates with later seasons!Jasper in a way that the nerd fantasy reading does not). It was Monty who was a victim of this more so than Harper. Jasper is nice to Harper’s face and whatever sexist thing he said behind her back whilst in his asshole persona is not a reflection of how Jasper really feels about Harper. In later seasons Jasper is shown to be close to Harper and other girls like Raven who he clearly respects. But aside from Jasper being a bad friend to Monty in this episode, Monty is also a really bad friend to Jasper - encouraging his traumatized friend into pursue an unhealthy ego-trip because Monty himself was enjoying the benefits of big tents and nerd glory. Monty came through as a better friend later on in the episode when he supported Jasper at the bridge by essentially saying “Okay, so maybe you’re not some hot shot hero but you’re still capable and I’m here for you”. At that point, Jasper was willing to admit his vulnerability to Monty and stopped pushing his friend away, literally holding Monty close as they return to camp.

That’s what Jasper’s story in this episode is about - him and Monty being bad friends to each other but restoring their friendship by the end of the episode. I feel like that core Jonty story gets ignored by feminist analysis that simply feels obligated to denounce that one line separately from its context within a larger storyline. And maybe I sound like a bad feminist by saying that the misogyny implied by that single phase is not the sole point of this story, but fuck it. I’ve said it. Misogyny is not the point of this storyline.                          

[the-100-meta-library]

Welcome back for our recap of 110, “I Am Become Death,” AKA the one where everyone coughs up blood and it’s SUPER GROSS. WHAT A GODDAMN INTENSE EMOTIONAL THRILL RIDE FROM START TO FINISH, for real. Come flail with us about Raven Reyes, brilliant vulnerable heroic self-sacrificing genius queen and Our Lady of Making Things Go Boom, and rage with us about Jasper and Harper and one of the show’s rare missteps into blatant toxic masculinity. Also Murphy is back for blood-soaked revenge, the Blake siblings need each other, there are some REAL UNCOMFY Lincoln/Finn parallels we need to discuss, Clarke’s Slytherin is showing, and Raven finally finally FIIIIIIIINALLY tells Finn she’s reclaiming her time.

LET’S DO THIS KIDS

0:00 - We Just Gotta Gush for a Few Because THIS EPISODE IS FIRE EMOJI, FAM 0:06 - Let’s Begin at the Beginning, with Diana Sydney’s Charred Corpse! Plus Bonus “Scooby Doo” Conspiracy Theory! 0:10 - Four-Part Finale, Foreshadowing Galore 0:17 - “Our Salvation Is a Smoldering Pile of Wreckage”: The Story of The 100 0:18 - How Do You Solve a Problem Like Jasper’s Jarringly Misogynistic Storyline 0:36 - Jasper’s Reading Assignment: “Your Princess Is in Another Castle: Misogyny, Entitlement, and Nerds” by Arthur Chu 0:41 - How Do You Solve a Problem Like Harper’s First Real Storyline Being Offering Herself As Jasper’s Hero Reward 0:47 - Jasper Jordan: A Tale of the Toll of Toxic Masculinity? 0:52 - Meet the New Murph, Murder-ier Than the Old Murph 1:02 - The Best Idea Finn Ever Has, Only Somewhat Compromised by His Finn-ness; or, How Do You Solve a Problem Like Finn Collins Part Eighty-Seven Gajillion 1:19 – “Be Brave Enough to Break Your Own Heart”: Bombs, Bridges, Breakups, and All the Hard Choices Raven Makes That Finn Couldn’t 1:40 – We Have Some Groans and Eyerolls About This Episode’s Linctavia Content 1:46 – How Do You Solve a Problem Like Characters Who Only Exist In Relation to One Other Character and Never Interact With Anybody Else 1:53 – WE ARE VERY EMOTIONAL ABOUT BELLAMY NEEDING OCTAVIA AND OCTAVIA DECIDING NOT TO LEAVE HIM 1:59 – Clarke’s Metamorphosis From Blunt Instrument to Sneaky, Strategic Leader 2:06 – Erin’s Fave Underrated Bellarke Moments (Also Bellamy Is the MOST EXTRA) 2:10 – Next Week: Hell Yeah, Kabby Snuggles and Braven Sex!

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Anyway today Finn was confirmed as The Worst so I can’t just NOT catalogue this moment in fandom history. Thank you to @reblogginhood and @kane-and-griffin for insitigating this discussion in the first place with @metastation as well as Kim Shumway for FINALLY confirming what so many of us have felt about Finn all along.

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Welcome back to Meta Station! Grab a cup of Jasper’s moonshine and join us for an explosive (HAHAHAHA) recap of “Unity Day”, in which Anya shows up, Kabby is rising, thirteen is an unlucky number, Diana Sydney is the queen bitch of our hearts, Linctavia gets sexy for the first time, Clarke has no chill even about drinking games, we take a lengthy Cadogan sidebar because #brand, two different characters get compared to Trump, we’re forever wrecked about Vera, and HOOOO BOY FAM DO WE HAVE SOME FINN YELLING TO DO

0:00 – Hello and Welcome, Turns Out Neither of Us Can Pronounce “Unity Day” 0:02 – R.I.P. Diana Sydney, Our Favorite Shady-Ass Motherfucker 0:14 – No One Is Better Than Diana at Leveraging the Ark’s Class Resentment 0:23 – Wow Nothing Brings a Kids’ Pageant to a Crashing Halt Like a Giant Fucking Explosion 0:29 – From Becca to Lexa to Octavia: On This Show, 12 + 1 = Chaos 0:36 – Where’s Our Cadogan/Becca Prequel Webseries? 0:39 – BRB, Crying Forever Over the Kanes 0:48 – Remember When Both Clarke and Claire Legit Thought Abby Died In That Explosion 0:52 – What an Iconic Jasper Episode TBH 0:59 – Unity Days Looks Way More Fun On the Ground Than the Ark (More Booze, Fewer Casualties) 1:03 – Did Anyone Else Totally Forget That Lincoln Was Already Giving Octavia Warrior Lessons This Early In the Show? 1:08 – FINN RANT, PART 1: In Which Finn Appoints Himself “Guy In Charge of Clarke’s Decisions” and Then Ruins Everything 1:29 – FINN RANT, PART 2: In Which We Need to Talk About Toxic Masculinity 1:48 – FINN RANT, PART 3: In Which We Have a Lot of Screams About “You Didn’t Have to Trust the Grounders, You Just Had to Trust Me” 1:58 – Anya Is Where the Show Finally Finds Who They Want the Grounders To Be, Which Is a Lot More Interesting Than “Bogeymen In Trees” 2:14 – Brief Sidebar for a Few More Kabby Flails 2:15 – On Both the Ark and the Ground, This Is Really the “Chickens Coming Home to Roost” Episode 2:22 – See You Next Week For Blood-Spattered John Murphy and Bridge Explosions!

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Welcome back to Meta Station!  Grab your gun and crack open the jobi nuts, it’s time for a “Day Trip!”  Join us as we take a deep dive into the way the show explores guilt and forgiveness, from the Jake Griffin of it all to the way Hallucination Jaha foreshadows Pike … with a side order of stoner chaos at the dropship camp, and a brief jaunt up to the Ark where we suddenly like Jaha and feel sorry for Shumway for a hot second.  We’re in the end run towards the season one finale where every single episode is solid gold, so this was a fun one.  Hope you enjoy and thanks for listening!  All of you are the most beautiful broom in a broom closet of brooms.

0:05 - Adventures in Unexpected Likability, Part 1: Poor Shumway?! 0:10 - Winter Was Supposed to Have Been Coming, Apparently, for a Hot (Cold?) Second 0:12 - Adventures in Unexpected Likability, Part 2: The Best of All Jahas 0:20 - In Jobi Veritas: Jasper Edition 0:29 - Miller Appreciation Time! 0:32 - It’s Totally Obvious That Miller Is an Only Child 0:33 - Coming Fall 2149, Lincoln Is … The Enemy 0:34 - The Rise of “Hey, Maybe Not So Much With the Tribalism?” Octavia 0:36 - Adventures in Unexpected Likability, Part 3: We…Sorta…Like Finn? For a Minute? 0:40 - BUT JUST FOR A MINUTE Now Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Fuckboy Finn  0:50 - Please Can Raven Have Just One Non-Horrifically-Awkward Post-Coital Experience JUST ONE 0:57 - STRAP IN KIDS, IT’S ALL BELLARKE FROM HERE ON OUT 0:59 - Bellamy’s and Clarke’s Inverted Dark Nights of the Soul 1:07 - “Forgiveness Isn’t About What People Deserve”: One of Our Fave Show Thesis Statements 1:15 - Griffin Family Dynamics: The Abby and the Jake of Clarke 1:25 - Why “You Need Forgiveness? I’ll Give That to You” Is JUST As Huge & Important to Clarke’s Emotional Development As It Is to Bellamy’s 1:28 - Shooting Lessons: Beauty & King Dork (500 points to anyone who gets THAT reference) 1:31 - The Aragorn Rule 1:34 – WE NEED A FANDOM MORATORIUM ON THE TERMS “TOXIC” AND “ABUSIVE” & Other Unpopular Opinions about Octavia & Abby 1:41 - Acts of Violence a Part of Character Development: Kane & Bellamy 1:47 – Bellamy’s Hallucination: How Jobi!Jaha Foreshadows Bellamy’s Future Team-Up With Pike 1:52 – Clarke Shows Bellamy a Vision of Himself as the Man He Wishes He Actually Was 1:55 – “No Fucks Given” Honesty Is the Ideal Foundation for a Relationship 2:02 – Let’s Talk About the Gun Scene Because It’s Fucking Hilarious 2:04 – Today On “Clairin Hot Takes,” We Are SO Glad They Cut That “Let’s Run Away Together” Business Because It Highkey Fucks Up the Flawless Trajectory of That Scene 2:17 – The Jobi Nuts Work Surprisingly Well as the Running Plot Thread Connecting Everything That’s Happening On the Ground 2:21 – Goddamn We Love the Second Half of Season One 2:23 – Special Podcast Coming Up Next Week About Fan-Run Events Happening in 2018, Including a Special Announcement About a Cool Thing We’re Doing at Unity Days!

[the-100-meta-library]

Welcome back to Meta Station!

Our hiatus is over and we’re back to yell in your ears about Season One. And hot damn, what an episode to come back to! This is one of our all-time faves of both the season and the series, so we’re full of wildly enthusiastic shouting about everything from Griffin family feels, the ethics of torture, actual human angel Vera Kane, how Diana Sydney is the Donald Trump of the Ark, a Finn storyline we don’t hate, the next-level prop details in that Eden Tree scene, PRINCESS MECHANIC, and the moment Claire first fell in love with Kane.

DISCLAIMER: We recorded this episode the morning after the Senate healthcare vote, so we have a higher-than-usual number of politics thoughts, and also Erin is drunk. THIS WAS A FUN ONE, KIDS

0:00 – Hi! We’re Back! We Missed You Too! Also Erin’s Drunk! 0:02 – The Structure of This Episode Is So Good We Don’t Even Mind How Much of It Hinges on Finn 0:07 – Kane and Abby (and Jaha, Sort Of?) Confront the Fallout of Both the Culling and Their Past Choices 0:16 – In Which Diana’s the Grifter and Jaha’s the Mark 0:26 – “That’s a Problem for Future Me”: Jake, the Culling, and Project Exodus 0:32 – The Value of the Human Species vs. the Value of the Human Individual 0:38 – What Could Jaha’s Season 5 Storyline Possibly Be? (GUYS. GUYS. IS HE DEAD.) 0:42 – This Is the Episode Where Claire First Fell In Love With Kane 0:46 – Erin Briefly Forgets Vera Kane Is About to Die and Claire Is UPSET 0:48 – Vera vs. Diana: The Light and Dark Sides of Human Emotion 0:51 – Diana Sydney and Donald Trump: The Rise of the Faux-Populist Con Artist 0:59 – Fictional Villains Have to Have a Level of Nuance That Real-Life Villains Don’t (AKA Even Cage Wallace Looks Better Next to Some of Our Actual Politicians) 1:05 – The Best of All Possible Finns 1:06 – We Love Us a Subverted Love Triangle 1:11 – NERD ALERT: Erin Enthuses About Princess Mechanic and Gender-Swapped Medieval Homosocial Triads 1:22 – Compartmentalization Champ Clarke Cries & It’s C R U S H I N G 1:30 – Eight Minutes Later, Are We Still Gushing About Clarke? OF COURSE WE ARE 1:33 – Maybe There Are No Good Guys: Torture Edition 1:45 – Lincoln and Finn As Male Bodies to Whom Things Happen 1:48 – Raven and Bellamy and Powerlessness and Power 1:52 – How Do “Good” People Wind Up Becoming Torturers? 1:58 – How Do You Solve a Problem Like Lincoln’s Season One Writing 2:12 – Early Signs of Octavias to Come 2:17 – MOAR MILLER SUPERCUTS 2:22 – How Drunk Is Erin Now?

[the-100-meta-library]

Where did you all go?

Kajal’s response: 

Kajal and Laura’s joint, responsible, statement:

We’re still here! Sorry for the absence. Real life has been busy for both of us, so we haven’t gotten around to doing as much with the Meta Library as planned (and we had so many plans).

There’s been a dip in meta production as well, but don’t worry! If you’re posting, we’re seeing you. We have some stuff in our drafts/queue that’ll get out soon.

Sorry once again. But hey, if there was ever a time that both of us needed a break, best that it’s between seasons and not smack dab in the middle, right?

[the-100-meta-library]

Abby's Illness, Abby's next steps

TL;DR we might get Darth Abby next season. Reasoning is below.

Part 1: Abby’s gift from ALIE

When Raven and Abby were forcibly removed from the COL, a piece of ALIE’s code was left behind. We watched Raven’s journey with this last season, and a little bit in the season prior. What ALIE left behind in Raven were entirely new abilities and knowledge. Raven was given the gift of coding abilities she did not previously possess and scientific prowess far outside her scope of work as a mechanic. We also saw that these gifts were destroying Raven’s mind.

I believe that it is no coincidence that Raven’s gifts from ALIE were related to ways in which ALIE changed Raven in order to use Raven.

Raven puts ALIE into Arkadia’s programming to search for ALIE2. When freeing the backpack, Raven is used by ALIE to help crack passwords. ALIE gave Raven knowledge programming knowledge beyond any sort of training received by Raven (compare to Raven who is working on an ‘analog solution’ in 3x03) so that ALIE could achieve her goals. ALIE changed Raven’s ability to code. So what was Abby’s gift?

ALIE used Abby to get access to information. She leveraged Abby’s knowledge of people’s relationships to get this information (e.g. seducing Kane, or suggesting Bellamy be tortured to make Clarke confess). When Abby was not successful, ALIE would make Abby double down and chase these things with even more remorseless vigor. (e.g. getting even more up trying to seduce Kane, hanging herself to get Clarke to confess). 

All of these actions were supremely out of character for Abby. Remember, Abby does not like negative making trade-offs for gain. We see this when she is dealing with the decisions around what to do about finding the kids in Season 2 (she stalls, she tries to find another way, she says no frequently). We also see this when Abby is sickened by Clarke’s decision to let a grounder town be bombed when they could have stopped it. The Abby we know would have pleaded and “found another way” instead of torturing Clarke to get a hold of the Flame. ALIE changed Abby’s moral code. By doing this ALIE turned Abby into a manipulator.

Part 2: Did Abby use her gift in Season 4? Yes.

The example that jumps out to me (and when I started to concoct this theory) is when Abby uses the radiation treatment drugs on Luna and company. Abby is denied access by Raven, but states her case anyways while John Murphy listens around the corner. Later Murphy finds Abby to give her the medicine. It’s after this we get this exchange:

Jackson: “Who knew [Murphy] had it in him”

Abby, without hesitation: “I did.”

After that we get the Becca’s Lab incidents too. Abby saying we can “find our humanity again” later, and doing whatever is possible to find the nightblood solution. The actions S4 Abby took in Becca’s Lab would make S1 Abby sick - such as torturing/murdering people who are not her own daughter. (Recall again, Abby opposed torturing the prisoner from Mount Weather for information that could save their people).

The one incident in S4 where Abby finally breaks from this new moral code is when she destroys the human test chamber after Clarke volunteers to get inside it to see if the nightblood syrum has worked. Is the reasons this is so over the top because Abby is fighting back against the poor moral code ALIE has put inside her?  It seems that Clarke is the limit for whatever ALIE has done to Abby.

Part 3: Breaking down and resistance

Raven’s gift is really easy to point at because it’s hard technical skills. Abby’s is harder to point at because it was more of the soft skills variety. In S4 we see Raven start to have seizures but Abby doesn’t. Why is this?

ALIE downloaded new information into Raven’s brain, whereas ALIE only had to change what was already there for Abby. This foreign information that did not belong is likely what was being attacked and caused Raven to have issues that Abby did not. Or maybe it’s just a matter of time and Abby will start to have seizures a month into Bunkerkru but that’s no fun.

Although they differ in having seizures, Raven and Abby are similar in that they are driven to bizarre suicidal impulses. 

It’s the projections of ALIE that convince Raven that the only way to be free is to go to space and space walk and let her brain wither away to nothingness.

It seemed very strange to see Abby be told the cure to her problem, and then volunteer to be left outside to die by the hands of the radiation. What if this is ALIE again?

Part 4: Speculation for season 5

If you accept the above, the next question has to be: will Abby cure herself off-screen?

I feel like the answer is no, and I think the reason it’s a no is the same reason Abby tried to have herself killed instead of doing the treatment. ALIE is still a large corrupting influence inside of her.

So now consider for season 5: we have six years of this corruption building inside of Abby. Because of her background she has always had access to power and privilege. This ruthless Abby will be coaching Octavia on decisions she should and should not make so that they can survive in the Bunker. It seemed before that the only limit Abby had was Clarke - but Clarke is gone now. 

In some ways, I imagine that Abby and Kane will switch roles for S5 in comparison to S1. We will have Kane trying to circumvent the rules to save people and deliver the truth to everyone, while Abby will be increasingly hard on Kane for doing this.

Part 5: Crack speculation for season 5

With the religious themes we already see coming for next season (the garden of Eden, the second coming of the space people, cults and their impact), I think about how Raven and Abby both had visions in Season 4. What if Abby continues having visions? Will Abby be elevated to some sort of ‘Oracle’ status? (I doubt it, but it was too out-there not to suggest)

…

This is all of course a theory! Is this on the right track? Would love to hear what others thoughts are on what Abby’s gift from ALIE was and if they think it will be resolved before next season.

(Tagging @tracylorde because I hinted about this meta to her previously  )

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not hating, but how can i tolerate a character like O, when she beat her brother up and treated him like the worst shit ever, it didnt help that she didnt seek out or fought for their relationship only he did. killed a few people who didnt deserve it. now please dont get me wrong, everyone in this show killed people and made mistakes but they all felt guilt and they all seeked out forgiveness. she didnt. she didnt learn anything. she only became a leader who never made a tough choice in her life

Not everyone felt guilt about the people they killed. Raven never did. Miller never did. And those are two characters everyone LOVES and think can do no wrong. Lxa never did. Jaha never did. Finn never did. None of the grounders ever did. Pike never did. They never sought forgiveness either. For forgiveness, we have Kane, Clarke, and Bellamy, and Maya, honestly. Those are the only ones who really tried to make up for the harm they did, even if they did feel guilt, like Monty or Dante or Luna. 

I feel like we’ve got a really black and white picture of this show. And we like to claim some people to be irredeemable villains– sometimes with no canonical evidence– and some people good guys, no matter what they’ve done, and I see this on both sides of the fandom.

I mean, you say right here that everyone killed people and felt guilt and that’s just not so. But you’ve decided who has betrayed YOUR trust and expectations, and let the others slide while holding Octavia accountable for things you don’t hold other characters accountable for. 

I feel like everyone is looking for this utopian ideal of how people should behave and how the world should repay all characters for their good actions or make them pay for their bad actions. And that’s just not the world of The 100– or the real world for that matter.

This story is a dystopia, with some really messed up ideas about leadership, life, war, justice, value, survival. These ideas are toxic. Skypeople, grounders, mountain men, ALL. 

You want your heroes to be beautiful, perfect people, goddesses, badass girls swinging swords with no consequences. And they aren’t.

Octavia is broken. She broke in season 3 and is still climbing out of it. Just as Clarke and Bellamy broke in season 2 and are still climbing out of it. People were ready to write Bellamy off in season 3. They have been calling Clarke white savior for two seasons now. 

You’re all just picking which character you want to demonize and who you won’t forgive because you have your favorites.

Octavia beat her brother. This is a world where they are violent and vengeful and Octavia in particular only knows how to lash out. 

If you want to understand Octavia, you actually have to put some effort into trying to understand her, not just write her off as intolerable. I can’t force anyone to consider a character they hate as someone worth understanding, anymore than I can force them to consider the dark side to a character they want to hold up as perfect and unassailable. Like Luna. I’ve been hearing people say that her character arc made no sense… but it does if you recognize that Luna was ALREADY dark. She doomed people to die when she could have saved them because she didn’t want to. She was never a humanitarian. She was an isolationist who just wanted OUT. And in the end she had nothing left to keep safe, so she wanted to end it. She wasn’t kind to all those people who were dying at ALIEs hands. She didn’t care. I know no one likes that interpretation because the fantasy idealized goddess is so much more beautiful, but it makes more sense in the word and the narrative and with the character arc.

Either way, if you think the characters are pure evil or pure good, you’re going to miss their character development, the way you missed Octavia’s in season 4. The way a lot of us missed it.

You say she became leader without ever earning it. YES. That’s part of the point of the story. They went by the grounder’s stupid leadership rules and got themselves someone who was unprepared to lead because she was sneaky and wiley and lucky and made alliances… which isn’t that bad a way to win that battle and does actually give her a better chance of being reasonable than someone who wins by brute force. 

And part of the point, also is that now she’s going to be responsible for ALL the tough choices for the rest of humanity, after being the victim of that situation for most of her life and looking down on ALL the other people who have made the tough decisions. She’s a girl who has a problem with authority. And now SHE’S the authority.

Did she earn it? 

Hell no.

It should be Clarke and Bellamy. But that’s not the story, and Clarke and Bellamy, frankly, earned the chance to NOT have the weight of all humanity on their shoulders. They earned their break. Let Octavia face up to the weight of responsibility and learn what happens when SHE’S the one who has to keep the population down and face the people who break the rules. 

It’s not a pretty story, but I mean, is leading and being responsible a pretty story? You think it means they “win” but ask Clarke. She doesn’t feel like she wins by being the princess who has to choose who lives and who dies. It’s not okay. She’s not okay. She had been broken a million ways.

So in a way, Octavia becoming leader of humanity, when she was not even recognized as a legitimate human, becoming responsible for everyone’s lives and deaths when she was busy judging others for doing the same, it’s quite a bit of poetic justice. Does she deserve it? Kind of yes. If you think of leadership as a burden and a curse, rather than some sort of reward. 

Octavia is SCREWED. 

This is a good story. 

Like her? Don’t like her? Who cares? It’s a good conflict. 

You want to know how you can tolerate her? Why is tolerating even a question? I don’t get it. If you don’t like the story, don’t watch. If you don’t love Octavia, don’t love her. I don’t. Tolerate her? She’s not real. Her story is there for a reason. What’s the point? That’s what you need to figure out. 

Or don’t. Skip her. Miss the storyline. It’s your choice. 

But when everything shakes out, don’t complain about it coming out of nowhere and there was no character development and it was bad/lazy writing. You didn’t want to pay attention to canon. Your bad. Not the writers’.  

[the-100-meta-library]

I always see Hogwarts House controversy for our favs but I just got one argument for Jasper I’d like to add.

Jasper Jordan is a Gryffindor. Yes he is smart and loyal but he is braver than he gets acknowledged for.

You know why? Because it’s not this natural “I’m not afraid of anything” bravery. It’s a I AM afraid and yet I’m going to fight through that fear. It’s a “I got speared and don’t wanna leave the safety of the walls but Octavia is in danger and she’s my friend so I’m gonna search for her”.

It’s a “I’m terrified of MW but I’m going to find my friends no matter what”.

It’s not just being brave it’s being brace in spite of being afraid.

He’s like the Neville Longbottom of The 100 and he is a Gryffindor.

[the-100-meta-library]

Clarke’s 4x11 kill

“One more piece of her[Clarke’s] soul on the line” A very heavy line. Like lead heavy, that dish that Murphy pulled out of the wall and Raven tried to warn him heavy. But as @ileftherbehind brought up to me in her analyzing wisdom, in the big over-arching sense of it, it’s not really about Bellamy. The script was already going to affirm Clarke loves Bellamy but this one heartbreaking line was very much about our protagonist.

Ever since 2x08 we’ve had Clarke plus logic shield. She fights for the “ultimate goal” and she decided that one person’s(mainly hers being that it’s her one constant reference) feelings shouldn’t dictate the outcome, it should be logic and then loyalty(i.e. her picking her people in MW despite there being ~300 people she could have saved including her allies) and the only thing to assess is if something “feels” logical. And we see from then on her choosing the majority over her feelings; she killed Finn, she killed the Mount Weatherners, she allowed her mother’s death. And within this she latched onto L who was an affirmation of the logic over feelings mantra. And then in 4x10 she saw the majority she’s been fighting for about to slip away, so she took her logic shield out and locked the doors. And then she saw she wouldn’t have had to. She saw things would’ve worked out in a scenario she expressly vouched for without her interference.

For two full seasons Clarke never had to face the other possibilities of her choices being in any way better. Finn was dead, that was final. The Weatherners were dead, that was final. She saw L die and the coalition die, she shut down ALIE, and she could never test the nightblood solution. Everything was a shut door, if you will. Arkers were the bringers of death and she was the commander. She was wanheda Clarke for two full seasons. But there was always one chink that would show itself at inopportune times and that was Bellamy. 2x09 she declared her emotional attachment to him before her shield was strongly locked on, 2x14 L brings him up as her weakness to get her away from thinking non-pragmatically, 3x02 she’d do anything to keep him alive, 3x15 her mother used him as her primary weakness, 4x05 Roan uses him as the symbol of loss for Clarke to get leverage. 

So everything leads up to 4x11s climax. Clarke was seeing in real time that her decisions didn’t always equal solidity just because they were pragmatic. And she was forced to face the largest weakness she had ever had. So she held the gun to him and saw the choice she would “have” to make in her previous line of thought, her wanheda thought. But at the end of the day, something we’ve also seen over and over in the script and directly from the mouths of the writers: Bellamy is the key. He is the key to the show and in 4x11 he was the key to Clarke finally killing wanheda. Finally killing the persona that whenever at the forefront of her mind felt like a plutonium parka she could never wrestle off, or didn’t feel she had the energy to even try. And unlike with her killing Finn, Bellamy was always a pillar of trust for Clarke. He was the staple of reliability for her and killing him, the person she was most emotionally attached to was just too much to keep going from. So the bullet stayed in the clip and Clarke was able to see the head and the heart balance she needed to find as Bellamy opened the door, ultimately for both of them. Which lead to her going to save Raven and telling Bellamy to find his balance as the new leader. Ripping the bandage of wanheda freed her in a way she hadn’t been since before she initially left MW and she got to keep whatever soul particle she would’ve lost had she removed what had been a flashlight to her core in even her darkest times.

[the-100-meta-library]

Why the green patch?

I’ve been meaning to post about this for a while

Caption: @silveraven said: What if it’s not a new mutation, but an old one? Trishana’s glowing forest? Or maybe Becca did something to those genetically modified those plants with something similar to her nightblood technology? Or something to do with the Eden tree Kane brought down from space?

Let me just say:

Oh. My. God.

THE EDEN TREE IDEA IS BRILLIANT AND I FEEL LIKE A FOOL FOR NOT THINKING OF IT!!!!!!!!!!!

This needed its own post for freakin smart @silveraven is. So yes, here it is. I love this idea.

It’s the perfect sort of… “strange science and evolution happened in space!” type thing. We know being exposed to radiation for so long changed the Arkadians - but how did it change the Eden tree? Was the growth only stunted because of how little water and fertilizer it got? Perhaps we’ll get some answer if this is our answer.

[the-100-meta-library]

The 100 and Eden

okay at the request of @tracylorde​ and always with the help of @bellameblake​ who lets me shout at her about these things im gonna just write out my thought on 5x01 being called Eden and what that could mean for the 100. 

The 100 and J Roth have always been big fans of religious references and retellings so when the title of Eden was announced i was like “yooooo this gonna be good”. 

SO the basic story of Eden in the Bible (that i remember) is that God created Eden, he then created Adam and Eve and put them in the Garden to tend to it. They where allowed to eat anything but from this one tree. Satan comes down and tempts Eve to eat from the Tree and gain knowledge. Eve does and so does Adam. It’s called the Original Sin. There’s also the idea of the introduction of guilt into the garden because of this sin and a loss of innocence in humanity. AND in the end if i remember a particularly graphic bible lesson Adam and Eve get cast out of Eden to suffer on the….well in not Eden!

So if we look at it in the context of the 100 Clarke is obviously the one living in Eden rn but she’s being…invaded by Gagarin Prison transport. So obviously this dark ship descending on Eden, I think, represents the introduction of darkness and even sin to the semi-ideal world we see Clarke living in. This also kinda ties in with Madi because she seems to be the representing the innocence of Eden and this ship is going to corrupt the pureness. 

Because im extra i was also thinking about how the Space Kru and Bellamy’s return would tie into that. I actually thought about the concept of Adam and Eve because of Bellamy and Clarke’s partnership and because the whole group is really all we have left of the “original” people we saw inhabiting earth yes i know the grounders where already there but just keep reading. 

So if the group aligned with Clarke on their return to earth and they battled the Eligius Corporation group together but if that group is stronger and have corrupted the inhabitants of Eden …then the conclusion that fits the most in the story is that the Space Kru +Clarke and Madi will be thrown out of Eden into the wasteland lands outside.

Anyway…idk plot wise and with the spoilers we have gotten this fits for me and The 100 has a history of using religious stories and retelling them…or it could all be wrong and i could be overthinking the entire thing….

I would love to hear what people think and if anyone has more Bible knowledge then me i’d love to hear your input! 

[the-100-meta-library]

In Defense of a Death Wish: Abby Griffin

(TW: Suicide, Depression) Listen, I was as shocked as all of you when Abby “Let’s Call It Hope” Griffin asked Marcus Kane to let her die. It came out of left field. It had JRoth’s brand of Shock Value™ written all over it. But… was it OOC? I honestly don’t think so. In fact, it’s my personal opinion that it might be the most refreshing evidence of character development (and, god forbid, an actual arc) Paige Turco has gotten to play with in far too long. Now, I gotta put a disclaimer, here - it makes me extremely uncomfortable to agree with, let alone defend the decisions this show makes for its characters, especially Abby. This season in particular was excruciating to watch as the integrity of her character was repeatedly brutalized. So, no, I’m not going to argue that I trust the writers, per se. And I’m definitely not going to argue that this was their plan all along. What I will argue is that they did, actually, piece it together with the help of a  sleeping giant they found amid the landscape of Abby’s character: Just because she can see the light doesn’t mean she doesn’t know the darkness.

Keep reading

[the-100-meta-library]

Luna Would’ve Been a Great Leader of the Second Dawn Bunker

Okay, so today is when the 100 writers are posting the script for episode 10. Which, as we all know, was the conclave. So picture this: AU in which Luna basically takes Octavia’s place in this episode, makes the decision to share the bunker (which would’ve actually been in character for her), and shows mercy to Octavia so she survives but isn’t the leader.

-“But with your clan gone, who will you fight for?”

“I fight for everyone. I fight for life. When I win, everyone will be saved.”

-Luna, after finding Octavia at the end of the conclave: “There are people worth saving. You aren’t one now, but I believe people can change.” Then she’d go on to help Octavia with her anger management issues, that whole “I know the darkness” thing. I feel like she’d be good at this, we already saw how she helped Raven.

-(Just going to point out that Octavia has kind of turned into a ruthless killer this season, and it seems unlikely to me that she would stop in one episode. Wait, actually, she doesn’t really stop, just kills the right people— those who will benefit her most. Seems to be in keeping with her previous actions, now that I think about it. Just not really the redemption arc it’s made out to be.)

-OKAY SO LUNA WOULD BE A GREAT LEADER OF THE BUNKER AND NOBODY CAN TELL ME OTHERWISE. She ran her own isolated society for years. She’d know all about rationing and keeping the peace, and is one of only two people on the show who have actually led a group of people living in close quarters for so long.  (The other being Jaha, but for fairly obvious reasons she would be the better choice to lead the second dawn bunker.) She might be a little out of her element being underground, but would anyone else not be? It’s not like any of the others had experienced it, they had all grown up on the ground or in space.

-I know that they were going for “the girl under the floor” stuff, but honestly, the “floukru queen” turned “wonkru queen” does it for me

-It takes a while for her to trust Skaikru again, but it happens eventually. Then when Raven comes back with the others, they’re reunited because sea mechanic needs to happen please and thank you

-It’s in character for her to be peaceful, calm people down, fiercely uphold her ideals, and balance out all of the warriors among them with her different point of view. But people would also know not to push her around or challenge her authority, because of her extreme skills in combat.

-Also, because of her nightblood status (and by having won the conclave) she would be held in higher regard by the grounders, as a person who actually knew and understood their religion. Also, being a nightblood would make it unlikely, or even impossible, for her to die from radiation poisoning should there be any risk of that. It’s important to have a leader you can count on, and I’d say that not dying is a part of that.

TLDR: Luna would have been an amazing leader and great asset to the show and to grounders and skaikru alike, and I’m pretty upset with the 100 writers for butchering her character and killing her off in the space of one episode. (Even if I still love the show.)