#the 100s5

[stylinsonbravery17]

what was the point of s5?

[jarleene]

Forever salty that the Murven cheek kiss was cut out in 5x03

[aryastarktheshewolf]

She must be pretty important to you.

She is.

[lunalivvy]

The dark year

Some of y’all talking about how what happened in the dark year doesn’t justify what Octavia did/who she is, and comparing her to Clarke and mount weather. But it’s completely different.

Unlike Octavia, Clarke had someone to share the burden. She was born to be a leader. She had a choice. Yah, she felt like she had to pull the lever, that she didn’t have choice, but she did. No one was forcing her to do it. It didn’t have to be all on her. Unlike Octavia. She had no one because they all either abandoned her, blamed her, or were the once’s forcing her. She was forced to kill her people in order for them to follow her, forced to eat people to survive, forced to make them kill eachother, and forced to be a leader. Someone she’s not. Something she never wanted in the first place, because

Unlike Clarke, leading doesnt come naturally. Unlike Clarke, she had no one to comfort her. Unlike Clarke, she had no choice.

[velvet-tread]

Multishipping Bellarke and Becho: a guide

I know I said I wasn’t going to be here, butttttttt things are getting crazy here and apparently I want to cut my followers down to zero so here goes.

Look, guys, ok I know the vast majority of you are on a scale of ambivalent to nuking North Korea when it comes to Becho and *FINE* I understand why. The Bellarke fandom wants Bellarke (not unreasonable!) so one half of your otp in a relationship galls.

But I love Becho even though I am Bellarke af and honestly the view is GREAT from here and I would love to share some of that good feeling around.

Seeing Bellamy and Echo in what is clearly a very happy and content (yet doomed!) relationship, is basically the most beautiful bittersweet thing to happen to me since Jason chose to serve my own heart up to me on a plate  with ai gonplei ste odon atop the satellite tower *sob*.

So I’m going to have a crack at some of the whys and wherefores of Becho and address how it could fit our Bellarke endgame.

My opinions, ok? I’m not trying to convert anyone, just spread some love.

Why put Bellamy in a long-term relationship at all?

Mostly, I think the answer is in the narrative shorthand the show is using to help us navigate the time jump, and the people Bellamy and Clarke are now. And who is that? Well, we don’t know the whole picture yet but one thing is for sure: Bellamy and Clarke have had a relatively content 6 years. They’re OK. Changed, yes, for a variety of reasons, but psychologically sound compared to, say, the people in the bunker.

Sure, there are some things missing from their lives - I’ll get to the nitty gritty of that later on - but I think we’re supposed to believe that they are more or less happy and healthy and whole.

So, I guess the question is, what does happy and whole Bellamy look like? Not only am I Bellarke af, but I am also a Bellamy stan to the core.  In the context of a 6 year time jump, I want nothing for him but contentment, appreciation and nookie on the regular. And it seems that against the odds, this has happened for Bellamy Bradbury Blake.  In the relative safety of space, in the company of his newfound space family, his impulse to slavishly attend to the everyday needs of his sister curtailed, Bellamy has actually, finally, taken 6 years for himself.

At his core Bellamy is an affectionate person, with a deep need for personal connection and intimacy. And, clearly, he’s attracted to girls and sex is high on his list of needs too (do we all need to be reminded of pre-Bree Bellamy and post-Bree Bellamy in s4?) so the idea of him in space for 6 years deprived of that emotional and physical intimacy just makes me sad.  And so, the shot of his and Echo’s quarters with their double bed, the TV in the corner, the punchbag above the bed (*raised eyebrow*) the shelving unit with 68 canteens on (why Becho, why?) is so heartwarming in its mundane domesticity. It shouted to me: BELLAMY IS OKAY.

Indulge my singing emo heart for a hot second. They clearly appreciate each other. He runs his hands up and down her arms.  She strokes his jaw. THEY ARE SO SOFT.  She soothes his Octavia anxiety. His terrible dad jokes make her laugh and ease her tension. These two people who have spent a life time pleasing others are happy making each other happy.

Oh, and he is JAW-DROPPINGLY NAÏVE.

Watching Bellamy in a comfortable space relationship with someone who hurt him so badly in the past deliver this bizarro rose-tinted expectation of his feisty, judgemental sister suggests that in his mind, everything about his life on Earth is hued in gold. This is a Bellamy who, surrounded by his friends and safety, has forgotten the grim realities of survival, of human frailty and human cruelty.

*foghorn* IT DOESN’T MEAN HE’S FORGOTTEN CLARKE OR DOESN’T LOVE HER ANYMORE. *end foghorn*

In fact, Bellamy finding love with Echo is just about the biggest endorsement of everything that Clarke stood for when she gave him her dying words of wisdom.

This Bellamy has absorbed all of Clarke’s glorious idealism, her ability to forgive, her faith in humanity, her faith in her own agency, her faith that whatever the problem is, there’s a solution. This is what head-and-heart Bellamy looks like.

Finally…realtalk time: I may choke on these words as I type them, but the truth about storytelling is that if you have an endgame ship in mind (and I stfg I refuse to be gaslighted on this any longer) and a 6 year time jump in which they believe each other dead, it would be straight up BIZARRE not to have one of them come back in a long-term relationship. No matter what the writers’ room says about Bellarke or love triangles, that is a conflict opportunity that is too delicious to pass up.  It’s what Satan would do.

But whhhhhyyyy does it have to be Echo?

Sidebar - I’m not going to get in too deep with the forgiveness question, because we’ve all been over it many a time. My take on it is that forgiveness is something you do for yourself,  not for someone else and is not the same as justice – especially when both people involved have things to answer for. For what it’s worth, the show’s take on it seems to be similar (hi Jake Griffin), so I see no reason why this is a problem in terms of tone or characterisation.

Anyone who knows me at all knows that I love Echo, and have a gazillion thoughts about what her arc could or should be this season.  But ultimately, this show is about Bellamy and Clarke, so it’s worth looking at this in terms of what this means for Bellamy’s character.

Basically: this is a question of impact. Echo represents the furthest possible point for Bellamy’s character development in the context they’ve given him (7 people in space for 6 years).  Echo hurt him, but she also represents all the terrible things that he has done himself, all of which he’s been grappling with for the past 2 seasons. So for him to be in a place where he forgives her enough to actually like her and then forge an intimate connection with her – that says more about how far he’s come in terms of forgiveness of others and self-forgiveness than, say, a relationship with Raven.

It doesn’t mean he’s ruined (and seriously, is this the 17th century?) or it’s out of character.  It means he’s taken Clarke’s lessons to heart.

How am I supposed to be invested in this relationship if I haven’t seen the start of it?

Well, I’ve been shipping Becho ever since she spat in his face in MW prior to their joint murder so I mayyy be biased but I would say we’ve been watching their relationship evolve for some time. No, we don’t get to see the point where forgiveness tipped into intimacy, but having been watching them forever it’s not a leap for me to headcanon the rest.

I get that it is a stretch for others but here’s the thing: I don’t think the show is asking us to be invested in Bellamy and Echo because they should be together forever.  The show is asking us to be invested in the peace and stability they found in space, literally in a vacuum, of which Becho is a product.

But if they’re going to split up, what’s the point?

Becho is the perfect illustration of the fragility of peace and human co-operation, which is in turn such a core theme of the show imo.  What Bellamy and the rest of the Spacekru achieved was an environment in which even Becho can forgive and flourish, find love and softness. That’s the goal.  But this isn’t that universe.  Bellamy and Echo were at odds on Earth because the reality of life there is messy, complicated and frightening.

Echo, bless her, knows that very few things are permanent, even the love of a good man. She lost Azgeda, why would she trust anything in her life to be constant after that? But this forgiving, idealistic, measured, comfortable, Clarke-like Bellamy is in for a shock.

You’re not expected to be sad about the demise of Becho because Bellamy and Echo lose each other, but because Becho represents an unsustainable level of stability and comfort that just doesn’t play in this universe.  Much like Clarke and Lexa before them, they’ll have to let go of the dream of a world in which their relationship is possible and I for one will ache for them.

I’m going to say here too that I think in contrast to Becho, I think Bellarke could survive in any environment.  It was forged out of crisis – as Eliza says, they’re in each other’s DNA.  They just have to work out what that means.

Why is it good for Bellarke?

Let’s push aside all my Bellarke shipper reasons for wanting a happy and whole Bellarke to be the people they reconnect with and find lasting love. And the fact that Clarke, too, has experienced a doomed love affair and I want my tragedy babies to be on an equal footing and commonality when they finally get their shit together.

Let’s also push aside the angst potential of Bellamy and Clarke reuniting when one of them has a long-term partner, which makes up the tense character-focused storytelling this show is famous for.

Because, narratively speaking, the way this has been set up is just so Bellarke-centric I cannot even. Bellamy’s life – including his relationship with Echo - and Clarke’s life are the missing puzzle pieces for one another. Bellamy is

happy

but there are a few things he misses.  He misses Octavia, who is practically his own child, and he yearns to be back on the ground with her. And like the rest of Spacekru, he misses the variety of living on Earth eating more than just algae. And guess what?  Clarke, who is also

happy

has both of those things.  She has a fulfilling parental relationship with a child.  She has abundance.  But what doesn’t she have? She misses her friends and family, and adult company. I’m going to go ahead and assume she also misses the comfort and intimacy of a physical romantic relationship too, because we’ve seen her enjoy those things before.  Both of which Bellamy has.  When those pieces unite, when Bellarke reunite, the puzzle becomes complete.

[barbara-batsy-gordon-blog]

Here comes a rant.

Okay, so I’ve just finally caught up on the 100 and let me tell you my heart is absolutely broken yet happy at the same time. Now, it’s no secret that I’m a die hard Bellarke shipper. Have been since the first season. But I am also a HUGE fan of the enigma that is Octavia Blake.

When the show first started Octavia was this naive girl who jumped into water without thinking about what could be in there, who danced with butterflies. She was a girl who fell head over heels in love with a man who at the time was meant to be an enemy. She was all heart, because these were all her first encounters with anything. She spent her entire life in one room, hiding from the outside world because she was made to believe she wasn’t supposed to be there. Her only human contact were her mother and brother until she was sixteen. And then when she was finally discovered she was locked up yet again, and then dumped on a planet that wasn’t even proven to be survivable. But she did survive. And she thrived. She became this badass warrior princess and was so fierce and good. She went from being this impulsive little girl to a calculated and skilled warrior. She was admirable.

And then Lincoln died. She watched the man she loved with her entire being, her first love, be brutally murdered in front of her. And it changed her. She became vengeful, merciless. As her story line progressed she delved further and further into darkness. At her core she was still Octavia. She was still good, she still cared about people. Hell, she won the conclave and saved the human race.

Now, Octavia was never perfect. She made a lot of mistakes, as all the characters do on the show. But through everything she did, Bellamy still loved her. He still protected her, even when she didn’t need protecting. Because she was his little sister. His responsibility. Which brings me to this weeks episode. The Bellarke shipper in me won’t let me miss the fact that Clarke being in danger is what drove Bellamy to poison his sister. But I don’t believe he necessarily chose Clarke over her. I believe that throughout the season he’s seen more and more that Octavia is not the same girl she was 6 years ago. She’s changed. She’s slipped almost, if not completely into darkness. She still has her vulnerabilities, and she still shows she cares at moments. But for the most part the girl from under the floor who loved things whole heartedly has now become this young woman who believes love is weakness. She’s become someone that won’t let herself be weak, let herself be hurt again. And Bellamy sees the change. And he has spent every episode since he got the bunker opened trying to convince himself that she’s not completely gone.

But Octavia planning to mass murder an entire village of people using parasites, and threatening to execute Clarke (who he loves), finally pushes Bellamy over the edge. And believe it or not I think he did it for octavia. He knows she can’t come back from this. He knows that when she looks back on what happened she would feel guilty. She’d feel the same guilt he and Clarke have felt because of the decisions they have made. When Octavia was born, Bellamy promised that he’d never let anything bad happen to her. I think that putting her in the coma so that she didn’t hurt any innocent people, was the only way he saw to protect her from herself.

So in conclusion, Bellamy didn’t choose anyone over Octavia. He still chose Octavia. He just chose the old Octavia, not this new Blodreina version of her.

[the-griffin-green-blakes]

Anybody have a way to watch the 100 s5 ep 3-5? A friend of mine is trying to catch up before the new episode Tuesday, and only episodes 1-2 and 6-8 are up on the CW’s website right. Any help is much appreciated!!

[jarleene]

CAN U GIVE ME SOME MURVEN HOPE/FEELS AFTER THAT EP?!?

ALL IS NOT LOST.

Sure, do we want to see m*mori onscreen? No. Did we know it was a strong possibility? Absolutely.

I think it all boils down to the Bellarke parallels in previous episodes. As we all know, Bellarke hasn’t didn’t happen overnight. It has taken five seasons for Bellamy and Clarke to even get as far as they are now and each worked through separate relationships.

If Murven is endgame (please god let it be) it’s gonna be a long road. Murphy first has to figure out his relationship with Emori. (I also think she’s dying this season, but that’s a whole ‘nother five cents) 

 It’s only been six episodes since the start of the season and we have been so blessed with good Murven content. I have LITERALLY shipped these two since Raven showed up on the ground in SEASON ONE. I never thought we’d get the level of friendship and deep trust they have in one another. I mean, it’s canon at this point that Murphy will risk his life for her, and only her. If you look back at the scene between Clarke and Murphy in 4x08 where he’s begging Clarke not to inject Emori with nightblood (one of my fav scenes of all time) he never tells her to take him instead. I think he would do that for Raven now.

Also remember: Murphy and Emori just captured McCreary as a hostage this episode. What are they gonna do with him that no other character on the show is talking about doing?

They’re going to free Raven – that means we’ll soon get a reunion. 

THERE IS HOPE. THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE.