#anti the writing choices of of becho more like

[ks-caster]

It’s Like Watching Fanfiction – An (Un)Necessarily Long Critique of The 100 Seasons 6 and 7

Ah, the familiar cry of the content-starved fan, particularly as our favorite shows descend into the depths of mischaracterization, unexpected ships, hiatus, abrupt cancellation and shock-value death endings. I’ve said it myself about so many of my shows, while wanting to spend some time watching the characters but not wanting to re-hash episodes I’ve nearly memorized: “I wish I could just watch fanfiction!”

But the further into seasons 6 and 7 I’ve gotten, the more I’ve come to realize that my dream of having new and exciting possibilities for the characters come miraculously to a screen near me wouldn’t be the pleasant experience I’d imagined.

Now, depending on the type of ending you like – hopeful but with a lot of lose ends left to your imagination, or bittersweet but more definite, you could consider either seasons 1-4 or 1-5 their own complete stories.

Both seasons 4 and 5 ended in a way that suggested an unknown but likely positive future. They could have been considered conclusions for the main characters’ developmental arcs, and while season 5 went a little off the rails in terms of offscreen character development and sudden new characters, they both stayed fairly close to the original concept: survivors living in the ruins of the apocalypse. All four (or five) seasons emphasized the importance of the found family dynamic (although those dynamics shifted radically in season 5 due to the time-skip, they remained an important source of character motivation).

But seasons 6 and 7? Those feel like I’m watching fanfiction. And I don’t love it.

A story told on a whole new planet with a new environment, culture and cast of original characters was always going to feel like an AU – it sort of is, no matter how you swing it. If that was all that had changed, then I think the story would still feel cohesive.

If it weren’t for the timey whimey bullshit.

Now, fun fact: when reading fanfiction, I love time travel stories. I haven’t posted any myself but I’ve sought out and read them voraciously, for every fandom I’m in. I love the idea of characters meeting themselves or their friends at radically different ages, plot points and levels of experience and the way that changes things for both groups. (Yes, I’m also a Whovian if that wasn’t blatantly obvious). I also love a good amnesia arc. And I DID think that the Josephine/Clarke body possession thing was pretty cool.

So why did season 6 and most* of season 7 fall as flat for me as they did?

The simple fact is that some things – and characters’ emotional dynamics are one of those things – are so much easier to get across in writing than on screen. A good actor can make us feel the character’s emotions, but unless the film goes full-on Clarke’s mind space, we can’t really know what they’re thinking in individual moments. For the most part film as a genre has ways around this, but if it’s mishandled, then the emotional beats come off all wrong. (See for reference Tony Stark’s funeral where half the actors didn’t know what was going on due to Disney’s spoiler fears.)

If you’re going to include time skips in which things have happened and character dynamics have changed, you cannot handle it wrong.

Which brings us back to seasons 6 and (so far) 7 of The 100. So far to date we’ve had all of this occur either offscreen or asynchronously enough to be confusing to an audience watching the episodes in real time:

Jordan’s entire life prior to meeting Napkru in the waking world

Octavia’s character development while living on Skyring with the Diyozas

Hope’s first 22 years of life, on Skyring and (I presume) Bardo

Echo, Hope and Gabriel living on Skyring for 5 years with Orlando

Going back a little further, we also have the season 5 timeskip, which brought us Spacekru as found family, Clarke adopting tiny!heda, and Octavia building Wonkru. Now season 5 took care to show us Wonkru flashbacks and dedicate time to show Spacekru and the Griffin family loving on each other, making inside jokes etc. But it was still incredibly jarring for the audience in a lot of ways, because at the end of the day, we’ve spent four years with the character dynamics and development doing one thing, and no amount of telling us that they’ve had 6 years to do another thing while our time with them only lasted about one year in comparison is ever going to undo the importance of “show don’t tell.”

Let’s take Bellarkers’ beef with Becho for example. (Disclaimer: Since I don’t really have a strong opinion either way on the popular Bellamy ships, I hope that I’m representing what I’ve read from other people accurately.)

I understand cognitively that Bellamy and Clarke knew each other for one year (during which they were in a lot of intense situations that really didn’t leave them the emotional space to figure out how they felt about each other outside of “I don’t want to lose this person”) and Bellamy and Echo knew each other for seven years (six of which they had plenty of low-stress time to get to know each other, grow and mature side-by-side, etc.).

But that doesn’t compute on an emotional level when I as a watcher went straight from watching Bellamy and Raven tearfully eulogizing Clarke on the ring, to him turning up with a coffee mug and a plucky attitude to rescue her the second he finds out she’s alive and in trouble. I don’t think that could compute emotionally for me without having spent the last few years watching the dynamics shift and Becho happen. And that was with the writers giving me as a watcher an episode at the end of season 4 where Bellamy stops Echo from killing herself and connects with her on an emotional level, and then one at the beginning of season 5 where we got to see the spacekru dynamics, including them being together.

So we’re watching this show, many of us for the found family character relationships (god knows it’s not for all the positive happy feeling I get from watching *checks notes* ah, yes, characters having to constantly choose who to kill off in a string of increasingly huge and horrible genocides. *Side-eyes my life choices for getting into this fandom in the first place.*) Okay, we’re watching this show for the characters, and between seasons 4 and 5, many of those dynamics radically shift offscreen. Becho is the easiest and probably most talked-about example (well, and the Blake siblings, but the radical change shown in Octavia’s character between 4 and 5 makes that at least a little easier to choke down) but there are plenty of others, take your pick.

Although it makes perfect sense for a lot to change between separated groups of people in a half dozen years, it makes a lot less sense to an audience watching week to week, particularly when the show’s limited amount of screen time was too focused on plot to really delve into those changes and let us see and understand them. That was what made me think that the show was headed into jump the shark territory in season 5, but I really wanted to know what happened to my faves (Octavia, Raven and Memori, to be specific) so I kept watching.

Our fandom’s excellent writers spent the hiatus crafting mid-time-skip vignettes and missing character moments, and I spent the hiatus reading them. And I remember thinking that it would have been great if even a quarter of this content could have been put into the show to ease the audience into the dynamic shifts – but of course they’d never have the screen time to do all of that.

Especially, coming back to the main point, since written fiction allows the audience to see inside the characters’ heads, while television (usually) does not. It’s much easier to write a scene in which, say, two characters who have known each other for 7 years show that they’ve gotten into a relationship some time before the scene, and convince the audience that their relationship is good and healthy and genuine, than it would be to produce one for TV.  

And then we come to seasons 6 and 7 – the 2-part AU longfic, stuffed full of OCs, loosely connected to the “science” of the original show, and heavily reliant on memory-bending time travel as a plot device.

As season 6 airs, the audience hasn’t really had a chance to process all the radical changes from season 5, and already we have a Marper child running around furthering the plot, and Octavia walks into the Green Flash from Pirates of the Caribbean and walks back out with a personality transplant.

Meanwhile, Clarke gets an actual personality transplant, and it takes even the people closest to her a concerningly long time to notice. Now, if I’d read that in a fic, the writer might’ve taken care to remind me as a reader – particularly after a long hiatus between seasons – that with the exception of Madi none of Clarke’s friends have seen her for more than a couple of weeks in 6 years, so them not noticing for a while that she’s behaving strangely isn’t really all that strange. But on TV, I don’t get to see Gaia’s thoughts when Clarke lets Madi go to school despite the danger – Tati Gabrielle’s facial expressions can only do so much to make up the difference. Because the time spent apart was not (and really could not be, based on the structure of the show) properly acknowledged on screen, scenes like that one leave audiences floundering and pointing out bad writing.

Having watched 7x02 The Garden, I think if I went back and watched season 6 after Octavia returns from the Anomaly, her conduct – especially around Bellamy – would make a lot more sense. (That was the plan for this weekend actually – but my damn Wi-Fi conked out…) However at the time it just seemed weird and unnatural. Had it been the only example of off-screen or asynchronous character development, it would have been a lot easier to swallow. However, season 5 happened, meaning both that I was still getting used to all of the new dynamics and that I had a higher standard for Octavia’s off-screen development, because we got enough bunker flashbacks that I felt like I at least understood Blodreina.

What would have made the whole thing make a lot more sense a year ago would have been if the hair and makeup department had made an effort to make her look older, so that we could see time had passed for her. Now, Marie is 33 in real life, and so was the Octavia who figured out that up is down and got Davy Jones Locker to send her back ran out of the Anomaly, so yes, that is what an actual 33-year-old looks like, and the media has distorted my perception of age. But from an audience perspective, I saw an actress playing a 23-year-old go in, and the same actress playing the same 23-year-old come out.

Gabriel pointed out that her hair was longer, but that only accounted for a few months of time. Since she went in looking dirty, wounded and exhausted, and came out clean, healthy and energetic, she could have passed for younger before I would have thought she was older. (In fact, I want to say there was a theory circulating at that time that the Octavia who came out of the Anomaly was actually a younger version of herself, and she was missing memories because she’d never formed them. I don’t remember whose theory this was though. If you know or if it’s your content I’m referencing please feel free to let me know and I’ll edit!)

In addition, the shifting loyalties in Wonkru near the end of season 5 complicated the character situation – in season 6, the majority of Wonkru peeps (lookin’ at you, Miller and Indra) switched over to the commander’s side. While Indra didn’t really have enough screen time to express an opinion about Octavia, Miller was very clear in season 6 that she was anathema now – which although that was probably a semi-reasonable step for his character, it just felt like someone took his Bellamy-and-or-Clarke-following season 1-4 character and popped it into his season 6 costume without taking the time to address the road he took to get there.

Post-lockerAnomaly Octavia had to face and slay her demons. (Grumbles and links the interested reader to this POST from @osleyakomwonkru regarding that horseshit.) Afterwards, she shows a major shift in personality, particularly towards her brother. Because we as the audience wouldn’t see her time on skyring for about year in real time (or learn that she was ten years older and therefore a lot more mature, the chemical changes of which would account for at least some of the difference even if she couldn’t remember anything else) we had no choice but to associate her change with the slaying of Blodreina, which seemed like a ham-fisted way of forcing her a quick and slick redemption arc and prepping The Blake Siblings to go back to being ride-or-die for each other in season 7.

Raven’s season 6 personality was also radically different from her 1-5 development – while I understand her having a remaining beef with Clarke and being emotional due to Shaw’s death (RIP!) the fact that the writing in season 6 reduced her to the nagging shrew trope until they needed her to do a coding deus ex machina just added to the feeling that I was watching someone take the characters around, change them to their own preferences (even if that preference was to push some into the background and make them tools for the B-plot) and toss them into an AU story. Which I could have enjoyed more if I had been reading it and therefore seeing inside the characters’ heads – and if I hadn’t paid for the privilege with ad revenue instead of voluntary clicks of the kudos/like/reblog/comment buttons.

Another issue with time skip relationship is exposition for the lesser known characters’ backstories. Both seasons 6 and 7 have so far had dramatic character mother death reveals that were conveniently not told to their most important people specifically because the appropriate time to tell those stories would have been during the offscreen time skips. I will (grudgingly) accept Echo, an adult making a conscious (and familiar) decision to change up her personality to fit into and survive within her environment, choosing not to tell a traumatic story that reminds her of her past. (She’s my next meta – stay tuned!)

I will not in a million years, however, believe that the Clarke Griffin who I watched for four seasons be set up as the blatantly obvious “compassionate mom-friend protagonist” adopted a traumatized 6-year-old, moved into said child’s village, burned or buried the bodies of everyone who lived there, and never ever brought up the child’s dead birth parents.

No way. The ONLY reason that could have possibly been scripted in that way was because that conversation needed to be there for plot reasons and the appropriate time for it to have been had was during the 6 years they spent off screen. Similarly, while (again) I’ll buy that Echo chose not to talk about her mom’s death with Bellamy before he decided to be a dick about it, I fully believe that the timing of that conversation was only there because if it had occurred on the ring where it would have been more appropriate, the audience would have missed it.

Now, picture this: if the scene with Madi had been in a written fanfic, Clarke could have said “you didn’t lose me,” Madi could have said “I didn’t mean you,” and Clarke could have remembered Madi telling her the story of her birth mom dying in her arms. Then Clarke could have mentally made the decision that she didn’t want Madi to relive that in an attempt to empathize with her, and she makes an effort to convince her that she’s fine. In just 2 or 3 paragraphs a written story could have effectively conveyed both the exposition and the emotional beats of the scene, concluding with Clarke making a (maybe misguided but still sweet) attempt to be a good mom by not dredging that up for Madi (or something – I’m not defending the crappy and inconsistent writing of Clarke’s parenting we’ve on screen so far).

Moving right along, we had a lovely flashback montage of Hope and Dev, which was sufficient to make me (and several of the tumblrs I follow) care about Dev at least enough to be saddened by his death. However, what we didn’t get was a damn crumb of flashback showing Orlando and Anomalykru developing any kind of familial relationship between him agreeing to train them, and whatever dynamic we were supposed to pick up on at the end of that episode. I got a little protective big sister vibe from Echo and Hope but that’s it. They apparently expended their allotment of emotion-inducing flashbacks on the dead guy, and failed entirely to make me give a shit about (as it turned out) the next dead guy.

Now we’re going into an episode with Octavia on (presumably) Bardo in the promo, so I’m guessing we get to see her skyring-self link up with her return-to-Gabriel-with-clean-hair self. As least with Octavia’s jumping storyline it seems like the writers have consistently made some kind of effort to fill in the blanks.

But we’re also looking at the rest of the season where Echo, Gabriel, Hope, oh hi Jordan I forgot about you again, Diyoza, Octavia, and probably Bellamy and Hoth!Kru (AKA team let’s follow Raven onto a strange planet without putting on suits or having an exit strategy, yay!) have all experienced asynchronous development over periods of multiple years. Given the show’s track record from seasons 5 and 6, I strongly suspect that this won’t be handled any better, meaning that the final season of this show is going to try not only to resolve all the plot points, but to toss in a bunch MORE offscreen character development and hope we catch on.

Beyond character development jumps, we also have Raven and Murphy losing their seasons 1-5 development in season 6 only to have to re-learn and re-change back to who they already were in seasons 4 and 5. Murphy learned to value his spacekru family and stop putting himself first 100% of the time, and yet his arc in season 6 happened. Raven has always been involved in the big life-or-death decisions, and had her being-the-bad-guy moment in season 4 with the rationing, but as we saw in 7x03 the writers really wanted to… redo all of that for her? The girl blew up a bridge full of guys and flash-fried a 300-person army when she was 18; blood on her hands may not be fun but what’s with seasons 6 and 7 acting like it’s something new?

While I’m aware that Jason said his seasons are individual movies (don’t admit that you’re bad at continuity buddy ‘cause that’s what it sounds like) seasons 1-5 and 6&7 are clearly telling separate stories (or 1-4, 5, 6-7 if you prefer). The trouble with 6&7 is that unlike seasons 1-4 (and sort-of 5) we no longer know the characters. Every time someone sits still too long, character-development wise, plot comes along and hits the reset button, tosses them into a wormhole for a couple of years and they come back with the same face but no continuity. It was difficult enough to deal with in season 5 – between 6 and 7 I just can’t keep up. (Even writing this meta, I have to keep going back because I remembered another character who fell into this trap.)

Now if a fanfic writer had done the exact same thing – same plot, same time skips, same organization – it would have played out completely different to the readers. We could have gotten to see inside the character’s minds when they arrived back on screen, seeing things with new, older eyes. We could have had minimally invasive flashbacks to show important exposition (like the disaster that was the conversation about Madi’s mom) and verbal descriptions to point out differences like Octavia’s ten-years-older body. Additionally, the plots of seasons 6 and 7 are so different yet full of overdone callbacks to the earlier seasons – if a fan was writing their own AU story but still wanted some of the trappings of the original plot I’d get it, but on a TV show written by the same people it just feels like they ran out of ideas.

Watching seasons 6 and 7 is exactly like watching fanfiction would be – but without the written and fan-made advantages of fanfiction, they fall flat.

*I do like season 7 better than season 6 because the content of the individual episodes containing Murphy/Emori/Raven and Octavia/Diyoza/bbyHope was still enjoyable content, so 2 out of 4 I have liked so far, despite this very very long rant I’ve just written explaining why as a whole I rather hate the season overall.

#The 100 #the 100 season 7 spoilers #spoilers #like all of the spoilers #meta #saltblogging #so much salt #anti season 7 #anti jason rothenberg #bellarke #anti becho #kind of #anti the writing choices of of becho more like #clarke griffin #bellamy blake #octavia blake #hope diyoza #gabriel santiago #murphy #raven reyes #nathan miller #madi griffin #what is even happening on this show anymore

[johnmurphysreddit]

Despite seeming like a fandom old I’m actually fandom middle aged.  I joined online fandom when AO3 was still invite only with far less content than FFN and Tumblr was just taking over from LJ / Dreamwidth.  I’ve never done a kinkmeme.  Until now.  A primer on the currently running The 100 Kinkmeme under the cut from someone who was clueless about the whole thing 48 hours ago. (TL;DR: Dreamwidth doesn’t suck to use as much as it seems to at first glance) 

Q. What’s a kinkmeme? 

A. Anon prompt and fills event.   This one is The 100 focused and happening on Dreamwidth. 

Q. What’s a fill??

A. Writing a story that satisfies someone’s prompt.  There are also requests for art. I don’t think they’ve written a specific answer on aesthetic sets but it’s not like someone is going to be mad to get more fuel for their fantasy. 

Q. I don’t write fic.  

A. No problem. Read the prompts and enjoy.  Write a prompt and share the power of your imagination.  Someone else might have the same fantasy and write it for you or some stranger may obsess about your fantasy for the next year and you’ll never know it.  Kinky. There are also some replies that are just “OMG YES!”.  Enthusiastic support of a scenario is part of the event. 

Q. I’m not starting another social media account for this. 

A.  You don’t have to.   More on this below. 

Q.  Is this just 9 pages of Bellarke and 4 Murphamy posts?

A. Not entirely, but yeah, there’s a lot of Bellarke. You could change the percentage by participating. Also they’re up to 24 pages of prompts after 24 hours.  I haven’t seen this much content this fast in this fandom without an episode airing.  Tis a nice change. 

Q. I read some prompts and now I need brain bleach. 

A.  I feel your pain.  YKINMK means your kink is not my kink.  It’s an old fandom standard, and this is an old fandom type event.  There’s going to be some hard pass stuff in there for most people.  You don’t have the right to know who’s using kink to process past trauma and who’s just into some off the beaten path kink.  Live and let live. 

Q.  Some of those posts shouldn’t exist!

A. I feel the same way about boxing and war, but here we are.  Nancy Friday’s My Secret Garden came out in 1973 and people are still acting shocked that women have some dark fantasies, many of which they almost certainly would never want to come true.  No RP fic requests for people under 18 is the only hard line this thing seems to have, so complaining to the mods is a non starter.  Find something elsewhere that suits you. This event isn’t to your taste.  

Q. I get off on fluff.  Is that kinky?

A.  I can’t tell you how sexy a man who does the dishes is because I’m too busy wiping my drool off the table.  The mods have said that while smutty smut is more typical non smutty prompts are OK. 

Q. Back to fandom specific concerns.  How much Echo/Lexa/Emori hate is in this thing? If I’m pro those characters am I welcome in this event?

A. Too much hate, but that’s this fandom.  Ignore the haters and/or write glorification fics that will annoy them. There’s also some prompt and antiprompt drama.  The mods have promised to delete anti posts, but I don’t know who the mods are or what their standard for anti is.  Most people participating so far seem to be aware of the Don’t Be a Dick standard even if a few are trying pretty hard to smudge the line and call it a fantasy.  You aren’t an anti just by existing and they’ve said it’s open to all ships. That standard applies in reverse, too, so if someone needs a villain for their prompt to work and they pick your fave for it... sigh.. the active part of this fandom is just skewed Like That...  It’s been 7 years... 

Q. I feel like starting some drama. 

A. Try here. 

Q. Is this thing racist / sexist / homophobic / other concern?

A.  The thing, no.  Some of the prompters and fillers, probably.  The stats at the end depends on who prompts and fills. 

Q. I’m just not up for a single moment of ship war nonsense.

A.  The 100 kinkmeme Tumblr has a link to a script you can use to block certain words. It’s one of those times when you may need to block an entire character.  Maybe participate by posting your own prompts and skewing the stats. It’s not free of shipwar nonsense because it’s not free of shippers.

Q. Anything I need to know about posting prompts? 

A. There are some required tags, your standard old school TW list.  dub-con, non-con/rape, incest, underage, necrophilia, gore, bestiality and RPF. After posting some prompts I realized I should have done more keyword stuffing so the search is more likely to pull a prompt. Using both Echo/Bellamy and Becho or all of soft, sweet, gentle, other synonyms is kind to a person who may need to find your prompt again. 

Q I just want to search the prompts for my fave. 

A. Here: https://the100kinkmeme.neocities.org/jan20prompts.html Unfortunately searching the complied list of prompts for Echo gets you a concentrated dose of hate, so I can’t recommend doing that.   

Q. Show me the whole thing. 

A. Main page is here.  If you decide to post a prompt click the reply button under the arrows and above the page numbers.  (I’m on laptop right now. If it looks different on mobile, sorry.) 

Q. I wrote a thing.  Now what?

A. You can anon post your fill on Dreamwidth as a reply if you want. Use your own AO3 account and add it to the Anonymous collection to make it post on AO3 as anon or start a sock puppet (a secondary account) on the hoster of your choice (including AO3) and post your fic there then add it to the anon collection if you’re really concerned about privacy.  Then post a link to it in the kinkmeme as a reply. Use the prompt search so you can find the post you want to reply to. 

Q. What’s the deal with the focus on anon. 

A. When everyone uses it no one is weird for using it.  You can take your fic out of the anon AO3 collection and claim it after the event. 

Q. Isn’t this whole thing weird?

A. Whispering fantasies to your friends in the dark is how bonds are formed.  Walking up the the cashier in Target and announcing that you want to bend her over the display of oranges is creepy.  Keep fandom in its corners and if the actors choose to hunt out those corners that’s on them.  People have been sharing fantasies about fictional characters since well before the Tale of Genji and fantasizing about celebrities since the first king toured a village. 

#fandom #kinkmeme

[savebellamy]

I kind of agree with your post of Echo and Diyoza, but I don't think she's killing for the wrong reasons, like when O said Levitt's name, Echo made a face and knew she had to kill the man to protect Levitt and Diyoza explained bc she understood. It's kind of extreme but it's not wrong if they want an inside man, otherwise she knows he'll be sent to Skyring or something else. I think is seems wrong for us, because they're not in active danger of being killed, but they're still in danger

this makes sense! like yeah with that specific scene where echo stabs the old guy, people went "there she goes killing innocent people again" at the same time that they praised diyoza moments before, even though diyoza even acknowledged that echo stabbing him sort of had to happen (?) or at least she would have made the same decision (i think? i sorta missed part of the scene)

but like i said, its strange because im pretty sure that the writers are actively making echo's choices to kill people much more bold than when other characters like diyoza do it, because when echo kills people, other characters actually talk about it, but murder is framed as just part of diyoza's entire arc and it's hardly given an afterthought. also, echo's azgeda spy ways are her own internal struggle, which highlights her killing streak even more with how she could be trying to take other routes, but she physically doesn't know how to.

and i agree its not that those murders are for "wrong" reasons, they are just the easiest way out in that situation. leave no witnesses behind, you know? it is pretty hypocritical to say echo is a horrible person for the death she brings when we've seen clarke do the same things. the only difference is that we've actually seen clarke regret her decisions and hold the weight of those actions on her shoulders for so many years. echo is a relatively new character, and we've only seen that remorse from her like twice. it's easy for audiences to then decide she's the bad guy and write her off.

i think the only problem is what we already know: echo doesn't know how to be alone without her king or master or whatever. this is the plot that the writers have highlighted for her to try and work through, yet we haven't seen her actually follow that yet, which raises questions and alarm bells because... her becoming a better person (or at least, them in a moment of peace on the ring) is what drew becho together. and the fact that she's stagnant as a negative character right now means that they could fall apart once bellamy is back.

i forgot she actually thinks he's dead right now, which ALSO makes a lot of her killing more out of pure vengeance than survival, and that could also give some bad vibes to audiences.

and oops I've lead back to ships again, but that was sorta my main premise. becho can't logically last long the more echo makes decisions that bellamy had been trying to go against (obviously before he was captured/"killed") since monty told them to do better. echo knows what bellamy would want, but she doesn't know how to follow the path he would take.

clarke, on the other hand, made decisions before that place the living above the dead. if she thought bellamy was dead again, she'd be purely focused on saving who she can now, and then cry about losses later (just like with her mother and just like when she thought he was dead back in season 5). bellamy did the same thing when he told echo they weren't going to take their revenge out on sanctum when clarke "died" because they were going to save who they could and stay alive. they have those aspects of themselves as leaders in common. this makes bellarke make sense over becho a little bit more.

not to be a total clown, but this is sorta how im navigating my way around the confusing things these characters do while also trying not to be anti-any characters.

again, feel free to disagree, and i respect it fully! i dont partake in ship wars or anything, this is just how im making my way through the story being told, from the main focus of who ends up with who, because it's more fun for me that way.

#ask #anon #the 100 #the 100 spoilers #the 100 season 7 spoilers #bellarke #anti becho #but again im not like anti anti anymore im just sorta like... it doesnt make sense to last forever lol #my posts

[callieshipman]

E-C-H-O and M-U-R-P-H-Y (you know I had to do it to 'em)

hi brain

E: If you wrote a sequel to [insert fic], what would it be about?

I answered this already for syotos, BUT I never let a story go, so I’ll answer this for five times echo. I could definitely write a fic exploring that actual relationship and Echo trying to navigate being part of an established family and romantic relationship. I’m sure there’s a lot to unpack there!

C: What character do you identify with most?

Shockingly to everyone, Monty. That gets a tad too personal to be unpacking here and I’m not gonna be Needy on Main so let’s leave it at Monty tries his goddamn best and deserves more

H: How would you describe your style?

answered here!

O:  How do you begin a story- with the plot or the characters?

answered here!

M: Got any premises on the back burner you’d care to share?

answered here!

U: A pairing you might like to write for, but haven’t tried yet.

do you realise the can of worms you’re gonna open with this question. you know me and my rarepairs! of course, i want to write some becho (and i’m doing it for the becho secret valentines!) but i’d also really love to write a murven fic

R: Are there any writers (fanfic or otherwise) you consider an influence?

answered here in terms of book authors, but also YOU are an author and we bounce ideas off each other so much that you definitely have a huge influence on a lot of my fics

P: Are you what George R. R. Martin would call an “architect” or a “gardener”? (How much do you plan in advance, versus letting the story unfold as you go?)

answered here!

H: How would you describe your style?

answered here!

Y: A character you want to protect

to reiterate this because i’ve seen one anti post too many today, SPACEKRU ALWAYS

#ask #answered #b-rainlet #guys i'm loving these #my writing

[blodreina-noumou]

Hey, I was just curious: Do you have any thoughts, meta, headcanons, et cetera, et cetera, for Echo and Octavia? I love reading all your others writes, so I was wondering if you had any for these two? :-)

Sorry it took me a couple days to respond, and thanks for being patient! Also - oh my goodness, this is one of the sweetest things anyone has ever said to me about my meta writings?? You gave me something new to chew on too, and I love that.

I see Echo and Octavia as foils. They have very similar arcs, if you break them down into basics - but each are defined by their choices, their losses, and how stable their homes are, especially during the time jump.

(More under the cut. This is a long one!)

Both grew up and came of age on the edges of their societies - Octavia as “the girl under the floor” and Echo as a young spy for Azgeda.

Both long for a home, for a place to belong, and don’t feel they have one until they fall in love with someone who they once viewed as an enemy.

Octavia finds her home with Lincoln, a grounder, when The Hundred are still very much so anti-grounder. In 2x15, Jackson implores Octavia to return home with him and the rest of Skaikru. Octavia, who thinks she’s about to lose her brother inside Mount Weather, and Lincoln to his clan’s brutal punishments for traitors, replies, “I have no home.”

Echo finds a place to belong with Bellamy and Spacekru, despite them being on opposite sides up until Praimfaya. She has a similar dark moment in 4x13 when she’s about to commit suicide and Bellamy interrupts her, telling her it would be easier to just step outside. She responds, “Go back to the sky where you belong, Bellamy. I belong nowhere.”

Both of them are fierce warriors, fighters - arguably the two strongest and most capable hand-to-hand combatants left in the human race. Both are loyal to their own people, whoever that might be in the timeline of the show, and are willing to break the rules and make ruthless choices for the sake of keeping those people alive. Neither is afraid of getting blood on her hands. Both were venerated within their own cultures for their exceptional ability at killing. Both eventually meet their downfall because of this ruthlessness and violence.

When the second Praimfaya comes, Echo is at rock bottom. She’s been cast out and stripped of her clan; she’s going to space, unheard of for a grounder, with a group of near strangers who were her enemies only days before. She’s alone, terrified, and about to enter an entirely new world.

Octavia, on the other hand, seems to be thriving. She finds redemption through winning the Conclave and saving all the tribes, creating Wonkru, uniting the clans in the way only a “true commander” was able to previously. She earns the veneration and respect of her people and becomes their leader. 

(Side note: I personally found her s4 arc a bit confusing and I’m not sure this redemption was actually earned - whether that was bad writing or a herald of darker things to come is up to interpretation. I side with bad writing. The way we whiplash from her spiraling out of control, trying to walk into the black rain, and then choosing a peaceful farm life with Ilian - only for her to become Champion and earn so much respect by shedding so much blood only two episodes later - is very jarring and conflicts with the show’s primary themes.)

By the time s5 comes around, we see they’ve switched. Echo has Spacekru, a dedicated and kind romantic partner in Bellamy, and a stable, safe home on the Ring, undoubtedly for the first time in her life. Octavia has become a lonely, violent, bloodthirsty tyrant through bearing burdens for her home and clan that no one else was willing to. Echo loses a clan, but finds her family. Octavia loses her family and gains a clan. In this case, neither clan is good for either character - Azgeda pushes Echo to be a manipulative, scheming person who betrays and misleads former allies and friends. Wonkru pushes Octavia to incredibly dark places, up to and including executing her people for refusing survival cannibalism.

The difference in their arcs, the defining trait that makes them foils, is that Echo finds love, while Octavia, still grieving Lincoln, rejects it. We can see the hope and tragedy in that. Prior to s5, Echo seemed irredeemable, while Octavia could apparently do no wrong. After the second Praimfaya, they switch, with Octavia doing brutal and violent things for the sake of her people, and Echo laying down her sword and her burdens as a spy for a peaceful, domestic life with her family and Bellamy.In 5x13, this dynamic plays out to its fullest extent. Octavia is humbled, torn down from her oppressive throne, and reminds herself of who she was before all of this began. “It’s kind of like closing the door in the floor, right?”Echo, meanwhile, remains steady within Spacekru and their allies, being an instrumental part of the victory in the gorge. She ends the season more or less where she began - because with Bellamy and Spacekru, she’s already the best version of herself.But where does that leave them in relation to each other at the end of s5? My biggest issue with s5 is that we were robbed of so many character interactions at the very end. If only we had seen more of Echo and Octavia together onscreen besides that very brief scene where Becho blocks her from approaching Madi in 5x13. Octavia has seen the love Bellamy has for Echo now, she knows how far he’s willing to go to protect her and the rest of his family. Will that help her accept Echo? Can Echo ever accept Octavia after how vindictive and vengeful Octavia was towards her?I am interested in where these two fierce warrior queens go from here. Bellamy is clearly so important to them both. Octavia has lost all power and ability to maintain the banishment she placed on Echo before the second Praimfaya. Echo has so many allies, from Bellamy to Spacekru, and Octavia has never been more alone. Will she be able to swallow her pride and accept Echo? I imagine that struggle to forgive and be forgiven will play into her arc next season.My favorite headcanon for them right now is that Echo, Octavia, and Diyoza become best friends on the new planet and form a bad bitches club where they talk shit about everyone else and practice sparring with each other, since no one else really wants to keep getting their asses kicked. Echo helps Octavia learn to “fight like Azgeda” and that phrase becomes a compliment instead of an accusation. Diyoza somehow finds more tequila and they all three spend a drunk night braiding each other’s hair (after the baby is born, of course) and talking about hardwon spars and battles of the past. Octavia and Echo become fiercely protective aunts of Diyoza’s baby, and they watch her together - but mostly, it’s Octavia nagging Bellamy into doing her part, so he can learn how to change diapers and swaddle, since she’s more excited than ever to be a “real” aunt to a cute little Becho baby.Thank you so much for the question, and sorry I wrote you a novel! I had a lot of fun doing it, and I hope you enjoyed it too!

#the 100 meta #stephspeaks #echo #octavia blake #echo kom azgeda #the 100 headcanons #long post #the 100 #asks #socialmediapath #mine

[voluntarydemise]

The 100 S3 Hiatus Diary

Once again, let me present to you a chronicle of our fandom’s most glorious hiatus moments. In truest hyperbole fashion we did not scale back after last year’s already impressive BS recordings. Here’s all the drama we managed to fit into the 257 days between the Season 3 finale on May 19, 2016 and the Season 4 premiere on February 1, 2017:

FYI: Entries are mostly focused on the Twitter fandom unless otherwise noted. Also beware, this diary deliberately generalises from the loud few to the many. 

Day 2: Emma Caulfield of EW writes a *love letter* bashing Bellamy into a verb and adjective. Half of the fandom cackles, other half is ready to “bellamy” her. 

Day 3: Ongoing belittling of Jasper’s PTSD in tandem with outrage from same people that show didn’t depict enough PTSD victims.

Day 6: #GiveBellamyBlakeABoyfriend circulates and is amusingly shared by lovers and haters.

Day 7: Kass Morgan is confronted with fandom members defacing and even burning her books. Because we are classy.

Day 10: Tumblr heats up when Johnny Depp beating Amber Heard gets compared to how Bellamy treats Clarke. Because bisexuality. Oh yes.

Day 11: Devon zings Harry Styles - and popstars in general - for trying to act. Somewhere Shawn Mendes cries a tear. 

Day 12: The Fandom-is-Broken article hits. Outrage everywhere, while our fandom is like “yup, sounds about right”. 

Day 15: Bob at Phoenix con says Bellamy wouldn’t have sided with Pike had Clarke returned earlier. Somehow he gets hate for that. Still unclear why. Most likely for no reason at all. 

Day 16: More Phoenix con: Bob utters word “YET”, causes avalanche. Emma Caulfield tweets her and Bob’s are besties now. Fandom responds in typical forgiving ways. 

Day 18: Tumblr has Brollexa gaining traction among BCers, the polyamorous turn it into Clexamy. Not appreciated by the CL fandom. Devon tweet-deletes, shits on cast members for making money off cons instead of donating to charity.

Day 21: Eliza and Bob get nominated for Teenchoice TV Chemistry. Disgust in CL fandom as entertaining as surprise in BC fandom. 

Day 23: Fan at Oz Comic Con asks Eliza about Chemistry nomination and gets booed. Bob speaks slloooowwwhhhuuurr to the iddiiiooootttss on twitter. Most likely entirely unrelated. 

Day 24: Eliza gets called fake/lost/drunk by BC fandom for voicing opinions about Bellarke. Beware of having opinions about ships.

Day 25: Bob replies to hate tweet. Backfires into him getting criticised for passive aggressively focusing on negativity only. 

Day 26: First hiatus hack! Eliza’s instagram. Leads to Alycia unfollowing her. Fandom entertained for a while. Plus the gem of someone comparing Lexa’s death to the Orlando shooting.

Day 28: Alycia cancels Brazil con. In a roundabout way it’s Bob’s fault.

Day 31: On the shipping front Bob  & Shampoo compete against Lexa & Bullet. Because why not. 

Day 33: Somehow BC fandom hits jackpot by criticising both Adina and Mike on same day. For not being pro-BC enough. Adina! Mike! 

Day 35: Layne Morgan attacks Ben Batemen for elevating himself to lgbt+ spokesperson. Fanbase first stunned, then divided. 

Day 37: Second hiatus hack! Layne’s phone. Apparently private numbers get leaked, some idiots message Jason’s wife.

Day 41: Third hiatus hack! (@)emiliascara hacks into Marcus Catsaras’ (Alycia’s boyfriend) icloud, finds footage of him cheating. Catsaras deletes his twitter/fb accounts. Because hell has no fury like a riled-up CL fandom.

Day 42: Lindsey jumps in to fight hackers, (@)morleydebnam jokes about hacking Lindsey.

Day 44: Hacker exposed as guy from Toronto (Michael Brand/Bahramian). 

Day 46: CL fandom overruns and impressively wins 9 of 11 E!Online polls. Still peeved over other fandoms bonding and voting against them. 

Day 48: Jarod speaks up after Alton Sterling shooting. Ends with him getting attacked over *representation* issues. 

Day 52: Eliza vs Alycia in Radiotimes quarter finals. Which fosters minor drama.

Day 56: Layne officially disinvited from clexacon. 

Day 57: Some panelists boycott clexacon after Layne’s exit. Meanwhile the gullible have a clickbait-freakout over O killing Bellamy. 

Day 58: Ben Bateman steps back from clexacon allies panel. (@)riserellamy makes it their mission to get all Arryn-haters blocked by Bob. 

Day 59: Eliza talks freely and excessively about Lexa and Clexa at Brazil Con. BC fandom really wishes she wouldn’t. 

Day 60: From the fanfic policing front: Author gets such harsh attacks for writing Lexamy they pull the fic. 

Day 61: S3 DVD is out! Deleted scenes reheat old rage. While Ricky retweets shade about him not being in the bloopers.

Day 62: #OlicityMafiaExposedClexaParty happens. CL fandom first fandom ever to cheat in a poll. 

Day 64: She said “ship”.

Day 65: Whole fandom aflame over the shit/ship debacle. Shit memes everywhere. Aaron doesn’t give a SHIT. Eliza probably avoids her mentions. Tumblr births Bellarke Drags. The best of days.

Day 66: clexasources promotes WB survey asking people to criticise show. Eliza shall be saved by cancellation. 

Day 67: ELSchaaf claims Eliza speaks condescendingly of Bellarke because she’s threatened by Bob’s popularity. Fandom appalled. In conjunction CLs figure out ELSchaaf is involved with Unity Days. 

Day 68: ELSchaaf on tumblr rampage, invites haters to call her names at con in person. Unity Days reacts swiftly and removes ELSchaaf. 

Day 70: Bellarke Shit necklace sparks controversy. 

Day 73: Wizard Con: Marie says Clarke has *nappy* hair which Eliza laughs at. Racism outrage in some fandom corners. 

Day 75: Jason’s SDCC talk about bi-Clarke getting “with everyone” resurfaces. Not the most well received. clexasources deactivates after Bob+Eliza photo post leads to attacks by followers.  

Day 78: Supposed insider troll Jason Blue stirs up rumour drama of Octavia dying. 

Day 82: Bellarke fanart repurposed as Braven fanart. Bob-birthday charity criticised for being organised by a BC shipper. 

Day 84: Pedowitz stands behind show at TCAs, does neither criticise nor cancel it on the spot, as some had hoped. 

Day 103: Fanfic policing, part 2: Bellamy goes down on Clarke in the commander’s throne. People - ignorant of the concept of *fanfiction* - are mad. 

Day 106: Eliza posts candid pic with guy-boy-friend. Apparently this makes her a lesser lgbt+ ally. 

Day 111: Fanfic’s blowjobgate! Briller&Harper fic on kinkmemes ignites long and nasty Bellarke fanfic community wars. Who gets to and with whom and with how many is not the author’s choice alone. 

Day 125: Tumblr aflame over Bellamy hating Aurora Blake, with usual shades of misogyny and racism. 

Day 130: HYPE article about ADC at Copenhagen Con calls out fans for slightly inappropriate fan behavior. More inappropriate fan behavior in reaction leads to article edits. 

Day 132: Kim retweets Fa Panini’s cute Becho fanart. BC fandom takes that as confirmation of things to come. Mild panic. 

Day 135: A clearly mangled and misrepresented SDCC comment about Clarke and love interest in S4 causes freakout. Because fandom will forever step into all clickbait traps willingly. 

Day 144: The usual bi-monthly kerfuffle about Clarke being forgotten as bi-rep in article. 

Day 145: Layne Morgan sick of TV bi girls ending up with men. Not that stats have discredited this stereotype at all. 

Day 155: Supposed insider troll Jason Blue claims insider cancellation knowledge. Insider arguments quickly debunked. 

Day 159: Photoshopped Variety tweet circulates, claiming show cancellation. Mo Ryan refutes it. 

Day 165: Lindsey stumbles into sexypilgrim drama. Apologises later for wishing people would get involved in causes beyond online outrage. 

Day 166: Press day! Drama day! Fandom-uneducated Nadia voices “Luna is stronger than Lexa”. She may forever feel the consequences. 

Day 167: Nadia tweets “Fiction”, deletes account. #NadiaDeactivatedParty follows. Eliza and later Arryn claim account is fake. Fandom thinks Eliza would rather lie than defend Nadia and her anti-Lexa statement. 

Day 170: Meanwhile in the fanfic warzone: “Bellamy rapes Lexa” gets countered with “Lexa castrates Bellamy”. 

Day 190: Bob reaches annual patience-for-twitter threshold, carries out annual twitter deactivation. States he was made to join. Fandom: lol, ok, see you in a bit. 

Day 199: Bellarke and Clexa both in same Hottest-Ships-of-the-Year list. But fandom can’t share nice things. 

Day 201: Guess who’s back on twitter, guys?

Day 216: BC-shipping jewellery artist called out for making money off Clexa art. Not allowed in the age of receipts. 

Day 219: In spirit of Christmas, Aaron issues Lexa apology. Fandom - less spirited - counters it’s 9 months too late, and never enough. 

Day 221: Katie affirms in slightly too bitter way that show is more than just Clexa. Bad move, girl.

Day 222: (@)bellamysbriller - whom Katie retweeted the day before - is exposed for catfishing and bullying. 

Day 228: More jewellery controversies, as jewellery donations to charities can only come from people who’ve never made controversial statements. 

Day 233: clexaspoilers surfaces, claims access to screeners, reveals Clexa parts. Fandom calls it baiting to make them watch, even though account claims now they DON’T have to watch. 

Day 238: BC fandom gets high on SHE HAS BELLAMY, and actually manages to trend for once. Stunning friends and foes alike.

Day 241: Unity Days report of Lindsey supposedly saying Bellarke is boring. Lindsey gets attacked and goes on twitter detox. BC fandom to blame.

Day 243: Fourth hiatus hack! Ricky’s phone. Beware of Ricky nudes. 

Day 245: Alycia’s management removes The 100 from “known for” section on IMDB. BCers shocked, CLs shrug. 

Day 248: BCers think 600 cookies might be helpful for show renewal. Laughs and eyerolls all around.

Day 249: S4 poster arrives. Cast, writers and fans partake in a who’s-who guessing game with silhouettes. Body shaming leads to #titsoutforeliza, someone leaks S4 callsheets and Funko whitewashes Raven and Bellamy. A busy day.

Day 252: CLs set up White House petition to get Jason fired. A single signature last we checked. 

Day 257: Final hiatus day: (@)the100leaked pops up to generously leak part of the Season 4 finale script and cause mass hysteria. Tadaaaaa! 

And that’s it! See you all next hiatus! Just kidding. I accept more entries, if you can link me to the evidence.

#The 100 #fandom drama #Fandom Diary #we love to drama