#jroth really put us through it

[yiangchen]

.

[terapsina]

6 Times Bellamy Tried to Forget That He Was in Love With Clarke (+1 Time He Couldn’t Anymore)

(canon compliant UNTIL IT’S NOT)

word count: 13.6k

status: complete

content: some of the bellarke greatest hits, all the seasons except the-one-that-shall-not-be-mentioned, and a happy ending because f*** you jroth.

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ao3

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1.

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The first time Bellamy tried to forget that he was in love with Clarke he wasn’t really even fully there yet.

She was still the Princess, though what he meant when he used that term had changed, it was no longer filled with scorn but layered with just a bit of fondness. She was no longer the privileged daughter of the Ark's councilwoman. No longer the threat to him and Octavia he saw her as in the beginning. She was his partner, the co-leader carrying half the weight of their people. She might even be his friend now, though he was uncomfortably uncertain if she thought of him as hers.

And since Unity Day he’d been just a little bit in love with her. It was hard not to be when someone said they needed you and gave you the forgiveness you'd never deserve. So yeah, he was a bit stupid about her.

It was fine though. It wasn’t that big of a deal, he was quite capable of putting that feeling in the back of his mind to be dealt with later. Once they were finally safe from the Grounders and didn't have to deal with an emergency requiring to choose between three terrible options twice a day. He'd see what to do with it then.

That was the plan and in his opinion, it was a pretty great plan, which worked right up until he found Raven waiting in his tent. “What are you doing in here?”

“They don’t waste time, I’ll give them that,” she said, her voice angry and heartbroken and something in his stomach sank sharply, the thing-he-didn’t-think-about twinged painfully at the back of his head. He held back the flinch but only barely and was not actually certain that Raven didn't notice it anyway because he was pretty sure he stopped breathing for three full heartbeats. His only hope was that she was too distracted by her own bleeding heart to see the slight cut in his. “What’s it been, a day and a half?”

“You’re mistaking me for someone who cares,” he said and inwardly grimaced at the way it came out more bitter than he’d have expected, “time to move on.”

She dropped down on his bed to shuck off her jacket.

“What are you doing?” he asked once Raven’s boots joined it. The question was rather pointless of course, it was pretty clear exactly what she was doing and why.

“Moving on.”

-

He slept with Raven more for her than himself - at least as far as emotions were concerned, physically he made sure it’d be a pretty even deal. He could see full well that she was hurting far more at the idea of where Clarke and Finn were and what they were doing right now than Bellamy. For him it was not so much jealousy as the persistent itch of disappointment, which was a surprise because he didn't even seriously entertain the idea that Clarke might like him back, there shouldn't have been any hope for her to crush.

But still, it was nowhere near as painful as the other things he'd lived through. It didn't come even close to what he’d felt when his mother was floated. When he’d spent a year unable to see Octavia. When Charlotte jumped. Or when he’d seen the sky burning with three hundred people that died because he was stupid and selfish and unwilling to look past his own fear until it was far too late.

And okay, this was a completely different kind of pain that wasn't really comparable to those other things but it was still clearly lesser and he could have just as well dealt with it by stealing some of Monty's moonshine. He would have been fine.

But Raven's offer was tempting and he did want to help her, - and well, it's not as if he was blind, Raven was gorgeous; it wasn’t exactly a hardship to let her fuck him even if it did end up being some of the most depressing sex he'd ever had.

When they were done and Raven was dressing with a single-mindedness that was almost a bit insulting, - head turned away, and putting on her discarded clothing like being naked was making her skin crawl now.

"Did that help?" he asked, it was more out of having nothing better to say than because he didn't know the answer.

"No," she said one foot already outside the door.

Yeah, he hadn't thought so. It hadn't really helped him forget either, so he wasn’t surprised to hear Raven's heart was as sore as it had been when she’d first thrown down that gauntlet by taking off her shirt. Especially because now that he was alone again his own mind went right back to fruitlessly trying to stuff all those very dangerous feelings - the ones he’d up to now done such a good job suppressing - back into that box to be forgotten again. He was so consumed with it he didn't even feel the half-expected bruise to his ego he might have otherwise been struck with.

-

When they finally figured out that something was wrong and went off with a search party to look for them - when they realized that Clarke and Finn had decidedly not been spending a romantic getaway away from the Dropship - he and Raven suddenly couldn’t quite manage to look at each other.

Which was beyond stupid, neither Bellamy nor Raven had anything to feel guilty about. And it's not like Clarke would even care.

They found Myles hiding between the roots of some kind of shrub. He was bleeding and barely conscious and as Raven dropped to her knees beside Octavia, trying to free Myles from the foliage covering him, Raven desperately asked after the two still missing. “Where are they? Clarke and Finn? Where are they?”

“Grounders took them,” Myles choked out hoarsely.

Bellamy’s heart stopped. Or at least that’s how it felt like for the next few moments as those words landed square across his chest.

He forced himself to swallow his first reaction back and focused on Myles. He couldn’t think about Clarke and Finn and what might be happening to them - what might already have happened - there was a kid here he could help, so that had to take priority.

“Easy there, we have to take him back to camp,” he said.

“Bell, what about Clarke and Finn?”

He didn’t know what to say to his sister but he looked at Raven and finally accidentally caught her eye. They both slowly got to their feet, still looking at each other, Bellamy felt bile at the back of his throat and by the look on Raven’s face, he wasn’t alone.

“Raven, I’m sorry,” he said and meant more than just Finn being missing.

Raven didn’t answer but there was a look on her face that he was certain was mirrored on his own. And he knew there existed a shared thought at the very front of their minds.

What had happened between them was never going to happen again.

Because God, the idea that Clarke might have been dying while he was in that tent was almost unbearable. The fact she might be dead right now was even more so. And he didn’t need to be able to read Raven’s mind to know she was feeling that same thing about Finn.

And this pain actually did register on that scale he’d been thinking about before.

He wished he could send out a search party like Raven wanted him to. But he knew what Clarke would have wanted, they didn’t have time to look for two people that were already more than likely dead when they were all about to be attacked by Grounders retaliating for their losses on the bridge.

He needed to be a leader right now, he couldn’t afford to be distracted by worry that wasn’t gonna do any good to anyone anyway.

-

There sounded a commotion by the gates and Bellamy was already running to confront whoever or whatever was waiting for him now - because of course even getting strung up by his neck by Murphy didn’t give him five-minute breathing room - when Miller’s voice echoed through the camp.  

“Wait! Hold your fire, it’s Clarke and Finn, open the gates!” Miller screamed from his watch position and relief crashed over Bellamy in a wave.

The first thing he saw as the delinquents pulled aside the sheets of scrap metal to let their two missing people in was Clarke running in front, scraped up but seemingly uninjured. He wished that the relief that overtook him was entirely selfish, that it had to do with the fact that he had his partner back and he wouldn’t have to carry the burden of their people’s lives all by himself. But that was crap.

It was vastly overpowered by the simple joy of seeing that Clarke was alright.

“Hey, we heard an explosion. What happened?” she fired out rapidly as soon as she was in front of him. Face serious and eyes focused entirely on Bellamy, - and it was something that had gotten to be so familiar to him that it almost felt like having her there was akin to getting back a missing limb.

He almost, almost fell to the instinct to pull her into his arms because he was just so damned glad that she was alive that the only thing that saved him was the fact Jasper got there first.

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2.

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The sun was so bright it was somehow almost physically painful. It shouldn't have been so bright and beautiful after they'd killed so many people. People who had helped them, children, who'd had nothing to do with anything.

He wondered if it would be easier walking back to Camp Jaha if the sky was as gray as the emptiness inside Bellamy. If that would somehow help with the sick feeling in the bottom of the stomach that should taste like regret but didn't. He couldn't feel regret for saving his friends. Pulling that lever... he knew it hadn't been the 'right' thing to do but it had been the only thing that was left.

And he couldn't have let Clarke pull it alone.

His eyes slid to his left, Clarke walked like she was in a dream - or a living nightmare - eyes straight ahead and with a faraway glaze to them. He knew he should be angry that she almost let his sister die, and he was, and under any other circumstances he would never have let it go but... these were not any other circumstances.

-

He looked up from the gate he was holding open for their people when they'd almost all finished walking inside. There were only Clarke and Monty left, exchanging a hug before Monty pulled away and joined the rest of the survivors of this latest adversity. He was pulling his knitted sweater tighter around himself and as he walked past Bellamy, he sent him a look that rattled something inside him. Bellamy's eyes followed Monty inside even as he finally joined Clarke.

"I think we deserve a drink." There was an edge of tension in his voice, an uncertainty he tried to bury but couldn’t quite hide. They’d won, it was over. And yet it felt like the walls they were yet to stand behind, were about to enclose on him.

"Have one for me,” she said and the metal jaws of the trap slammed closed around Bellamy.

"Hey, we can get through this,” he still tried, hoping beyond hope he could find something, anything to say that would stop Clarke from telling him the thing he was afraid to hear.

"I'm not going in.” The words were quiet, gentle, and no less a dagger that pierced his chest.

"Clarke. If you need forgiveness, I'll give that to you. You're forgiven."  Desperation was beginning to slip into Bellamy’s voice as he turned to look at Clarke, trying to put as much truth into his eyes as possible. Begging for her to listen. Those words had stopped him once from running, maybe they could stop her too. "Please come inside."

"Take care of them for me." But Clarke seemed to already be beyond his reach, the tears in her eyes blinding her to the way Bellamy was a hair’s breadth away from shattering.

"Clarke-"

"Seeing their faces every day is just going to remind me what I did to get them here.” And what was it going to do to him? To know that she was somewhere out there, alone and vulnerable and dealing with it alone?

"What we did." He’d pulled that lever with her, the blood wasn’t just on her hands, it wasn’t just her burden. "You don't have to do this alone."

She almost looked like she was considering it, letting his words sway her into staying. There was a heartbeat where Bellamy dared to hope, but then her face turned toward their people and he could see her swallow, her eyes filling with a painful kind of strength.

"I bear it so they don't have to,” she said like she was quoting something and he knew he’d failed, no words would sway Clarke now. He’d already lost her.

"Where are you gonna go?"

"I don't know," she said and then moved, pressing her lips against his cheek and making lightning stretch from that spot going inward, wrecking everything in its path. Her arms went around him and he pulled her as close as he could, already afraid of the moment she'd pull back.

"May we meet again," she whispered, her voice and his heart breaking in sync.

When Clarke pulled back it was as if his heart was being ripped from his chest with every inch of space she created between them.

"May we meet again."

-

The anger didn't come all at once. For the first two weeks, he was too consumed by shock and too busy with taking care of their people to have the time to be alone long enough to know what he actually felt. He was running around the camp making sure everyone had somewhere to sleep, arguing with the new council over the distribution of rations, and basically doing what Clarke had wanted him to do when she left.

The anger was gradual, it built with every person that asked him where Clarke was, with every person that asked when she'd be back.

Eventually what pushed him into letting it loose was Monty. This probably made sense, Monty had been in that room with them, and he was the only person other than Bellamy who had known that Clarke wasn’t going to cross those gates into camp. It’s both what had drawn them into something resembling a real friendship and what made it hard for Bellamy to look at him sometimes because every time they were in a room all Bellamy could think about was Clarke.

“We need to open trade with the Grounders. You have to convince them to listen,” Monty repeated for what felt like the hundredth time. “Clarke would have wanted us to-”

“Well, Clarke’s not here!” Bellamy snapped.

Monty fell quiet, a look in his eyes like he knew exactly what had made Bellamy lose his composure. It was probably sympathy but what it felt like was, pity. 

He had no interest in dealing with it or talking about it either way. What would be the point? He already knew what was wrong, and discussing it wouldn’t fix anything. So he stood up and left toward the place in the camp that had been created as the communal dining hall but very quickly turned into an impromptu pub.

-

He met Gina there that same night. He’d been brooding in a corner for what felt like hours, avoiding the other delinquents and snapping at anyone that tried to start up a conversation, when someone dropped a glass of something in front of his downed head.

“Fuck off,” was all he was willing to say.

There was the pointed sound of a throat clearing and he finally pushed up his face to see which of their kids he’d have to get rid of this time.

It wasn’t one of his friends in their attempts to get Bellamy to stop moping, it was the pretty bartender who somehow kept managing to keep her clients in line despite how rowdy and loud the evenings in the pub got.

She was staring at him, utterly unimpressed.

“Sorry,” some surviving corner of his manners demanded him to say “I’m Bellamy Blake.”

“Don’t be a dick, Bellamy Blake,” she threw back just as quickly, using her finger to slide the glass he was now pretty sure contained water, closer to his face. “I’m Gina Martin.”

-

He didn’t start dating Gina to get over Clarke. He actually spent quite a lot of effort into making sure that Gina and Clarke would take up completely separate corners of his mind.

He started dating Gina because he liked her. She was sweet and funny and took absolutely no shit from him and he needed that. He dated her because they had fun together and it was right about the only thing that made him feel like he was doing more than just... waiting. She was good for him. Or as Raven liked to point out - often and repeatedly - too good for him.

And he couldn’t exactly say that Raven was wrong.

Because it turned out that when your partner broke your heart and left you behind after you’d both committed genocide, you didn’t come out of it without a few scratches in whatever passed for their souls now.

And Gina helped. So loving Gina was easy.

He just wished it was just as easy to fall in love with her too. Or to fall out of love with the girl whose kiss stung his cheek every time he closed his eyes.

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3.

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Seeing Clarke as he followed Octavia into the room made the ground underneath him quake like it did every time he saw her anew. As if Clarke was the axis on which his world turned.

It hurt so much to know - on some deep, untouched level - that this would always be the case, like it didn’t matter that Clarke had chosen the Grounders over her own people, over him; that it didn’t matter how deep his grief for Gina and how wide his hatred for the people who killed her. His eyes met Clarke’s and his heart shook.

It was simply a law written into the atoms of his universe.

“Go easy on Octavia. I had to beg her to get me into camp.” Clarke looked like a stranger, garbed in dark leather that made her look like one of them. Black coal might no longer be smudged under her eyes as it had been when she’d asked him to leave her behind, but the hair twisted into matted braids still reminded him so much of Lexa’s own regal form, that something ugly coiled through his belly all the same.

“What are you doing here, Clarke?” Bitterness simmered within him and he felt every breath like sharp daggers which scraped against his chest cavity.

“We need to talk.”

Did they? Now that she wanted it but not any of the times he’d tried to? Not when it might have made a difference?

“Oh, you've decided that. The mighty Wanheda. Who chose the Grounders over her own people, who turned her back on us when we came to rescue you? Now you want to talk.” It was so hard, looking at her and seeing two versions of the young woman he loved. The one who begged the Ice Nation prince not to kill him in exchange for compliance. And the one who stood at Lexa’s side like none of the things they’d survived mattered.

“I came here to tell you that the Ice Nation has paid a price.” Clarke’s voice was so even. Like this was a negotiation and Bellamy was just the latest pawn that needed to be moved. “Justice has been served for the attack on Mount Weather. I came here to tell you it's over.”

His lips twisted in some harsh version of amusement. “There it is again. Why do you get to decide it's over?”

“We did our part,” she said, and he felt the last of his calm fraying.

“We?” there hadn’t been a ‘we’ since she’d vanished for months without so much as a word that she was still alive.

“Lexa and I,” she said and he felt the sentiment hit him like barbed wire, ripping into his skin and leaving him bleeding somewhere beneath her notice. “The Ice Queen is dead. The problem was solved and then you let Pike ruin everything.”

He couldn’t listen to her, it was too hard, all he could hear was the roar of the explosion which had killed Gina and so many others. And any ability he’d had to hear Clarke out vanished at yet more proof that Bellamy meant nothing.

“Why are you here, Clarke?” He let go of his crossed arms and narrowed the gulf between them in a few steps. He was so tired. He wanted her to say her piece and leave him be.

“Arkadia needs to make things right or Lexa and the twelve clans will wipe us out.” And yet she still thought that Lexa could be trusted? Even after everything? Or was it just that Clarke cared about the Heda and wanted to protect her from losing face?

He hated how much the idea burned. He hated that he couldn’t even remain loyal to Gina’s memory for a few weeks. That so much of his heart still belonged to Clarke that knowing hers might be Lexa’s ripped into his own with a blow he didn’t know how to patch back together. Or if he even could.

“Let her try.” His voice had gone cold.

“Please tell me that going to war is not what you want.” Now she looked at him like she couldn’t even recognize his face. He turned his head away and then back, letting the silence stretch as for a moment he found himself unable to say anything.

“We've been at war since we landed. At least Pike understands that.” It was an excuse, he knew it was just a meaningless platitude that did nothing to convince even himself when he let himself think on it. And yet he didn’t want Clarke to see his doubt. If she saw his weakness she’d exploit it in a heartbeat.

"Pike is the problem.” She seemed finally to lose her temper. Good. It was easier to remain angry when she was too. “This isn't who you are.”

“You're wrong. This is who I've always been,” he said, memory full of the people who had already been on his conscience long before this latest event had washed him in blood once more. “And I let you and Octavia and Kane convince me that we could trust these people when they have shown over and over who they are and I won't let anyone else die for that mistake.”

“Bellamy, I need you,” he felt the words like a gut punch “and we don't have much time.”

“You need me?” The sheer lie of it felt like an insult all on its own.

“Yes, I do. I need the guy who wouldn't let me pull that lever in Mount Weather by myself.”

“You left me,” he reminded her. “You left everyone.”

“Bellamy-” there were tears in her eyes now but he couldn’t let himself believe them. Not anymore.

“Enough, Clarke!” he snapped, nearly yelling. “You are not in charge here and that's a good thing because people die when you're in charge.”

A part of him couldn’t quite believe what he was saying and yet he couldn’t make himself stop, tears beginning to build in his eyes and his heart stuck in his throat. “And you were willing to let a bomb drop on my sister. Then you made a deal with Lexa who left us in Mount Weather to die and forced us to kill everyone who helped us. People who trusted me.”

 “I-”

He turned away from her, unable to look at Clarke just now. Giving himself a moment, just a moment to feel just how betrayed by her he felt.

“I'm sorry.” When he turned around Clarke was sitting, like his words had cut her at the knees. “I'm sorry for leaving. But I knew I could because they had you.”

Her sincerity cut into him just as deeply and he felt himself waver. Her face twisted into agony and he saw her shoulders beginning to shake into quiet sobs.

Going to her, dropping to his knees in front of her wasn’t a choice, her tears sliced into him ruthlessly and Bellamy just couldn’t stand there and watch Clarke cry. He took her arm, running his thumb over her wrist, trying to soothe away her tears.

When she looked at him her eyes shone with faith and for a fraction of a moment Bellamy almost gave in. She smiled and it was like the sun rising across the horizon.

“I know we can fix this.” But her ‘we’ no longer included Bellamy and the reminder shook him loose.

“I'm sorry, too,” he choked out and moved before she had time to do more than blink, handcuffing her to the table.

She made a sound like he’d pierced her with a blade.

“Hey! No, don't, no. Bellamy, don't.“ her voice begged at him through new sobs as he stood, shook off her hold, and left. Buried his heart back under the avalanche of grief and darkness. He couldn’t let Gina’s death mean nothing, and he couldn’t betray her by letting his foolish heart follow someone to whom Bellamy meant so little. It was bad enough he’d never stopped loving Clarke when Gina had still been alive. If he couldn’t do so even now...

He had to.

-

The realization of exactly how far into the pit of darkness he’d let himself fall because of his rage and guilt made Bellamy certain he’d never see light again. Not that he deserved to, not after what had happened to Lincoln.

He saw Clarke approach from the corner of his eyes, the rest of him still facing the nothingness of the dark water washing against the shore at night, and he struck a preemptive blow out of ugly habit.

“Let me guess, you came here to fix things. Wanheda, the peacemaker.” He said the words but didn’t know if he even meant them anymore. If he’d proven anything it was that she'd been right to stand against him.

“I came to see if you were okay.”

“Well, I don't need your help.” He didn’t deserve her help, he’d all but lost his rights to that when he’d taken her hand and instead of making peace had let his thirst for vengeance - and his jealousy if he was honest at least with himself - make him into an even bigger monster than he’d been already. He looked toward his sister, stalking around the fire like fury incarnate, and felt another piece of himself breaking. “Clarke. I've lost her.”

Clarke’s eyes when she turned to look at him were far kinder than Bellamy had any right to yearn for.

“Give her time, Bellamy,” she said and he wished he could believe that, but he knew his sister too well to truly expect that time alone would do anything but deepen the chasm between them. Octavia had loved Lincoln far too much. He only need imagine how he’d have reacted if Clarke had been the one to die and his sister to blame, to know this would not be something that was easily buried. “There may be blood on your hands but it's not Lincoln's.”

“Some of it is,” there was no escaping that. Bellamy had tried to save him, he had, but without Bellamy’s mistakes, Lincoln would still be alive today.

“Maybe,” she sounded more like she was humoring him than as if she truly agreed. “But you didn't want that to happen. You tried to stop it. Octavia will forgive you eventually. The question is, will you forgive yourself?”

He looked toward his sister again and watched as she fed more wood to the signal fire; could feel her rage even with the distance between them.

“Forgiveness is hard for us,” he admitted and looked at Clarke again, feeling his heart clench in his chest. “I was so angry at you for leaving. I don't want to feel that way anymore.”

It wasn’t Clarke’s fault that he loved her and she didn’t. Or that she’d been unable to share the burden of her pain over what they’d done inside that mountain with him, just because he’d have found it easier with her at his side. It was time to accept things that couldn’t be changed.

His sister might hate him until the day she died. He wasn’t able to turn his feelings for Clarke off despite how hard he tried or how much guilt he felt. And Clarke would never love him as he loved her.

“You know, you're not the only one trying to forgive yourself. Maybe we'll get that someday.” He wiped his eyes free of the tears which were beginning to fall, unable to do anything other than listen to her. “But we need each other, Bellamy. What we're doing now, the only way we're gonna pull this off is together.”

She stared at him for a minute, hesitating in place - like she wasn’t sure she was welcome - and then wrapped her arms around his shoulders like she’d done when she’d left, pressing her chin into his shoulder. He felt his insides twist into a knot and then loosen as he pressed his face into her hair, breathing in her scent and letting it soothe the pain of everything else.

Even his resignation to his injured heart.

---

4.

---

It was strange how much could change in so little a time. And how little was truly different at all. They were trying to be ready to survive a second global apocalypse and making deals with the Azgeda. But they were also hoping that Raven's brilliant mind could make their desperate plans into reality for the hundredth time. All while Octavia still would not respond with anything other than rage and disgust at his presence.

Bellamy had known that it was unlikely that his sister would forgive him, not ever probably and certainly not so soon, and yet hearing her tell him that she was no longer Octavia at all - that Bellamy had killed her alongside Lincoln - cracked him open; made him hear his mother's disappointed voice somewhere near the back of his head telling him he'd failed in the most important task she'd ever given him.

His sister. His responsibility.

"I'm gonna take the Rover back to camp," he said once he felt Clarke joining him by the bank of the river.

"Octavia?" she guessed as she stood beside him.

"It's pathetic, right? She hates me but I keep coming back for more." When Bellamy wasn't careful he'd still feel her hard blows against his face, feel Octavia's hot tears hitting his split flesh as she sobbed above him, her heart visibly cracked down the middle and bleeding her dry to a point where it became just a calcified shell that had once been a vital organ.

There were moments - the darkest of them - when he thought he'd seen her hovering over the thought of going further, of hitting harder and never stopping.

If Bellamy had the power for it, he'd exchange his life for Lincoln's in a second just so that Octavia would never have had to feel what she'd felt that day. But he could no more do that than he could stop Praimfaya.

“She's your sister. She's blood,” Clarke said clearly trying to reassure him “She'll come around and see how special you are.”

She wasn’t quite looking at him as she said it and that managed to make just a tiny bit of long abandoned hope spark alive inside him. This might be a terrible time for it, but he might never get another chance. And suddenly he just wanted to say it, just once, so that it would finally be out there.

He loved Clarke. Was in love with her, really.

And at this point, he didn’t even really care if she felt the same or if he was simply her best friend, after all his mistakes it was far too much of a miracle that she still cared about him at all for there to be any resentment in him at not being something more to her.

But she deserved to hear the words, to know that there would be someone out there who would love her, with all they had, for as long as they lived.

“Clarke… If I don't see you again…” the confession was on the very tip of his tongue.

“No. You will,” she interrupted him so quickly it was instantly clear she must know what he was about to tell her and didn’t want him to finish.

It felt like she’d seen the doors to his heart slipping open and had responded by slamming them shut in a panic, jamming them closed with a loose pipe so that nothing spilled out.

It was all he could do to stay still and not let any of the pain that had suddenly seared into his veins show up in his eyes.

-

This time his attempt to forget how he felt was halfhearted at best. And pointless.

Raven had already once - an eternity ago now - taught him that it wouldn’t help. But the world was ending and Clarke still loved Lexa, and it was far too easy to join Jasper in his nihilism, join their party to dance with Bree, and then fuck her in her quarters - her blonde hair lacking the waves he dreamed about but in a shade that was nearly right - to close his eyes and pretend it was what he actually wanted.

When he later learned that Clarke had spent her night putting her life at risk and nearly boiled her own blood in the attempt to become a Nightblood to take the place of Murphy’s girlfriend, - saved only by Abby's love for her daughter - he nearly felt like laughing in self-deprecation.

The more things changed the more they stayed the same.

It wasn’t funny - it was the very opposite of that - but he was sure Raven would have laughed at him too. Laughed and then called him a fucking idiot.

---

5.

---

Bellamy’s world was bright with hope for the future.

Five years on the Ring waiting for the radiation to become survivable with Clarke and their friends while his sister stayed down in the bunker was nothing. After reaching something nearly like peace with Octavia, a thing he’d been certain would never happen, being parted by something as simple as distance, was a gift.

“So let's go over this again. I figure two months until the algae farm produces enough food to feed us. If we ration the MREs, we should get there.” Clarke was working on the math again, he wanted to remind her that they’d have plenty of time for that later but he knew that she wouldn’t be able to turn off her brain until they were all strapped in and ready for liftoff - probably not even then, still calculating all angles even as they left Earth behind them - so he didn’t even try.

Instead, he stared down at Echo and Emori as they worked to fill their shuttle with all the things they’d be able to carry with them into space.

It was hard to trust them, especially Echo, in whose hands his trust had once killed Gina.

"Grounders in space,” he said, fingers tapping against the metal handrail and a feeling of disquiet heavy within him. He felt Clarke join his side but didn’t yet look at her “it's an oxymoron.”

“Survival's a team sport, especially up there. It was the only choice.” Logically he understood that and even beyond that he didn’t want to slip into the same mindset that Pike had used once to further incite Bellamy into committing an atrocity. But still, it was hard after all the things they’d lived through. “Only choice, also an oxymoron, by the way.”

She smiled at him and as was always the case he felt his own lips pulling up at the corners helplessly.

She looked a mess, exhausted and overworked, her face damp and shiny with sweat that glued her hair to the sides of her face. In a word, beautiful.

“So is cold sweat.” He moved his hand and pushed some of the more stubborn strands a little further away from her eyes. He didn’t even think about it, following the reflex to touch her without facing the familiar flinch of doubt. It was probably that he knew they’d have time to breathe up on the Ark where there would be no enemies for them to fight against anymore. They might even have time to talk if she wanted; if she was ready to listen. But he put those thoughts away for now and grew a little more serious. “Still holding out hope for that nightblood solution.”

If nothing else then maybe they’d be able to come down sooner than five years.

“There was never any solution. ALIE was right about that.” It sounded like she’d surrendered to the failure.

“Our fight is not over,” he said at once, pushing for her to see what he wasn’t saying. He had faith in her.

“My mom had a vision of me dying,” she said and he forced his face into remaining unconcerned even as something inside him turned over in rebellion. That wouldn’t happen so he refused to let even a hint of terror float upward. “Just like the one Raven had that told her there was a rocket here.”

“It is not the same thing,” he said. It wasn’t. There was a difference between leftover code that let Raven access some kind of information storage of ALIE’s and seeing the future. 

“Yeah. They were both EMP'd.” 

“And Abby will be fine, too. Raven told her how to stop it,” he tried to reassure her.

“That's not what I'm talking about.” Clarke seemed frustrated with him. “If anything happens to me-”

No, he wasn’t listening to this.

“Nothing is happening to you,” he told her before she asked him to promise her something that would utterly destroy him. He stepped away from her, walking back toward the line of computers, hoping she’d get distracted by the preparations again. “Come on. Let's run these water numbers again.”

“Please, Bellamy, I need you to hear this.” Her voice had grown higher and he turned his face away from her, feeling hunted, cornered like an animal that knew any flinch of movement might be its last. But it seemed he was unable to deny Clarke anything anymore, so he breathed in painfully before coming back to face her. Her eyes were filled with something he couldn’t put a name on, or maybe something he didn’t trust himself to name. “We've been through a lot together, you and I. I didn't like you at first - that's no secret - but even then, every stupid thing you did, it was to protect your sister. She didn't always see that, but I did. You've got such a big heart, Bellamy.”

He felt something inside him stagger at that look in her eyes. The heart she was describing suddenly tripping over itself.

“Clarke-”

But she wouldn’t let him interrupt her.

“People follow you. You inspire them because of this,” and she placed her hand on his chest over his heart. He wondered if she could feel it beating against his ribcage so hard he was nearly afraid it would break through, “but the only way to make sure we survive is if you use this, too.”

And her hand moved to his temple, resting there so gently, it hurt.

He shook his head, unable to take in her words, unwilling to entertain even the idea behind what she was suggesting.

“I got you for that,” he said.

But she swallowed, the last traces of her smile vanishing into smoke.

“Raven's premonition came true,” Clarke continued, - nodding even as Bellamy shook his head into denial again, - and looked like there might be more she wanted to say when they were disturbed by the sound of electricity sparking and a startled, pained yell.

-

“Come on, Clarke,” he whispered, eyes on the doors, trying with every single cell in his body to somehow will Clarke into appearing. He needed her to make it on time, he needed it more than he’d ever needed anything.

He’d written her name onto that terrible paper they’d never ended up needing to use just to avoid a moment like this one. If he was on that list, she was supposed to be right there beside him.

He didn’t want to survive without her.

“Bellamy,” Raven said, her voice heavy with awful meaning. The sand clock was quickly running out of sand and there was no more time. Bellamy felt every metaphorical grain of that sand smashing into his chest like hailstones.

“I know, Raven.”

Just a few more seconds, just a little bit more time.

“The radiation's already affecting the avionics. It's now or never.”

He felt like he was forcing his hand into his own chest, taking his beating heart into a fist, and as he turned around, dropping it on the ground behind him. Like he knew that he couldn’t afford to wait any longer, but that his heart could stay there behind him, marking the way for Clarke. It could wait there, it could wait there as long as it took for Clarke to come back, it could wait there for eternity if it needed to.

But Bellamy had to leave.

-

The first two years were hell.

Every breath drove spikes into him. He dreamed about Clarke every time he went to sleep, and knew that as soon as his head hit the pillow it was only a matter of time until he could see her.

In his dreams, she came up into space with him. Or he stayed down with her as Praimfaya consumed them both. Sometimes they had time to get back to the bunker. To join his sister and her mother underground.

He didn’t care which dream would come, only that he’d be with her again.

For a little while. Until he had to wake up.

For two years he refused to forget Clarke, to forget a single thing about her. He held on to the sound of her voice, - coarse like she had a cold and she’d just drunk tea with honey in it. He held on to the way she’d sometimes - so rarely it was all the more precious for it - smile like there was sunlight under her skin. To the way it had felt when she pressed her face into his shoulder the first time she’d hugged him, slammed into him from out of his blindspot, and embraced him like holding him was the only thing that had mattered. To how brave she was, always. To the way she never stopped believing in Bellamy, even when he stopped believing in himself.

Memories were all he had left of her, so he refused to forget them.

But she’d given him his orders. He was the head without his heart now and so he did what he had to, to survive.

Instead of waiting all day until he could sleep, he began finding ways to stave it off. Walking the corridors of the Ring like he was still a rookie cadet on a patrol. Training with Echo in hand-to-hand combat until he was too tired for dreams to come. And then later, once another year had passed, he staved off sleep in other ways.

With Echo. It didn’t start out because of any particular feelings, it was just the process of elimination. Not Monty or Harper because they had each other. Not Murphy or Emori because despite the way their relationship had eventually broken in the isolation, Bellamy would rather float himself than get in the middle of that. And not Raven, because that old, shared thought had never wavered between them, they would never go there again.

So it was Echo.

And he did grow to care about her. She, like all the rest of them, became Bellamy’s family. His old hatred just didn’t have enough air to survive up in space now.

But the truth was that the only way he was able to do as Clarke had asked, was by burying his heart in the same grave she rested in. So despite how he came to love Echo, or as close to loving her as he was still capable of - his heart was never hers, it couldn’t be.

So it was two years of hell and then four years that slowly transformed into a paler, lesser version of contentment as they at first waited for the radiation to reach survivable levels and then began working tirelessly to find a way to fix their way down.

In the end, they'd somehow miraculously found a new way. But they did reach Earth again, which was all that mattered.

And then his long-buried heart crashed like a comet back into his chest as the young Grounder girl who’d come out of the darkness killing the men who’d been about to shoot them all, looked up at him with awe and spoke the impossible.

“Bellamy?” she said with a sudden smile that seemed filled with relief “Clarke knew you would come.”

The universe twisted around him as reality overwrote six years of unprocessed grief and then righted. His heart really had been left here behind him, waiting.

“Clarke’s alive?”

---

6.

---

He’d done a lot of terrible things in his life but as Madi fell back into Gaia’s hold and failed to open her eyes moments later, he wondered if this might end up being the worst of them.

“Clarke woke up right away.“ He stared at the young girl in Gaia’s arms and teetered in place, feeling everything inside him plummeting to the ground. He rushed closer to Madi’s side, falling to one of his knees. “Wh-why-why isn't she waking up?”

"Patience,” Gaia told him in that calming way she had which never failed to remind him of Luna, though this time the tone didn’t do much to assure him or to loosen the stone from its weight on his conscience. If Madi died. If he’d killed her- he shuddered, horrified by the thought. The chip wasn’t meant to hurt her. “The Flame affects every commander differently. Help me.”

He grabbed Madi’s legs and helped Gaia put her atop the altar. Trying to fight off his fear, to ward off the echoes of the pleading and the screams Clarke had thrown at his back when he’d left her behind in the cells.

He wondered if Madi would be right in her words on how Clarke would never forgive him.

”You said you've never done this before.” So how could she be certain that Madi would be fine? Had this really been his only choice? Or had Bellamy fallen once again in thinking himself right when the consequences that followed ended up proving him a fool?

"I haven't, but I've been preparing for it my whole life.” Gaia sounded so certain he tried to grab onto her faith.

She reached for something from beside Madi and lifted her head to enclose it around her neck.

“This collar will protect the Flame.”

Bellamy was staring at the firelight reflecting on Madi’s small face, wishing she’d open her eyes when they were found. Octavia’s men, Miller among them, rushed into the Ascension room, audibly readying their weapons for fire.

“Back away from the child right now,” Miller ordered as Bellamy and Gaia turned to face them, raising their arms in ingrained reflex.

And there Clarke was, moving around the men and freezing in place once her eyes landed on Madi. Then her gaze switched between her daughter and Bellamy while he was forced to see her hope of getting here in time to prevent the Flame from being implanted - and so marking Madi as the new Commander - die in her eyes.

Clarke walked toward Bellamy unsteadily, still staring at him, face twisted into pain, and as soon as she reached him - before Bellamy could say anything; before he could even part his lips for sound - he felt her hand slapping the side of his face so hard his head turned.

And still, she said nothing, just shook her head minutely. As if there were no words in her for him anymore, and never might again.

His heart cracked.

Clarke’s gaze went back to Madi and she rushed forward. “I need to get it out.”

“Clarke, no,” Gaia interrupted at once. “The Flame is bonding with her mind. If you take it out now before it's complete she may never wake up.”

It was then that Octavia entered Bellamy’s sight and despite everything he felt himself breathe out in relief. Monty’s algae hadn’t killed her, he wouldn't have to live with his sister’s blood on his hands.

”Quiet, traitor.” Octavia- Blodreina said, voice harsh. “Do it, Clarke.”

"If you kill this child, you make her a martyr.” Gaia threw back, her voice filling with the first traces of true hatred. “You weaken yourself even more.” 

"I can't,” he heard Clarke whisper - voice breaking on the last word - and had to close his eyes to stop himself from looking at her. Inherently knowing that she didn’t want his eyes on her right now.

Octavia’s already stony face hardened.

"Take them to the Rover,” she ordered her guards. “Go.”

"No.” Gaia tried protesting.

"O,” Bellamy said, the old nickname slipping out reflexively and moved toward her hoping to reach the sister within the Red Queen, the guards cocked their guns and his steps faltered.

It was Miller whose gun was pointed straight at Bellamy’s face, expression uncompromising, and he felt a sting of hurt at yet another sign of this change in his old friend.

Another one of the guards carried Madi past Bellamy, Clarke right on their heels. She slowed only for a moment, eyes meeting Bellamy’s for a fraction of a second before she turned her face from him. Leaving him behind to face Blodreina’s justice.

”Arrest the traitors.”

-

Bellamy couldn’t make himself look at Clarke, it hurt far, far too much. If he’d known that she was alive those entire six years he may have prepared himself to face a Clarke to whom he meant so little that she could leave him to die. Maybe.

He’d at least have been prepared for the vast space which seemed to have grown between them - a space he hadn’t felt at all during that initial moment when their eyes had met for the first time in years when he’d had Madi drive him to negotiate with Diyoza and hostage the lives of two-hundred-and-eighty-three of Diyoza’s people for Clarke. At that moment it hadn’t felt like any time had passed at all for Bellamy.

Or no, he supposed he’d felt every second of those six years where he'd have done anything, absolutely anything, to bring Clarke back. And finding himself only feet apart had meant he’d be willing to fight demons or to become one himself so that he’d be able to bring Clarke home.

He’d felt as if he’d become Orpheus of Thrace, there to make a deal with Hades.

He should have known then to prepare himself for the worst. Making deals with gods had never ended in anything but tragedy, and receiving their gifts always came with the highest of prices.

There came the sound of light footsteps going down the ramp behind him and then Madi walked into the edge of his sight line as she joined him in staring toward the horizon, awaiting his friends.

“You have to forgive her,” Madi told him with the stubbornness inherent in children.

“Now's not the time, Madi,” he said, not wanting to talk about it. He’d rather hide his bruised and battered heart deep within and out of view.

But when had Bellamy ever gotten what he wanted?

“Do you have any idea how much she cares about you?” Madi’s voice filled with a certainty that made Bellamy hurt even more. Which was impressive as he hadn’t thought that even possible.

“So much she left me to die in a fighting pit,” Bellamy turned toward the girl and did his best to keep his voice even. Despite his effort though, there was bitterness dripping acid at the back of his throat and coloring his words.

“That was a mistake,” Madi threw back and there was a sudden glint in her eye which promised him she’d just come up with something clever that was about to disembowel him. “How many mistakes did you make to protect the child you loved?”

The hit landed like a well-aimed Trikru arrow.

“That was different,” Bellamy tried but felt the rigid righteousness of his argument turn into sand which began slipping through his fingers.

He’d committed many, many mistakes to protect Octavia, some that haunted him even to this day. But Octavia was his sister.

And Madi was Clarke’s daughter. If there was a difference did it even lean in Bellamy’s favor?

“Was it?” Madi asked pointedly as if she could read the waver in his conviction “I shouldn't tell you this, but when you were on the ring, she called you on the radio every day for six years.”

He’d been right, his organs seemed to clench like flesh receiving an electric shock and then vanishing. There was a distant thought telling Bellamy that if he were to look down and see them spilled out, rolling across the grass by their feet, he wouldn’t even blink in surprise.

“You didn't know that, did you?”

All Bellamy could do was stare at Madi, lips parting but no sound coming.

And like a compass yearning for the Earth’s magnetic pole, Bellamy’s eyes found Clarke. She’d been looking at him before he turned, he knew because he managed to catch her eye for the second it took before Clarke moved her gaze off.

That second lasted long enough to read her regret though. And her pain.

He’d hurt Clarke. And then she’d hurt him.

And none of that changed anything because his heart, now burning inside his chest with his own guilt, reminded Bellamy that it was still waiting and that the name seared into it was still hers.

---

+1

---

Being in the same room as Josephine Lightbourne made Bellamy’s insides twist into knots. He breathed deeply, feeling his sanity fraying like a worn rope that was destined to snap in half.

He wanted to let it snap in half.

He wanted to dig his fingers into the back of Clarke’s skull and rip Josephine out, smash her chip under his boot, twist his heel until plastic turned into dust.

“What about the mother and child, will they agree?”

“I’ll handle our people,” he said, feeling like he was running lines in a play. Pantomiming the character he was supposed to be playing while in reality he just wanted to smash all their faces into a bloody paste. “How long will it take to build?”

Bellamy wanted to burn Sanctum to the ground and cut the throats of every Prime.

And the only reason he wasn’t, was because Clarke would want him to protect their people - to protect Madi most of all.

But that was the rational part of him, and that part did not at all want to stay in control when he was in the same room as Clarke’s corpse. A corpse that was walking and talking and breathing the air that was meant to be Clarke’s.

Josephine cleared her throat and he clenched his jaw, fighting off the urge to cross the room, lock his fingers around her throat and squeeze.

“Just a moment, sweetheart,” said Russell Lightbourne, his eyes busy running over the plans they were going through.

Bellamy’s eyes kept falling on and then flinching away from Josephine. Again and again. As his heart longed for one last look at Clarke’s face so that he could memorize her, and then recoiled because it wasn’t Clarke he was looking at.

But then movement caught his gaze and his attention narrowed. He heard Russel say something but the words lost meaning before reaching Bellamy’s ears.

Josephine was tapping her finger against the side of her crossed arms. Short, long. A pause. Short, long, short, short. Pause. Short, short.

He pulled up his notebook. Dots and dashes were scrawled without blinking or looking down, eyes glued to Josephine’s hand. Short, short, short, long. That pause. Short.

“Bellamy!” Russell called out, seeming to notice Bellamy’s distraction. “Bellamy? Are we agreed?”

Adrenaline spiked.

“Yeah,” he said, forcing himself to join the moment again. “We’re good. For now.”

“I’ll order construction to begin,” Russell said, sounding pleased, something that just seconds ago would have made Bellamy clench his hands into fists that would have demanded to be smashed into the man’s face.

“Let’s go,” Bellamy said instead, gesturing at Miller to follow.

They left the Lightbournes behind them and as soon as he and Miller were away from their eyes, he stopped trying to fight off the encroaching euphoria.

“Hey, remember when Pike taught us Morse code?” he asked in a whisper as soon as the doors closed behind them.

Miller blinked rapidly as if Bellamy had just transferred him back in time to some memory of his father asking him if he’d been paying attention in school. “I slept through most of Earth skills so...”

“Okay,” Bellamy nodded not really paying attention. “Josephine was tapping out Morse code on her arm.”

He added letters at the beginning of each string of lines he’d written. Feeling something within him being hit with warm light as the word was spelled out. Alive. He turned the notebook around passing it to Miller.

“What does it mean?”

“It means Clarke’s alive.” It meant he no longer had any intention to follow Murphy’s advice. He would do it bloodlessly if he was able to because it’s what Monty would want of him. But if it took starting a war, or killing every single person who had stolen another person’s life and body like they were trying to steal Clarke’s, he would still do it. “And we’re gonna get her back.”

-

“Echo,” he said before she could leave the room with the others, “can we talk?”

Echo’s eyes grew brittle and her face went from the thawed expression that occasionally even warmed now, - something that had taken years on the Ring, - to the look that was all frozen tundra of an Azgeda spy.

He waited until they were alone before trying to speak.

“Echo, I-”

“You’re trying to figure out how to break up with me,” she said, she’d never had any patience for Bellamy to find his words when she could read them herself. During their years-long isolation of just seven people in a world of their own, this had felt something like a blessing. There had been very little he’d wanted to say, it had been easier to let Echo just draw her own understanding from the lines of grief that crisscrossed Bellamy’s entire soul.

“I don’t-” But of course he did. He’d already put it off for far longer than he should have. He’d known that it was unfair to keep being with Echo in a universe where Clarke was still alive, but it had been easier to pretend otherwise, to use Echo as something like a shield that might protect Bellamy from feeling his heart breaking yet again. And there had been that promise he’d made Echo, about how nothing would change on the ground. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

That much was true. He cared about her, and would never have started dating her at all if he’d had even a hint of hope that Clarke had survived Praimfaya. If he’d known that the nightblood had worked, or that she’d reached cover before the fire itself could consume her.

But he’d been without hope.

And he’d loved Echo as well as a dead heart could love someone.

“I know. But you’ve always been in love with Clarke,” Echo told him, staring over his shoulder. There was no wetness to her eyes but Bellamy knew that it didn’t actually mean anything. She’d never forgotten her training. “I’ve always known that. We’ve been on borrowed time since the minute you found out she was alive, I’m just surprised it took this long, really.”

“I did love you. I do love you.”

Her eyes flicked to his with a glare and Bellamy closed his mouth. Grimaced at his mistake, despite the sentiment, the words were cruel.

“Nowhere near the way I deserve.” She seemed to agree with his last thought.

“I know,” he repeated “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, just save Clarke,” Echo told him and turned around to leave, their conversation done. She didn’t stay for a hug that might bring them from two people who’d been in a relationship for three years, to two people whose relationship had ended but who were still family in many other ways. No goodbyes, it just wasn’t Echo’s way. “Or what would be the point of any of this?”

-

Bellamy tested the chains locking him to the cave wall for the tenth time when he felt Josephine’s eyes on him.

“What?” he asked, irritated by that smirk on her face. Hating it because even an expression that small wasn’t quite right. He’d seen Clarke smirk, it had never looked quite that self-important and arrogant when she did it. Her smirks tended to slip into grins or to fade so quickly he thought he’d imagined them.

“My father was a fool for letting you people stay,” she started out with a lilt to her voice that he was beginning to recognize as her preparing to turn long-winded and to say things that would end with Bellamy needing to remind himself that any harm he did to her he’d be doing to Clarke too. “All that time spent building a sanctuary for the human race, and he destroys it because of the most human thing of all - love.”

The implied double meaning landed like a punch to the gut, as was Josephine’s intention he was sure. He turned his head toward her, opening his mouth though uncertain what it was exactly he was planning to say to her.

It’s not like he had any intention to say those words for the first time to the person doing their very best to murder Clarke. Even more so to someone who was wearing Clarke’s body like body-armor.

It turned out though that he didn’t end up needing to say anything, as Bellamy had already learned, Josephine loved hearing herself talk far too much.

"I mean, who can blame him? I am awesome. It's just...well, one look at you, he should have known how this would end,” she clicked her tongue to underline her point and he moved in place, adjusting his sitting. More discomfited than he’d like to be. “Guess I'm just saying all this because I know so much about you now.”

Ah, so there was her game.

“Hmm, you do, huh?” he smiled, knowing it wasn’t reaching his eyes but almost amused in a colder kind of way.

“Mm-hmm,” she smiled too, her eyes carrying a little malicious glint. “Take you and Clarke, for instance. Now that's a weird relationship, isn't it?”

He felt himself freeze in place, rock beginning to dig into his spine. But he didn’t move, somehow aware that it was more important for him to ready his walls for a catapult.

"First you want to kill her to save your own ass, even though it means the genocide of your own people on the Ark, and then you become besties, bonding over the actual genocide at Mount Weather.” It was frightening to know how much Josephine had gleaned from Clarke’s mind now when initially she’d known nothing. He wondered what that meant for Clarke, was she losing her fight with Josephine? How long did Bellamy have to bring her to Gabriel?

“Together,” she mimicked mockingly.

He said nothing, unwilling to give Josephine the pleasure.

"You lock her up, she locks you up, you leave her on Earth, she leaves you to die in the Fighting Pits.” The oxygen around Bellamy seemed to grow thinner with her every word. “I mean, it's exhausting, frankly.”

He stared toward the ceiling and gave in.

“Tell me about it,” Bellamy muttered, feeling every event she’d described as having sunk iron into his bones; like he’d just grown heavier by tons. Then he shook it off and made his own point. “You're wrong about how this ends, by the way.”

He saw her twist Clarke’s head toward him with an expression like she was already rather doubting him.

He hummed.

“First, we get you back into your Mind Drive,” he told her as a foregone conclusion because he wouldn’t be accepting any other way this ended. He’d get Clarke back, “and then I'll use it for a peace deal with your Father.”

“Your belief in yourself is cute,” Josephine said, not sounding like she thought that at all. “But unfortunately, putting aside about a thousand variables, chief among them Clarke's newfound evangelical, do better-ism, making it impossible for her to accept a peace deal with those awful body snatchers, all three of us are gonna die in this cave.”

“Yeah, okay. We'll see,” he scoffed.

"Okay, now your confidence is just pissing me off,” Josephine snapped back.

Bellamy took a quick look at her, staring at the way Clarke’s shoulders rose and fell slightly. He matched it. They were still breathing, so Bellamy still had hope.

-

Watching Clarke flat-line was unlike anything he’d had to live through before. Well, no, he supposed it wasn’t much different than how it had felt any of the too many other times he’d feared Clarke dead - though maybe not quite as bad as those times when he’d truly thought her so. And if he never had to go through that ever again after this, it would still be too soon.

But what made this different was that Bellamy needed to let it happen. That he had to stand there in Gabriel’s hut and trust the man to sacrifice the person he loved to save the woman who meant very little to him, and everything to Bellamy.

“All right,” Gabriel said, pulling out the mind drive and hurriedly dropping it in a metal dish. “Cover the wound.”

Bellamy followed the instructions, forcing his hands to stay steady as he bandaged the back of Clarke’s neck and then with Octavia’s help turned her onto her back to give Gabriel access.

“We need to restart her heart.”

Bellamy watched the man injecting adrenaline straight into Clarke’s heart and swept his eyes over the screens as soon as the needle was out, trying to catch the moment when the line monitoring her heartbeat would jump back into movement.

But the line stayed still.

Bellamy felt his forced calm begin to abandon him the longer the extended warning sound, which announced that Clarke’s heart was still yet to start beating again, stretched.

“Why isn't she waking up?” Horror was building up inside him again.

Bellamy couldn’t do this again. He couldn’t. The idea that he would have to go back to Sanctum and tell Madi that her mother was dead? Again? To tell Abby? Their friends? And then to return to living some shadowed reflection of life where Clarke was gone again as he’d done for six grueling years?

He refused to accept that.

“I'm sorry, but her brain can no longer support two minds,” was all Gabriel told them and Bellamy went cold, a high-pitched whine beginning to ring in his ears as his chest contracted and froze, stilling despite the pressure he could feel building in his lungs.

“What are you talking about? Do something,” Octavia demanded. “They're both still in there.”

Bellamy’s eyes flicked over his surroundings, hand hovering inches over Clarke’s head and the reality around him going fuzzy. Like if he didn’t have to listen to Gabriel’s words they’d stop mattering.

“Latent neural activity continues for a short time after death, but once the head stops telling the heart to beat, it's over, okay?”

Those words. Bellamy’s entire life narrowed down to those words.

“The heart and the head,” he said to himself.

He just needed to give Clarke time. To keep her heart beating long enough for her mind to catch up. If there was one thing Bellamy knew with everything in him it was that you could always trust Clarke’s mind to start working.

“The heart and the head.” He moved his hands over her chest, pushing Octavia slightly aside, and started compressions.

Clarke stayed still and unmoving under his hands. The seconds stretched as he put more and more weight on his work.

His mind filled out with pictures. Scenes from memory. The time he'd caught her hand and pulled her free of the pit of spikes that awaited her on the bottom. The time she’d sat beside him on the ground with their backs against the tree, for the first time truly his partner. The way she hummed a lullaby as she killed Atom in mercy. The first night after she’d returned from escaping Mount Weather and they’d camped by the fire when they’d gone searching for Finn; when Bellamy had felt something in his heart clench at seeing her asleep for the very first time. Hearing her voice on the hand radio, when he'd gone down to infiltrate the Mountain. Every single time Clarke had ever hugged him and he'd felt warmth suffuse his very being.

“Bell,” his sister said quietly, her hand pressing against his back, attempting comfort.

He ignored her. He didn’t need comfort, he needed Clarke.

"No,” he shook her off. “I'm not losing her again.”

He’d lost her to Mount Weather. And then to her grief over having needed to irradiate that same mountain, killing hundreds. He’d lost her to Wanheda. And then to Praimfaya. To his own stupidity. And then to the Primes. And he wasn’t losing her to Josephine a second time.

“Come on, Clarke.” Oxygen. The brain needed to receive air to continue working. He leaned over her, stopping the compressions long enough to push air into her lungs twice, and with some buried corner of his mind noticed that his tears now wetted her face too.

“Come on! Clarke, Clarke, I need you,” he was begging now, pleading for her to hear him. Mind scrambling for something that might be important enough to make her listen. “Madi needs you. Now wake up!”

“Bellamy she's gone,” Octavia’s voice was tearful and compassionate. But not something he was willing to accept.

“No, she's not!” He yelled in his sister’s face and then turned back to face Clarke a fraction of a second later, momentarily losing focus as he realized he’d stopped the compressions. “Wake up, Clarke! Come on!”

He pulled his hand into a fist and hit her over the heart now. Old, buried lessons reminding him that breaking the ribs just meant that the compressions were actually reaching the heart and so could be dealt with later.

"I'm not letting you go,” he told her, speaking only to Clarke.

"You're a fighter," he reminded her. She'd always been one, he hadn’t recognized it in the very beginning but she'd taught him hadn't she? "Now get up and fight!"

He smashed his hand over her heart once more.

Then moved his lips over Clarke’s, pushing air out of his own lungs and into hers again.

Clarke coughed, choking. It was the most beautiful sound Bellamy had ever heard. He sobbed pulling her up and turning her just slightly to ease pressure on her airways.

"You're okay," he said, crying to himself. He ran hands over the sides of her face, pushing hair away from her eyes and supporting her head as she tried to raise it.

"Just breathe." He couldn't stop looking at her, the way she was finally moving, breathing on her own. "Just breathe."

But finally, a worry that had been irrelevant while Clarke had been failing to wake swam to the surface and Bellamy felt his breath stutter as he began to stare deeper into her eyes. Trying to read her. To see her.

"Clarke?" he asked, needing to make sure it was actually her in his arms now. He didn't know what he'd do if he saw Josephine, only that he would break utterly. But he didn't have to find out because his answer came in the way her eyes wouldn't stray from Bellamy's face, a look filled with years of unspoken words - or maybe words she'd spoken into the radio calls which Bellamy had never had the chance to receive; the contents of which had been haunting him since Madi had told him of them.

It was her. Clarke. His tears ran harder as his heart lurched with familiar relief.

And this time Bellamy just couldn't stop himself. The relief was too great, his heart too full, he pulled her closer and leaned down to catch her lips for the third time that night.

Except this was the only time that really counted because Clarke's lips moved under his own, kissing him back after only a moment during which Bellamy felt like his world might be about to end after all. Her hand went up to squeeze the material of his jacket, seeming to pull him closer.

Bellamy's heart sang as he kissed her, deeper now, beginning to lose himself in the moment and trying to pour every bit of his love into it, suffusing it with all his relief and joy and sheer adoration.

He didn't know if he'd ever have this chance again so he made sure to memorize it. To remember her taste, the way she smelled. Everything. All of it.

Eventually, though, they both needed oxygen and their kiss slowed. Lips parted, as they blew heavy breaths against each other's faces.

"The head and the heart," Clarke whispered, while Bellamy nodded and pulled her closer to him, hugging her tightly to assure both of them that she was alive.

-

Clarke woke with a start and Bellamy was at her side in moments.

"Hey. You're okay. I'm still here," Bellamy assured her, noticing the way her eyes had jumped around before settling on him and calming.

"Thanks to you," she said, "How long have I been asleep?"

"A few hours," he told her and then felt his face twisting into a pained grimace. The hours he'd spent waiting had brought with them the reminder that it had been Bellamy's fault that this had happened to her in the first place. "I'm so sorry, Clarke. I knew you were a target. I didn't protect you."

"Bellamy, you saved me."

He opened his mouth and then hesitated, suddenly remembering that they weren't exactly alone, turning toward Gabriel who was visibly trying to be unobtrusive and giving them as much privacy as was possible, Bellamy asked “Can you please?-”

"Of course," Gabriel nodded and stood to leave. "Call me if you notice complications."

They waited a few moments until Gabriel had left, Bellamy's stomach falling into a painful swoop filled with disappointment when he noticed the way Clarke’s eyes were beginning to avoid his own.

"Bellamy?" she spoke eventually. "Maybe we shouldn’t-"

But Bellamy was tired of avoiding this conversation. He'd let her silence him more than a few times those years back. And all it had left him with was a sea's worth of what-ifs which had haunted Bellamy for every one of the six years they'd been apart.

"No, I’m not doing that anymore Clarke," he said gently but without backing down, moving her head up with a touch of fingers to her chin to catch her eyes. "This time just- just please let me say this."

She nodded, pulling her hands around herself. Like she needed to protect herself from what Bellamy was about to tell her.

"I love you, Clarke." His voice shook nearly imperceptibly but he knew that Clarke would still catch it, he certainly caught the way her shoulders halted in place for a moment before resuming their natural motion. Her eyes flicked up to his, a startled look in them he couldn’t quite make any sense of. This hadn't exactly been a secret he'd kept very well after all: Kane had known, and so did Abby, Raven, and Monty. Murphy had certainly made himself pretty clear. Diyoza, Roan. Lexa and Niylah. Josephine and- point being, it wasn't like he'd been very subtle. "I’ve loved you for- fuck I don’t even know how many years it’s been now."

They'd been down on the ground for nearly a year before the second wave of radiation had burned everything, he thought. Or was it slightly longer? Then six years on the Ring of course and more than a hundred asleep.

And which of those years counted? He knew that the time he'd thought her gone absolutely did because he'd never stopped. And he felt like his time in cryosleep did too because it certainly felt like he'd loved Clarke for a century.

"And I know you didn’t, that you don’t-" here he stumbled, heart growing heavy again, he'd accepted it, yes, but that didn't mean it hurt any less "and that’s fine Clarke. I get it."

"But-" Clarke finally moved to interrupt him. "Echo."

"I broke up with Echo before we left Sanctum," he told her and then moved quickly ahead, suddenly worried that she'd read some kind of pressure in that. "Which was long overdue and it's probably gonna take a long while before she forgives me for not having done it sooner."

"I-"

"Just- just let me finish, okay?" he swallowed and squeezed his eyes shut, knowing that to get his next words out he'd need all the strength he had. "Clarke. I’m sorry for kissing you right after- I shouldn’t have done that."

She'd just been dead not even a full minute before. He didn't think there even was a more vulnerable moment Bellamy could have found for when to do it.

Which he'd realized after but certainly hadn't even taken a moment to consider at the time.

"It was stupid and wrong of me but you woke up and you were you, Clarke, and I couldn’t- couldn’t-" His jaw locked and he breathed for a moment before continuing. "I'm in love with you, Clarke. And I don’t care if you still hate me for putting the Flame in Madi, or if-"

He was silenced by Clarke's fingers falling over his mouth, fingertips resting gently against his lips and making heat flash through his bones.

"Bellamy. I think now’s my turn,” Clarke said, her eyes filling with tears again.

He felt the alien world around them halting into silence as Bellamy’s fate and heart rested in Clarke’s arms. Which wasn’t really any different than usual but somehow felt a thousand times stronger just now.

“I missed you. After Praimfya it was so hard, and I would have lost myself if I hadn’t found Madi. Talking with you though is what kept me sane, even though you never answered. And then you came back and you were so different, still you, but... not mine anymore. Which was stupid, of course, it’s not like I really expected-”

“I-” she pressed her fingers tighter against his lips, stilling his denial and his apology.

“But I think I hoped. And it hurt when I realized that somewhere up there you’d found a family that I was no longer a part of.”

“You are,” he said before she could interrupt him again, kissing her fingers to take the sting off failing to follow her request for his silence.

“And you’re mine, Bellamy. And I need you to believe me when I say this next bit, okay?” She said and then breathed in heavily, starting to run her hand over the lines of Bellamy’s face, stopping occasionally like she was marking some of the more significant spots. “I love you, Bellamy, I was afraid to, because everyone I love always dies, everyone who loves me always dies. And I couldn’t let you join them.”

He felt years of old pain begin to evaporate and smiled at Clarke, feeling tears on his cheeks again.

Then he felt her hand slipping into his probably gross and sweaty hair to hold the back of his neck, and he only had time to take in a single deep breath before Clarke’s lips slid over Bellamy’s, as she pulled him into herself. She tasted of sunlight, of hope and love, and the kind of happiness Bellamy had thought out of his reach. Suddenly it didn’t matter exactly how long Bellamy had been in love with Clarke, or how long Clarke returned those feelings. All that mattered was that they loved each other right now, at this moment.

And he never wanted to forget it again.

[star-sky-earth]

I absolutely love your headcanons, so I wonder what’s your take on a bellarke kiss on the show? Who would initiate it? Would it be soft and loving or hard and all consuming?

okay so i have a LOT of thoughts about this, some of which are controversial, so this might will get long. but i figure you’ve signed up for this, so...

i have so many ideas about a bellarke first kiss on the show, and how it would happen/what it would be like.

although in general i’m not a big fan of the season 5 time jump, i do love the fact that gives us so many versions of bellamy and clarke to play with, and so many delicious dynamics for a writer to explore. one of the reasons that i love bellarke so much (and will continue to love bellarke, you will have to pry this otp from my cold dead hands) is how their dynamic deepens and softens over the course of the show. a bellarke first kiss in s1 would be entirely different from a first kiss in s4, and completely different again from a first kiss in the later seasons. it’s amazing really, that we got such rich character and relationship development in a cw show, and i think that’s because it came about almost entirely accidentally, with very little conscious input from JRoth.

anyway, now i have that rant over with...i like to imagine two or three different bellarke first kiss scenarios.

i said this was gonna get long.

Bellarke S1 kiss

the classic. the original. the good stuff on AO3. stupid murder babies who LOVE each other so much and HATE each other even more. they’re both an explosive mix of vulnerability and bravado which means that neither of them are willing to give even a single inch in an argument, to let their guard down the tiniest bit in case the whole damn facade crumbles away.

this first kiss would be a hot mess. they’re arguing about supplies, or guns, or something entirely inconsequential like bellamy playing truth or dare with the deilnquents (’you could have died eating that mushroom bellamy, this isn’t funny’). clarke initiates it, because we all know that bellamy ‘i’m so smooth that I had a threesome on my first night on earth’ blake is basically a fumbling idiot around her. they’re arguing, and getting way too close to each other, and clarke is doing that thing where she’s jabbing her finger into his chest and bellamy totally isn’t turned on okay. bellamy is smirking at her, watching her rant and rave, and eventually she just throws her hands up in the air and groans in frustration, and then grabs him by that stupid jacket and drags him in for a kiss. it’s rough and hard and a lot of furniture gets broken, although if you’re paying attention you’ll notice that bellamy talks a big game but actually handles clarke like she’s made of glass. those big hands can be surprisingly gentle when they need to be.

time for my first unpopular opinion: if bellamy and clarke had gotten together in season one, their relationship would have flamed out almost immediately. they’re not ready for each other yet. they’re raw and unpredictable and burning way too hot, and they don’t know who they are as individuals, let alone as a couple. a first kiss in season one would have led to two broken hearts and a hell of a lot of regret. as a writer, i kind of love this idea though. a classic example of ‘you don’t know what you have until it’s gone’, where bellarke get together in season one, break up, and then pine for each other over the next few years until they get back together again, older and wiser.

Bellarke S4 kiss

the romance. the sweeping music, the building crescendo, the tragedy. the facade has fallen, they’re both broken and bleeding and on their knees by the end of season 4, and they love each other but it hurts too much even to admit it. to think about it, this fragile thing that they’ve built together against all odds, something so precious that they don’t dare even acknowledge it, in case it gets taken away from them too. they’re in mourning, both of them, and every inhale is ragged like they’re breathing through broken glass.

this is the real doomed lovers shit. its five minutes to praimfaya, the end is here, and it’s the wrong time, the wrong place, the wrong damn everything. they’re standing there, holding each other so tight that neither of them can breathe, bellamy’s hand so tight in clarke’s hair that her scalp is stinging, and her face is wet with tears when she looks up at him. bellamy is the one that closes the distance between them, finally.

they’re at the end, and he has nothing left to give her - no hope, no courage, no empty words of reassurance - but himself.

so that’s what he gives. 

this kiss tastes like salt, and ash, and blood. the fires will come, and the world will end, but before it does - they will sear themselves into each other’s bones, a mark that cannot be washed away, names written into each other’s souls in gold ink that cannot fade. this is what they will remember, later, him in the bleak coldness of space and her on the devastated and scorched earth. this is the empty space that echoes, the trembling note that holds, the love that remains.

Bellarke S6/post-season 6 kiss

the real real. the aching vulnerability, the tenderness, the softness. my personal favourite.

season 7 doesn’t exist, okay.

they’ve loved, and lost. and loved, and lost again, over and over. they’ve fought wars, and commanded armies, raised children and discovered new worlds, and somewhere in the middle of it all, almost by accident, they’ve become the people that they were always meant to be. they’ve healed, they’ve learned, they’ve taken all the jagged shattered glass pieces of themselves and put themselves back together with bleeding hands.

there’s time now. time they never thought - never dared to hope - they’d have. time to live. time to build homes, to plant crops, to dance and sing and laugh and cry, to shout both their joy and their grief to the uncaring heavens.

time to savour this thing between them, the sharp sweetness of it, like ripe peaches, the red berries the children gather in spring. they’re older, and far older than they look, but their hands shake like clumsy teenagers when they reach for each other, that first time. there is nothing unexpected about this, the slow and graceful gravity of two twin souls drawing together, but that doesn’t stop their hearts from fluttering in their chests, their breath from stuttering in their lungs. this love is strong and battle-worn, yet they hold it like something fragile, fingers lightly clasped together so as not to crush its feathered wings.

and this is my unpopular opinion two: part of me is glad that bellamy and clarke never got together on the show. don’t get me wrong. of course, i would still trade my pinky toe to see a bellarke kiss for purely scientific reasons. but once we got past season five, and i saw how sweet and complex a bellamy and clarke relationship had the potential to be, i simply didn’t trust JRoth to do it justice anymore. i hate season seven, and i hate the way that the show ended, but i’m happy with bellarke remaining purely in the realm of fanfiction, where i know the writers love it just as much as i do.

[vulcanblake]

I just sat down and rage typed for 20 minutes because I’m so furious that Bellamy wasn’t included in the finale and this is what I came up with. Presenting an alternate ending AKA fix it fic AKA fuck you jroth AKA Emily is losing her mind :) Also the dialogue between Clarke and higherpower!Lexa is fucked bc I couldn’t be bothered to go re-watch the scene for accuracy. ALSO in this universe Clarke didn’t kill Bellamy, he died for her bc I rebuke her ever laying a hand on him okay? okay. 

---

By the time she crawls out of the bunker and back into the forest’s comforting silence, Clarke is once again ready to be alone. Or maybe not so much ready as she is accepting. She’s done it before, right? She’d survived being alone, survived the loneliness and the heartache and the fear, she was a survivor and she could do it again. She could. She could... Clarke can see her dishonesty reflected back in Picasso’s stoic face. She had only survived her sentence on earth last time because of Madi... and because of Bellamy. If she was being honest, Bellamy and the hope of seeing him again were the only things that had gotten her through those years. He had been her anchor while she’d paid her penance. And she had paid, those 6 years providing ample time for her to repent for every sin she’d ever committed. So why the hell did she have to do it again? Why the hell did she have to die alone? 

She thought of Bellamy. Taking the bullet from the disciple that was meant for her. Bleeding out in her arms while she begged him to stay. Whispering she loved him after he was too far gone to hear. Was that why she was here? To absolve the guilt she felt for letting him die for her? It was always supposed to be the other way around, but the cards had fallen and she had the rest of eternity to think about it. 

Something grabbed Picasso’s attention and she took off suddenly, sprinting into the woods. Surprised, Clarke called for her to come back and was ignored. Cursing Russell for not training his dog properly and suddenly very terrified of the concept of being alone alone, Clarke sprinted after her. She followed what seemed to be the obvious trail down toward the lake, but the dog was nowhere in sight. “Damnit,” she gasped, yelling Picasso’s name again even though she had a sinking feeling it was in vain. She ran back up the hill and down another embankment onto the beach, trying to stamp down the panic she felt rising inside her. She couldn’t have gotten far, and she’ll come back when she’s hungry anyways. I’ll just...

“Hello again Clarke.”

The sound of Lexa’s voice shocks her into stillness once again, and she spins slowly, willing herself to remember that it’s not real, that this strange higher being is simply putting on the face of a person she loves. Selfishly, she wishes for a moment it was Bellamy, just so she could see him happy and at peace one more time. 

“Are you here to keep me company? Or to mock me one more time before leaving me to die alone?” 

The thing wearing Lexa’s face smirks beautifully in response. “Neither, Clarke. I’m here to tell you that you were right. Humanity surprised me. They proved they deserved transcendence after all. And...” She paused for a moment before continuing, “I’m here to see you through.” 

Sickening hope blooms for a single moment. 

“You’re saying I can transcend?” 

Not-Lexa shakes her head slightly and Clarke feels the hope die in her chest.

“Unfortunately, no. Those who fail the test can never transcend. You failed the test, and therefore you have no choice.” She hesitates slightly again and Clarke thinks the tension may kill her right there. Maybe that would be better. 

“You don’t have a choice, but those who have transcended do.” She finishes, and Clarke is too confused to comprehend the gravity of her statement. 

“Transcendence is a choice? You can choose to come back?” 

Lexa smiles again, in earnest now. 

“Of course. Though until now, no one ever had. There won’t be any offspring. And he won’t join us when he dies. He didn’t seem to care. A curious species indeed.” 

Clarke is stunned. He? She doesn’t mean...

“Clarke?” 

For an infinite moment, Clarke is completely still. She doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe, doesn’t function in the fear that she’ll move infinitesimally and he will be gone. She just stands and stares at him. Stares at Bellamy, staring at her in the same way, like she may shatter into the wind if he even takes a step. 

“Bellamy?” She whispers, afraid of her own voice and the power it may hold. “is it really you?” 

He nods, and even from a distance she can see the tears streaming down his face. 

“It’s me,” he whispers back.

Clarke runs. 

She throws herself into his arms and she sobs, feeling herself come alive again as he wraps his hand into her hair. 

“You came back for me,” she whispers into his neck, muffled by how tightly he’s holding her.

“We all did,” he says, and Clarke is stunned once again. “Raven, Murphy, Octavia, Madi, we’re all here. None of us were willing to let you do this alone.”

“I love you, Clarke,” he murmurs. “Life or death or transcendence, it means nothing without you.” 

Clarke kisses him. She kisses Bellamy Blake, the man she loves, with no more need for fear or sacrifice or penance. She had fought the good fight, and now she was finally home. 

---

[poppykru]

Why did Bob tell people to face the music if he thought his fandom was gonna like this season? He knows Bellarke fandom better than everyone. He used the word baiting and then he told us to face the music which isn't a positive thing to say about a new season. What is your explanation of it? If the fandom was gonna like this season why would he say "face the music"? He could've said enjoy the ride. He didn't.

Look man I'm gonna answer your question and give you my perspective but I really don't appreciate the tone of the ask. You seem to have your mind made up and you're just trying to fight me on this. I don't want to do that. I'd like to think I'm a reasonable person. If you send me an ask with genuine curiousity or just want my opinion, I will be nice and answer. I don't understand why you have to be hostile. I get it, you're scared your emotional investment in this story is in danger if not having a payoff so the easiest reaction is anger. You don't want to be alone in your anger so you're trying to get people on your side. There are plenty of people in the fandom who share your opinion. Go to them, commiserate with them. I am not one of them. I respect you're opinion but I don't share it. Simple as that.

As for your question: I don't put that much stock on anything outside of canon. I love Bob, I think he is a great smart person but I don't think he is the fandom hero most think he is. He's just a regular dude with an irregular job. I think this glorification is not good for him because people see him as infallible and that puts pressure on a person, and it's not good for the fans because it creates this cult of personality. All that being said, Bob tends to react a little recklessly. Like as funny as it was for him to tweet the 'i misinterpreted' tweet, was it the best move career-wise? I'd say not really, no. I don't think he really thinks through what he tweets pertaining the fandom. That's why I don't think he meant what he tweeted the same way the fandom interpreted. (You could say we misinterpreted...I will see myself out 👋).

Ok so this is the tweet:

So the most controversial part is the 'all the baiting and bruises'. To me that means 2 things:

Everything that has happened thus far not forward.

Baiting really does refer to all the years of Jroth's "will they won't they" game. It's true, there has been baiting outside of canon. If you only look at canon there's no baiting. The story is the story and I don't think there's ambiguity in what it's trying to say. So to me that's what Bob refers to when he says baiting - Jroth's bullshit outside of canon. Whether bellarke happens or not (I think it's clear which option is more likely) doesn't take away from those years of jroth trying to bullshit the fandom. So that's why Bob said it. I just don't see him spoiling the biggest storyline of the season and "warning fans". Contrary to popular belief, I don't think he's ever done that. It's Marie that has spoiled things, Eliza too last season. O don't remember Bob ever doing it.

Tl;dr: I think Bob meant the baiting outside of canon that Jroth has done for years, not that Bellarke is not happening.

What about 'time to face the music'? Simple - our beloved show is coming to an end and we need to come to terms with that. It's time to face the music - "this is it, the beginning of the end. It's difficult to let go of something you've loved for years but it's time."

Look, we've panicked over Bob's tweets before and it was all for nothing. The fact is Bob (and the cast) view the show different than us. He is at one end, we're at the other. There is communication but there isn't the same meaning to things. It's all very subjective. (Not to mention im sure Bob is not as involved in fandom as half of y'all think. )

Which means that all this here is very subjective too. It's my opinion, my interpretation. I could be wrong. The thing is I don't want to stress about this. So bye.

[facelessfrey]

I woke up mad and have been mad all day so let’s discuss the disrespectful absurdity that was Bellamy’s death on the 100 some more. 

JRoth’s tweet really pissed me off a lot. Ultimately, he’s not wrong when he says the 100 has always been a dark show about hard choices and what people would do to survive. It’s just that I don’t think any of that played into Bellamy’s death at all. I’ve been thinking about all of the other major character deaths across the seasons and how, even the ones I hated and have massive issues with, still somehow seem more respectful to the characters than what he did to Bellamy. Keep reading for the rant:

Season 1 - Wells (and to an extent Charlotte)

Wells - Wells is a bit of a tricky one since it happened so fast and I know there are people still upset about it. But it set the tone for the show, the tone that JRoth is so proud of and referencing for Bellamy’s death. But I think you can get away with a shock value death in season one to kick things off. They also set up the situation fairly well, playing up just how harsh things are on the ark, that most of their parents had been floated. I can understand how Charlotte, who is just a child, reached that conclusion, especially with Bellamy’s maybe misguided advice (although that’s clearly not what he meant). I also don’t know that there was really a place for another presumably male lead in season one alongside Bellamy and Finn. So I get it. But also, Wells still had a chance to repair things with Clarke before he was killed. She discovered the truth and knew that he lied to protect her. He didn’t die with her hating him. It was a truncated arc, but it was something. 

Charlotte - And arguably, Charlotte’s death kind of needed to happen. There wasn’t really any way for her to continue on with them after what she’d done and at least it was her choice, however tragic it all was. 

Season 2 - Finn and Maya

Finn - As with Wells, Finn’s death is something I think you can get away with and can be viewed as edgy in an early season. It’s upping the stakes and reminding you that this is a show that will put these characters in impossible situations. And they still had a male lead left in Bellamy, plus Murphy and Jasper and even a character like Miller were rising in the ranks and there to fill in the gaps. Plus a whole host of new characters. Killing Finn was a gutsy move but one I could respect. They took him down a dark path and instead of absolving him for it because he was a main character, they made him pay for it. But unlike Bellamy, Finn realized what he did was wrong. He couldn’t live with the guilt. He couldn’t live with the way Clarke was looking at him. He knew the truce with the Grounders was important and he knew he was the key. He made the choice to give himself up. He had agency. He got to have one last escape attempt with his friends, say his goodbyes to everyone. And even still, they let him die with some amount of dignity rather than being tortured to death. And Clarke killing him worked in a way her killing Bellamy doesn’t. What he did was directly tied to her. Only she could forgive him in those final moments. There were multiple episodes of build up to this death, it was the story of the whole episode it happened in. It was expected but also a bold move for the show. 

Maya - This was a death about hard choices and survival. The audience had grown to like Maya throughout the season, seeing her stand up for what was right and going against her own people. She didn’t deserve the end she got. But Clarke and Bellamy and Monty were put in an impossible situation and it was either the lives of all their friends and family or death in a very inhumane way because the mountain never would have stopped. And the way it was set up, with us and them watching Raven and Abby being drilled into, the choice was painful but clear. And it had been building to this moment for an entire season. 

Season 3 - Lexa and Lincoln

Lexa - Lexa had arguably one of the most controversial deaths on the show. And I know there were behind the scenes reasons for it with the actress having another show to film. I don’t know how much availability she would have had. I don’t know how necessary it was to remove her from the narrative. I don’t want to get into it I will just assume for these purposes, that she had to be killed off. And I’ve always said with respect to Lexa, that I didn’t mind that they killed her off, it was how they did it. But compared to Bellamy’s death, even her controversial one feels less disrespectful to the character. It may be worse due to lesbian death tropes and that’s a larger issue, but in terms of the show story, I don’t think it was as bad. First of all, she was only a character for a season and a half. Second, her death directly affected the plot that had been hinted at all season and carried out in a major way through the rest of it. Now I hate that she died immediately after having sex by a stray bullet from a guy who should not have been holding a gun in the first place. I hate it. I would have much rather she went down fighting or stepping in front of a bullet for Clarke or something. But at least she got to finally resolve things with Clarke. They reconciled. They said they loved each other. She knew was was going to die at the end and she got to have her final moments with Clarke. Clarke got to do the whole may we meet again speech. Despite the issues, it was a beautiful moment. 

Lincoln - This death has always been the one that pissed me off the most. Again I know there were behind the scenes issues and he also had another show. Again I don’t know how much filming availability he would have or how necessary his death was. Again, let’s assume it was because people can’t just go off somewhere else for a new start on this show. But I still always hated how he went out, being executed in the mud. He should have gone down fighting at the very least. However, even more at the very least, because that’s what we’re getting into here, Lincoln did die because he was defending his people. That’s the bare minimum here but at least he had that. He was true to himself. I hated that he didn’t really get a final moment with Octavia, but hey, at least she was present. Extremely low bar but still, better than Bellamy’s death from a writing perspective. 

Season 4 - Jasper (Roan, Illian, Luna)

Jasper - Jasper’s is a sad tale. He spent two seasons basically completely depressed after the events of season two. There really wasn’t anywhere else to take his character at that point, so I understood and was ready for him to go. It made sense as an end for his character and he got to go out on his own terms and not take the spot in the bunker of someone who truly wanted to live. He got to have his final moments with Monty. It was a good end for him. 

Roan, Illian and Luna - I wouldn’t call them major characters per say, perhaps Roan and Luna but we got to know all of them fairly well. They were expendable characters for the most part but they at least got to die fighting for their people and that’s a respectable way to go out. 

Season 5 - Jaha, Monty and Harper

Jaha - Jaha was a character who did go down a sort of cult path. It probably would have been easy to kill him off in season 3 as a result of that. And if it had been a high stakes, last resort, have to kill Jaha to get to ALIE to save everyone, I could have respected that. But they didn’t. They let him survive that. They let him see the error of his ways. He spent season four determined to save his people from what he helped to unleash. He didn’t do it in the right way but even then, finally, in season 5, he was redeemed a bit, helping to maintain the peace in the bunker and helping Octavia gain control. And he had Octavia and Marcus and Abby there at his end. It was fitting. He got to say his goodbyes. 

Monty and Harper - I was very sad to say goodbye to them but they went out on their own terms. They got probably the happiest ending out of anyone on this show. They got to live their lives how they chose and be together and having a son. And they did all of that while finding a way to give their friends, their family, their people a fresh start. And they got to say goodbye, albeit through video, but it was touching and lovely. 

Season 6 - Shaw, Kane and Abby

Shaw - Shaw was another one that was killed off because he had another show, which is fine. It sucked for Raven and it was sad the character only got one season. Although considering the seasons that followed, I think he should count himself lucky really. But again, he died helping out his friends and Raven. It was a sacrifice and he knew what he was doing. 

Kane - Again, another person who had other commitments. And they did some weird body swap stuff to extend his time a little longer. But I loved that they had actual Kane there at the end anyway to say goodbye to Abby even if it wasn’t really him that she was seeing. It was a nice touch, and a better way to say goodbye to the character. He also chose to let go. It was on his terms and he got his goodbye with Abby. And there were good parallels to floating both men she loved. 

Abby - I’m not fond of the way they killed off Abby since she was basically dead once they took over her body. So that was unfortunate. But at least prior to the body swapping, she did have that last scene with Clarke where they kind of reconciled. And if I recall, she had some last moments with Jackson and Raven too. And those matter. 

Season 7 - Diyoza and Bellamy

Diyoza - By season seven, I’m honestly kind of over major character deaths. I don’t really want them. I just want to see these characters that I love survive all of the trauma of the show and find peace, but I understand that I’m never going to get that. It’s fine. I was sad to see Diyoza go, but her sacrificing herself for her daughter, for the people who became her family, kind of “for all mankind” to use a phrase I hate now, was a fitting way for her to go out since she was introduced to us as a terrorist. And she got to say her goodbyes. This is clearly an important theme for me. 

Bellamy - And then we circle back to my rage. Bellamy kind of took the path of Finn in a way, or perhaps his season 3 arc, which he didn’t really pay for so much. Not the way Finn did anyway because all of a sudden Blood must not have Blood. Plus, Pike was the rightful scapegoat for all of that. But this season saw Bellamy get caught up in yet another man’s bullshit idea of what was right. That was frustrating enough, but I guess it was somewhat in character. It’s just all the more frustrating because the Second Dawn/Shepherd nonsense is just that, nonsense. His sudden anti grounder status in season 3 were motivations that made at least some sense. He’d been fighting them since day one basically. They betrayed them at Mount Weather, which meant they had to kill everyone there, which meant he lost Clarke. And then Echo’s betrayal killed his three episode girlfriend, Gina. Plus Pike was a man he’d respected on the arc. The motivations always felt fairly thin to me since Gina was so minor, but overall, they make sense. 

This season has been all over the place. The storylines have been mostly nonsensical. The nature of the different timelines meant that there were many episodes where we had to backtrack to fill in gaps, which meant the story was basically at a standstill for the whole middle of the season. We have zero sympathy for Bill and his cult followers. They’re not interesting. The Mount Weather people were brutal and doing terrible things, but I understood their need to survive. These Second Dawn people don’t have that same motivation. They’re fine. And so much of it is driven by the flame, which Bill wants for selfish reasons along with the stupid key code. He wants to know if there’s any of his daughter in there, which goes against all his teachings and what he’s trying to suck Bellamy into. And all of that is really just to set up a spinoff no one is going to want to watch at this point anyway after all of this. It’s kind of insulting. 

And we see all of this Bellamy development in one episode late in the season and then he just betrays all his friends and family. He only shows the slightest hint of questioning. He just flat out tells Echo she doesn’t matter more than the cult. He doesn’t even have a scene with just his sister. He gets one good scene with Clarke but then is like “eh torture her it’s fine”. And then we get to this episode, where he barely interacts with his friends that he’s with. They spend most of the episode rolling their eyes at him and mocking his clothing choices. They set up the stupid sketchbook in a rushed little scene with Madi and Clarke just so in the last thirty seconds Sheidheda, who my god should be dead now (Indra I’m looking at you), can say “hey check out that book”. And Bellamy picks up this book that we’ve seen like once or twice earlier in the season that was fairly inconsequential then. We don’t even fully understand what’s in it that’s so crucial that Bellamy can’t show Bill. And that’s what Clark shoots him for? Really? And shoots to kill? Which was highly unnecessary to get her hands on that book. And then she didn’t even take the stupid book in the first place. 

So Bellamy Blake, main male lead of the series, hero and leader to his people, gets murdered by his closest most trusted friend, his person, without getting to realize that the cult stuff was bullshit, without getting any chance to redeem himself, for a book that really doesn’t even seem to matter. And he dies alone. None of his family or friends are around. No one is reciting the may we meet again speech. He never got a final scene to reconcile with his sister. He never had any real final moments with anyone else. He just disappeared in the first five minutes of the premier, showed up eleven episodes later, a brainwashed cult follower and that’s how he died. That’s frankly bullshit. And a massive disservice to his character, to Clarke’s character, to the show. And the fact that they barely had Clarke try and shake him out of his brainwashing. The fact that his friends just mocked him instead of trying to help him. It’s just not what this show was built on. It’s not. It’s one absurdity after another. It’s insulting. 

And the fact that every other character I’ve listed here at least got something, some kind of minor positive to their passing but Bellamy got none of those things?! Not fighting for a cause or a people the audience is rooting for or siding with. And no final goodbyes with the people he loves. Even Clarke only did her crying once she went through the stupid portal. I’m just mad. I should feel devastated by his death, but at least feel like he died for something. He died for nothing and that’s the saddest part of it all.  

[firelxdykatara]

xetlretl replied to your post “Wow guess no clexa fans could possibly be poc or just I don’t know,...”

lemme make this clear, it's hilarious because after Jroth clearly showed himself being a trashbag man you guys still supported him and watched his show when the rest of us wanted to boycott. now the same thing happened to yall i can't even like there's gotta be a part of you that finds this shit hilarious.

@xetlretl oh please fucking spare me lmfao, yall didn’t give a shit until it was your white gay fave that got this treatment, you were still watching after wells was murdered four episodes in despite having been a major main character in the books the show as based on same as everyone else so you really don’t have a goddamn leg to stand on. when lincoln was brutally executed the response was ‘leave us alone we’re still grieving’ and don’t even try to pretend like some of you weren’t clinging to the vain hope that lexa would be brought back some day, clexa fandom was just as insufferable through season 4 and probably later as it ever was, so no, the ‘rest of you’ didn’t wanna boycott, you paid lipservice to it but still kept up with the show bc you were hoping for some closure

the people who stuck it out for other characters and had other breaking points maybe should’ve seen the writing on the wall, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a right to be furious and frustrated bc they thought there was still a point to everything thee characters had gone through. that maybe they’d get decent closure and at least have something to show for the years they put in, especially the ones who were sticking it out for the few remaining nonwhite characters who might at least have decent send-offs when all was said and done.

so, yeah, the fact that lexa stans are celebrating yet another moc getting brutally murdered on screen is fucking racist and disgusting, and no they didn’t ‘have it coming’ just bc they were sticking it out longer and hoping that at least the main&central characters would be given decent endings&closure.

[t100ficrecsblog]

an interview with @changingthefairy-tale​

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[faithhopedreamslove]

The 100 7x10 thoughts

Phew, what an episode! Normally, I write my reviews after a few days of the episode airing, but my brain is going a mile a minute with this one! The theme of this episode was about the soul of humanity - what makes us human, whether love is a weakness or a strength, when the ends justify the means and when they don’t.  This played out through multiple scenes in this episode. I can see JRoth and the writers starting to weave the final threads of this show together as they said they would, coming back to the larger themes that the show intended to explore.

- “Get the flock out of here.” This line was hilarious and deserves its own bullet point.

- I love seeing strategic Clarke back in the saddle. She was in her element negotiating with Cadogan and leading the group huddle with her people. 

- Echo not really being brainwashed by Cadogan’s clan wasn’t a surprise. Her wanting vengeance also wasn’t a surprise (more on that later...)

- Murphy taking care of Madi was the scene I didn’t know I needed. Murphy’s kindness with children, his wanting to protect the weaker faithful Sanctumites - honestly, he’s probably the character who has shown the most growth in the entire show. For that reason, I’m so afraid the writers are going to kill him off - the cockroach who always fought for his own survival finally sacrificing himself for others - the irony practically writes itself. But I really hope they surprise me and let him live happily ever after with Emori and have lots of kids of his own that he can be protective of.

- Speaking of irony, Cadogan preaches to his flock that they must abandon all emotional attachments and sacrifice their identities for the greater whole. Yet, he hasn’t given up his love for Callie or his desire to connect with her again. 

- I loved Clarke and Octavia’s reunion. It was so true to character for both of them. They didn’t need many words to express the pain that they both felt. They connected - friend to friend, woman to woman, leader to leader, and two people who loved Bellamy dearly and knew it. 

- The moment between Octavia and Miller was well done also. It felt like they were finally putting Bloodreina to rest, once and for all.

- The conversation between Diyoza and Hope was extremely powerful and ties to the theme that I mentioned earlier. Diyoza is trying to save Hope’s soul. Diyoza was considered a terrorist on Earth - she killed people for the causes she believed in, likely innocent people among them. And then you have Hope telling her that there are no innocent people here (an echo of what Maya said about Mount Weather), and the horror on Diyoza’s face says it all. She sees her daughter walking down the same path she did, and she doesn’t want that for her.

- Cadogan and Gabriel’s conversation continued this theme. Cadogan believes that humans need to give up their humanity to win the final war and transcend; Gabriel believes there can be no transcendence once you’ve sacrificed your humanity. They also touched on the theme introduced to us by Lexa - love is weakness. Another instance of the writers tying threads together. Cadogan points out that love is to be betrayed, to be hurt. I loved Gabriel’s response: You can’t fight a war for the soul of the human race with an inhuman army.

- Clarke leading everyone out of the room to let Octavia decide what to do with Levitt on her own was a beautiful moment of connection between these two. Again, leader to leader, woman to woman, these two respect and understand each other. It was a nod to their shared history.

- I love that they gave Jordan and Niylah some screen time, and had Jordan make an important discovery based on his cultural background. It confirmed what I’ve suspected all along - that the supposed “war to end all wars” is a metaphor of some kind. Human beings have always been their own worst enemies. I believe that to transcend means to win the war against oneself, against one’s baser nature and to rise above for the greater good. So it makes sense that it would be a test. Now the question is, who will take this test - Bellamy or Clarke? Because let’s face it - it’s going to be one of our leads. Or will they find a way to take it together, and that’s how the show ends?

- Now getting to the fight between Indra and Shidheida. Normally, I hate the flashing scenes between Sanctum and Bardo. But this time, Sanctum truly tied with the theme of the episode. The fight between Shidheida and Indra isn’t just a conclave, it’s also a fight for the soul of humanity. Shidheida represents the absolute worst of human nature - he’s a murderous, power-hungry leader who will trample over anyone to rise to the top. Indra represents the soul - she was willing to die herself, but she could not allow a child, who represents human innocence, to die at Shidheida’s hands. It’s telling that one of Shidheida’s loyal followers questioned him later as to whether he also means to kill the children too - I think this foreshadows Wonkru eventually overthrowing Shidheida and killing him because they also desire to do better, to be better.

- And hats off to Madi jumping in like the badass Clarke raised her to be. She knew she didn’t have a chance of winning, but she refused to kneel to this murderer. And she wanted to give Indra a chance to win, sacrificing herself. I love this child.

- Now we get to the *big* scene - Echo nearly killing off an entire civilization. There was SO much that happened in this one scene. It was the culmination of what this episode has been building up to - saving the soul of humanity and doing better. It’s no coincidence that they’ve been paralleling this episode to Mount Weather. Echo is about to do what Clarke did - kill an entire bunker full of people. But as she rightly pointed out, Clarke did it because she was trying to save the people she loved. Echo is doing it purely for vengeance. This is a key distinction because over the years, Bellamy and Clarke have judged themselves the most harshly for everything they’ve done, even though they’ve always tried to keep their people’s (and sometimes the human race’s) best interests at heart. But they came to Sanctum vowing to do better, i.e. transcend. Echo has not been able to transcend. Yes, her character grew on the Ring - Raven referenced that. But since she left the Ring, and especially since she came to Bardo, she has reverted to her old self. She is killing people without remorse, and she’s willing to kill an entire bunker full of unsuspecting people to take revenge. The writers have set her up as a direct contrast to Bellamy and Clarke, who are trying to do better, and Echo, who isn’t.

- And now for the dialogue that has the Becho and Bellarke fans in a tizzy. Clarke makes an attempt to stop Echo, using her own experience to warn Echo that there’s no coming back from something like this (she may have forgotten that Echo had a hand in killing her people at Mount Weather, but that’s beside the point.)  And then Clarke pulls out her final card, the one that she thinks will finally sway Echo - “This is not what Bellamy would have wanted.” To which Echo responds, “You have no idea what Bellamy wanted.” Echo claimed that Bellamy would be seeking revenge just as she was, if she, Clarke, or Octavia had been killed. But here’s the rub - we as viewers know that Bellamy wouldn’t do that, because he didn’t do it when he thought Russell had killed Clarke in the last season. He wanted to take revenge with every fiber of his being, but he wanted to honor what Clarke would have wanted. He transcended his base desire for vengeance. And Clarke knows this, because she saw it all through Josephine’s memories.

- Raven’s speech to Echo had so many layers to it. It makes me wish that we as viewers got to see some of their time on the Ring, because I feel like we’re being told to swallow the fact that they’re like sisters when we haven’t seen any foundation for that relationship. Just as we were told to swallow Bellamy and Echo’s relationship. Unknowingly, Raven is making the distinction between the heart and the head Bellamy Blake. Heart!Bellamy killed 300 Grounders, because he was hurting over Gina’s death and Clarke’s disappearance. Head!Bellamy is who they spent 6 years on the Ring with, and who came back down to Earth for a brief amount of time. That’s who Echo fell in love with. But unbeknownst to her and everyone else, Heart!Bellamy came back at the end of season 6, when he nearly sacrificed everyone and everything just to save Clarke. After not taking vengeance and trying to secure safety for his people, because that’s what Clarke would have wanted - him using his head - he threw all that to the wind and went back to leading with his heart when he realized he had a chance to save her life. So I have a feeling that the Bellamy that Echo loves will not be the one who returns to them, but it will be Clarke’s Bellamy.

- Echo’s breakdown at the end made me sad, both for her and for Clarke. Echo clearly does love Bellamy and is deeply grieving for him. Yes, she has spent more time with him than Clarke has, and they were in a relationship. She’s going to grieve him, no doubt. But Clarke hasn’t had a chance to break down yet. She just lost her mother, and now Bellamy, who was her partner, her family, her soulmate. But she has to keep it together to keep leading her people and make sure they get back safely. I’m so tired of this poor woman not getting a chance to deal with her emotions in anything resembling a healthy manner.

- Oh, Diyoza. There’s so much to say about this one brief scene. She made the ultimate sacrifice to save Hope’s soul. She knew there would be no coming back from this for her daughter if she killed all those people. Her final words to her daughter: “Don’t waste this, little one. Be better than me,” were so damn heartbreaking. This was the crescendo in the point that the writers have been making this whole episode - that humanity has a chance to finally do better, if only we’re willing to take it.

- And the preview for next week’s episode deserves a bullet point, because BELLAMY! Oh, the parallels I’m hoping we’ll see with Bellamy being all alone on an entire planet, for who knows how long. I just hope and pray we also get a Bellarke reunion next week by the end of the episode, because it’s about damn time.

Overall, I was prepared to hate this episode if it didn’t have Bellamy in it, and I surprisingly found myself really liking it. The story is finally moving forward (no more flashbacks!), and the writers are pulling together the threads of the story that they’ve been telling for the past 7 seasons. My one hesitation is that I’m not sure that the writers will make Bellarke canon, and honestly that will hugely impact how I feel about the show when it’s over. Not just because I’m a hopeless romantic, but because I will truly consider it bad storytelling if those two don’t end up together after all of this build-up. I guess we have 6 more episodes left to find out!

[verbam]

Old Eternity Blues

WOW BIG SURPRISE I CAVED AND WATCHED THIS SEASON. You can in part blame @starboybellamy for her sneaky, slow process of drawing me back in. I would say “obviously they’ll give us Projection!Bellamy before it’s all over” but you never fucking know with jroth so ~~~

Old Eternity Blues

She knew he’d turn up, sooner or later. Thank god it isn’t with Josephine watching, that’s the only comfort. One moment she’s in her mind space, and the next there’s springy moss beneath her feet and the trill of bird call around her.

He steps out of the Dropship, and he is at once that boy with something to prove that she met so so long ago; her best friend who knew her better than anyone else, and the man she’s had to reckon her Bellamy with, older and more careful but still hers. He is all of those things at once, but he’s wearing that stupid Azgeda getup, the one he nearly got himself killed in while trying to save her from Roan.

She knew she’d call him- or this projection of him- eventually, but it still hurts.

Bellamy looks around at the Dropship Camp, empty except for them, silent except for the twittering woods, filled with birds and two headed deer and people trying to kill them.

“Man, we were just kids here,” he says.

“And how many lifetimes ago was that?” Clarke asks as cooly as she can, although her heart is beating in her throat.

“I’ve lost count,” he says, and gives her wry smile. “I still dream about this place sometimes.”

She winces and looks down at her hands. “I do. I don’t know if you do.”

“What, suddenly you can’t take me at my word?”

“Not when your word is just what I want you to say,” Clarke says carefully. There are so many things her mind could make Bellamy say: kind, cruel, neutral, and all of them would hurt because this isn’t actually him.

“Well, you and I, we usually end up being on the same page. Most of the time.”

“Most of the time,” Clarke agrees. “We always did make a good team.”

Bellamy chuckles, flashes her a wry smile, but he looks up at the canopy of trees and closes his eyes as a breeze whispers past them. Clarke’s chest aches with sight.

“You coming back to us?”

“I’m trying to. I sent you a signal, hope you got it. Not that you got any of my other messages.”

“Maybe I’ll pick up on this one.”

“I hope so.”

They’re quiet for a moment, and he drops down next to her on the log on which she’s sitting. She knows this spot- they used to sit here and share a cup of moonshine between them. Never enough to get buzzed and put the camp at risk, but enough to unwind, enough to work on trusting each other. She gets a distant note of how he used to smell: sweaty and unwashed like the rest of them, but his musk had a certain comfort to it. The ache in her chest grows and Bellamy glances at her. If he’s her, he must feel it too.

“Why don’t you just tell me?”

“Because… because you’re with Echo now. You’re happy. And even if you weren’t, you don’t trust me anymore. You don’t think you know me anymore. And you might say things like-”

“Funny way to show love,” Bellamy helpfully says. “Leaving me to die.”

“And-”

“Your love kills people. Why would I want you to love me?”

“Exactly,” Clarke manages, choking back how much it hurts to hear in Bellamy’s voice.

He’s quiet again next to her, fiddling with a stick between his fingers. His hands always had to be busy. He’s become so still now, this grown up Bellamy. She misses his frenetic energy- it always helped her know what he was thinking.

“I could say all that,” Bellamy agrees. “But it doesn’t sound much like me.”

“You’ve said worse.”

“Yeah, maybe,” he chuckles, and scrubs a hand through his hair like he’s embarrassed. “I did and said a lot of dumb shit. But I think I probably know better now.”

“You literally just made my daughter the Commander,” Clarke observes dryly.

He grimaces. “Bad move on my part. I mean, it saved our asses, but I know it came at a cost.” He glances side long at her. “You ever think that if you could forgive me for that, I could probably forgive you for leaving me in Polis?”

“I don’t know,” Clarke whispers, turning to look at him. “Bellamy, I don’t even know if I know you anymore.”

He nods, face twitching the way she remembers it did when he was feeling shitty or down on himself. The ache in her chest grows. “I miss you,” she chokes. “You came back and I still miss you so fucking much. And I’m terrified I’m going to make it through this, that I’m going to survive, and you’ll blame me for that too. Everyone seems to just want me dead.”

“No,” Bellamy says, reaching out to touch her knee. “Clarke, why am I here?”

“I don’t know,” she whispers.

“You think maybe it’s because you need reminding that people can love you, not in spite of everything we’ve done, but maybe in part because of it?”

“You don’t love me,” she whispers.

“I know I loved you when we were here,” he says with a shrug looking around them. He knows because she knows, but it still makes her stomach flutter to hear him say it.

“I know. I did too, I just wasn’t ready-”

“Because you thought everyone you love dies, I know. But I made it. Madi’s made it. Your mom too. You gotta let that myth go, Clarke. Otherwise, why are you fighting so hard to come back? Is it just to survive?”

“Fuck,” she says, burying her face in her hands. “Don’t throw that at me now.”

Bellamy’s hand lands warm and large on her back and he rubs it gently up and down her spine. She can’t help but lean into the touch. He hasn’t touched her like this in so long, not really.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” she finally asks. “I thought you of all my projections would be the worst.”

She looks up to find him watching her, his brows creased faintly. That old, concerned look used to make her feel… if not safe, then not alone. “Oh,” she says quietly. “That’s why.”

She leans into her side, lets herself because it’s not really him, and she can do this without guilt or fear that he’ll push her away. Bellamy wraps one arm around her back and holds on to her knee with his other hand.

“Will you stay? Until I either wake up or I’m… I’m gone?

“Yeah. ‘Course,” Bellamy says.

His is the last face she sees before her mind flickers to darkness.

When she opens her eyes, shivering at the assault of sensation of reinhabiting her body, the first face she sees is his.

[lightcomingthroughthedarkness]

Even the more positive Bellarke fans are giving up, some are staying positive but honestly jroth has destroyed my favourite characters. The Clarke I knew would show more emotion and understand bell. Octavia would've defended him. Raven hasn't had much development besides judgmental since season 4. And this storyline for bell🙄 god he hates us

I just feel like they make the characters react and act the way the plot needs them to. We are told Clarke and Octavia have grown, learned and are more in control of themselves, less judgemental etc as the reason why they didn't lash out or mourn Bellamy the way Echo did. We are told Raven is now a better person than she might have been before and that's why she talks Echo down and supports her instead of yelling at her. It's also the reason we are told Raven is now OK with Clarke because she understands Clarke better.

Yet the plot needs these women to suddenly not be these developed women we are told they have become. We need them to be against Bellamy because the plot needs to go from point A to point B. We can't have them just be on Bellamy's side and we can't have them trust him because there'd be no story. It's about plot over characters. Clarke and Bellamy have been in this situation before and we have been led to believe they have developed as people, leaders and partners so they wouldn't end up in the same situation as 4 seasons ago yet here we are again, doing the same thing.

Raven supposedly spent all of season 6 learning about morality and not being so harsh on people. She showed a bit more of that in 7A. Yet her first interaction with Bellamy is just same old Raven yelling and judging.

Octavia have been through so much and has even developed a relationship with Levitt. Someone who believes in the cause as well. She has learned from Bellamy and developed as a person. Yet she can't stop for just a second to hear Bellamy out. She fell for a Bardonian, protected him and believe him to be a good person. But she can't give Bellamy a chance?

I understand the story and why we need these women to stand against Bellamy or there would be no story. But I'm just tired of seeing these characters be dumb'd down in order to tell the story. Raven, Octavia, Clarke's development mean nothing to me when at the most crucial moment, they did not walk the walk.

Clarke and Octavia had to be "sensible women" and not freak out over Bellamy's DEATH because only Echo was allowed to do that so we could see how Clarke and Octavia have grown. Octavia could reach out and support a grieving Echo and put her own feelings aside so we could see how Octavia has become a calmer and more balanced person instead of lashing out in grief the way Echo did. We saw Raven's struggle with her actions and coming to understand Clarke's impossible decisions and use compassion to bring Echo down.

Yet.. sensible women, calmer and balanced women, understanding women etc had to NOW be pushed aside just so we can be angry at Bellamy. It's just such lazy writing. Like yeah I get it, plot plot plot.. but it's also like "hmm really, this again" 🤷🏻‍♀️

[sometimesrosy]

I’m trying so hard not to be disappointed by Jroths recent interviews. Bob wanted time off so we won’t be seeing a lot of him, or as much as usual as the writer put it. This is the final season, and I’m just really disappointed. I’m trying to hold out hope rosy, I really am. It’s just hard. We already know he won’t be in the next 3 episodes and for someone as important and well loved as Bellamy, I’m just hurting. Idk how to stay positive and hopeful, I’ve been let down many a time with shows

so. like. literally.

don’t watch.

i’m serious.

do NOT watch.

wait to find out what happens and then watch when it’s over if it’s what you want or skip it if it doesn’t give you what you want.

don’t watch a show that makes you upset.

be a responsible consumer of media.

go read a book. or rewatch an old favorite show. or try a fun, less heartbreaking show.

YOU ARE NOT REQUIRED TO WATCH THIS SHOW. 

say good bye. or goodbye for now. 

you know what? don’t laugh, but I used to have zombiephobia. I trained myself out of it by watchign lots of walking dead, but walking dead STILL shot my anxiety through the ROOF. I couldn’t comprehend anything the first time i saw it. So i’d watch it once, and then once again in an hour when I replayed it and it was always MUCH more enjoyable the second time when i wasn’t an anxious wreck.

You need a cushion. If that cushion is a whole season so you know how it ends, or just a day so you can hear from friends first what happened and then watch it, Or maybe just watch in the morning without input from fandom.

Find a cushion. Stop with this habit of watching a show that hurts you. Just don’t. YOU  have better things to do with your time.

[blodreina-noumou]

question: how sexist do you think the show is? I used to think it used to be the height of feminism (I was a dumbass) but I want your opinion on what it does wrong, etc because as time goes on the way the narrative treats female characters is disturbing to say the least, at least to me

Be kind to yourself, anon - at one point, I do think this show was pretty good in terms of representing women in a diverse, positive way. While not “the height of feminism” (which is a tricky thing to pin down anyway,) the early seasons featured a range of women of all ages, abilities, races, and most sexual orientations. 

Back in 2014, when it premiered, I think it was actually doing pretty good work at not only featuring these female characters, but making sure that their storylines included agency and motivations that went beyond what the men in their lives wanted/needed.

But the show has slipped a lot since then. Not only have our standards lifted, but the writing itself has taken a serious dive, and season six was the lowest point so far, for me. If we look at the way the female characters’ motivations have changed from season to season, it’s clear that, at some point, the writers kind of forgot that these women have agency and conflicting motivations, and don’t just exist to prop up the missions of the men or children in their lives.

In s1 and s2, Clarke was all about making firm choices and sticking with them. She was motivated by the safety of her friends and the rest of The Hundred, and a general impulse to “do the right thing.” No one single person or role compelled her - she was flexible and realistically able to fit into leadership positions, rebellion stoking, and squad commander. Although she was backed into a corner, it still felt as though her choices were hers.

In s5 and s6, Clarke is a “mama bear” driven into a illogical frenzy at the thought of her adoptive daughter being put into any sort of danger whatsoever, despite that being a reality of the world when one actually has to interact with people. Her decisiveness becomes impulsiveness, and her motivations are drained of all their complexity. It just becomes “Madi, Madi, Madi,” with no room for anyone else, and even less room for flexibility. She’s one-note, now. By giving her exactly one motivation in her life, one singular person to focus all of her affection and need to protect on, she’s been stripped of all of her complexity and agency. This is made even worse by the fact that she spent half the season on ice, essentially dead to the world, while her body was inhabited by the most charming lil sociopath this show has ever seen - one Josephine Lightbourne. A character who should have been a refreshing return to that kind of complexity, but falls flat for her own reasons. 

In s6 we’re introduced to one of the most interesting characters in The 100 universe. A cunning, cutthroat, cold young woman with a cheery disposition and enough cleverness to kill a cat with a smile. Josie has been alive, on some level, for hundreds of years. She’s seen untold violence, and has become a greedy, selfish, cruel woman because of it. You would think that this kind of person’s return to life in this universe would’ve been earth-shattering - that she would’ve had some sort of epic, evil plan, motivated by the need to grab more and more power for herself. But what did Josie really, truly want in the end, more than anything? To reunite with her ex-boyfriend and body-snatch until the end of time, so she could stay with him, forever and ever. She was motivated, at the end of the day, purely by her romantic feelings for a man.

That’s disappointing to me. Especially because, in the latter half of the series, everyone’s motivations, but especially the women’s, end up coming down to one person - a person who is dependant on them for affection/comfort/softness/love, etc. Basically, everyone has now been hamstrung by their inability to focus on anything other than one person. And for each of the women, that’s often meant taking on the role of supportive girlfriend/mother, rather than having agency and goals of her own.

Other examples - Emori was a background character for most of season six, basically Harper Mcintyre’d, right up until her necessary betrayal of Josephine and Murphy becomes relevant to the plot. Echo was sidelined by her longterm romantic partner, ending up in serious danger, while he gallivanted off making googly eyes at his (old??) best friend, and this was treated as perfectly acceptable. Raven has been reduced to nagging shrew, and was also more or less set dressing until she become plot relevant to Madi’s story. Madi herself was the literal meat puppet of a creepy dude controlling her brain. Abby lived just long enough to make a meaningful sacrifice as a grandmother and then died. And so on.

I think that, as the series went on, and more and more characters and set dressings and crazy scenarios were added, the writers had to simplify character motivations and story arcs. If you just compare everything Raven went through and had to do in s2 (losing use of her leg; learning to use a brace; her romance with Wick; cracking the Mt Weather radios; figuring out how to stop the acid fog; watching her first love die; dealing with her grief; getting seriously wounded again at the end of the season, etc,) with what she had to do in s6 (work on a motorcycle; chastise Ryker for being a body-snatcher; watch Abby die; save Madi from Sheidheda) - it’s clear that the writers have shelved certain characters for the sake of others.

And what ate up the most time this season? The story of the Lightbournes, which is ultimately, yet again, a story about how a small group of people are solely motivated by protecting only each other, even if at the cost of everyone else. Specifically, Josephine is motivated by wanting to protect Gabriel from death forever, and her parents (particularly Russell) are motivated by making her happy, whatever the cost.

A cautionary tale for our OG heroes? Maybe, but it sure didn’t feel that way during the season.

The weird flipside of this is the way Bellamy and Russell existed purely for women in this season. Bellamy wanted nothing but to save Clarke, Russell wanted nothing but to save Josephine. But the difference is that, even within their singularly-focused motivations, Bellamy and Russell still had agency, and they both ended up making more decisions for the women in their lives than those women made for themselves. They moved the plot around the women, who simply had no choice but to react accordingly.

I think the show is trying to not be sexist, but in its current bloated state, it’s gotten really lazy, and the writers have lost sight of the complexity and characterization that made s1-s3 more impactful. I think JRoth and Co are probably bored with this universe - that’s why s6 was such an insane leap in tone, setting, and world-building.

And I think, like most human beings, they’ve allowed themselves to get comfortable with what they’ve already achieved. Unfortunately, the “good representation” aspect of this show has suffered a lot for it.

The short answer is: on a “how sexist” scale from 1-10, with 1 being “super sexist” and 10 being “not sexist at all” - we started at an 8, now we’re at about a 4. The show has done better. It will probably never do better again.

[ragnarssons]

Thank u! People are like chill it makes sense blah blah but even if we forget about that scene, this all means no Bellamy till ep 9 or 10 (and it feels like eggo is the main character in that relationship) Clarke barely has a storyline this season, so in a 16 ep season we are left with 6 eps to cram all the stupid plotlines, give the leads an arc and a satistying ending and put them together. Bob warned us tho.

Yeah it just ain’t happening. I don’t know, until the main groups reunite, I can’t see the plot even moving forward that fast. We just see bits of said storylines once every two episodes (except the Sheidheda storyline, that is here on every episode because... wOW it’s the best storyline am I riiiight? *coughs blood*). Even then, I’m pretty sure if the characters ever reunite on Bardo, that doesn’t mean Bellamy will be here. I’m really starting to wonder how long was “Bob’s break” like forreal, dude wasn’t on set for the end of the filming, or at least he was in LA a lot while Eliza was in Vancouver and all, helloooo? The void!Bellamy storyline could have justified Bellamy going missing because it would have meant that Bellamy would be given a storyline no matter what. But since this  theory is marjorly out of the window, like... what’s left for his character? The show so far, has focused way more on E/cho’s efforts to get Bellamy than on Clarke’s. Like I can’t help but believe it’s Jroth fucking us in the 4ss one last time and being like “wELL you said Bleggo didn’t have enough screentime/storyline to be believable! Here is a sTORYLINE!”... you know that awesome storyline that... erases Clarke and Bellamy and Bellarke as co-leaders from the show... sIGHHHHHHHHHHH. I swear, make any newbie watch s7 they’ll believe E/cho is the female lead, and Gabriel and Hope are close behind. They’re... nOT! Like, literally, she’s the one with the storyline, currently. Their trio is the plot. The other ones? They’re just additions. What’s been Clarke’s storyline so far? Grieving for her mom... and...? We don’t even see her giving a flying fck about “her daughter” when she literally leaves the planet? Y’know I’ve always said that the only comforting thing to me despite all the things I didn’t like on the show, is that Clarke’s character and Bellamy’s character, remained logical and remained portrayed as human beings, thinking about the people they love and still interacting with said people? Well now, that’s all out of the window! Bellamy ain’t even on screen so that’s another thing, but Clarke barely gets to interact with ANYONE (let’s hope it changes now that she’s literally on a desert planet with a few of her friends......... even tho that storyline will probably last only for ep6). Oh I’m sorry, right, she got to interact with Gaia... yknow... her... bff since s1 or something they try to sell us (oh and also Clarke being a good supporting character to Raven’s storyline) (because finally Raven has a storyline, even tho said storyline literally ignores everything that happened on past seasons) (like yeah only 150 years after the start of the show, is guilt finally catching up with Raven) (ok). Like... okay let’s make a test: try and determine what Clarke has done so far this season? Now try and determine what E/cho has done so far this season? The summary of Clarke’s storyline could stand in two sentences: “she grieves her mother, and then discovers some of her people are missing so she goes after them”. E/cho’s storyline is longer than that, it’s more important to the season, she has more interactions with the main plot, and other characters. UM. I’d say... sOMETHING is weird. Like I know some people are out there trying to have us believe that “it’s all build-up for the Bleggo breakup”... it’s... not. It’s the opposite. We literally see E/cho fight for Bellamy like we hoped we’d see Clarke do... (okay the cold-blooded murder aside). On top of that, the fact that the show’s last season loses one episode for Jroth lame-ass spin-off is even more annoying. Dude said for years that his sPIN-OFF would not influence the show because he wanted to make novels/books about said spin-off and now that shit is the reason he ditched the show (like, no joke I 100% believe that) and we get to suffer through a backdoor pilot, probably the last episode before a hellatus, on top of it all! So yeah... from what we can gather from the screeners, NO BELLAMY on ep6 and ep7. Ep8 will be the back-door pilot. Soooooooooooo? Oh yay at most that’s 7 episodes with Bellamy, if we’re lucky and he’s on every episode. And seeing how much screentime was granted to Eliza, it’s hard to believe we’d get any storyline for Bellamy in the spam of these 7 episodes, especially since it’ll be the second half of the season and God knows Jroth loves his convoluted plots. Somewhere amongst all of this, there’s gonna be a war on Sanctum “my pWeepOle vs ur pwEEaaPOll” because that’s not an overused concept on this show... oh and Shitheda and the flame because wOW that’s an aWESOME storyline and everyone wants to see more of the fLAME yay?? I’m just- Nop. I mean, it’s Jroth and Kshum, literally zero reason to have faith.

[travllingbunny]

The 100 rewatch: 4x10 Die All, Die Merrily

I solemnly swear to myself that I’ll start writing short rewatch posts starting with the next episode, because I would like to finish this rewatch before the end of season 6. This will have to be the last long one...

This entire episode is basically JRoth and The 100 trying to do a Hunger Games episode, only without the essence of The Hunger Games series – where this violent death match between (usually) 12 participants was portrayed as a terrible thing, an example of the cruelty, privilege and voyeurism of the ruling classes and the oppressiveness of the system, while here, in The 100, it’s just a Grounder tradition that the show doesn’t seem to pass any judgment on and that’s just a way to have some cool sword fighting action on screen.

But a lot of people really love this episode. It’s probably the most overrated episode of the show. Now, don’t get me wrong, it is a very good episode. What is does – the fights are well staged, unlike the one in 3x04, and the action, the drama, even some the emotional moments, it all works very well. That’s why I gave it a pretty high rating. It would be in my top 30. Maybe not my top 25? But I’ve seen so many people, including media articles, call it one of the best episodes of the show, put it in top 10 or even top 5 best episodes…and that’s just odd. Come on, it’s not top 10 material. It’s not in my top 5 episodes of season 4 (let alone the entire show). But I guess people really love sword fighting?

In retrospect, the main purpose of this episode was to set up Octavia as the Osleya – Red Queen/Blodreina, making her the winner of this version of Grounder Conclave, and the ruler of the bunker. Now, pretty much every viewer could have guessed she would win, because she’s one of the main characters and has a massive Plot Armor, but in-universe, Octavia was the dark horse, the least likely to win out of the 13 participants. She’s been training in Grounder fighting for some 6 months, but that’s nothing compared to all the others, who had been training and fighting all their lives. The show hasn’t often been too realistic about her fighting skills, but this time, to be fair, her victory is made to look a little bit more realistic because her tactic is to do what she is uniquely qualified to do – hide, let the others kill each other, and wait for the moment when she can kill the last living opponent.

This is Octavia’s most triumphant moment, when she wins, and then when she decides to not keep the bunker just for Sky people (who would have filled just 400 out of 1200 places) but to share the bunker between all the clans. * And with that, Octavia becomes the Queen and Savior in the eyes of the Grounders and unite all the clans, living the dream that Lexa tried but failed to make happen.

* …Oh wait, wasn’t that the exact same thing Clarke suggested to Indra, Roan and the other Grounder leaders in the previous episode, and they all ignored her, because they preferred war over the bunker, and then to fight the Conclave, and flat out told her that they wouldn’t listen to her because she’s not a Commander? If you want Grounders to listen to you, you must either kill a dozen other people in the Hunger Games-like sworf fight, and/or have “special blood” from birth and then have a chip with dead people’s voices put in your head. You may have good ideas, Clarke, but it means nothing if you can’t fight with a sword.

From the point of view of the characters in-universe, they gained absolutely nothing with this Conclave that they wouldn’t have had if they had accepted Clarke’s suggestion – except 12 of them would be still alive. Roan, who suggested the Conclave, only managed to get himself killed. But in terms of the narrative purpose, this is the show raising Octavia high, making her the hero/savior/queen, just to make her a tyrant and a villain in season 5. It’s also why some other characters needed to die so Octavia’s dark story could happen – Roan, because having a strong and sly Grounder leader in the bunker would prevent the same power dynamic; Ilian, because his relationship with Octavia was starting to become (gasp!) healthy and healing, and we can’t have that. And then there’s Luna, who goes full grimdark, wiyh the worst “DEAATH TO EVERYONE! Humanity doesn’t deserve to survive!” nihilism, so she could be the main antagonist, and also push Clarke into her own desperate actions.

Luna’s character turn used to be one of my two main problems with this episode. I used to really like her, and this seemed like a completely OOC twist. But she is the character I’ve changed my mind the most on during my rewatch, and now I think this turn was foreshadowed and in character for her.

But my other big problem with this episode still stands. It de-protagonizes Clarke, and pushes her into a pseudo-antagonist role, by framing the episode as a battle where the audience roots for Octavia (and Bellamy) and spends all the time with them and other people involved in the Conclave, directly or indirectly, while not letting us see Clarke’s perspective and her decision-making for more than a few short moments early on, which are easy to forget when you’re watching the episode for the first time. Obviously, the goal was to make the twist ending more surprising. And because of that, I was really confused the first time I watched this, and didn’t understand how Clarke went from asking for everyone to share the bunker (and refusing to let Roan be assassinated, so only Arkers people and Trikru would share the bunker – which, apparently, even saintly Kane agreed to!), to stealing the bunker for the Arkers with Jaha. But on rewatch, Clarke’s motives and state of mind are so much clearer and more relatable to me throughout season 4 – and, to be fair, this episode does set up her reasons early on. It just distracts the viewers too much with the Conclave itself, which the viewers know Octavia is likely to win. But looking at the situation as the characters themselves see it, Clarke’s decision to steal the bunker makes sense – certainly a lot more sense than the Conclave itself, which is an incredibly stupid way to make decisions on the survival of the human race.

 I used to be one of the people who really liked Luna and thought she was this wonderful voice of morality and non-violence, and when she appeared with the whole “I fight for death!” thing, it seemed out of nowhere. But she’s the character I’ve changed my mind the most on rewatch. What was I thinking? I guess I was just tired at the time of all the people celebrating violence and ruthlessness. Rewatching seasons 3 and 4, I realized that 1) this turn was, actually, in-character, and that 2) even before that, her pacifism was of the wrong kind and her moralizing was always hollow. She was running away because she was scared of humanity’s, or rather, her own capacity for violence, but she was OK with letting the rest of the world fall apart, as long as she could stay in her little bubble and not get her hands dirty. Maybe that’s a bit harsh. I’m aware that she’s been through terrible things – Grounder traditions are awful, she had to kill her own brother, and then everyone she loved died and she remained the last of her people. But even before the latter happened, she was flat out refusing to take the Flame and save the world from ALIE. Which, fine, her choice, and having voices of dead people in your head is pretty messed up – but she didn’t care if the rest of the world was enslaved by ALIE, as long as she thought her people would stay safe on their oil rig. Then, in season 4, after all of them had died of radiation, she didn’t want to help save the entire human race from Praimfaya, and had to be convinced to do it. Instead, she was moralizing about how humans may not deserve to survive. If you don’t want to save people because they aren’t morally perfect enough for you, there’s something wrong with you and your own morality. Having that in mind, it’s not OOC that she ended up making the step from letting the human race die, to actively trying to kill everyone.

(BTW, does Nightblood give people superpowers – and I don’t mean the ability to survive radiation and have the Flame or mind drives in their heads, but things like superior strength, agility, speed…? In season 4, I was definitely under the impression that it does, since Roan made that remark in 4x08 about Nightbloods like Lexa and Luna being superior fighters. And that would explain why Luna is supposed to be the most dangerous warrior of them all, which otherwise wouldn’t make a lot of sense, since she hasn’t done almost any real fighting for about a decade (I don’t know if she trained, I guess she should have just done it for sports), but she’s better than all of those other people, many of whom are physically much stronger than her if Nightblood doesn’t give you superstrength and who have been training and fighting all the time. You can’t even headcanon something like “she has the skills of all the previous Commanders in her head” as you can with Lexa.  But nothing we’ve seen with Clarke, Madi or the Primes suggests that about Nightblood, so I’m very confused now. To be fair, The 100 was never very realistic about fighting skills, especially not when it comes to the Girl with a Sword characters.)

In any case, for the purpose of the show, Luna is the clear favorite, and Octavia is the least likely to win. Clarke is well aware of it, though she pretends otherwise in order to give Octavia encouragement. Bellamy is also aware of it, but he has to put all the hopes in his sister, because he loves her so much and can’t accept the idea of her dying. He also gives Octavia the best advice - use her experience of hiding as “Girl under the floor”, hide and let the others mostly kill each other.

While Kane also decides to hope for the best, Jaha really isn’t happy about having the Conclave as a way to decide who survives, and thinks it’s stupid (of course, he’s right), but, unlike the others, also doesn’t believe the Grounders would honor the deal if Octavia won. However, Kane assures him they take the tradition as sacred. We can see Clarke listening carefully – and, no doubt, thinking that Luna is most likely to win, and if they really honor the outcome, that would mean everyone would die (except Luna, that is – who really would be the last person on Earth). Clarke then goes to find Roan and tell him they have to stop Luna (while Echo is listening), but Roan blames her for disrespecting their traditions etc. Clarke tells him that she wants the humanity to survive, even if it’s not her people. (Which shines more light on her motivation. As she points out in 4x11, excluding any of the Arkers from the bunker means that the Grounders wouldn’t have anyone to run hydro generators and produce artificial food etc. But she made her decision to steal the bunker only after Luna entered the picture, and the possibility of the human race all dying became very likely.) Roan doesn’t listen and tells her to leave before she “dishonors her people even more”. Huh. Interesting views on honor. This is a guy who has no problem ordering assassinations and wasn’t upset when his army was burning villages and killing people just for the sake of it, but he takes Grounder traditions very seriously, as seen later when he banished Echo for cheating at the Conclave. However, Clarke’s words seem to have gotten more than he was ready to admit, because, in the end, he came to his senses and offered Octavia an alliance against Luna, deciding that, after all, the most important thing is for the human race to survive.

There are hints of what would happen that I didn’t notice the first time: Close-up of Clarke in thoughts. Close-up of Echo, also deep in thoughts, and deciding to cheat at the Conclave. IMO, Echo’s actions in this episode are more defensible and understandable than anything else she’s done up to this point. Everything else she did was for Azgeda to get more power, or she used the “I was following orders” excuse, but this time, it really is a matter of survival, so I can’t even blame her for deciding to kill a bunch of people to ensure that Azgeda gets the bunker, in the sneaky way, rather than by the rules, as Roan is trying.

One of the strengths of this episode are all the emotional moments. There is a big one between Indra and Octavia, as Indra genuinely gives her advice to help her, which Octavia finds strange, since, if she won, it would mean her people wouldn’t get the bunker, but Indra tells her she’s her people, too. The meaning of the phrase “my people” means is something the characters are constantly defining for themselves. (Interesting that same phrase “You are my people” was said in season 2 by Clarke to Lincoln, at the time when he still wasn’t living in Arkadia.) Indra is Octavia’s surrogate mother in a way, and considers her family. Besides, I don’t think it’s that odd to wish her luck, since the odds of her directly facing the Trikru warrior aren’t high anyway.

Gaia and Indra get a rare mother/daughter moment, when Gaia cries in her mother’s arms after the Trikru warrior is one of the first to fall. As far as they know at that point, this means death for them and all other Trikru.

Octavia and Ilian later do their best to pretend they are Katniss and Peeta in the first Hunger Games, since he is saving her and offering her alliance against the others, while she is rejecting it because she’d then have to kill him. He claims he didn’t volunteer to be there because of her, but it could have been a combination of motives. His entire family is dead, he will also die, but in a much worse way, of radiation, in a few days, unless one of this people wins the Conclave, but I’m sure he also wants to give Octavia more chance to possibly win, and the odds of the two of them being the last are very slim.

Of course, this episode also has big emotional moments for the Blake sibling relationship, and brings them together after almost two seasons of conflict – or rather, of Octavia being angry at Bellamy. Which leaves me halfway between feeling its’s heartwarming. and feeling bitter that it’s still all about Octavia forgiving Bellamy, after beating him bloody at one point. It’s a two-episode storyline - at the beginning, Bellamy regrets he wasn’t able to tell his sister that he loves her, even at the end of the world. (He gets the chance to do that in the next episode.) When Bellamy realizes that Echo is cheating, he decides to go in there to stop her. (I like how the show made it look for a moment like Kane will be against it, but then it turns out he just tells Bellamy to wait till it’s dark, so he wouldn’t be discovered.)

After killing a few people including mortally wounding Ilian, Echo tries to kill Octavia, again, and Bellamy stops her, and in their fight, almost chokes her to death. Bellamy chokes or strangles people quite often. Four episodes later, these two will be an item. Sure, it’s 6 years in-universe, but for the viewers, very short time, and Bellamy and Echo will have just one one-to-one scene together before they become a couple. I guess trying to kill each other counts as setup for romance on The 100, it’s like an equivalent of at least six months of dating.

Roan stops him and then banishes Echo, and Octavia overhears Bellamy talk about his love for her – telling Roan that he was the “lucky one” to have her as a sister. Is feeling unconditional love lucky, even if that person treats you like crap most of the time? Anyway, Octavia is very moved. I guess she really did not realize before how much Bellamy loved her, which is almost unbelievable - if anything was always super-obvious, it was how much Bellamy loves his sister and how much he was willing to do for her.

There are a lot of mentions of Lincoln. Octavia’s final decision to share the bunker is obviously supposed to be something inspired by what Lincoln believed in - and Octavia and Luna even argue over who Lincoln would be ashamed of. Which is silly, because Luna must be aware she’s talking nonsense and that he wouldn’t approve of what she’s doing. But most of what she says in this episode is BS, as when she goes on about how Skaikru taught her that people are selfish and awful. (Really? The Mountain Men didn’t, the Grounders fighting each other all the time didn’t, making her kill her own brother and fight other children in the Conclave, nothing? But when Skaikru tried to find a way for everyone to survive Praimfaya, which ended with Clarke injecting herself with Nightblood and volunteering to risk her life and be tested? That convinced her that people are awful and selfish? OK then.) She only starts making sense when she finally admits it is all about herself – she clearly has been traumatized and afraid of her own capacity from violence and darkness since she killed her brother in the Conclave.

Twist! Bellamy is kidnapped. And then we get the twist ending OMG! Shock! They stole the bunker! “They used the gas to knock everyone out, as in Mount Weather". Dum dum dum – another comparison to Mountain Men OMG, they are as bad as the Mountain Men, because they can use gas and… they knocked those people out that stood in their way, instead of killing them all (as Azgeda and Trikru had a habit of doing this season)? Uuum...

Timeline: There are 3 days left until the death wave comes, and the conclave lasts  one day and one night.

Body count: All the people who die in this episode die in the Conclave: 12 Grounder warriors, chronologically:

Two warriors, including the Fio of Trikru (recurring character – he’s the guy who used to beat up Octavia in 2x11), killed by Roan;

two are killed by Echo’s arrows;

one warrior killed by Ilian, who was helping Octavia, another by some other warrior, one by Octavia (this was during one four-way fight);

two by Luna;

Ilian, mortally wounded by Echo and then Octavia mercy-killed him at his request (dramatic irony – she threatened earlier that she’ll kill him the next time she sees him);

Roan, killed by Luna, in a pretty horrifying manner, slicing his stomach and drowning him in a fountain of radioactive rain;

Luna, stabbed from behind by Octavia, after falling for a pretty cheap trick.

Rating: 8.5/10

Bonus:

Episodes 4x09-4x10 in a nutshell:

Grounders * fight a war for the bunker *

Clarke: The end of the world is coming! Instead of fighting, we could all share the bunker instead! There is place for more than just one clan!

Grounders: Meh. We don't care, we prefer war, and we would only listen to you if you were a Commander!

Clarke * is exasperated by everyone's stubborn and stupid behaviorand the probability of everyone dying * OK then, I'll make myself a Commander *

Roan: She became a Nightblood through science! Blasphemy!

Grounders: What an insult to our sacred traditions that were started 90 years ago by a bunch of nutty cultists and a scientist who made Nightblood through science so people could get computer chips in their heads! So, let's have war.

Roan: Let's have Hunger Games instead. The one tradition we love more than hereditary special blood that lets you get a computer chip in your head. A dozen people killing each other with swords is the best way to decide the fate of the human race!

* everyone agrees*

Luna: Hi. I'm the strongest fighter by far, and I want to fight so I can destroy the entire human race. DIE DIE DIE! DEATH TO EVERYONE!

Everyone: Well, that's fair. She will probably win and everyone will die. Reasonable. Let's hope that it doesn't happen.

Clarke * is really exasperated * Oh, hell no. I better make sure at least some people survive. * steals the bunker *

Octavia: * wins against all odds * We should all share the bunker!

Everyone: This is such a great idea, because someone who can fight with a sword said it! Hey, wait, what happened?

Clarke: .........

[easilydistractedbyfanfic]

Facing Your Demons - Season 6 Character Speculation: MURPHY

Well, we’re down three episodes of the season so far, and if I’m remembering correctly, somewhere JRoth has said that the real story of the season doesn’t really show itself until episode 4. Or something like that. But that even though the eclipse-induced psychosis may not be an ongoing thing, that “facing your demons” is still going to be an issue. 

So that’s made me think a lot about my faves and what their demons are or could be, and how that may play into what I see S6 being about. As a whole, I think that S6 is going to give us a lot of callbacks to past issues that our Earthkru have previously faced and we’ll see if they choose to right their mistakes or if they handle things differently now that they are older - and presumably - wiser. Obvious parallel here - Mt. Weather and the factions on Sanctum. But also Octavia being linked to the Grounders in S1 and Gabriel’s Children now in S6. And plenty more!

Lemme dive deeper and let’s start with MURPHY! 

Oh, this could be so good. So he died in 6x03 - Abby tells him his heart stopped. I think Murphy going through this is actually super deliberate. Let me preface this to say that I'm a big Murven shipper (lmao duh) and absolutely believe that Raven and Murphy are on similar journeys through this series and are opposite sides of the same coin. They have countless parallels and similar experiences in their lives (I’ve made past posts about it) and here’s another.

Who else died like this? Raven - she did it to herself in order to get ALIE out of her head in S4. She drowns herself and stops her heart - what a coincidence. And what else did Raven experience in this process - hallucinations. Brought on by ALIE yes, and resulted in her manifesting Sinclair (good angel?) and ALIE (bad demon?) where she ultimately had a choice to make about living or dying. She never says anything in canon about whether she experienced any visions of an afterlife, but that doesn't mean she didn't.

Anyway, Murphy's arc in this entire show has actually had him bumping up against religious plots. The entire saga with Jaha, searching for the COL was a religious journey on Jaha's part, obviously, but the argument is there that Murphy was searching for something too. I mean - they went through the desert, what a religious metaphor! And they are on a journey for (en)LIGHT(enment). And I'd venture to say that in a way he found it - when faced with personal crisis (being stuck in the Lighthouse), he chooses not to commit suicide (same as Raven).

But he sees this religious fervor on Jaha's part and refuses it - doesn't buy it, won't swallow it (literally won't take the chip). Murphy chooses to fight for rationality and freedom, ultimately helping in Polis to defeat ALIE and the religious crusade of the COL. I also note that it's interesting to me that in 3x06, Jaha lies to Raven about something in front of ALIE (Raven has taken the chip here). ALIE asks Jaha why he lies to Raven, and Jaha replies that Murphy knew the truth and they lost him - insinuating that if Raven knows the truth, they will lose her too (which they do).

(and on a complete side note but related - John Murphy gets banished and isolated on an island in canon. Biblical references suggest that a man named John of Patmos wrote the Revelations section of the Bible while he was isolated on an island, and believe me when I say I got a million theories about this)

Murphy gets out of the COL mess but is stuck in Polis, and what happens then? He comes to the attention of Titus, the Flamekeeper and Lexa's advisor - aka another run in with religion. It goes even deeper for him when he pretends to be Ontari's Flamekeeper and is in and out of the Temple in Polis. Murphy actually knows quite a bit about Becca and her origins from his time with the videos in the Lighthouse bunker AND his time in the temple at Polis with all the drawings and history of her.

So how does this tie in to FACING HIS DEMONS and the belief that he’s going to hell? First of all, I think it's realistic for him to be freaked out that he "died". He's a survivor and takes pride in that - it's his identity. But is that identity gone now? Maybe he doesn't feel like a survivor any more? Maybe he feels like it's too late, maybe he wants an out, maybe the pain of his past and his actions is too much for him... and maybe he thinks religion or what the Under-the-Dome people represent will help him, can calm him. What does this sound like to me? Oh, the arc where Raven decided she was in so much pain that she took the 'out' of the chip? Oh, the one where ultimately she realized it was false and she fought her way out of it because even though it was painful, she wanted her own life and memories and feelings back? Hmmm...... interesting. Are we going to see Murphy have to accept his life as-is? Is he going to suck it up and build a brace for his own shortcomings? I guess we’ll see. 

On the flip side, to throw out another possibility - Murphy is a lot smarter than people give him credit for. I would truly not put it past him to act interested in religious salvation in order to learn more about this society. Remember - he tells Ontari that it's better to lie your way out of something than to kill your way out (3x11). 

In addition, if we tie it all in to facing your demons, I think there's an easy argument to be made that Murphy doesn't think he's worthy, that he's 'bad' in comparison to others or shouldn't have survived this long while other (better?) people have died (His Dad? Monty? Harper?). He's ALWAYS been about guilt, always. It's not a jump for him to think he needs to be punished. A dive into escapism via alcoholism or religion to numb his thoughts is absolutely an in-character thing for him. Although of course I’d really like to see Raven having a chat with him at some point about how he’s better than their mothers and should knock it off with the drinking. 

Blah blah blah, too long, sorry. I get carried away with Raven & Murphy! Regardless of what happens next, I’ll be watching. And also writing Murven fic!