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guilty-lights · 5 years

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Straw-Hat Pirates Death Headcanons

So someone on one my fics took up on my enthusiastic invitation in my end-author notes to ask me about my death headcanons for the Straw-Hat Pirates. (Shoutout to Jeanne-Crab on ao3 for that comment!) I was typing out my answer to that question and realised that I had Way More To Say About It Than I Thought, so I thought i might as well put it up as a post on my tumblr!

I’ll split this into two parts; my headcanons for SHP’s deaths as I think it could happen in canon, and then specifically in how it would happen in the universe as set in my fic, like the seas, you live on (in me). (Shameless plug here: If you like zosan, and also appreciate angst and hurt/comfort, read my fic? It’s zosan-but-kind-of-not-but-also-kinda-is, it’s complicated, but it’s 30k and I worked Super Hard on it and I personally think it’s pretty good so if please give it a shot! Do Read The Tags Before Reading It, Though, because I would never want to cause people unnecessarily extreme distress. And read my other fics too if you want WHOOP) Anyway, without ado, here’s my headcanons for Straw-Hat Pirates’ deaths. This is a very very Very Long post, so buckle up:

AS PER CANON

First off: Everybody, by the time of their death, has achieved their life’s dreams, because of course they have. (I won’t hear of anything otherwise, go away!!)

Luffy: Luffy dies in the war on Raftel, or wherever the final battle for being Pirate King happens. He definitely becomes Pirate King, don't get me wrong, but he dies very soon after because of his injuries and because of the amount of his lifespan he has traded in using his Gears. This is the one headcanon I think (FEAR) will happen - Oda's constant allusion to Luffy's lifespan in his use of Gears and things like that just feels so suspect to me in this regard...

Luffy is buried near where Ace is, because that's what he would've wanted and so that's what the Straw-Hat Pirates did. Not right next to Ace (because that would mean Luffy’s also buried right next to Whitebeard and that doesn't feel right to me for some reason), but somewhere close by, either on the other side of the same island or on an island very, very close by. His emblematic pirate flag is erected on his grave, and its symbol flaps ceaselessly in the wind, always in the direction of where the sea is closest to. (And next to a village called Foosha, however, deep in the heart of a mountain called Mt. Colubo, a monument to a boy is erected posthumously by the mountain bandits and villagers who live there, at the base of a tree where a dilapidated treehouse still stands despite all the years.)

Luffy is the only one to die so young; the rest don't die until years later. By that time, though, they've long stopped sailing together as the Straw-Hat Pirates. Think of it like how Gol D. Roger's pirates split themselves off after the death of their captain; they're still friends for sure, and they hold each other as very precious, but there is no point or need to sail together as pirates anymore after the death of their captain, whom they have rallied themselves with.

For the rest, I'm not sure who will die first, because within the One Piece canon literally So Many Things can happen, but here’s their burial arrangements:

Brook: Brook was interesting to figure out, because he's technically already died once before. I was trying to work out what the implications of his devil fruit is (is he immortal? But given the reverence given to Law's Immortality Surgery, that doesn't seem likely), and I decided that users of Brook's devil fruit will go once they decide it's time to just...go. So that's what Brook did. He lived until Laboon finally passes on, to make sure Laboon is never left behind again, and then he gathers the rest of the Straw-Hat Pirates in one place, says his goodbyes, and simply...leaves. His bones collapse on the ground with no spirit to hold them up, and per his request his bones are scattered over West Blue. His violin and sword cane are erected as part of a monument next to Luffy’s grave.

Robin: I’m not precisely sure HOW Robin would die, but probably for her she would die quite peacefully, of old age. Frankly speaking, after all she’s been put through from childhood to adulthood, she deserves a little peace at least at the end of her life. Robin’s monument next to Luffy’s grave is a simple pair of crossed arms made of pale marble (one of the hands holds a book). Her body isn’t buried there, however; in the West Blue, on a barren stretch of scorched land that people say used to be called Ohara, a singular grave can be found in the centre of it.

Franky: His monument next to Luffy’s grave is of his blue metal forearms (one of which is holding a little hammer). Franky's grave of his human parts, however, are buried on Water 7, at the spot where him and Iceburg and Tom used to work on trains together. A mini replica of Sunny shaped out of metal is on top of it, to tell everyone that the shipwright that built the second pirate ship that ever sailed to Raftel lies here.

Usopp: Unlike everybody else, Usopp asks to have his burial place split into two places. To make this easier, he’s cremated. One half of his ashes is buried in Syrup Village, next to his mother’s grave, and the other half of him is buried under a monument next to Luffy’s. On his monument are the words, “The Bravest Warrior of the Sea, Sniper Usopp, A Giant Among Men” (or words to that effect). His crewmates chose those words for him. His Sogeking mask is hung on his monument. His grave in Syrup Village, however, is much simpler; his original green slingshot is fastened to it (and will slowly wear down, over the years, to an unrecognisable sun-bleached stump), and on it are the words “The greatest liar of Syrup Village that has ever lived”.

Nami: Nami also gets a monument next to Luffy’s grave. (Okay right at this point just assume that every Straw-Hat Pirate has a monument next to Luffy’s grave!!) However, like Robin and Franky, her monument doesn’t have her body. Nami is buried at Cocoyashi, at the cliff overlooking the sea where her mother Belle-mere was (and where her sister is/was buried too, depending whether Nami dies before or after Nojiko does). With her in the grave is the original copy of the world map she has made, her greatest triumph.

Zoro: Zoro probably dies the most second most violent death after Luffy, what with being the world’s greatest swordsman and all. Probably he is killed/ mortally wounded by someone who comes to take his title, as he probably did to Mihawk before him. He’s cremated, and his ashes are buried next to Luffy’s as Luffy’s first mate and right-hand man (Zoro is first mate even if it was never officially stated!!!). His swords, however, are a different story; Wado Ichimonji I believe Zoro requests to be brought back to Shimotsuki, and put next to Kuina’s grave. As for the other two swords, I don’t know HOW precisely it will happen but it’s left out in the wide world for whoever is worthy to wield them again, because I think Zoro wouldn’t believe in keeping the blades for himself post-mortem.

Sanji: He also gets a monument next to Luffy. His body, however, is not there; when Sanji dies he is cremated and his ashes are scattered throughout All-Blue, where a floating restaurant called the Baratie now stays; the most famous restaurant there is in the entire world, and it’s unique in that no matter who you are, if you are hungry and come through the door, you get to eat.

Chopper: He’s probably the last one to die, I think. Not only because he’s the youngest but also because he’s a doctor, I’m sure he knows how to heal himself up whenever he gets sick. His body is buried next to Luffy’s grave, but on Drum Island, there is a monument with a distinctive hat design erected underneath the base of a sakura tree; the tree, despite the wintry climate of the island, blooms pink and full all year round. (Chopper worked with Usopp on genetically developing a sakura horticulture that could do that, before their deaths).

Jinbe: Jinbe buried underneath the sea, but close to where sunlight will always shine bright because that has always been the fishmen’s dream. His underwater grave bears his past as a Sun Pirate and all the contributions and sacrifices he has made for his people, but his monument on land, he is noted (like all the others), as a most dearly and beloved member of the Straw-Hat Pirates, one whose loyalty never wavered, up until the end.

Monuments of Going Merry and Thousand Sunny are erected, because ships are crewmates too.

AS PER MY FIC’S UNIVERSE

In terms of burial arrangements, everything I said about all the Straw-Hats above are applicable here (unless stated otherwise below), PLUS what I will say here below:

Robin and Franky: I think in my fic, Robin and Franky would be the first to die, because they're the oldest (save for Brook). In my fic’s universe it is Never Mentioned but Franky and Robin are as good as married, and had spent their whole lives together (I'm sorry but Frobin is Real to me and you can pry it out of my cold dead hands). Their monuments are side-by-side next to Luffy's. On top of their monuments holding their respective items, their monuments' hands hold each other's.

Chopper: Chopper has yet to die at the time of my fic, but when he does, whatever I described above will apply. At the point of the fic he has already worked out the horticulture of the ever-blooming sakura tree and it has already been planted in Drum Island, and has been growing steadily for years.

Zoro and Sanji: Zoro and Sanji have yet to die at the time of my fic. Their burial arrangements would be the same, however. As for HOW they might die, I recommend you read my fic to find out! (I can’t give away all my cards, obviously.)

That’s all! This has become an awfully long post, and I commend you if you managed to reach this far to the end. Let me know what you think of this: do you agree? Disagree? I would love to discuss this with people, it would be very fascinating, no matter how thoroughly sad. In the meantime, if you’d like to read any one piece fanfiction, feel free to check out my ao3 :)

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bub-the-voidling · 5 years

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Custom Card Competition wk 17: Madness

(This is a post about a private Card Brewing competition. Entries were not open to the public)

This week, we’ve all collectively lost our minds and constructed our own interpretations of that madness!

In case you didn’t understand that, we’re making madness cards this week :P Think [Basking Rootwalla], [Basking Rootwalla], or maybe even [Falkenrath Gorger]. Without further ado, I’m Sami, I like [Guild Summit] [Forbid] control and this is week 17 of the custom card competition!

This is just to keep you from peeping when I link the write up, I’ll come up with a better way to do this.

Anyway! Card time!

Starting off the competition we have a brave soul, someone who dares delving into the scariest and deepest depths of a mad mind. A horrifying little line of text included that makes everyone quiver in fear. “at random.” Funny how much we fear that.

So, what do I have to say about it? This is one of the rare occasions where it’s handled actually well. I will complain about the card in just a minute, but please understand how impressive that little feat is. Someone made a card that randomly sacrifices and discards cards and did it well. That is worthy of praise.

Now, why if I like this card so much is it the first card and obviously not the winner? Because this is a madness competition, and while I agree that randomness is a mad thing what this does with madness is sadly lacking. It continues the card’s theme of making everyone sacrifice some sort of permanent but it kind of feels like it randomly chose planeswalkers and artifacts while adding an unfitting increased price.

What would I do then to improve this card? Actually, I have quite a bit of suggestions, the first one is that I would make the hard casting slightly weaker since it just seems better to hard cast it, it does a little bit of everything for cheaper. Land destruction, creature destruction, and the best kind of non-targeted discard. Maybe move one of them to the second part, like maybe the land destruction. You could also swap out the discard for the artifact, because no one wants to really pay extra to get to destroy someone��s artifacts. Second suggestion, keep the randomness for the madness cost. It’s a bit weird of a change at first, but maybe the card could be just the hard cast part, but once you madness it people lose the ability to choose. Third suggestion in case you don’t want to change the card because of the card identity is that you could simply reduce the cost of the madness part, because honestly it kind of stings paying 6 mana after discarding a card for just sacrifice one of everything.

Also making it just sac opponent’s stuff for madness could be another option, but hopefully you get my point. I really like it, but it’s not quite there.

7/10, someone get the oddly specific dice for our lands…

What’s with you guys and submitting things a week late? >:/ This isn’t equipment week!

Joking aside this is an interesting card. It’s a [Hellbent], or [Heckbent] as it now is madness support card. That’s also an equipment. Now this is one heck of a card, so what does it do? It makes YOU discard cards when your creature deals damage. Now I can’t remember who told me this, but the card really makes me think about the saying “Every downside has some upside.” I’m fairly certain it wasn’t worded that way, but the point is that we’re using this obvious disadvantage in our favor since we’re playing a [madness] deck.

Interesting to note is that it’s not combat damage it triggers on, it triggers on any damage. So, if we equip this on [some] sort of [pinger]. We have a discard on demand, but if you would equip it on one of those two examples they would be effectively turned off until you want to discard cards. Which you usually do since this is a discard card for a discard deck, but you don’t always want to discard. Even if you have cheap spells such as [Fiery Temper] or [Asylum Visitor] you sometimes run out of mana or have to spend said mana on other things.

So, what’s my take on this madness support card? Although I can’t help but to love the weird equipment with its strong downside that tells you, it doesn’t ask it tells you to build around it. As much as I admire that I sadly must admit that this might be over some line in “This is too weak.” I love weakness, I honestly think people usually try to make things too strong without appreciating that it’s okay if a card doesn’t do everything. It’s better that cards have weaknesses than just being all upside. [Technically] [these] [have] [weaknesses], [but] [really]? So why am I saying all of this? Why do I think this is too weak? Wasn’t weakness a good thing thirty seconds ago? Yes, but if the downside is too great you end up with a [Tibalt] instead of a [supreme card that is the pinnacle of card design].

What do I want from the card? Simple, some way to reward you for using the card. Now that might sound really stupid since you’re supposed to use the card to discard other cards, that’s the whole reason to use it! I mean yes, but there has to be some carrot to this stick. Otherwise I would much rather use [Key to the City] to discard for free at will and then get the chance to draw it back again. Or maybe [some] [discards] for 2 mana that literally gives you back new cards. Hell, if you want to go blue [Forbid] is pretty darn cool. The last example might not be too tempting since it costs a lot but hopefully you get my point. You are supposed to get something in return for discarding cards, otherwise you will not use this in favor of something that doesn’t turn off your creatures and gives you some sort of upside.

What can be changed for it? Now, if you’re still reading this just know that I might just be talking out of my ass and that everything you just read might’ve been bullshit. But I believe that to turn this into something great the reward could be something like giving stats once heck/hellbent. But talking with the creator they had a worry that the text would simply be too much, so I have a second suggestion. Remove this little bit “you control.” Now what the hecko does that do? Well, if you discard the mask and pay for it… You can equip an opponent’s creature. Remember the comment about turning off a creature? Oh what I would do to turn off the opponent’s creature~ It’s a minor tweak that has large ramifications. Now the card can be used as an offensive tool that makes the opponent ask “Is it worth blocking or attacking? I’ll discard these if I do…” and so on. That’s at least my take on it.

6/10, lovely idea, just not quite there. (Holy moly that was a wall of text.)

Originally, I wanted to have this card just before the winner because I like the card, but I wanted to talk more about it. But the last two are so ridiculously close that I don’t even know yet who will win. Well as I’m writing this, now that you’re reading this I’ve made up my mind.

Anyways! This seems like a simple card, no? A changed version of [Obsessive Search] which is good since just making better versions of cards is usually not too great. Unless we’re talking about a [Untamed Wilds] into [Rampant Growth] scenario. It’s not strictly better since you can’t cast it at all until you discard it (sorcery doesn’t mean anything). Although I like the idea of non-existent mana cards, the madness cost being absolutely free… It gnaws at me. Probably [breaks] [dredge] but I’m not too sure, dredge is a weird fellow xD But the problem with being a free discard is that it can go into any discard deck you want. If there’s enough [discard] then you can sure as hell just slam this one in to get some extra value, thin your deck or whatever you want. It’s free after all!

I’m going to break the pacing a little bit and throw over one of the ineligible cards here since it’s from the same person.

If you didn’t run away because you saw Phyrexian mana, twice. Let tell you why I think this card is slightly better designed. It’s [well] [known] that a redraw is worth 2 life. A card could just be printed at a blue Phyrexian mana and only say “Draw a card.” at instant speed and be balanced. It would even almost be objectively worse than [Street Wraith] since wraith can be a creature for 5 mana. Something is always better than nothing. That also goes for drawbacks, something is always better than nothing, paying 2 life (or 1 blue mana) to draw the madness card is more balanced than just getting the redraw for free. It kind of goes along the lines of why we don’t play Street Wraith in all our decks. We all know that having smaller decks (IE 56 instead of 60) is better, so having a draw that only costs life should be essentially free. But it’s not, because life matters, even if it’s a constant resource like Energy, in that it doesn’t go away after each phase. That 8 life or even just 2 life simply is not worth it. And same would kind of go for this card, you wouldn’t just slam it into any discard deck because you wanted a free redraw and free discard. You would have to put some thought into it. Even though I’d speculate this would still be really popular because of the madness tag on it.

Also, with this version sorcery actually matters and is fitting.

Anyway, the card you submitted, I like it. But I honestly wish you’d keep your original submission.

7/10 the Phyrexian version is like half a point better, and since math is math it would be 8/10.

The first entry I had this week, also one of the best, if not the best. Now what’s so special about this? Does it interact with madness in a new and interesting way? Does the madness trigger change how you play the game or even build a new deck around it? Kind of and not really. It does kind of interact with madness in a new way. But instead of making the madness on itself important, it applies it to all other madness cards.

So it’s a madness support card, and for the record I would’ve allowed it even if it didn’t have the madness tag for 3 mana. But now it can be cast earlier than T5 if you madness it. And the support it gives is exactly what you’d want in a fair madness deck. A reliable way to consistently get madness triggers. Yes it’s only at your upkeep, but worst case you get to loot deeper into your deck. Which your opponent also gets, not sure how I feel about that.

Anyway, once you do cast a card for its madness cost the madness never ends and you draw another card and discard a card, hopefully continuing the chain of madness. Now this can probably get broken somehow if you’re comfortable with playing a 3-mana enchantment to chain this madness combo. But what you could also do is play [Madness Creatures] or a vampire tribal thanks to [Falkenrath Gorger] and just fairly cast 2-3 or more creatures at the beginning of your upkeep with the madness chains. And that’s what I really wish from this card, that idea is making me love the card. I have this thought that this is like [Experimental Frenzy] in limited. Strong and fair, but honestly it might be broken somehow. Maybe with storms.

10/10, really great entry. Only thing I didn’t like was that it made the opponent draw and discard as well. Might be faulty judgement on my part, but that’s honestly how I feel.

Fun little tidbit, the person who made this was originally not going to enter before they had drawn the artwork for the card, but they didn’t have time to finish it so I kind of forced them to enter without art. Sorry not sorry, this card is great.

This is exactly what I was hoping and looking forward to in this competition. A card that interacts with madness more than just being cast for madness, and this does it in a great way. Hard casting it, you have a worse [Merfolk Looter] as it has no power. And if you discard it and pay the flavorful red mana you might get it out for cheap, but its ability is swapped from looting to [Rummaging], the red version of going through your deck.

Seems well balanced as there’s some tradeoff for the discard effect rather than just making it a 1/1.

I don’t have a lot to say as this is exactly what I would ask from a looter/rummager with madness, even the cost is swapped for red as it should be as rummaging is a red ability, also a [mad ability].

I can’t even come up with anything I’d change, maybe the madness cost to 1R, but that’s probably not even needed. Unsurprisingly, this card is our winner 😊

10/10, we have a winner and he has protection from protection! Congratulations to Ape of Justice for winning this week’s custom card challenge!

I want to do a little update, but first let’s real quick show the ineligible entries this week.

First off we have the person who made the prompt’s card! And… wow, this is interesting. Madness X on a creature (plus BR). This is… quite awesome, if you want the creature and not go minus in cards you’re going to have to pay 4 mana for it and get a 4/3 plus looting 2. But then the other options are really interesting, 2 mana for a 4/3 haste flier where you also discard 2 cards, it could in the [dream] [scenario] work out quite well for you or maybe even be what you intend to do later on in the game to madness some more. But really late game you can even use this as some weird ass card draw spell. Like a [Braingeyser] but with a creature on top of it.

But sadly, the card is a bit too pushed with one little thing. The 1/1 creatures. I honestly think having the 1/1 makes the card do a bit too much, I’m not too big of a fan when cards do everything. You can’t have a reasonable creature, card draw, a large army with relevant creature types, and haste them all. It’s the reverse problem of the helmet card from before.

8/10, teach me the meaning of that word you- Oh wait you can read this. <//-//<

And last off this week we have…

A card you already know what I think of as I used it to compare one entry.

8/10, you know this already.

But this card brings up the point I was talking about earlier. Personally, I’m a slightly conflicted about the scoring system I’m currently using. I’m trying to get it as accurate as I perceive the cards but having flat numbers is kind of limiting. For example, the Tides of Insanity would’ve been 9.5 and the card above I would’ve given a 7.5, but because math works as it works it’s rounded up to 8. And if I would be allowed to go even wilder, I might’ve given it a 7.4 which would translate to a 7 in the current system. I know this all sounds like humbugs and you might not even really care. And that’s fine, in that case just go to the next prompt and good luck ^^ But if you’re still reading this, I want to hear your opinion. I want to know how you want my scoring system to continue, bellow this will be two links to two different polls, and I would like to ask you to please ask you to click ‘em and vote in them. Or just reach out to me and chat about the scoring system. It would help me out a lot.

[Poll 1]

[Poll 2]

Thanks for reading that little wall of text and thank you for being patient with this write up taking so long. Hopefully you guys and girls were enjoying the prerelease as well ^^ But without further ado, here’s the prompt that you already know!

Investor gadget! (Fuck you Ape, I’m keeping it.) We're flipflopping from being mad lads and lassies into being investigators! Make a card that revolves around the investigation mechanic. Examples of this are the one and only [Inspector Gadget!], [Tireless Tracker], [Confirm Suspicions], and since someone's going to ask, yes [Erdwal Illuminator].

Good luck everyone and have a wonderful week <3

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kane-and-griffin · 7 years

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OK I know The List is probably just existing at this point to cause angst and strife in Arkadia and probably won't actually end up applying to who survives at all, but it's still freaking me out: Abby's name was obviously no.1 on that list. (Raven was probably second.) Like, essential personal right there, Clarke must be so glad she can justifiably save her mom first. But what about Marcus? (What about Octavia??) Do you think that will come up next week? /trying to be chill but not chill at all

There’s a fantastic episode in the first seasonof The West Wing called “TheCrackpots and These Women,” where deputy chief of staff Josh Lyman has ameeting with a member of the National Security Council, who gives him a card tokeep in his wallet with instructions for where to go and what to do in the caseof a nuclear strike or terrorist attack. He’s on the list who gets to go into the President’s secure emergencybunker. The whole rest of his arc in theepisode is about Josh slowly realizing that none of his friends got one ofthose cards; none of them are high enough up on the food chain to be deemedimportant enough to rate a spot in the bunker. If a nuclear strike happens, they’ll all be dead, and he’s the only onewho knows it, because the existence of the card itself is classified.

There isn’t a nuclear strike in that episode, ofcourse, or anywhere else in the course of the series, and the card never comesup again. It exists as a way to forceJosh into a situation where the brutal, grim realities of wartime – finite resourcesallocated based on a person’s overall importance to the survival of the governmentof the United States – crash headfirst into his personal feelings for thesepeople he cares about and works with every day, and the discomfort of hisrealization that someone, somewhere, made a decision that his life has morepractical value than someone else’s.

I was thinking a lot about Josh and the NSC cardas I watched Clarke, Bellamy and Raven clash over the list. Raven’s understanding of it is practical anda little abstract; she’s the NSC agent saying “okay there are forty spots inthe bunker besides the President, who are the 39 people we most need to keepthis country functional in the event of a national crisis?” But I think maybe her arc in this episode nudgesa little at the possibility of that perspective shifting; at the beginning, themedicine is an abstraction (“we only have X amount, it has to last X long, thechances of it working in this situation are X%, that’s too low to risk wastingit”), but by the end there’s a real child dying in front of her, which givesRaven a little taste of what it’s like to be Clarke and Bellamy, for whom noneof these deaths feel abstract. She tellsClarke “choosing who lives and dies is your specialty,” but in this episode itwas her choices that cost lives. That doesn’t mean she’s wrong or right, thatjust means that abstract things became concrete for her in some interestingways.

And Bellamy’s storyline reminded me a lot of Joshhimself, wrestling with the question of who “deserves” to be on the list; heinitially refuses to let Clarke put him on it, in the cold open, and then atthe end when she finally does but hesitates to put her own name, he writes itfor her. Neither of them feel worthyenough to write their own names, but neither of them wants to be inside if theother one isn’t, and each of them sees the other’s value to the community as awhole. Clarke needs Bellamy, but shealso knows that any group of survivors trying to stay alive in Arkadia willneed him too. It isn’t a selfishgesture, just the way Bellamy knows they can’t afford to let Clarke sacrificeherself out of guilt. It’s a reallymoving scene in terms of their closeness and partnership, and the way theyshare burdens, but it’s also I think setting up what the real ongoing impact ofthis list is going to be for the next few episodes.

I suspect that in a manner of speaking, the listitself is kind of a MacGuffin; I think we’re going to end up with the grouppursuing a number of different survival options (more spoilery/speculativethoughts on this below the jump!), so I don’t think the list is meant right nowto be a hard-and-fast breakdown of who is and isn’t scheduled to survive praimfaya. I think right now it’s much more about Clarke’srelationships. Her name is on that listnow, and 400 other people’s names are not. And it seems from the trailers for next week that the list is foundalmost immediately, at least by Jasper and Monty if not by the group as a whole.Jasper’s desire to keep secrets for Clarke seems to be RAPIDLY diminishing, thefewer fucks he gives, so it doesn’t seem like we have to wait too long for theemotional consequences of that list to erupt. Does she put Monty but notHarper or Jasper? Does she put her own mother but not Miller’s father? How - if at all - does she justify Octavia, other than avoiding the desire to hurt Bellamy, and what does Raven think about that? I don’t actually thinkwho’s on the list right now is any kind of a barometer of characters’ actualfates, I think it’s purely about Clarke’s chickens coming home to roost and theway relationships are either brought closer together or wedged apart when thelist inevitably leaks out.

In terms of the questions of who survives, howand where, I’ve been sorting through a number of thoughts related to the finaleand this episode clarified a couple of them, so I want to sort of walk throughthis in an orderly fashion. Basicallywhat I think is that we’re gearing up for a finale with the main cast fracturedin a number of different places, so I’d caution you not to have a heart attackthat like half the cast is gonna get killed off going into the final season, orthat if we do find out who is on the list, that your fave not being on it meansthey’re getting killed off in the finale.

I want to talk through a couple of the possible “lifeboats”we’ve seen hinted at so far and share some of the thoughts I’ve had about themone by one.

1. ArkadiaThe season poster is a picture of Arkadia onfire, which could mean one of two things; it could mean that Arkadia itselfcatches fire and blows up, and we lose that option altogether, leaving thewhole Skaikru contingent homeless and desperate. Or, alternately, the fire could be praimfayasweeping over at the end of the season, and they deliver on the current setup,which is that they get everything patched up to keep 100 people stuck insideArkadia for five years on starvation rations. The fact that they made it 100 people specifically feels symbolicallysignificant enough that I think Arkadia is likely to survive so they can carry throughon that imagery; in fact, I think a cool reversal of the pilot would be forClarke to send Abby, Kane and Jaha as part of “the 100″ in the Ark.

A related theory I’ve been hashing out with @abigailkanes and @brittanias has to do with the (VERY WELCOME, DON’T GET MEWRONG, BUT STILL) noticeably deliberate choice to show Kane coming inside Abbyin that sex scene. A lot of the othersex scenes we get are either sexy leadup (tearing off clothes and wild makingout, a la Flarke and Rellamy) or sexy afterglow (cut juuuuuuuust as they finishand flop backwards onto the pillows, a la Marper). But like ….. not to give away how many timesI’ve watched that scene or how hard I’ve listened, but that is definitely likethrusting and gasping and Kane coming. And their storyline is so much about Jake and about marriage that I feellike it would not be WILDLY unlikely for the plot-relevant reason for anonscreen Kane orgasm to be that Abby ends up pregnant. Part of why I like this theory – and this isDEEP-CUT CONSPIRACY STUFF FAM – is because, the original 100 was actually 101. Bellamy stowed away. Nobodycounted him. We’ve been getting a ton ofAbby/Bellamy parallels this season, so the idea of Abby being 2 months pregnant(maybe knowing it, maybe not) at the end of the season and a secret 101st“stowaway” inside Arkadia feels like it might fit nicely with all the S1parallels they’re giving us. So I feellike that possibility, along with the reversal of the adults who sent theoriginal 100 now being sent as part of the new 100, makes me pretty confidentthat all three of them (Abby, Kane, Jaha) will end up in Arkadia in thefinale. And maybe with a baby. And maybe if we get the five-year time jump I’manticipating (to catch the characters up a little better with the cast’s actualages), we’ll have a cute lil’ toddler running around the ship driving AuntieOctavia crazy, being both a literal symbol of the hope that’s hard-wired intothe Kabby storyline, and also being a major liability during the end of theworld because they didn’t budget for food and supplies for a 101stperson.

2. Nightblood SerumRaven is 100% focused on keeping as many Skaikrualive as possible, but we know that Clarke takes her commitment to theGrounders seriously, and that she isn’t going to give up and just settle for onlysaving 100 and letting all of Grounder civilization die. It’s not who she is, it would be a terriblebetrayal of Lexa, and in terms of sheer repopulate-the-earth practicality, she’sthinking about keeping the biggest number of people alive as possible. Not to mention that Nightblood is a genetictrait and only the Grounders have that gene. So I think we’re definitely headed towards an arc for Abby that’s allabout her figuring out from Becca’s journal how to manufacture artificialNightblood serum. I suspect that next week when we see Abby and Jackson onEmori’s boat that they’re headed for Becca’s lab (that blue-and-white room wesaw in the trailers), and that a big part of the next few episodes is going tobe her and Raven going full Science BAMF with Becca’s equipment to see if theycan replicate her original work. We’relikely to get some juicy bioethics questions from this (do they have toexperiment on human subjects???) but I would guess that in the end we’re goingto end up with Abby able to replicate X number of workable doses of Nightbloodserum and then that’s ANOTHER list of who gets a shot at survival. This story could intersect nicely with Gaia ifpart of it involves rounding up every surviving Nightblood, as well as withIlian if the growing distrust of all technology leads Grounders to besuspicious of a vaccination from Skaikru doctors.

3. Cadogan’s BunkersSooooo, Jaha’s ensemble is more than a little cult-tasticall of a sudden, and also I recognize the guest actor playing Cadogan, which meansI’m going to guess that part of Jaha’s arc this season is continuing to huntfor another doomsday cult bunker. The fact that the season motto and thecult’s motto are the same is clearly important; maybe in a Mount Weather way(are there still members of this cult alive somewhere???), maybe in a Jaha’sNew Quest way (although I’m hoping we don’t end up retreading story beats we’vealready covered), or maybe in a way that has something to do with ALIE and thefirst apocalypse. I wouldn’t be surprised if we get flashbacks of Cadogan andlearn more about him. We’re also gettinginteresting hints that there’s sort of two different collections of accumulatedChancellor knowledge; there’s what’s in the files (they tell him outside theRover that they checked every bunker that the Council investigated as an optionfor the original 100 and deemed them all useless), and then there’s whatappears to be the deep underground stuff that isn’t written down anywhere andis highly classified; things like the real Polaris story, and the fact thatthis other bunker existed, which Jaha seems to have known about already. So the question of what else he knows, or canfigure out, and what he might have learned from ALIE, could come up over thecourse of the season. Off the top of myhead I’m guessing he starts to creepily over-identify with this Cadogan guy,and/or becomes pulled into their weirdo belief system, but also that hecontinues looking, either using files from the Ark mainframe or from ALIE’scomputers, for another one of Cadogan’s bunkers. If they’re gunning for something resembling aredemption arc for Jaha, he’ll eventually have to contribute something concreteto the group as a whole, and being the person who figures out a way to helpsave his people would help. If it allturns out to be a fruitless or destructive quest for nothing, I’ll be kind ofcranky, because frankly we’ve already gone down that road with the City ofLight. So I’m waiting to see what thetwist is here, and Jaha unearthing another bunker could be the way to do that.

There’s one more possibility that I’m puttingbelow the jump, because it has to do with some finale spoilers that werefloating around and lowkey confirmed by a recent actor interview, and I don’twant anyone who doesn’t want to see those to put them in their eyeballs.

Anyway, this is a very long answer to your question,but basically the upshot here is that I don’t think we’re meant at thisjuncture to interpret the list as the real actual who lives/who dies list, likethat’s Jason telling us who makes it into S5. I think the list right now is about the fracturing of Clarke’srelationships based on the unavoidable pressures of having to makelife-or-death decisions, and that the thing that keeps her from turning into aJaha (like he cautioned her in that great scene from last week) is that she hasa partner who can share these burdens with her, even if the things they have todo push everyone else away.

OKAY HERE’S LIFEBOAT #4, DON’T CLICK IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS!

OKAY ARE WE GOOD ARE WE ALONE DID EVERYONE WHODOESN’T WANT SPOILERS LEAVE ALREADY?

Okay, here we go.

4. SpaceOkay, so I will preface this by saying that I sawthe leaked finale pages, and was told about them in about half a dozen anonmessages, and even though I didn’t really want to know that information, it waslowkey confirmed in Marie’s TV Guide interview, so it feels like something wecan all acknowledge now, which is that it seems like some contingent of peopleend up finding a way to go to space. There was a post floating around on Tumblr and Twitter with Raven at hergiant wall o’ computer screens and one of the things up onscreen in thebackground was an article about an asteroid mining colony that had lost contactwith Earth at some point before the nuclear meltdown. Marie basically says that for Octavia, space isn’tan option – she was miserable there – which seems to confirm the theory thatthe core cast ends up fractured a number of different places. So, again, for those of you who saw thoseleaked pages and were panicking that those half a dozen or so people were likethe whole cast of S5, I definitely don’t think that’s likely. The names that were kicking around of who wasin that posse were Bellamy, Echo, Monty, Harper, Murphy, Emori, and Raven, withother spoilers referring to stuff I didn’t see that seemed to indicate thatClarke doesn’t make it onto the space shuttle. (“No one knows if Clarke is dead or alive” is a nice season finalecliffhanger tbh, although I don’t really want her on nuclear wasteland walkaboutfor a five-year timejump, eating radioactive pauna or whatever.) But if they find a way to get into space andthey think they’ve found the location of a mining colony, that’s a place thatwould have survivable resources (and maybe even living people). I’m curious about what Echo’s doing on thatsquad, but Monty, Emori and Raven being the tech squad (and bringing their sweetieswith them in case they have to make babies) feels like a reasonable crew tosend in a tiny little shuttle on a crazy high-tech possible suicide missionwhile the people who are more on the politics side of things (Kane, Roan,Octavia, Jaha, Indra, Luna) and the medical personnel (Abby, Jackson) stay wherethere’s a higher density of people, whether it’s Arkadia or Jaha’s bunker or someoutpost of artificial Nightbloods hunkered down somewhere else.

#Anonymous #From the Inbox #metas and headcanons #the 100 meta #the 100 spoilers #the 100 speculation #the 100 #spoilers #clarke griffin #bellamy blake #SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS #GUYS SERIOUSLY #IF YOU CLICK THIS LINK AND REGRET IT YOU CAN'T BE MAD AT ME #I HAVE DONE ALL I CAN TO PROTECT YOU

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