#my gf keeps calling me out for very obviously basing these types of characters off of us

[alwaysaprille]

But you are useing Jroths quote as a reason to hate on Clarke and by extension l.xa. You use and minimize Clarke's worth and agency by saying that makes her a love interest. She can cheer for her crush/gf without being just a love interest. And if u want to be "well Jroth said and I'm just repeating it" then cool. It's not like you haven't called him on his shit before. I guess it's just not worth it for some characters. Especially when he can be used to discredit things and people.

This is going to be super long and I am on mobile, so I can’t put in a read more, prepare yourselves.

Omfg, what do you want me to say, Nonny?

That I love Clarke and L/xa because they’re such great wlw representation when they’re both huge white saviors and one of them even wears fucking brownface to compliment it?

Like...I’ve said a million times over that Cl/xa is valid, real and important. I’ve said they loved each other (Clarke still loves L/xa). I’ve said they were soulmates (you can cruise my blog for this one.) I’ve never once “hated” on your goddamn ship.

Never once. The only time I talk about your ship is when I get anon messages about it, or someone in your fandom is being racist. That’s literally it. I am a ship and let ship kind of person. I don’t care what you ship. I don’t care about any ships that aren’t mine. I’ve never seen Cl/xa as competition for Bellarke. I’ve never gone out of my way to shit on Cl/xa. 

Like??????

I use and minimize her “worth and agency”? How? Sometimes, in a character’s growth arc, they do take a backseat. They do become less active in their own story  It’s a very common trope in fiction, especially in a hero’s arc (which Clarke has been on since the Pilot episode.) 

In order to have true agency, a character must be able to make purposeful choices, not only that, but those choices must be aligned with their personality within the confines of the story (i.e.-not headcanons.) The 100 has set Clarke up to be a headstrong, manipulative, take-no-prisoners-do whatever I need to do to save my people-type of character. After 2x16 she actively backs away from that role and it’s completely understandable. 

Clarke has been actively making decisions since literally the Pilot episode, she’s had no breaks. Every single episode up until 3x04 Clarke (most often along with Bellamy) has had to make a life or death decision for herself or her people. In the Season 2 finale, she runs away from her people, but her decision to bear the burden of Wanheda alone, to hide from her people, still acts a very real decision to protect her people (specifically Bellamy and Monty). 

It is not until 3x04 where things begin to change and we see Clarke actively surrender the agency she’d already lost. Clarke had no real choices in 3x04, she had exhausted all of her options: asking L/xa to stop the fight to the death, asking Roan to kill his mother, attempting to kill Nia herself, asking L/xa once more to stop the fight. 

At the time that the fight to the death occurred, Clarke had no agency in what could have been a very crucial turn for the safety of her people. Everything (her safety, her people’s safety, everything) depended on L/xa’s ability to defeat Roan. 

Once L/xa defeated Roan, there was a weight lifted from Clarke’s shoulders. For once, she didn’t have to make the decision that saved or doomed her people. For once, someone else made the decision completely independent of her (which speaks to Clarke’s mindset-and a large part of the reason why some of the audience actually believes Clarke does make all the decisions by herself-when in fact every large decision she’s made has been a team effort, but I digress) and it worked in her favor! This is part of the reason why Clarke so easily lapses into comfort with L/xa. When she is in Polis, when she is with L/xa, she can relax, she can be unencumbered by the burdens of decision making (because, again, one of Clarke’s biggest pit falls is the inability to recognize that she isn’t the only one making decisions and the only affected by making those decisions-hence the showdown in Hakeldama with Bellamy). 

Heroic characters have to be put in situations beyond their control at some point in their story. It’s what ups the emotional ante when things go south. When L/xa died, not only did Clarke lose her love, she also lost her “shield”. “I don’t want the next Commander, I want you,” isn’t just a romantic line from a teenager whose heart is breaking as she watches her love die, it’s a true statement. 

Clarke can’t trust the next Commander, she doesn’t know if the next Commander will be willing to pick up “Blood Must Not Have Blood.” She doesn’t even know who the next Commander is!! 

Y’all keep trying to pick at Bellarke fans who comment on Clarke’s loss of agency in 3A, because you think that we’re saying that Cl/xa was bad because Clarke gave up her agency. 

Understand: in the literary trope of character agency, good things can happen and still cause a character to lose their agency!!!

Let’s really break this down, because I know the above was’t enough to actually explain my point:

When a character has agency she is active more than she is reactive. She pushes on the plot more than the plot pushes on her. Even better, the plot exists as a direct result of her actions.

What about anything that happened in 3A existed as a direct result of Clarke’s actions?

We begin the season with Clarke “feral” and in the woods, hiding from her people and the Grounder’s alike. She is hiding from her people because her actions in Mt. Weather broke her, she is hiding from the Grounder’s because her actions in Mt. Weather have made her legendary.

Who was directly responsible for Clarke committing the genocide that broke her and made her legendary?L/xa.

So Season 3 literally starts with the plot being driven by the fallout of L/xa’s decision to abandon Clarke at Mt. Weather. 

In 3x02, Clarke is kidnapped and brought to Polis, for several reasons, one of which is that L/xa fears for her safety because she knows Grounders are out to kill Clarke and gain the power of Wanheda. Clarke’s presence in Polis moves the plot. 

Who was directly responsible for Clarke’s presence in Polis?

L/xa-who ordered Roan to kidnap Clarke on the promise of his freedom. Again, the plot is still being driven by L/xa. 

In 3x03, L/xa explains her plan to initiate the Sky People as the 13th Clan. The Ice Nation blows up Mt. Weather again, Clarke bows before L/xa to symbolically submit (or give up her power-which can easily be a substitute word for agency!!!) as Wanheda to the Commander. 

Why does L/xa want the Sky People as a clan? Why does the Ice Nation blow up Mt. Weather?

L/xa needed the 13th Clan, specifically Clarke, because it allowed her to overrule the unanimous vote by the other 12 Clans to remove her from the Commandership and allowed her to instead respond to the Fight to the Death challenge, something she was obviously sure of winning. The Ice Nation attacks the Mt because they do not trust L/xa and feel her actions at Mt. Weather have shown her to be weak-this action-incidentally is a large part of the reason the massacre at Hakeldama occurs-another major plot point for the Season).

I’ve already discussed 3x04 above. 

In 3x05 L/xa and Clarke happen upon the massacred army. This is actually the first episode that we see Clarke demonstrate some agency (I say some-because it is reactionary) in during the course of the Season. It is Clarke’s persuasion of L/xa to move towards, “Blood must Not Have Blood” that cements the 12 Clans desire to see L/xa removed from her position as Commander. However, the 12 Clans had already decided that L/xa was unfit based on her actions in 2x15 and so Clarke’s actions here really didn’t change the plot significantly. L/xa was doomed from the moment she chose to walk away from the Mt. in Season 2. 

In 3x06, Clarke is again reactionary (which is not a sign of true agency). She makes no moves towards addressing the very real issues she saw in Arkadia when she was there in 3x05. Instead, she is sketching L/xa in the Commander’s suite-ignoring her reality, until Roan literally has it delivered to her feet. Even still, Clarke’s decision (to allow Emerson to live) was influenced by L/xa’s words (”So Blood Must Not Have Blood only applies when it is my people who bleed?”) and needed L/xa’s authority behind it for the sentence to carry any weight. It is L/xa who banishes Emerson officially, not Clarke. At any moment, L/xa could have decided to have Emerson killed and Clarke could have done nothing about it. L/xa had a choice. Clarke did not. 

I’m going to skip 3x07, because...I just don’t want to get into that and Clarke wasn’t in 3x08, but in 3x09 Clarke finally gets her agency back. She is a character who is actively making decisions that move the plot. 

Clarke makes a decision to not leave Polis immediately. Clarke makes a decision to steal the Flame. 

Those ^^^ actions have a direct affect on the plot.

Because Clarke has stolen the Flame, Titus kills himself, to stop Ontari from using him to get it back. Because Clarke has stolen the Flame, Roan now has to go off and hunt for it-which leads directly to their attempt to infiltrate Polis in 3x15. Because Clarke has stolen the Flame, Murphy is made the Flamekeeper and is therefore able to gain knowledge of how the Flame works-knowledge he later uses to implant the Flame into Clarke. Because Clarke has stolen the Flame, she is able to use it to kill Emerson (something she would not have been able to do, if she’d left Polis immediately as Murphy wanted). Because Clarke has stolen the Flame, she is able to get it to Raven and Sinclair who decipher the phrase needed to activate the Flame. Because Clarke has stolen the Flame, she must find a way to get it to Luna. Because Clarke has stolen the Flame, ALIE-who had correctly deciphered that the Flame was in Polis, is unable to get her hands on the chip immediately. Because Clarke has stolen the Flame, ALIE invades Luna’s oil rig, resulting in Jasper taking the chip, Luna killing and Clarke losing her only possible nightblood ally. Because Clarke has the Flame she is able to use it in the finale to enter the CoL and save the day. 

This is agency. This is what it looks like when a character’s actions move the plot forward. Clarke’s actions at the end of 3x07, literally push the entire narrative forward. Prior to 3x07, every character was reacting to L/xa’s actions-even the characters in Arkadia-who were reacting to the Grounder’s abandoning them at Mt. Weather, the Grounder’s blowing up Mt. Weather, the Grounders not allowing them to use Mt. Weather, the kill order on Lincoln-all a response to L/xa’s orders.  Stop mistaking us deciphering and discussing literary terminology as code for “We hate Cl/xa!” 

Unfortunately, it just so happens that those of us who do delve a bit deeper into the show’s literary devices are Bellarke shippers. 

BTW, I love how this ask ignores the fact that I’ve discussed Bellamy’s loss of agency in 3A at length, as well as his loss of agency to Clarke in Season 2B at length. So like....do you think I’m trying to discredit my own ship and my very favorite character....or??????

#the REACH #Anonymous

[flarebossmalva]

notes for my friend for hire mix is she promised to the night

#abuse #death m

this won’t make a lot of sense if you haven’t read friend for hire. even if you have, i wrote that story back in ‘13 and made the playlist at around the same time and it’s ‘18 now and i don’t exactly remember what was going through my head when i put this together, so this might be a less enlightening mix notes post. regardless, here we go.

only happy when it rains / garbage

one of the things i figured out very early on about jack is that she’s pretentious and melodramatic and on some level enjoys having something to complain about. after all, what kind of fifteen-year-old runs an overly verbose vent blog filled entirely with lengthy personal posts about some girl her parents are paying her to befriend? well, probably someone who likes to wallow in it a bit. friend for hire is, i guess, something of a tragedy, but it’s also being told by a character who has a tendency to revel in being sad.

seventeen / marina and the diamonds

growing pains. teenage angst. more establishing material for who jack is. 

about a girl / nirvana

this is definitely a song jack likes — i’m pretty sure i alluded to her fondness for 90s grunge at least once. nirvana songs are hard to analyze because kurt cobain was the sort of lyricist who mostly didn’t give a fuck about what his lyrics actually meant; regardless, the way i read this song is that it’s about being too hung up on someone who isn’t that level of hung up on you, who has a life outside of you. an unbalanced relationship, broadly speaking, which is what jack and luna’s thing was from the get-go because of the money jack pockets for it and the three-year age gap between the two.

crushcrushcrush / paramore

i think i put this on there more for the mood than for any specific lyric. this is a story about angsty teenagers. it definitely calls for some paramore. 

down today / jonathan coulton

this dude can write a passive-aggressive song like no one’s business. i mean, if you haven’t heard this song, it’s about how someone (maybe an ex, from context) is attempting to go off on you but you don’t even give a shit because you’re having a good time with a nice girl now. also: did jack make friends with luna to spite her mom? one hundred percent yes she did.

summersong / the decemberists

song about taking it easy because it’s summertime and summer comes and goes quickly. the main events of this story happen over the course of one summer — that’s about a three-month time frame. that’s quick. but a lot can happen in a single season, especially if you’re young.

summertime / my chemical romance

abandoning the rest of the world to run away with someone. this song is off mcr’s concept album set in a dystopia, so relating it to a much more mundane occurrence (two adolescents becoming friends) helped set the overdramatic us-vs-them teenager mentality mood i wanted the story to have.

born to die / lana del rey

more moody shit, plus the line “you like your girls insane” for a little nod at the mental illness themes i was working with. and a little mild suicidal ideation, why not?

kimberly / patti smith

i don’t know what the fuck patti smith is on about half the time, i’ll confess, but i love the imagery in this song; it’s weird and surreal and grand and apocalyptic and ends with the narrator gazing “into your starry eyes, baby” for the rest of the song. more “the two of us against the rest of the world” / “all we have is each other” kind of stuff, in context.

4 o’clock / emilie autumn

so we’ve mostly been from jack’s perspective in this playlist till now, but here’s a bit of luna. she’s an insomniac, and when she does sleep, she sleepwalks. for a girl named after the moon, she’s learning to dread the night pretty well. i confess that this bit of luna’s character is also based off of my first depressive episode in part because i kept myself awake at night until sunrise because paranoia made me fear the dark. 

asleep / emilie autumn

luna again, big surprise. pretty self-explanatory. wanting to sleep but it sounds an awful lot like wanting to be dead at times, too. 

is she weird / pixies

yes, she is weird. this is where i got the title of the mix from. 

monster / paramore

again, us vs. rest of the world stuff. drowning imagery in this one too. i don’t remember my writing process for this story too well but i’m pretty sure the foreshadowing was far from subtle.

girls! girls! girls! / emilie autumn

i think i referred to this song explicitly in the story. this is victorian notions of female madness / hysteria stuff, which is a theme i hope i explored at least a little because it was a big influence while writing this thing. iirc i had jack reference this song which is sort of getting at jack’s gender issues i guess, not seeing herself as a girl and all that.

fear of dying / jack off jill

i love foreshadowing apparently. also sort of a “i don’t want to die and leave you behind (but if we died together it’d be alright)” thing here.

northern star / hole

more night imagery. also a really moody track, sort of apocalyptic-sounding. it’s hole so i’ll be damned if i know what the lyrics are supposed to mean but the tone fits. i think i had this one associated in my mind with a specific scene i wrote where luna shows up at jack’s house unexpectedly.

how strange / emilie autumn

don’t remember which of my main characters i associated this one with but i wanted to get some early emilie autumn in there and this song is basically a passive-aggressive “you don’t know me like that” track. also the chorus talks about dreams which naturally were an important part of this story.

if you feel better / emilie autumn

abuse victim anthem am i right. the lyrics for this one are basically like “you can blame everything on me and treat me like i’m just a heartless person taking advantage of you if it helps you to do that because i’m past fighting you on it” and, again, you can definitely read it as passive-aggressive but i’m not sure you have to either because this is 100% the mentality abuse victims commonly adopt during their abuse. could work for jack and luna or for jack and her mom. 

the killing type / amanda palmer

the narrator of this song constantly asserts a nonviolent, pacifistic nature but is clearly willing, if not eager, to resort to violence to fix a broken relationship. if that ain’t a mood, i guess. i think this is more of a luna track, except she’s like twelve and ends up directing violence at herself instead of towards anyone else.

i want my innocence back / emilie autumn

given the ages of my protagonists, loss of innocence is in the thematic mix, and i think luna in particular (who is just moving out of childhood into adolescence) wants to go back to how she was before losing some vestige of innocence... another violent song too, but not angry, the violence here is matter-of-fact. a means to an end. luna’s basically dealing with the onset of mental illness symptoms (i never decided what she might have, but definitely some measure of psychosis) and doesn’t know what’s happening but wishes things could return to “normal” for her.

time for tea / emilie autumn

my main reason for including this track, i think, was because luna would like it. it’s about girls exacting bloody revenge, what’s not to love?

eloise / the damned

given jack’s overall musical taste (which i don’t think i discussed too much in canon, but i alluded to it more than once), i’m sure she’d like this song. the angst makes it fit. also like... doing everything you can think of to keep someone happy and then losing them anyway.

liar / emilie autumn

god i really put a lot of emilie autumn on this one huh. this is another track that could work for jack’s relationship with her mom (i think when i had her review opheliac in a blog post, she mentioned liking this song; that’s why), but it’s more relevant to jack and luna’s relationship ultimately, especially once luna finds out jack’s been getting paid to befriend her.

when i am queen / jack off jill

extremely a luna track, the chorus is even about suicide by drowning for fuck’s sake. not sure there’s much more to say, the relation of this one to the story is probably very obvious.

shallot / emilie autumn

very pretty song about being imprisoned and escaping it in order to die free, or something. also a lot of water/night imagery. very luna.

where is my mind? / pixies

water imagery again, also losing your mind or realizing you never had one to begin with. most applicable to luna but jack is probably the one who likes this track.

come away to the water / maroon 5 ft. rozzi crane

the title is probably enough explanation but this is about children being taken to be slaughtered, so. there’s that.

4 o’clock reprise / emilie autumn

if friend for hire was a movie i’d want this to play the night luna drowns. that’s all i gotta say on that.

redondo beach / patti smith

this song is about a woman who has a fight with her girlfriend and then goes looking for her; along the way she sees a commotion on the beach, where a girl has just washed up dead, but ignores it to keep search for her gf, not realizing till the end of the song who the dead girl on the beach is. obviously i picked it because it’s about someone drowning herself following a fight with a loved one.

dear prudence / siouxsie and the banshees

the narrator of this song implores the titular prudence to come outside and play, but i’ve always thought prudence sounded... well, dead, the way the narrator keeps imploring her to open her eyes. i’m not sure if that’s like a “valid interpretation” of the track but in my mind prudence is absolutely not alive. at this point in the story neither is luna, so.

if i burn / emilie autumn

friend for hire concluded with jack realizing that even though luna’s dead, she’s never going to be rid of her. this track is about someone asserting that even if she dies, her killer will never be rid of her memory and will be haunted by her forever.

#Friend for Hire #whew. had to really sit down with this one