#brittanias

Lorraine finds her mind drifting in a pleasant haze. He'd gone down on her and made her come before laying in the cradle of her legs and sliding inside her, and if he keeps up this pace and angle she'll come again with the kind of gentle orgasm that makes her want to stretch out and fall asleep.

A little faster, she thinks. A little bit faster and I'll get there, she knows that she'll get there--

Almost as if on cue, Ed picks up the pace, fisting his hands into the sheets and adjusting his weight back onto his knees. His weight drives her down into the mattress, and there's nothing she can do put squeeze her eyes shut and hold onto him even tighter, her nails making little half-moon indents on his shoulders.

Nuzzling her face, his nose pressing into the side of hers, his voice sounds like a low, calm rasp. "That's it, baby girl. I'm gonna get you there."

"Call me that again," she gasps out.

His hips stutter, before stopping entirely. Lorraine opens her eyes, half bewildered and half concerned.

"Honey?"

Ed blinks down at her, brows furrowed. "Did you just... did you just read my mind, word for word?"

"Huh?"

"What did I just say to you?"

"You said..." she takes a gulp of air, trying to stop the instinctual urge to grind down onto his erection. "You said, that's it, baby girl, I'm gonna get you there."

Her response just makes his brows crease together in one dark line. Shifting, he pushes himself up onto his hands, staring down at her. "Yeah, I thought that. Because you said you wanted me to go a little bit faster."

"No Ed, I thought that, too." Frowning gently, she skirts her hands down from his shoulders to curl her fingers around his biceps. "Did you... did you just read my mind, word for word?"

His expression turns to one of absolute puzzlement. "You definitely said that, hon. You asked me to go faster."

"Honey, I thought that. I am sure that I thought that," she replies, playing over the past minute or so in her mind. She's... she's so sure that she only thought that. Her eyes were closed, their foreheads were pressed together, he was making her feel good. She was content to just lie there and feel good. "I don't... I don't make a habit of telling you what to do when you're making me feel good." He tilts his head at her, and she doesn't need to read his mind to read his face. "Often. I don't make a habit of it often." His expression shifts to something more thoughtful. "What?"

"I'm just... thinking."

He lowers himself, brushing their lips together before pushing back up.

"Okay, well don't think too hard, you'll go soft," she counters, rubbing her thumbs over the muscles of his upper arms. Eyes pinching in response, he braces himself, and pistons his hips into her, hard. It sends a shock of arousal down her spine. "Ah!"

"What was that?" he asks, nipping at her mouth.

"Nothing." Laughing, she wraps her arms around him and pulls him close, until his chest is pushed up against her breasts. "Nothing at all, honey."

Slowly, he starts up again, resting his brow against hers. Almost immediately, her body floods with warmth and her mind empties of thoughts -- peace, comfort, trust are what she can name about what she feels.

But she senses something more.

"What if... what if the connection goes both ways?" he asks, several long moments later. "Especially in moments like this when we're already..."

His voice drifts off.

"Connected?" she supplies.

"Literally and spiritually, I suppose." His mouth splits wide with a grin, before kissing her softly, his tongue tracing the seam of her mouth, coaxing her lips open. Eventually, he pulls away for a breath, dropping a chain of kisses along her cheekbone. "You want me to call you baby girl?"

I could stand to hear it more often, she thinks, testing out his theory.

She thinks he can sense the difference this time, that he's hearing her in his head. Or her head. She's not going to be able to focus enough right now to parse that out.

"Yeah?" he asks, sounding a little breathless.

She can't stop the bright smile tugging at the corners of her lips, and then Ed does something very clever with his hips, making her cry out. It takes her another moment to respond. "It makes me feel like we're teenagers sneaking out to get each other off in the back of your car again."

Well, then, baby girl--

Oh, this is trouble.

Clarke and Abby did not go to the festival last year.  Jake had been the one who carved their jack o’lanterns every year, elaborately detailed masterpieces of witches on broomsticks and black cats arching their backs.  He had a box of delicate, fine-bladed woodworking tools he used only for pumpkins, something Abby had long ridiculed him for.  She’d brought the box to Massachusetts, only because she could not bear to throw it away, but it had been moved straight to the garage and she’d never looked at it again.  She’d put a bowl of candy on the porch for the neighbor children, in the interests of seeming neighborly, but that was as much holiday spirit as she could muster.

Marcus, however, has never lived anywhere that was not New York City, and the fall festival is a thing of wonder to him.  So, to appease him – and because once he says the words “free candy” it’s impossible to dissuade Clarke from adding her pleas to his – they walk down after dinner on Halloween, and Abby – against all expectations, and very nearly against her will – finds herself slowly giving in to its charms.

There are orange twinkle lights wound around the columns of the gazebo in the town square and a small hay bale maze for the children.  There is a long table of caramel apples and popcorn balls and chocolate truffles dipped in orange fondant with charming toothy grins.  There is hot spiced cider in big black iron cauldrons, steaming with dry ice and scented with ginger and cinnamon, ladled out by a line of moms in pumpkin-embroidered aprons.  (Marcus and Abby’s steaming paper cups get discreetly spiked with bourbon by Roan, the hardware store owner, who shoves the flask back in his pocket as Officer Pike pretends not to notice.)  Clarke is the only child not wearing a costume; tiny witches and vampires and princesses and Frankensteins abound, along with one particularly grotesque blood-spattered zombie, introduced to them as Octavia Blake from down the street.

Everyone in town knows Dr. Griffin’s story by now – knew it within hours after the “SALE PENDING” sticker went up over the “FOR SALE” sign on the old white house on Birch Street.  Vincent the realtor had stopped by Indra’s for coffee that morning and told her everything, so by dinnertime everyone knew.  They orbited her at a safe distance for the first year or so, treating her rather gingerly, as though she were made of glass.  Under other circumstances she would have found this profoundly irritating, but inside that cocoon of grief, the less she had to talk to people, the better.

But now she’s at the fall festival, she’s drinking cider and holding hands with a tall dark-haired man in a leather jacket and she’s letting her tiny blonde daughter race through the hay bale maze at full throttle, excited squeals of glee echoing through the night air, and she’s smiling, and this is the moment the town falls in love with Marcus Kane for the very first time.

Because he made the doctor smile.

He comes back for the fall festival the next year, and the year after that.  Abby still can’t bring herself to open the box in the garage, and says a gentle but firm no to Clarke’s pleas for elaborate decorations.  They put out a bowl of candy on the porch, as all the neighbors do, and they stroll down to the fall festival and drink their cider.  Abby lets Clarke wear a costume (a cat the first year, Belle the second), but declines to wear one herself.

By their fourth year in Massachusetts, Clarke is eight, and Abby’s lackluster commitment to Halloween becomes a bone of contention before school has even started.  Marcus let her watch The Addams Family with him one night over the summer when Abby had an emergency late-night surgery and he was on parenting detail alone.  Clarke loves anything Marcus loves, so she is prepared for his favorite movie to become her favorite movie before he even turns the television on, and she falls head-over-heels for the glaring, morbid Wednesday Addams.  Maintaining basic table manners, after this, becomes a trial (“Pass the parmesan cheese.”  “What do we say, Clarke?”  “MORE.”) which Marcus’ badly-concealed chuckles do not help.  But she sets her heart on dressing up as Wednesday Addams in July, and by the time September turns the corner into October, she has worn her mother down.

Abby does not sew.  Or, more accurately, she does not sew fabric.  (Her surgical stitches are a thing of beauty, but those skills do not translate to any domestic project more elaborate than repairing a loose button.)  But her neighbor Callie does.  Callie was Abby’s first real friend in town, inviting her to book club and backyard barbecues and brunch potlucks until she slowly began to get her feet under her again, and begin to feel marginally less alone.  Callie is the neighborhood’s resident domestic goddess; her flower garden is always perfect, her table settings colorful and elegant, her sugar-dusted loaves of holiday gingerbread appearing like magic on doorsteps up and down the street every Christmas morning.  And she can sew, because of course she can, so once she overhears Clarke at the supermarket staring covetously at the racks of polyester costumes and lamenting the lack of a Wednesday, she steps in immediately.

“Oh, I love The Addams Family,” she tells Clarke, smiling.  “I’d be happy to make you a Wednesday costume.  Easy as pie.  And your mom should be Morticia, don’t you think?”

And once the words are said, of course, there is absolutely no peace in the Griffin household until Abby finally, finally, finally heaves a weary sigh, walks across the street, knocks on Callie’s door, hands her a bottle of merlot, and says only, “I give in.”

Callie goes to work immediately, laughing Abby’s checkbook out of her hands (“don’t be an idiot, this is a gift”) and taking both mother and daughter’s measurements, occasionally leaning down to whisper conspiratorially in Clarke’s ear and making the girl giggle so hard her blonde curls bounce against her shoulders.   Two weeks later, two long flat boxes (wrapped in black paper with black silk ribbon, with the beheaded stem of a rose tucked in each, which makes Clarke shriek with glee) appear on the front step.  In Clarke’s, a crisp black dress with a starched white collar, black tights, little black boots, and even a black wig already combed sleek and braided into perfect tight pigtails; in Abby’s, a long black wig and a dress that makes her eyes widen when she puts it on its hanger and realizes how low the neckline plunges.  (“She’s bisexual,” points out an amused Marcus when she calls him that night, his voice sounding bitterly disappointed that he’ll be working that weekend and won’t get to see it.  “It’s a gift for you and for her.”  Marcus has always liked Callie.)

Clarke loves her costume so much she has to be forcibly restrained from wearing it to school every single day for the whole last week of October, and something of her giddy joy begins to chip away, bit by bit, at Abby’s reserve.  She remembers this herself, after all, she’s not so old that she’s forgotten the year she dressed as Princess Leia and grew out her hair all year so it would be long enough for her mother to braid into side buns, or the year she was six and it rained so hard she had to wear galoshes under her Cinderella dress instead of glass slippers and cried about it all the way to the first house on the block but stopped as soon as she was handed a Kit-Kat.

Jake has been gone for four years.

The box has been in the garage long enough.

On Friday, when the school bus drops Clarke off on the corner, she is momentarily disoriented, and for a second, she is unsure whether she has arrived at the wrong house.  Because it looks like Halloween, for real, it’s the Halloween house of her eight-year-old dreams, with pumpkins and hay and a wreath of dried leaves on the door.  And when she opens the door, she gasps so loudly Abby can hear her in the kitchen and comes outside, wiping her hands on her apron.  (Mom is wearing an apron?)  There are shiny glass pumpkins and pretty black candlesticks and pretend spiderwebs on the dining room chandelier.

“You were too little to remember,” Abby says, “but me and your dad, we used to love Halloween.  We dressed up and had parties in the apartment every year.”

Clarke looks around, eyes even wider, taking it all in.

“Did all of this belong to Dad?”  Abby nods.  “Did you not want to look at it before because you were too sad?”

Abby is startled, as always, by the depth of this small child’s perceptiveness; sometimes it’s like talking to a tiny grownup.  She nods, not quite trusting her voice yet, but Clarke doesn’t press her any further.  “I’m glad you’re not so sad anymore,” is all she says, and trots into the kitchen where her eight-year-old senses have unerringly detected the scent of cookies.

The next morning, after pumpkin pancakes (picked up from Indra’s diner, of course; Abby’s baking skills were maxed out yesterday in baking ghost-shaped cookies and letting Clarke decorate them), Abby takes her daughter by the hand and leads her out to the backyard, where she has laid old newspaper all over the surface of the old rickety picnic table, and two absolutely perfect pumpkins – round, sleek, glossy, their sunset-orange skins free of every blemish – sit next to a cardboard box duct-taped shut which Clarke has never seen before.

“Pick one,” says Abby, and Clarke can’t do anything but fling her arms around her mother’s waist.

 Sunday dawns crisp and clear, perfect Halloween weather.  Clarke is incandescent with eight-year-old glee, and even Abby is finding herself, surprisingly, getting into the spirit of it.   They eat dinner early, around four-thirty, and Callie comes over to help them dress.   The knock at the door, around five-fifteen, just as Abby is finishing her makeup, startles her.  It’s far too early to be children; the fall festival kicks off around six, with the trick-or-treaters beginning their rounds shortly thereafter, once their parents have each had time for a cup or two of Roan’s “special” cider.  Abby leaves Clarke sitting on the side of her bed, Callie winding her blonde ringlets into neat little pincurls so the wig will lay flat, and descends the staircase reluctantly, already feeling a bit ridiculous.  If it’s the FedEx guy, and she’s in a skintight black dress cut so low she can’t even wear a bra . . .

The door swings open while she’s halfway down the stairs, startling the life out of her, and she freezes in place.

It’s definitely not the FedEx guy.

“Cara mia,” says Marcus, who is standing at her door in a flawless Gomez Addams costume – pinstriped suit, slicked-back hair, his face clean-shaven save for a perfect pencil mustache – and Abby feels her heart crack open inside her chest.

She stands there, a little stupidly, not entirely convinced she isn’t simply imagining this, until he closed the door behind him and she finally collects herself enough to descend to the bottom of the stairs and meet him in the foyer.

“I would very much like to kiss you,” he says, fiery warmth in his gaze as his eyes travel up and down her body in the curve-hugging black dress, “but it looks like you just finished your makeup and I don’t want to ruin it.  So just know I’m saving one extra for later.”  But he does put his arms around her, pulling her close, pressing his mouth against the creamy bare skin of her shoulder, and she has to swallow hard over and over again to keep from crying off the perfect wings of black eyeliner that took her three tries to get right.

“How are you here?” she finally manages to whisper, but the mystery is solved before she can even finish her sentence.

“Clarke,” she hears Callie’s gleeful, mischievous voice from above her, “I believe your Halloween present is here.  Run downstairs so I can come take some pictures.”

“Pictures of what?” Clarke demands, little feet scampering out of her room towards the staircase, where she too stops short at the sight of him.

But Clarke recovers faster than her mother did, launching herself down the steps with lightning speed to fling her arms around him and let herself be lifted up and pulled close to his chest in a massive hug.  “You look just like him!” she squeals.  “You even have the mustache.”

Marcus sets her back down on her feet and examines her costume.  “Perfect,” he pronounces emphatically.  “She did great.”

“I told you I would,” laughs Callie, descending the stairs, camera in hand.

Abby stares from one to the other.  “Did you two cook this up together?”

Marcus and Callie grin at each other conspiratorially, like mischievous children.  “Maybe,” he says, refusing to elaborate further, then bows deeply at Abby and holds out his hand to her.  “Cara mia,” he says again, his low voice making her shiver even with Clarke and Callie standing right there.

“You’re staying the night, right?” she murmurs into his ear as they pose for photo after photo, so quietly that Clarke doesn’t hear her.

He chuckles, warm and low.  “That depends.  You don’t have to give the dress back, do you?”

“Nope.”

“Then I’m definitely staying the night.”

“I can’t promise you I’ll want to wear the wig any longer than I have to.”

“I’m willing to compromise on the wig,” he says, winking at her, and then pulls back and pivots smoothly on his heel to dip her dramatically in his arms, making Clarke giggle, and suddenly even the delicious thought of Marcus unzipping her out of the tight black dress is pushed out of her mind by the realization of what this is and what she’s doing.

They have matching Halloween costumes, so they can go trick-or-treating together.

Callie is taking family photos of them.

These are family photos.

They are a family.

She feels that old, familiar pang in her chest, thinking of Jake, but it doesn’t push the smile away or dull her happiness.  Not like it used to.

Jake always meant that box to be opened.  He always meant those orange paper Halloween lanterns to hang over the dining room table.  He always wanted this for Clarke.  He would want this for her now.

Perhaps it is possible, after all, to get back the thing she’d lost.  Something different, but no less real.

Because Marcus is family now.  She knows this, down to her bones.  Yes, he came to see her, and yes, she can tell from the way his eyes never leave her that the allure of Abby dressed as one of his favorite movie characters was a powerful draw.

But he did this for Clarke.

She knows this even before she makes him say it to her, out loud, later that night, as they stand in the white glow of moonlight streaming in through her bedroom window, as he steps in close to her and kisses the back of her neck to unzip the black dress.  She knows it as he leans over to steal a bite from Clarke’s candy apple, knows it every time he reaches out instinctively for her tiny hand as they cross the street to get to the next house, knows it as he lifts her into his arms to let her sleepy head droop onto his pinstriped shoulder as they make their way back home.

Every time he gets in his car and drives out of Manhattan and through the long stretches of forest-lined highway to pull up in front of her front door, it is not only Abby he’s coming home to.

“I just like to see her happy,” he says helplessly, when she asks him, and she does kiss him then, turning around in his arms, unzipped dress sliding off her shoulders, black wig and red lipstick gone, face pink and clean.  Just Abby and Marcus, alone in the moonlight, with a tiny blonde creature snoring two rooms away, sleeping the sleep of the candy-intoxicated, hair a wild golden cloud from Callie’s pincurls.  “I just wanted to see the look on her face.”

“I don’t know how to tell you,” she starts to say, but can’t finish the sentence.  She doesn’t have the words for him, for what it means to her.  He bought a suit for this, shaved off his beard for this, cut his hair for this, and drove four hours from Manhattan with a jack o’lantern in his back seat, just to make Clarke smile on Halloween.

He tilts her chin up to look into her eyes, and she sees that his are shining with tears.  “I like to see you happy too,” he says softly, and then bends his head to kiss her, and no one says anything for a long time after that.

He lets her sleep in the next morning, since it’s her day off, and takes Clarke to school himself.  She wakes around nine-thirty to the smell of nutmeg and cinnamon, and comes downstairs in her pajamas to see a pan of pumpkin-cinnamon bread pudding on the counter.  The kitchen is empty, but she knows he must be home; there’s a steaming mug of coffee on the marble island, with more in the pot for her, and his keys and wallet are sitting next to them, along with a little rectangle of yellow paper, creased like he’d folded it up and put it in his pocket.  But it’s unfolded now, and she can see the logo of Saint Henry’s Church at the top of it, which is unexpected enough that it prompts her to pick it up and read it.

It’s a receipt for a five-dollar donation.

She stares at it for a long time, bleary with sleep, puzzling it out, before she hears the back door close and sees him come up the steps, holding the glass votives he took out of the jack o’lanterns before putting them into the compost bin.

“Dia de los Muertos,” he says softly, as he enters the kitchen.  “Tomorrow is All Souls’ Day.  Clarke and I stopped by the church to light a candle.”

“For Jake,” she whispers, and he nods.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he confesses, coming closer and putting his arms around her.  “Any of this.  But I always want her to feel like there’s room for both of us – for him and for me – to live side-by-side.”  He kisses the top of her head.  “Is that okay?” he murmurs into her hair, sudden worry in his voice.  “Should I have asked?”

She shakes her head, face still buried in his chest, the cotton of his sweater warm and soft beneath her cheek.

My name is Robyn Jeffrey and I’m a co-host with The Afictionados Podcast Network. (website, twitter, soundcloud) We do podcasts about your favorite tv shows including AND TOTALLY LIMITED TO AT THIS POINT, The 100, Riverdale, and LOST (my personal favorite). You can find us by searching “Afictionados” in Soundcloud or iTunes!

Something that I really love about TOP is that you can listen to their songs and there is nary a swear. I’m one of those people who get kind of taken out of things where there’s too much profanity. I also love that when they sing love songs, they hardly ever use gendered pronouns. Not all of them, but most of their love songs could be sung to any gender. And that makes writing this a little easier.

Ever since I became a fan of twenty one pilots, my sister and I have played this game where we choose a The 100 character that is best represented by each song. When I was at Unity Days in January, I shared this fact with a few friends and they wanted more!

I have tried my best to do this with every single TOP song. However, I tried very hard to not overlap or give multiple songs to one character, even though many of these songs could refer to Jasper or Murphy and so on. That’s why I’ll have a section at the bottom of the song with alternate characters that might also work. If you have a suggestion for a character that I don’t have already, let me know and I’ll add it with full credit!

Although Vessel was released first, I will begin with Blurryface, for my sister and I began with Blurryface. I’m aware that they also released a self-titled album in 2009 but I only just realized that you can buy that on iTunes and I’m not familiar with it at all so we’re only doing the last two albums OKAY? Here we go!

Blurryface

Heavydirtysoul – Octavia Blake

“Gangsters don’t cry.”

Originally, this song was Jasper’s song but with the addition of my rule of only one per customer, I felt that a different song described him better (or possibly, he was the only one to fit that song). And thus I came to the conclusion that this was an Octavia Blake song if I ever heard one; especially if you take the last season into consideration.

“There’s an infestation in my mind’s imagination.

I hope that they choke on smoke ‘cause I’m smoking them out the basement.

This is not rap. This is not hip-hip.

It’s just another attempt to make the voices stop.”

“Can you save my heavy, dirty, soul?”

Alternate: Jasper Jordan, Clarke Griffin, John Murphy, etc.

Stressed Out – All

“We would build a rocket ship and then we’d fly it far away.”

I felt that this song could refer to so many characters that I decided to make it a song for everyone. I think you could find a piece of whoever you wanted in this song.

“Wish we could turn back time to the good old days,

When our momma sang us to sleep but now we’re stressed out.”

Ride – Jasper Jordan

“I’m falling so I’m taking my time on my ride.”

Jasper is found in so many of these songs that it was hard to pick one for him. I found that this was a song that fit him best especially taking Season 4 into account. He knows that he won’t make it and so he’s just having fun with the time that he still has.

“Yeah, I think about the end just way too much

But it’s fun to fantasize.”

“I’ve been thinking too much. Help me.”

 Fairly Local – Roan

“I’m fairly local. I’ve been around. I’ve seen the streets you’re walking down.”

This song was originally Lincoln but since I found a better fit for him, I switched it to Roan and I think I like it even better! This song is reminiscent of when new people show up, like Skaikru, and try and take over.

“Yo, you, bulletproof in black like a funeral.

The world around us is burning but we’re so cold.

It’s the few, the proud, and the emotional.”

“I’m not evil to the core.

What I shouldn’t do I will fight.

I know I’m emotional.

What I wanna save I will try.”

Alternate: Lincoln, Indra, any grounder pick one

 Tear in my Heart – Finn Collins

“She’s the tear in my heart, I’m on fire.”

If this isn’t the most Finn Collins song you’ve ever heard, you’re wrong. This is one of the first songs that we assigned to a character. This is so Finn it’s incredible. Think season 2 Finn looking for Clarke. Like that Finn. It’s ridiculous. My favorite part of the song is that it literally says “I’m on fire” and isn’t that just brutal? It literally talks about her stabbing him HAHA

“Sometimes you’ve gotta bleed to know,

That you’re alive and have a soul.

But it takes someone to come around to show you how.”

“She’s a butcher with a smile, cut me farther than I’ve ever been.”

 Lane Boy – Nathan Miller

“They say ‘stay in your lane, boy’… but we go where we want to.”

This was kind of a hard one to choose. But I’m happy with the conclusion that I came to and I think it actually fits really well. This is one of my favorite songs on Blurryface. Also I <3 Miller. That is all.

“Who would live and die for on that list?

But the problem is,

There’s another list that exists and no one really wants to think about this.”

“If you get in between someone I love and me,

You’re gonna feel the heat of my cavalry.

All these songs I’m hearing are so heartless.

Don’t trust a perfect person and don’t trust a song that’s flawless.”

 The Judge – Thelonius Jaha

“You’re the judge, oh no, set me free.”

The way I’m choosing to look at this one is that Jaha is calling ALIE the judge. He wants ALIE to take him into the City of Light and away from all of the pain of his life. It also shows Jaha’s soft side when he’s always making sacrifices for others. I think.

“When the leader of the bad guys sang,

Something soft and soaked in pain,

I heard the echo from his secret hideaway.”

“I know my soul’s freezing.

Hell’s hot for good reason so please take me.”

 Doubt – Wells Jaha

“Don’t forget about me.”

Okay check it out. Not only is this super literal because Jaha actually forgot Wells in Season 3, but it’s also totally relevant to the 4 episodes he was in regarding Clarke and such.

“Even when I doubt you,

I’m no good without you.”

“Fear might be the death of me,

Fear leads to anxiety.

Don’t know what’s inside of me.”

Alternate: Monty Green

 Polarize – Bellamy Blake

“My friends and I, we’ve got a lot of problems.”

This was the one of the first songs that we assigned a character to and yeah maybe it started only with “better brother, better son” but if you look at the whole song it actually works quite well.

“It’s deciding where to die and deciding where to fight.

Deny, deny, denial.”

“I wanted to be a better brother, better son.

Wanted to be a better adversary to the evil I have done.

I have none to show to the one I love.”

 We Don’t Believe What’s On TV – Lexa

“We have all learned to kill our dreams.”

This was a really hard one to choose. I felt that many of the people that I could possibly give it to, already had a song. And although it could fit Lexa and Clarke’s relationship better, I’m pleased with my choice.

“I used to say, ‘I wanna die before I’m old’,

But because of you I might think twice.”

“I need to know that when I fail, you’ll still be here.”

Alternate: Finn Collins, John Murphy, Marcus Kane, who’s in love?

 Message Man – Clarke Griffin

“You don’t know what I’ve done. I’m wanted and on the run.”

This song was a Murphy song for such a long time until I realized, after the premiere of Season 3, that this works even better for Clarke than it does for Murphy. Clarke’s a major badass.

“A loser hides behind a mask of my disguise.

And who I am today is worse than other times.”

“You don’t know my brain the way you know my name.

And you don’t know my heart the way you know my face.”

Alternate: John Murphy

 Hometown – Maya Vie

“Take me home and show me the sun.”

Listen up. I had the hardest time figuring this one out but then my mother suggested Maya / Mount Weather in general and it’s absolutely perfect. I couldn’t think of anything else ever again. Now this song will haunt your dreams as a Mount Weather song.

“Where we’re from, there’s no sun.

Our hometown’s in the dark.”

“We don’t know, we don’t know,

How to put back the power in our soul.

We don’t know, we don’t know,

Where to find what once was in our bones.”

Alternate: Bryan, Charles Pike, peeps from farm station, Ilian

 Not Today – Charles Pike

“Heard your voice. There’s no choice.”

This was another difficult one. I want to dedicate this choice to my girls Sarah and Claire (aka the #1 Pike apologists).

“You are out of my mind, you aren’t seeing my side.

You spend all this time trying to get to me.”

“Don’t you test me though, just because I play the piano,

Doesn’t mean I am not willing to take you down. I’m sorry.”

 Goner – Lincoln

“I’m a goner. Somebody catch my breath.”

This one hurts. But it’s just so perfect. And don’t just look at the lyrics to this one. It’s the real musical genius of the finale of Blurryface that encapsulates Lincoln so perfectly. The soft, quiet beginning, into the loud, angry ending. It all works.

“Though I’m weak and beaten down,

I’ll slip away into the sound.

The ghost of you is close to me.

I’m inside out. You’re underneath.”

 Vessel

Ode to Sleep – Ilian

“I’m not free, I asked forgiveness three times.”

Some songs and this album were much harder to figure out than others. I knew that I wanted an Ilian song and this one fit the best out of what was left. It works with the fact that he blew up Arkadia and that he feels terrible about what he did in the City of Light.

“Please tell them you have no plans for me.

I will set my soul on fire, what have I become?”

“I swear I heard demons yelling,

Those crazy words they were spelling.

They told me I was gone.”

 Holding Onto You – Marcus Kane

“You should take my life, you should take my soul.”

This song was the Lincoln and Octavia song for a really long time. The second verse is one of my favorite verses of all of TOP’s discography. I think it’s just beautiful. But it works very well with Kane and Abby as well.

“Fight it.

Take the pain, ignite it.

Tie a noose around your mind,

Loose enough to breathe fine and tie it,

To a tree, tell it ‘you belong to me.

This ain’t a noose, this is a leash.

And I have news for you.

You must obey me.’”

Alternate: Lincoln

 Migraine – Raven Reyes

“Am I the only one I know, waging my wars behind my face and above my throat?”

How perfect is it that Raven had migraines this season and they have a song called Migraine? It’s perfect. I’m really pleased with this pairing. I think that Migraine is one of their best songs. It’s sometimes hard to catch all of the beautiful lyrics so I recommend looking them up because they work so well.

“…It is a door that holds back contents,

That make Pandora’s box contents look non-violent.

Behind my eyelids are islands of violence.

My mind’s ship-wrecked.

This is the only land my mind could find.”

“And I will say that we should take a day to break away

From all the pain our brain has made.

The game is not played alone.”

 House of Gold – Monty Green

“We’ll make pretend that you and me lived ever after happily.”

Sure. Maybe this song was given to Monty because he’s the only one that really got to talk with his Mom other than Clarke. But if you think about it, you could maybe think of it as CoL Hannah talking to Monty and trying to persuade him into joining her. And his father is even mentioned in the song. It works!

“She asked me, ‘Son, when I grow old,

Will you buy me a house of gold?

And when your father turns to stone,

Will you take care of me?’”

“And since we know that dreams are dead,

And life turns plans up on their head.

I will plan to be a bum.

So I just might become someone.”

 Car Radio – Luna

“Peace will win and fear will lose.”

This song is incredible. It has some of the cleverest lyrics I have ever heard. I really think it could fit with just about any character that is truly haunted by something that they’ve done. It really fits with Luna because of what happened on her little island and how she promotes peace over violence.

“Sometimes quiet is violent.

My pride is no longer inside.

It’s on my sleeve. My skin will scream.

Reminding me of who I killed.”

“I find over the course of our human existence,

One thing consists of consistence

And it’s that we’re all battling fear.

Oh dear, I don’t know if we know why we’re here.”

Alternate: Raven Reyes, Monty Green, Clarke Griffin, Bellamy Blake

 Semi-Automatic – John Murphy

“I’m semi-automatic. My prayer’s schizophrenic. But I’ll live on.”

This song has been the Murphy song for years. The real Murphy song. It speaks for itself.

“I’m never what I like,

I’m double-sided, and I just can’t hide,

I kinda like it when I make you cry,

‘Cause I’m twisted up, I’m twisted up inside.”

“The horrors of the night melt away,

Under the warm glow of survival of the day,

Then we move on.”

 Screen – Emori

“We’re broken people.”

We found that this song worked really well with Emori. Sometimes she’s talking about herself, then herself and Murphy, and maybe even sometimes herself and Otan. It’s however you like to interpret it that makes it so fun.

“I do not know why I would go

In front of you and hide my soul

‘Cause you’re the only one who knows it.”

“While you’re doing fine, there’s some people and I

Who have a really tough time getting through this life

So excuse up while we sing to the sky.”

 The Run & Go – Abby Griffin

“Cerebral thunder in one way conversations.”

I remember the day that I realized that this could be an Abby song. I remembered the person that she shot at the end of Season 3 and then listening to the chorus, I found that it fit all of this radio stuff that Abby and Kane are dealing with lately.

“I have killed a man and all I know

Is I am on the Run and Go.”

“Don’t wanna call you in the night time.

Don’t wanna give you all my pieces.

Don’t wanna hand you all my trouble.

Don’t wanna give you all my demons.

You’ll have to watch me struggle

From several rooms away.

But tonight, I’ll need you to stay.”

 Fake You Out – Harper McIntyre

“Silence gives you space.”

I made this a Harper song as soon as I saw God Complex and the “If you come back” debacle. Put DNR into this context and it works nicely. She’s feeling farther away from Monty than usual.

“I’ll never be, be what you see inside.

You say I’m not alone, but I am petrified.

You say that you are close, is close the closest star?

You just feel twice as far.”

“They feel they have no control over their prisoner’s cell.

And if you’re one of them then you’re one of me.

And you would do almost anything just to feel free.”

 Guns for Hands – Eric Jackson

“You all have guns, but you never put the safety on.”

I had this song for Indra originally. But after hearing Sachin’s interview with Meta Station, I definitely felt that Jackson would be the one most hoping that everyone would stop shooting each other. He just wants everyone to be healthy. Is that too much to ask???

“I’m trying, I’m trying to sleep.

But I can’t, but I can’t when you all have

Guns for hands.”

“But there’s hope out the window.

So that’s where we’ll go.

Let’s go outside and all join hands

But until then, you’ll never understand.”

 Trees – Indra & Gaia

“I know where you stand, silent in the trees.”

This song doesn’t have a whole lot of words. It’s a slow long with the same lyrics over and over again. And we had a really hard time deciphering who this would go to but in the end we assigned it to 2 characters. The relationship between Indra and Gaia. Indra wanting her to be a warrior and Gaia choosing to stay peaceful.

“I want to know you.

I want to see.

I want to say hello.”

“Why won’t you speak

Where I happen to be?

Silent in the trees.

Standing cowardly.”

 Truce – ALIE

“You will die but now your life is free.”

This is another one of those songs that doesn’t have a whole lot of lyrics. But I took it to mean ALIE’s downfall. She’s about to go to sleep after Clarke pulled the lever and is now just reflecting?

“Now the night is coming to an end,

The sun will rise and we will try again.”

“I will fear the night again,

I hope I’m not my only friend.”

 BONUS

Heathens – Echo

“All my friends are heathens, take it slow.”

I was thinking that I’d really love to have Heathens on this list and I looked at the other list of characters that I hadn’t used and thought that Echo would be a good one. Then I listened to the song again with an Echo lens and realised that it was perfect. Think Mount Weather Grounder Gang.

“Welcome to the room of people who have rooms of people

That they love one day, locked away.

Just because we check the guns at the door,

Doesn’t mean our brains will change from hand grenades.”

“You’ll never know the psychopath sitting next to you.

You’ll never know the murderer sitting next to you.

You’ll think ‘how’d I get here, sitting next to you?’”

THANKS FOR READING!