#butterflymarvel

Hi! I will be posting it to AO3 once I've finished writing, and will share the link here for everyone 😊

leah: betterthantheboys

seth: newestbrightestslowest

jacob: sunshinemechanic

sam: tiredpackdad

jared: doesntrunwithvamps

paul: hotheadedsoftie

quil: happytobehere

Hmmm...I guess it depends on which definition of “good” we’re going with. Are we talking about her being a good person, or a compelling character? Because I do think there’s a difference, and I think that difference is part of what allowed me to ride out the low points of Octavia’s story arc - the burning of the hydrofarm being, perhaps, the lowest.

Octavia has definitely struggled with being a good person, but I think all of the other characters have, too. What separates Octavia from a characters like Bellamy or Clarke is her willingness and insistence in being a weapon, in directly getting her hands dirty. Because of that, I think the blood on her hands is a bit brighter, even though she has a pretty similar body count to her brother and to Clarke. Her “crimes” are harder to ignore.

But at the same time, Octavia has never killed for pleasure or purely for personal gain. She’s killed out of self-defense, as a soldier in war, as an assassin, and as a tyrant forcing survival cannibalism - all definitely fucked-up reasons to kill, but very similar to the reasons everyone else has killed, too. She’s certainly not bad in the way McCreary was, despite the way some in fandom like to view her.

So do I think Octavia is a good person? Yes, and no, much in the way I view pretty much every other character on this show. We’re talking about mass murderers and colonizers and warlords, after all. “Good” is very relative.

But I find her struggle very compelling to watch. If she was always making the right decisions, if she was perfect and never made any mistakes, she wouldn’t be nearly as interesting. Watching her fall and then rise again is part of what makes her one of the better characters on this show, imo.

I feel sad for her when she makes mistakes, when she loses herself. I don’t think the worst things she’s done - mercilessly beating up a bound Bellamy, burning down the hydrofarm, and shooting the non-compliant people in the bunker - are good choices, and it hurts to see her do those things. But even as it hurts, I can’t look away.

Ultimately, this is a show full of gray characters. What draws us to one or the other is really hard to say, and I think it’s totally different for everyone. I can’t really explain, for example, why I love Octavia but find myself frustrated by Clarke. So I do understand why some people just can’t get behind Octavia, and don’t like her.

But I don’t think that makes her a bad person, or any worse than the other mains. They’ve all got a metric ton of blood on their hands, and some of them haven’t even had to do the work to earn redemption the way she has. 

leah: she just shows off her woodworking. answers questions about it, shows off her pieces, does progress videos and speed working. 

seth: just pure happy stories about his life

jacob: car how-to videos about maintenance and repairs. sometimes talks about favorite cars.

sam: stories about the stupid chaotic children he is in charge of. how are they so foolish. he’s so tired. 

paul: just rants about anything and everything that pisses him off. they are hilarious.

jared: the exact opposite where he just gushes about everything he loves.

Aww, I love it! I can definitely see them being really fun together. So much sass, lmao. But at the same time, I do think they really respect each other, when they remember to stop squabbling.

Because I just can't imagine being so warped and brainwashed into thinking a country founded on war and racism and has done nothing but threaten it's own people during a pandemic is something to be envious about.

To think that there are people who died to fight Nazis and fascism who are still alive today and have to see some dumbass waving a Nazi flag or seeing "patriots" harming people who are anti-fascism as if they did not put everything on the line when they're country needed them.

Just the privilege of being that ignorant is something I could not even fathom.

And knowing that the man you all love to use for your own hate would never be on your side. Jesus would never be a fascists supporting white man wearing a red cap. He'd be on the side of the oppressed, the hungry, the sick and forgotten. He'd be disgusted with what the US has come to in his and his father's names. If you disagree, you clearly didn't read the bible or cherry pick it.

get randomly assigned as your lab partner for a whole semester: johnny bravo, none of them seem like theyd actually help me pass the class but idk, itd be funny

get trapped with on a broken elevator for ten hours: fred flinstone, itd also be funny as shit

get as my employee trainer for my new job at McDonalds: scrappy doo. process of elemination