yes i'm rooting for m*leven breakup because byler is neat but mostly? i'm rooting for m*leven breakup for the sake of el and mike.
to me, their romance was always a puppy love born out of a combination of social pressures, naïve curiosity, and a lack of true understanding regarding intimacy and romantic love and what it really is. it was real in that they do truly, deeply care about each other and they are close friends, maybe even shared an attraction, but a maturing romance is so much more than that. they've grown up and out of being boyfriend/girlfriend, and that's okay! i think television/film needs to show more often that most of us don't have definite "soulmates" or first childhood loves that we spend our whole lives with. it doesn't mean these relationships meant nothing and didn't impact us, it just means they've run their course and that something else is in the cards, and this is part of life!
i've always felt el was at her best and most confident self when broken up with mike, discovering who she was and what she liked alongside another girl her age instead of just relying on mike for mentorship on how to live in the real world. she deserves more of an opportunity to find herself, her autonomy, and her independence, and to love who she is, and she's made it clear she's felt insecure in the relationship with mike because she isn't being loved and understood the way she wants, needs, and deserves from someone who is her partner.
also, it's okay if mike doesn't love her in "the way he should". he is not obligated to love her romantically and stay in a relationship with her just because she's a girl, because she "needed someone", or because he cares about her a lot. he shouldn't be pressured into a romance if it's not truly coming from his heart. he deserves freedom to find out and honour who he is, too, instead of just staying in his non-functional first relationship — one he got into as a child, essentially — and defining himself that way because it's what's expected when a boy and a girl are close. he loves her in some way, yes, but it's okay if he doesn't feel comfortable or secure being her boyfriend anymore, for whatever reason that is. he's felt insecure too, and that's valid and it matters.
they are their own people and are steadily growing and changing every day. they need time to figure out who those people are, and it's become clear (at least in my opinion) that those people aren't meant to be a couple at this stage.
they deserve freedom. they deserve to grow up and be authentic to themselves and not feel like they need to lie for the sake of a relationship. they deserve to move on from this version of their relationship that isn't making them happy and rekindle the best part of their bond: their strong, beautiful friendship. they don't have to be a couple if it doesn't make them stronger and better and happier people.
i think it would be healthy and wonderful for a show, especially one consumed frequently by young adults, to show a relationship starting, progressing, and ending on good terms in this way. sometimes things don't work out, and that is okay.
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i just. . .I just love everything about Colin Bridgerton and I can't stop. I love how heartfelt he is, I love how he makes others comfortable around him, I love how he fidgets, how he gestures, his quips and all his looks. How you can read an entire story just looking at his expressions and how he keeps so much under wraps. I love that he's buttoned up and everything proper on the surface whilst he breaks almost all the rules. I love how he told Penelope she doesn't count as someone he could give up because he cares about her, that she's his friend. How open his friendship with her is in an era where people insist that can't happen, when women aren't valued much at all (save for in a sexual sense) by most men. I love how he has a genuine friendship with her and cares about what she thinks, that he doesn't objectify her or pity her. I love how clearly he respects the women in his life. I love how he always listens to Penelope's insight and opinions, that he adores his mum and jokes around with her, that he played matchmaker for Anthony and Kate at Pall Mall, that he was clearly concerned for Edwina during the wedding. That he looks out for his littlest siblings and snarks with Eloise. That he's Daphne's favorite and how he always tried to ease Marina in S1. That the worst thing he's said about a woman in the entire series has been to call her 'cruel'.
I love that he's lefthanded and that he's great with kids. I love that he loves love. I love that he's a flirt but also that he's not a fuckboi. I love that he's a hopeless romantic, that he talks about Leander going to see his love each night under the cover of darkness and has to be reminded that Leander drowned. I love that he doesn't often think ahead, that he runs in with his heart in his hands and a plan held together with a lick and promise and a bit of hope. I love that he loves yellow, that he's light and cheerful even when he knows heartache, even when he's sad. I love that he hides. I love that he says the wrong thing and I love that his charming demeanor hides so much beneath it. I love how he researches and dives into Greek mythology. I love that he's curious. I love his friendship with Will and Phillip, I love how he pushes back against Anthony's misogyny and that he hugs up on Benedict and encourages him. I love his integrity and nonsense. I love that he can't stop snacking and that he takes people at their word. I love how he trusts and how he loves others.
I love his mischief and his spontaneity, I love that he always wants to make things right. I love how he knows how to properly apologize and I love when he doesn't. I love all his triumphs and all his fuck ups. I love how he tries. I love that he never stops trying. I love that his character is one people need to dig into to truly understand and appreciate. I love rewatching his scenes and noticing something new each time. I love his hero complex and his cowardice, I love how he runs and when he stays. I love that he was shorter than all his brothers and sisters as a kid and that he's the tallest when he's grown. I love how he teases, I love how he uplifts, I love his passions and his insecurity, his concerns and his celebrations, when he's out of his depth and when he's at ease. I love how he changes depending on who he's around and how we have to read him to see where he's being most genuine. I love that he has facets. I love that those facets aren't obvious. I love the surface level of him and all the depths.
I love everything about Colin Bridgerton.
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When Al Haitham dreams, it's in shades of sandy blonde and red, metallic gold and feather-blue. His nightmares are colored much the same.
Kaveh leisurely strolls ahead of him, shoes leaving deep treads in the soft desert sand. He keeps a careful distance, arms length, and in return Al Haitham keeps an eye on him, the other man's back dead center in his sights.
He curses the sand in his boots and the long line of footprints he steps into, already the exact shape of the soles of his shoes.
They aren't lost. Al Haitham knows where they are. They've been here before. They are still here.
Kaveh doesn't watch their feet. His head is constantly tipped back with his eyes on the stars and their constellations (of which Al Haitham only knows two, Vultur Volans and Paradisaea). He'll walk right into a cactus like that. Al Haitham yells ahead for him to watch where he's going.
Kaveh reaches up to touch the side of his head in a strange motion, but otherwise there's no acknowledgement. They press on into the dark of night.
Something squelches beneath Al Haitham's boot.
It stops him short, pulls his attention like a magnet and as much as he wants to, he can't ignore it. He doesn't want to lose any more ground. But something won't let him move on. Al Haitham watches as red seeps into the golden sand, spills beyond the border of his bootprint until he slides his foot aside.
It's an ear.
It's a human ear, and there's a heavy earring attached, metallic gold, gems red and green, a familiar shape, a familiar shade-
Al Haitham opens his mouth to yell. Chokes. Swallows the lump in his throat as he quickly restarts his pace. Tries again.
"Hey!"
Another squelch under a hurried footstep. He doesn't stop to look. Al Haitham is pretty sure he knows what it is.
"Kaveh, hey!"
The path becomes littered, little slices and small pieces, fingertips and knuckles, Kaveh's arms once held casually behind his back now strewn along the sands. Every time Al Haitham extends his hand to him, reality warps and bends like the twisted image in a broken mirror, lines mismatched and edges jagged. Kaveh flits just beyond his grasp, fleeting fae, no longer able to hear him or to reach out to him. Al Haitham can only grit his teeth and follow.
His right foot marches forward. His left follows. His right again. His left suddenly doesn't follow, and Al Haitham is thrown off balance and pitches forward, swinging his arms outward to land on his palms and keep his face off the ground, because he's been in the desert enough times to know what a foot suddenly being stuck can mean.
Quicksand.
Al Haitham curses and swears in just about every language he knows as he tries to spread his weight as evenly as possible, stay afloat at the top of it because if he sinks, he knows he'll be done for, and shit, Kaveh.
His neck cranes uncomfortably in his search, Kaveh had only been a few feet in front of him, he can't be sunk much further, and he's in the desert much more often than Al Haitham anyway, he'll be familiar with what to do-
Kaveh stands in front of him, empty sleeves fluttering loose. Still just out of his grasp, still watching the stars. The quicksand is already up to his calves.
"Say, Al Haitham..." It's the first he's spoken this whole time. His voice resonates somewhere deeply nostalgic in Al Haitham's chest, produces a ripple that momentarily stuns his heart.
Kaveh is sinking.
Al Haitham stretches out on his belly as far as he's able, it's quickly up to his knees, Kaveh isn't even trying to redistribute his weight or pull himself out, it's at his thighs, Al Haitham sucks in a breath and yells for him, his hips, yells louder, his waist, Al Haitham's trembling fingertips can almost reach, his chest, Kaveh drops level with him, quicksand about his neck like a noose.
Kaveh's head tips back, back, impossibly far back, until it hangs, angle awkward, and he's looking right past Al Haitham with his tired smile and gouged, blinded sockets full of starlight.
"Do you believe in karma?"
The quicksand swallows him entirely and Al Haitham dives, shoves his arms deep and pushes off with the one foot he'd had left on safe ground, because he can't, he can't, it's not the same without Kaveh, not anymore, he needs him, no one else keeps him sharp, no one else challenges him like Kaveh, if he can just grab him, if he can just pull him back up-
Al Haitham thrashes, against the sands, against gravity, against the hardwood of his bedroom floor. Clumsily scrubs the back of his hand across his face to rub the grit of quicksand and sleep out of his eyes.
Sometimes he thinks he preferred it when the Akasha was still harvesting his dreams.
He pops his head out from under his weighted blanket and lays where he'd fallen out of bed for a moment, blinking blearily against the lamplight shining from his desk in the corner. Deep breaths. His consciousness shifts along the blurred line of nightmare and reality, crosses over the slow transition into wakeful awareness.
He's home, Kaveh is home. It's dark out. The house is dead silent.
He's just going to go check, he tells himself as he peels himself out of his sweat-soaked shirt and roots around for a replacement. He's already losing memories of his nightmare, the details spilling away from him like wet ink, but he knows he needs to see Kaveh. It'll feel better to do something, anything, than try to go straight back to sleep.
He's quiet when he slips out of his bedroom door, because they both keep late hours but their bedrooms are right next to each other, and Al Haitham will never hear the end of it if he wakes his roommate up.
Lights off, door shut. Nothing conclusive. He moves out to the main room.
Kaveh sits on one of those ridiculous sofas he'd ordered three of for some reason, back to him as he tucks a lock of hair behind his ear. A mostly-empty wine bottle stands tall on the table, next to the cobbled-together remains of an architectural model that's been picked and fussed over for four days straight now.
"Kaveh? What are you doing?"
This earns him an exaggerated startle, but Kaveh doesn't turn to look at him, preoccupied with whatever new sketch or blueprint he probably has in his hands. "Ohhh, nothing," he slurs cheerfully. "Just working. Just thinking."
Kaveh has always been the world's chattiest drinker. Al Haitham waits for the rest of it.
"Say, I think...I think I asked you this years ago, back then, but you never answered me." Al Haitham feels all the blood drain from his face in ominous familiarity, drip cold down the length of his spine. Kaveh sinks into the couch until he can tip his head over the back of it, looking up at him with a tired smile and exhausted eyes.
"Do you believe in karma?"
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𝗚𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗶𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗲𝗻𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗳𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗵. That said, when speaking of his paramour with the mention of Mystra, it is not a slight. After all, Mystra, the goddess, wasn't just his lover; she, as she'll remain, controls the Weave.
As a scholar of magic for all his life, Gale is thoroughly enamored with it. He's always had the Weave, casting spells and enchantments for as far as his long memory goes, and there's no power on earth that can pale that devotion. When Gale says Mystra's name, in love, it is never with yearning. When he tells his lover that he forgets his goddess when he stands beside them, he means quite literally that he foregoes his faith. He doesn't mention her like a quality benchmark with which they've somehow surpassed, but to punctuate how wholly he has fallen for them. With a new, honest love, he is turned entirely from Mystra. In fact, so utterly bewitched, he's like a born again man. He isn't besotted by his goddess, held stalwart in her sway and seemingly, abundantly, and frustratingly stubborn. After that disastrous relationship, I promise you, Gale spares not a single thought toward her. She might have control of the Weave, and as such, stands still his only patron deity, but his new, doting lover? They become something of a new religion for him; he is most devoted, taken by, and so loyal to them.
He does not see Mystra. Do not assume he still feels for her.
He's a man of one love, and they will have all of him.
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They ate in silence, a quiet peace settling over him, observing the plate and the cups of wine between them where they sat, half-dressed in the darkened palace kitchens, although while it was easily one of the best meals he’d ever had, it was hard to focus on anything but her, the way the candlelight danced in her eyes, and the perfect line of her collarbones, glimpsed through the dipping collar of her dressing gown where it had slipped open.
His throat felt suddenly parched, and putting his fork down, he was about to reach for his cup when Makino touched his wrist, stopping him.
Shanks didn’t move, his gaze fastened on the small hand, pale against the darker, rougher skin of his, before lifting, finding her dark eyes anchored in his, her soft mouth darkened by the wine.
A heartbeat passed; Shanks felt the pulse through his whole body, and before he knew what he was doing, he'd moved.
Shanks and Makino in a gentle conquering , chapter 3 of Tideswept by the incomparable @missmungoe
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