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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@chrisrin‘s gemcyt au !! “Pearl” is actually Joel here :3
//
Well. Running was stupid.
The Human Zoo is absolutely not set up the same way as the palace- all confusing hallways and rooms that have doors at both ends, usually nice for escaping but now annoying as he’s been cornered twice now, only escaped because he’s willing to poof other gems- he’s feisty, for a pearl. At least for today. He knows he’s going to be shattered for this, he may as well go down fighting.
Left, left, left, he’s going in circles. Rubies shout behind him, five voices becoming one when they fuse. They’re faster now, but he’s got a head start, and he goes right this time, immediately crashing into a quartz on the turn-
He looks up, eyes going wide-
“Etho! Etho- poof me!”
He doesn’t have to ask twice.
//
Pearl isn’t usually aware of the happenings outside of his gem when he’s recharging. It’s dark when he poofs, he’s whisked away somewhere quiet. On a good day it takes him fifteen minutes to Reform, but today he stays quiet, stays put, in Etho’s pocket.
He catches bits of conversation- shouting, alarms, running. Etho gives vague answers to any questioning, and soon enough the rubies move on. Pearl stays put, though, for hours, until gentle hands put him back in open air- until he hears the gentle tap of his gem being set down.
“It’s safe to come out now,” Etho says.
Pearl reforms, swift and effortless, on the floor of a closet full of weapons. He looks up at Etho and confesses, “I’m going to be shattered.”
Etho’s eye widens- he’s not very talkative, for an amethyst, but he talks to Pearl sometimes- “why’s that? What did you do?”
Pearl buries his face in his hands- it’s one thing to commit treason and an entirely other thing to admit to treason. Etho helped him, though- lied for him, took him somewhere safe. He owes him, he thinks.
“I-” it’s terrifying to admit. He does not move his hands, does not speak louder than a whisper “-I fused with Pink Diamond.”
Stars- he’s really going to be shattered for this.
“Ah.”
“I’m going to be shattered,” Pearl says again, with rising terror, “they’re- they’re going to find me, and they’re going to shatter me, and they’re going to shatter you too, an-”
Not just shattered, he’s going to be space dust! If he’s lucky maybe he’ll become a star in about seven trillion years-
“Woah, woah, hey, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Etho interrupts. He guides Pearl’s hands away from his face and holds them tight, mismatched eyes calm, somehow, despite everything, “you’re going to be okay.”
“And you’re not?”
“I’ll be okay too.”
“How?”
“I know a guy. I’ll get us out of here,” Etho shrugs. Before Pearl can lose his mind over that particular string of words, Etho questions, “how’d you end up fusing with a diamond?”
Pearl freezes. This is really just- not a conversation he wants to have. Etho rubs his thumbs across the back of his hands, grounding- it’s nice.
“We were in the garden,” Pearl confesses, supposing that the floor of a closet isn’t the worst place to confess to being a criminal, “and she ah- she was excited about the humans, and her smile was-”
He swallows, ducking his head.
“-she was dazzling,” he admits, a little breathless, “she was- so excited, and it was beautiful, and they were playing with these little things called otters and one did a flip, and she- she gasped and grabbed my arm and it just- it just kind of-”
He’d fallen out of the fusion only moments after they’d formed. His Diamond had been staring at him, her mouth agape in pure shock. The other guards had been horrified. Every instinct then told him to run, so he did, and he’d been chased, and now-
He wants to hide again, but alas Etho is still holding his hands. He looks up- Etho’s mismatched eyes hold no judgement. He’s smiling.
Pearl scowls. “What?”
“Congrats,” Etho says, calm as a glittering starscape, “fusion’s a special thing.”
Pearl sputters, “It’s treason!”
“That too,” Etho agrees. He squeezes Pearl’s hands and turns serious, “I can get us out of here, but you’ll have to be poofed, and you can’t reform until I say so.”
Oh stars- he’s- he might not be shattered.
“Okay,” he whispers.
“Promise.”
“Etho, I owe you my life,” Pearl retorts, “anything you need me to do, I’ll do it. I promise. I swear it. I don’t want to be shattered.”
Etho nods, and pulls Pearl to his feet. He’s shaking, but only a little, and Etho steadies him with a hand at his back.
“Wh-where are we going?” he asks.
Etho smiles, “you’ll see.”
Pearl vanishes into dark and quiet once again.
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I think there's something deeply interesting about the Clone troopers learning Mando'a from the trainers, and passing that on to each other. It's probably not a full language, not at first. They only got the basics from the trainers, but they take loan words from Basic, and then from other worlds they're stationed on. It gets passed down to the shinies, evolving and changing quickly. It's a living language, and it has different accents, different words taken from different languages depending on where the troopers speaking it have been for the longest. It's not hidden, not really. The Jedi actively encourage it, though Kaminoans have never wanted it to spread. But it's a remarkable thing, how quickly it changes and how precious it is, for clones to have something that is It morphs into something unique and theirs.
And then, order 66 happens, and clone troopers are phased out and replaced by recruited, but some sources have them training together/training new recruits, and so they pick up on the language as a kind of military slang or code. But it's still a language, still taught and spoken, though more covertly, more carefully even as the clones are slowly decommissioned, but their language is passed on through imperial stormtroopers.
Even when the New Republic seems to have defeated the Empire, there's still Grand Moffs, there's still Stormtroopers, and the First Order rises. And yet somehow, stormtroopers keep this language alive, even though no one who speaks it now knows where it came from, or why only troopers speak it.
Eventually, all those kidnapped children grew up not knowing anything but the first order, and fear, and whispered words under bedcovers that the higherups can't understand. Sometimes they call them natborns and they don't know why. Sometimes they call each other vod'e and don't know why. They know what it means, (it means brother, means sister, means sibling, it means something deeper than that) but not why, not the how. They just know it's a secret. Some of them know songs, and some of them don't get a chance to learn them before they're heard by higherups and whoever knew it was reconditioned and it was lost.
When the First Order falls, troopers who escaped try to find their vod'e, find their family, and along the way they also find decedents of Clones, who speak a language similar to theirs. Who know the words that First Order troopers have only whispered to each other and speak them in the open with their families without fear. Who know all those songs that were so precious and dangerous and more. And they discovered their shared heritage, shared history, through the language the clones built for themselves.
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red team definitely loves lore and acting, but I really think it's be understated how much blue's actions are in-character.
a major upset for red is how blue and green could just betray them immediately and start playing the game, but from blue's perspective this was completely logical and justified.
from blue's perspective, this is a game that they are going to play (and try to win!) and the deaths don't mean anything to them bc it's part of the game. it's not a personal thing or a moral question for them. have bad, tubbo, pierre, tina ever shown a particular value for player deaths? no. and all of them have been quite willing to do adapt their approach with the circumstances and their needs.
tina tried being nice and it didn't work? she'll work with bad then. bad can't get his eggs back? he'll start kidnapping workers until something happens. fred's been kidnapped? tubbo is going to unravel quackity.
with tina and bad, the easily shifting morality makes sense. they are both demons (or demonlike i know tina was iffy on what canon she wants for herself). with pierre, he's very used to be being a pawn in the federation's games at this point, this is just another game he has to play (idk much about ayrobot sorry).
tubbo is also used to playing the game. he has always reacted futilely to the federation's whims even if he didn't want to! look at his quest to fix ramon's machine. he and phil fought over that, bc phil couldn't understand why tubbo would just give in and break ramon's machines, betray his side? but from tubbo's perspective there was nothing he could do. feds were insistent, he was powerless, and the damage was already done by him being asked to do it. and this game is no different!!
he's brought this mentality to pac too. who would otherwise be having a crisis about killing fit and losing everything. tubbo really helped him out by pointing out it was the futility of the game. pac gets to enjoy having a purpose and play the game
even players like missa, who haven't participated in killing, have adapted to the game shift well. missa gets to feel useful and like he's not been left behind! he's enjoying himself and wants to participate!
most of blue team was lonely, isolated, and purposeless. now they have been given a team, a purpose, and a reason to talk to people! of course they've taken well to this change! why wouldn't they?
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