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#great way to word this
scribefindegil · 8 months
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As much as I adore conlangs, I really like how the Imperial Radch books handle language. The book is entirely in English but you're constantly aware that you're reading a "translation," both of the Radchaai language Breq speaks as default, and also the various other languages she encounters. We don't hear the words but we hear her fretting about terms of address (the beloathed gendering on Nilt) and concepts that do or don't translate (Awn switching out of Radchaai when she needs a language where "citizen," "civilized," and "Radchaai person" aren't all the same word) and noting people's registers and accents. The snatches of lyrics we hear don't scan or rhyme--even, and this is what sells it to me, the real-world songs with English lyrics, which get the same "literal translation" style as everything else--because we aren't hearing the actual words, we're hearing Breq's understanding of what they mean. I think it's a cool way to acknowledge linguistic complexity and some of the difficulties of multilingual/multicultural communication, which of course becomes a larger theme when we get to the plot with the Presgar Translators.
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eloquent-edits · 2 months
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🗡️ It takes more than three words…
to say I love you in the ways you deserve 🗡️ words of affirmation prompts
“I can see that you care for them, even if you don’t say it directly. It’s in everything you do.”
“You deserve to relax.”
“That top complements your eyes really well!”
“Hey, you tried your best on that project. It may have fallen apart in the end—but you tried. That’s what matters.”
“I really admire how you stood up for them. That takes a lot of courage.”
“You make people feel safe. Like they can be themselves without judgment… at least that’s how I feel around you.”
“You’re looking less like you got dragged out of hell every day!” (“Thanks?” “Going to hell and back doesn’t mean you got any less attractive.”)
“I don’t think you were in the wrong. Now I’m not saying you were right, but you made a good point and I think they should consider that.”
“It’s okay to be just okay. I’m here for you no matter what.”
“We adore you! We want you around! You’re our friend, why wouldn’t we want to hang out with you?”
“You are worthy of love and friends and respect.”
“Keep going, you’re doing great!”
“Woah, that was sick. Can you teach me how to do that?”
“You look healthier, you really do.”
“I would be nervous too in your shoes. But you’d be telling me that I got this, so I’m telling you: You got this.”
“I’m so proud of you.”
“I really care about you and want you to become the best version of yourself, whoever that may be.”
“Regardless of your gender, you’ll still be allowed in the treehouse.” (this came from a really funny and reassuring conversation with a friend LOL)
“I trust that you won’t hurt me.”
“You’re a really wonderful person. The world would be a better place with more people like you.”
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nikov · 1 year
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I REMEMBER EVERYTHING.
everything everywhere all at once (2022) / amigo warfare, eric gamalinda / someone great (2019) / about you, the 1975 / lullabies, lang leav / la la land (2016) /  the museum of heartbreak, meg leder / always remember us this way, lady gaga
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flowercrowngods · 6 months
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yearning hours (hidden track)
🤍 also on ao3
The city is quiet tonight, dormant long before midnight; weary at its very core, just allowing November’s cold to settle without much of a fight.
Steve should be asleep, too, but he doesn’t want to break the spell he’s under, doesn’t want the heaviness of his eyelids to become something deeper, something stronger, something that will bring an end to this feeling that’s come over him.
Sprawled on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, he just breathes. A steady in and out that‘s been effortless for a few hours now.
The breathes in the gentle dimness of his bedside lamp, inhales the sound of electro pop playing from beside him, playing from another lifetime altogether. He exhales the present, lets go of the thoughts of sleep, of leaving this moment, of moving anytime soon.
I saw your eyes. And you made me smile.
It’s been forever since he listened to this tape. So long, in fact, that he didn’t even know he still had it. Lifetimes passed since last he heard these songs, the synthesisers and guitars, the beat of his heart in tune with the drum of the snare.
Four years. It’s a lifetime. Everything’s a lifetime when the world ends, and ends, and ends. Everything’s a lifetime if you leave parts of yourself behind, unreachable for yourself, but far from untouchable for others.
Everything’s a lifetime if you live in Hawkins, Indiana.
And though it took a while, I was falling in love.
The song washes over him the same way it did four years ago, and yet it settles inside his chest, his gut, his lungs in a way it never did before. It fills him with each inhale, as if daring him to forget again. As if daring him to try.
There are three tapes spread out on the bed beside him, just within reach of his hand that’s hovering over the rewind button of his little radio that’s seen better days but still hasn’t ripped a tape in months.
Once the song begins to fade, he presses the button, the dim light now accompanied by the familiar clicking and whirring and the thoughts of seven, eight, nine, ten, as Steve is counting the seconds before he has to press play again to listen to Space Age Love Song again.
He exhales a drawn-out breath as, with another definitive click, the song starts over. Gentle snares fill his room. And Steve breathes.
I saw your eyes.
And he smiles.
And you made me smile.
Because somehow.
For a little while
He’s thinking about Eddie.
I was falling in love.
And for a moment, while he breathes and stares and listens, that’s okay. For a moment, for the duration of this song, for the lifetimes it survived and the ones yet to come, that’s okay. The waves of the music carry him through time and space, carry him to a world where it’s safe. Where the safest thing to do about your heart’s desires is not lying in bed and staring at the ceiling.
The phone rings. It’s midnight and the phone rings. Steve is floating, anchored and weighed down by his skin and bones, breathing himself back into reality, because the phone rings.
He looks up and reaches for the landline phone on his bedside table, the movement sluggish to his heavy limbs.
The words take a while to form, but he’s aware that the other person can hear the music playing, they’ll know he’s here, they’ll know he listens. They’ll know, hopefully, that he’ll talk soon. He just… He just needs a second.
But then it’s only silence that meets him, and Steve frowns. Just as he’s about to open his mouth and ask, he can hear a breathy little, “Oh. Shit.”
And he blinks. Swallows. Leans up on one arm to fight the floating.
“Eddie?”
“Uhh. Hi, Stevie.”
There’s a tremor to Eddie’s voice that Steve can make out even through the music he’s reaching out to turn down the volume now. Alarm shoots through him, accompanied by protectiveness and the readiness to take ok the world. For Eddie. Again.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“Yeah!” Too fast. Too breathy. Too frantic, and Steve can hear the clinking of his rings against the plastic of Wayne’s landline phone. He can see Eddie wrapping the cord around his fingers, can picture him chewing on it, too. “I just— uh, I… I cleaned my room? Rearranged it, too. I really like how… Look, ignore this, okay? I realised that this was kinda dumb the moment you picked up the phone.”
Steve leans back again, his head hitting the pillow as he lets Eddie’s voice wash over him. He sounds nice against the low music still coming from beside Steve. Eddie always sounds nice. Steve kinda wants to listen to him forever most days.
“What’s dumb, Ed?”
A snort, and Steve wants to feel that breath tingling his cheek, or neck, or throat. He wants to touch that smile of self-deprecation he knows spreads Eddie’s lips now, and wants to turn it into something more genuine. More vulnerable. More his.
“Calling you at midnight and telling you that i cleaned my room.”
“And rearranged it,” Steve adds, helpless against the gentleness of his voice as he says it.
“Yeah. That.”
He smiles, his eyes finding their spot on the ceiling again as he reaches for the radio again, pressing rewind, because his heart is a fluttery little thing tonight, and he wants to bask in it for a moment. Wants to be allowed to pretend.
Something old washing into something new. The feeling fits well with the others, a tenderness inside his chest where Eddie lives, surrounded now by the song, wave after wave, and with the memory and possibility and chance of different lifetimes, different phone calls, different Steves.
“I don’t think that’s dumb, Ed,” he says after a while. “I like it when you tell me things, midnight or not.“
“I… That’s cool.” Silence. But an Eddie kind of silence that it’s always only a prelude. Always. For bigger things the longer it is. And Steve’s counted all the way to seven before Eddie, quietly, secretly, says, “I like telling you things. Midnight or not.”
The smile that splits Steve’s face is almost one that needs to be hidden in the pillows, with the way the world sees it as a challenge when he smiles. But he doesn’t hide it. Midnight smiles don’t need hiding.
“So tell me about your room.”
Another silence, only five beats this time, but it leaves Steve yearning for Eddie to fill it nonetheless.
“Do…“ One, two, three, four, f— “Do you wanna come over and see?”
And now it’s Steve who’s silent. Steve whose heart is beating so loud he forgets to count the seconds, forgets to fill the silence, forgets just for a while that he’s still only pretending, he’s still only longing, not reaching.
And still, still still, he asks, “Right now?”
Eddie’s answer is no more than a breath. “Yeah?”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
Okay. He wants to stay in bed longer, wants to cradle the phone to his ear and listen to Eddie. To his breathy little voice, like he knows about midnight smiles, and even more about midnight whispers.
He’s still floating in the car, having grabbed one of the tapes from his bed, letting the more synthetic snares and guitars fill the air he breathes that’s beginning to smell vaguely of leather and tobacco and soil and Eddie.
The more you live, the more you love. Or so they say.
It settles in his arms the same way the car’s gentle thrumming does; this certainty. The longing. The love.
He’s not even sure when it happened, only that he can’t get rid of it now. Doesn’t want to get rid of it, most days. Not yet. He’ll spend the rest of his life letting it go, but he wants to keep it for a while yet.
Especially with Eddie calling him at midnight just… Just to tell him something that makes him happy. Obviously, obviously makes him happy. So happy he wants to tell Steve about it. Like Steve is worthy of that, like he is the obvious choice.
It makes him giddy. Makes him float. Makes him turn up the volume, letting it almost ruin the moment, fragile as it is — but only almost.
He makes it to the trailer park in no time, finding Eddie already outside. Waiting for him.
No amount of inhaling and exhaling is enough to save Steve now, not with Eddie approaching his car before he even comes to a stop. Not with Eddie reaching out to open his door, looking at him, face painted in the light and shadow of the little overhead light of the Beemer.
“Hi,” Eddie says. “I cleaned my room.”
“And rearranged it,” Steve adds, an echo of earlier, the same smile on his lips, but Eddie doesn’t smile. Eddie just nods, frantic.
“That, yeah. But… I cleaned my room. And you’re here. Because I told you. Because I cleaned my room.”
Steve blinks, loosening his seatbelt and slowly, so as not to spook Eddie, he gets out of the car. Comes to a stop in front of Eddie, the door still open behind him.
“Eddie, what—“
“You’re here,” Eddie says again. “You like it when I tell you things.”
Steve nods, the cold November air not enough to save him; he still inhales Eddie, still exhales a longing so deep his lungs feel like they’ll never fill again.
“And you like telling me things,” he says, because Eddie’s gone silent, his wide eyes still frantic, and Steve wants to help.
“You’re here,” Eddie repeats again, like it has a meaning that Steve’s not catching.
He nods, then, heart and mind racing alike. “Because you asked.”
But Eddie shakes his head, still rooted to the spot, still keeping his eyes on Steve like he’s afraid he might disappear if he so much as blinks. Steve wouldn’t think of it. Will stay as long as Eddie wants to look at him.
“Because you want to. Because you like it. Because… Because I cleaned my room. And the first thing I wanted to do was tell you. And you listened. And you told me it’s not dumb, because you like it when I tell you things, and— Steve. Steve.”
He can’t look at those wide eyes anymore, not when he’s been found out, not when the heaviness is returning, weighing on his limbs and his heart, telling him to panic and to run and—
“Steve.” A whisper. A hand on his cheek. Not to tip his head up. Just to rest there. Just to stay. “I wanna tell you things all the time. The stupidest, littlest things. I wanna tell you because you’ll listen and because you’ll— you’ll make me feel like… Like this. Because you’re here! You’re here when all I did was clean my room. At midnight. Way past midnight, actually. I’m… I… God, I just.” An exhale, and it sounds a lot like Steve’s. “I love you.”
Steve’s head snaps up, his eyes meeting Eddie’s again. Searching for the lie, searching for the dream, searching for one of those lifetimes that aren’t meant for him. But he finds none. He finds sincerity; scared, vulnerable sincerity, like Eddie is a little bit insane with it.
Like he’s faring no better than Steve.
“You… You do?” Eddie nods, frantic again, the hand falling from Steve’s cheek so he can pick and bite at his nails. Unthinkingly, Steve reaches for his hands to hold them in his own. “I— I’m…”
“It’s okay, you don’t— uh, you don’t have to say anything. Really. Please don’t, actually, I’m just… You’re here. I can’t believe you’re here. I can’t believe you—“
“Ed,” Steve whispers. “Eddie.” They sallow in unison, the air charged between them but clearing in Steve’s vision now, carrying him no longer like someone floating along the tides yearning.
He’s not floating, he’s not lifetimes away. He’s here. He’s here.
“Can I… Can I try something? Can I kiss you? Please?” he adds in a whisper.
And it is with that same whisper, with that same shared breath, that Eddie says, “Please.”
The kiss is chaste, but it’s enough. Enough to survive the night, enough to be not the beginning and not the end, but something comfortably settled in the in-between.
When they break apart, Steve doesn’t let Eddie go far as he pulls him into his arms rather immediately. Just to hold him there. To let his mind catch up. To bask.
And it’s only after a while of breathing each other in, their hands roaming over the other boy’s back in ways more gentle than they were ever allowed to before, that Eddie breaks the silence.
“I really do wanna show you my room, though, that wasn’t a ruse.” He mumbles the words against the side of Steve’s throat, and Steve — still unsure of his footing — laughs and brushes a careful kiss against Eddie’s temple that leaves him with goosebumps.
“Ready when you are,” he says, though it’s almost a sigh. An exhale. Exhaling Eddie, and inhaling his warm smile and the smell of his hair. Steve leans in for another kiss to Eddie’s forehead, lingering this time.
In and out. It’s all Eddie.
Ring-clad fingers find their ways in between his own, and then Eddie tugs him — gently, like he’s afraid Steve will break if he moves too quickly; or maybe it’s Eddie’s who’ll break — toward the trailer.
Inside it’s warm, the lights are low, and the only thing illuminating Eddie’s room down the hall is a black string of warm white lights wandering along his walls and in between photos and pictures and drawings and posters that litter his wall.
And in the middle of it all, there’s Eddie. Smiling at him, giddy and gentle and genuine and so, so pretty. And Steve knows, then. Eddie’s room has never looked better.
(the songs are space age love song, and the more you live, the more you love by a flock of seagulls)
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unexpectedbrickattack · 7 months
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this is for a comic i havent even finished sketching out but it would NOT leave my fucking head
John comes back from meeting up with peppino and understands him a little more; hes a shivering chihuahua in human skin and John has no idea how hes survived living all these years.
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orpheuslament · 1 year
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Dead Stars, Ada Limón
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driftingballoons · 5 months
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I love Rozenmarine, but sometimes the way her VA says “Elise” is just so
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meirimerens · 7 months
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the pathologic Kin is largely fictionalized with a created language that takes from multiple sources to be its own, a cosmogony & spirituality that does not correlate to the faiths (mostly Tengrist & Buddhist) practiced by the peoples it takes inspirations from, has customs, mores and roles invented for the purposes of the game, and even just a style of dress that does not resemble any of these peoples', but it is fascinating looking into specifically to me the sigils and see where they come from... watch this:
P2 Layers glyphs take from the mongolian script:
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while the in-game words for Blood, Bones and Nerves are mongolian directly, it is interesting to note that their glyphs do not have a phonetic affiliation to the words (ex. the "Yas" layer of Bones having for glyph the equivalent of the letter F, the "Medrel" layer of Nerves having a glyph the equivalent of the letter È,...)
the leatherworks on the Kayura models', with their uses of angles and extending lines, remind me of the Phags Pa Script (used for Tibetan, Mongolian, Chineses, Uyghur language, and others)
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some of the sigils also look either in part or fully inspired by Phags Pa script letters...
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some look closer to the mongolian or vagindra (buryat) script
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looking at the Herb Brides & their concept art, we can see bodypainting that looks like vertical buryat or mongolian script (oh hi (crossed out: Mark) Phags Pa script):
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shaped and reshaped...
#not sure how much. what's the word. bond? involvement? not experience. closeness? anyone in the team has with any of these cultures#but i recall learning lead writer is indigenous in some way & heavily self-inserts as artemy [like. That's His Face used for#the p1 burakh portrait] so i imagine There Is some knowledge; if not first-hand at least in some other way#& i'm not in the team so i don't know how much Whatever is put into Anything#[ + i've ranted about the treatment of the brides Enough. enough i have]#so i don't have any ground to stand on wrt how i would feel about how these cultures are handled to make the Kin somewhat-hodgepodge.#there is recognizing it is Obviously inspired by real-life cultures [with the words;the alphabet;i look at Kayura i know what i see]#& recognizing it Also is. obviously and greatly imagined. not that weird for you know. a story.#like there is No Turkic/Altaic/Mongolic culture that has a caste of all-women spiritual dancers who place a great importance on nudity#as a reflection of the perfect world and do nothing but dance to bring about the harvest. ykwim...#like neither the Mongols nor the Buryats nor the Tibetans dress the way the Kin does. that's cos the Kin is invented. but they're invented.#.. on wide fundations. ykwim......#Tengrism has a Sky Deity (Tengri) with an earth-goddess *daughter* whereas the kin worship an Earth-Goddess mother of everything#+ a huge bull. Buddhism has its own complete cosmogony & beliefs which from the little I know Vastly Differ from anything the Kin believes#like. yeah. story. but also. [holds myself back from renting about the Brides again] shhh...#neigh (blabbers)#pathologic#pathologic 2
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roominthecastle · 4 months
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Siegfried & Audrey + her hands that hold his world together
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beacon-lamp · 16 days
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unknown spread
my genuine reaction:
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chat is this real
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if you even care
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5hrignold · 7 months
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the picture sucks because he isn’t worth the effort of finding a specific picture of him for this specific post
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luthienne · 2 years
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Hieu Minh Nguyen, from This Way to the Sugar: Poems; "Teacher's Pet"
[Text ID: I could be a liar. I could be remembering / the wrong details. Details. Details: her office is still / a lost thing. Darkness holding the ember hostage. / There is nothing in this story that’s not a dagger.]
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yellowocaballero · 8 months
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Reading 'Solo Leveling' (a webtoon/webnovel about a guy who uses a game-like interface to level up and fight monsters and become ridiculously OP and the coolest and hottest guy in the whole wide world) really proves something to me that I've thought about.
The goal of a story is to achieve what it wants to achieve. Different genres have different certain marks the story should achieve. If it doesn't hit those marks, it's not a good example of the genre. In a lot of was it's not even a good story - it doesn't entertain the audience in the way that they want to be entertained. A romance novel isn't a bad story because it doesn't feature great action scenes, but neither is it a bad story because it doesn't delve deep into the sociopolitical implications of neocolonialism. Does it make the reader feel happy? Is it cathartic? Is there a happy ending? Then it's a good romance story - even if you think stories shouldn't need happy endings.
The 'satisfaction' of stories like Solo Leveling is the fact that is very entertaining to watch a guy be super powerful and mow down bad guys and have everybody around him go "WHOAH that's a cool guy". Maybe it's cool because you're projecting, or maybe you like great action scenes, or because you like 'underdog gets powerful' stories. It's a power fantasy. That is the goal of Solo Leveling, and so long as I'm going "WHOAH COOL", then it's a good story. And Solo Leveling is the example of the power fantasy video game dungeon OP protag. It does those elements, it executes them competently, it's a good story.
This is the third of these types of stories I've read more than 5 chapters of. The first was Omniscent Reader's Viewpoint. And baby. This is no ORV.
ORV a big reaction to Solo Levelling in a lot of ways, since Solo Levelling was very genre defining and influential, and it's hard to write these OP stories without having a relationship to Solo Leveling. It's like the most popular webtoon out there. The OP hero, the gaming interface and rules, the gods fucking you up, power fantasy - they're all checked off by ORV. It doesn't subvert them much. You watch kdj pull one over on a shmuck and you're like HEY YA BABY and you watch him utterly decimate some schmuck and you're like WHOAH COOL. You like ORV, basically, for the same reasons you like Solo Leveling. They're the same genre and in a lot of ways the same story.
But ORV has driven me nuts and after a while Solo Leveling has gotten boring. Because ORV has a fantastic supporting cast that puts the MC's OPness in relative perspective. Because there's cool action scenes with different teams, of different dynamics, giving freshness to each chapter. Because you get to see kdj slowly implement some nuts gambit of the course of the entire arc and when we finally hit the end point where it all comes together it's FUCK YEAH. I'm leaving out the actual depth here. But ORV and Solo Leveling do the same thing, except ORV has a great deal of other story elements that build into the main 'point' and escalate the satisfaction, joy, and intensity of those points. You don't read these OP hero novels for the supporting cast. You read it to watch a dude be cool. But ORV's supporting cast - and, like, the fact that they're actual characters, even the women - gives us a lot of other smaller 'hey yeah!' moments, gives it buildup, makes the OP moments meaningful, and gives a grand climax and huge satisfaction when kdj does what the SL guy did by himself. And the supporting cast is only one example of this. A story is a good story if it accomplishes its point, but a story like SL will never really deliver its promises nearly as well as ORV could. Not because ORV is deep and has """themes""" or fucked up shit like that. The 'WHOAH COOL's are just better. Because ORV knows why stories are good and what makes a good story.
Anyway I'm fucking begging you I have tears in my eyes this is why your fic needs more than the hot ship of the day I promise it won't detract from the ship it will make the ship BETTER but you have to get WHY you like these homosexuals so much and it's NOT just because they're CUTE sometimes there's OTHER REASONS THAT ARE IMPORTANT LIKE THE WOMAN YOU'VE BOOTED AND -
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gideonisms · 3 months
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I will admit I hate the trend towards measuring how Healthy fictional relationships are. they're not breakfast cereals! we don't need to measure the amount of fiber! even if it did matter how much fiber a fictional relationship has "healthy" is also a very general, vibes-based word for concepts that I think we probably should get more specific about
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Quotable quotes.
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"Throughout time, more than looking for love, we look for harmony; so if you manage to find a love that harmonizes you, you have already found everything."
—  Juan Francisco Palencia.
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