update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/artist-references.md

@@ -212,7 +212,7 @@ Growth is colliding with memory, and the cracks are showing.
 
 As a prologue in 2114, *RJ Brewster* meets with *Dr. Carter Ramirez* and *Prakash Das*, a spy for the Sino-Russian Bloc, for lunch. RJ has been having a very hard time re-acclimating to life after being lost. Ey has lost eir job due to fears around delving in, and eir cat has passed away. Ey considers Dr. Ramirez and Sasha eir only remaining friends. After lunch, Prakash catches up with RJ and offers to bring em in on a project to create a new embedded world with uploaded consciousnesses based around the information learned from the lost.
 
-##### Part 1 --- Anticipation
+**Part 1 --- Anticipation**
 
 In 2346, more than twenty years after the two smaller versions of the System, Castor and Pollux, were launched out of the solar system, someone has picked up on the signal transmitted by the "Dreamer Module", a part of the launch vehicles containing scientific instruments as well as some recordings as a way to possibly get in touch with extraterrestrial life on the journey.
 
@@ -238,7 +238,7 @@ They are contacted by the version of True Name that has remained on Lagrange. In
 
 Tycho watches the news disseminate and how it's being shaped by Odists such as True Name, Why Ask Questions, and Answers Will Not Help. They work out a date to begin the conversation once they are in effective Ansible range with Artemis and discuss what to expect, including the fact that they may not have enough in common with the Artemisians to actually understand them. It's decided between the two parties that the discussions on Castor will surround sharing scientific knowledge and those on Artemis will surround history, society, and psychology.
 
-##### Part 2 --- Experience
+**Part 2 --- Experience**
 
 The talks begin on both Artemis and Castor. On Artemis, Codrin arrives already 'skewed up' to fast-time, allowing em to see the Artemisians even as they others appear almost frozen at a much slower time scale. There are indeed four types of Artemisians: firstrace, which was described as post-biological, appear to be synthetic constructions that are equally comfortable on two or four legs with six-fingered hands and feet with two opposable thumbs and a thick tail for balance, analogous to a kangaroo. Secondrace is described as looking so close to a weasel that it would be easy to mistake them for Debarre, were it not for how short they are. Thirdrace looks something like a very colorful lizard with scales that shine like an oil slick and a frill of feathers or elongated scales around the crown of their heads. Fourthrace appears almost human, though with their features much smoothed.
 
@@ -256,7 +256,7 @@ Ioan and May go camping with Douglas, A Finger Pointing, and *Do I Know God Afte
 
 Ioan and Codrin#Pollux exchange letters --- since Pollux is seven days away from Lagrange, information from Castor arrives fourteen days late. Codrin#Pollux offers support to Codrin#Castor on taking control of eir life, explaining how ey took a position as a librarian at a university in the interim. Ey confides in Ioan, however, that ey is worried at how conservative Castor seems, with Dear, Codrin, and True Name all sounding much as they had twenty years prior, while Pollux has moved on: Dear has expanded the sim to include other terrain features, and its cocladist *Serene, Sustained And Sustaining* joined their polycule for a while, leading to two cocladists in a relationship with each other, something which is still considered taboo on Castor. They discuss how all three Systems have changed, with Lagrange being between Castor and Pollux in terms of conservative/liberal amounts of change.
 
-##### Part 3 --- Intensity
+**Part  3 --- Intensity**
 
 True Name and Answers Will Not Help (as Codrin is now convinced she must be) are really struggling aboard Artemis now, with Answers Will Not Help the worse of the two. She often interrupts the meetings, spouting poetry and then apologizing that she cannot keep from speaking. Additionally, despite the talk taking place in a unison room, she is still somehow able to skew time a little (or unable to keep herself from doing so), which worries Iska, who is a time skew artist, analogous to Dear's instance artistry.
 
@@ -272,7 +272,7 @@ On Castor, True Name admits to the deception that took place on Artemis (Why Ask
 
 On learning this on Artemis, the Artemisians wait for the final step in the checklist. When Tycho interrupts a talk to say that he wants to join them, and wants humanity to become fifthrace, the Artemisians welcome them as such, saying that the final step was simply a desire to join and an active decision to do so.
 
-##### Part 4 --- Integration
+**Part  4 --- Integration**
 
 After the talks and all of their instances have merged back down Tycho heads back to his sim to try and process what happened and is surprised when True Name joins him, saying that she doesn't know how to celebrate anymore, feeling that she isn't a whole person after two and a half centuries, much of that time spent focusing solely on politics. She suggests that eternal memory is clashing with the fact that she's still growing as a person, still changing.
 
@@ -342,7 +342,7 @@ One of the most well-known names from one of the most well-known clades on the S
 
 #### Summary
 
-##### Part 1 --- Conversation
+**Part  1 --- Conversation**
 
 It's late 2349, about about three and a half years since the fourth convergence, the meeting of the Artemesians with Castor. Life has taken a bit of a swing toward the adventuresome as news and new technology trickle their way back down to Lagrange, the original instance of the System in orbit around Earth. Technological changes include finer-grained ACLs that control permissions on various bits of the System, allowing for opaqued or visually secure cones of silence, limits on sensorium messages, etc.
 
@@ -358,7 +358,7 @@ Ioan heads out to Arrowhead Lake --- the abandoned mountain lake sim that ey dis
 
 True Name and Ioan have agreed that their next monthly meeting should be on Secession/Launch day, January 21 (yes I chose my birthday, no I am not sorry). This time, though, True Name arrives looking terrible, paranoid, like she hasn't slept in days, hasn't showered in a week, and hasn't changed her clothes in even longer. She says that she's been struggling, but that she and *Jonas Anderson*, the other behind-the-scenes leader of the System, have a 'gathering' later in the day. Weird choice of words, but that's what he said. As part of that, she's distracted with the fact that her instances are going to merge down before the gathering to reduce conflicts. Partway through this, one merge has learned that Jonas is looking for her, which is weird, because he knows she's with Ioan. The merges suddenly stop, though, along with all communication with her instances. She leaps to her feet, looks around the coffee shop, and sees the same assassin that killed Qoheleth walking toward them, so she grabs Ioan's hand and yells for em to take her 'somewhere, anywhere'. Ey tries taking her home, where they find the same assassin struggling with May, who forks, grabs the both of them, and yanks them to Arrowhead Lake. May is *furious*, and True Name caught in the middle of panic attack. She susses out that Jonas just tried to assassinate her.
 
-##### Part 2 --- Conflict
+**Part  2 --- Conflict**
 
 Well, shit, okay. Now May and the person she dislikes the most are trapped in hiding together with no idea what's going on or how to move forward, and Ioan's position as bridge between them means ey's now trapped between them. True Name heads off to sit on the rock at the end of the lake to have a sulk and think about what to do next, leaving May to voice her frustrations and concerns to Ioan. She's pissed that no matter how hard she tries to get away from all of the things she dislikes about True Name (and, unspokenly, many of the things that she used to be), she just can't. She's also worried about the fact that their home has been invaded.
 
@@ -374,7 +374,7 @@ May visits End Waking and Debarre after crying herself out. She explains more ab
 
 With May out of the house, Ioan is anxious and True Name is mopey. They eventually pull themselves together enough to cook and eat dinner. May returns in the middle of it, acting a bit like a goofball, which she explains away as not wanting to fall back into just crying all the time as she had been around True Name. Over the next few days, May and True Name have a few more private conversations, and May heads out to visit End Waking a few more times. When she mentions to Ioan that they've been talking about the possibility of the merge, ey isn't so sure; ey thinks it might be a good idea overall just to help True Name live a more complete life now that the one singular aspect she focused on has been taken away, but that if she's to have a talk with Jonas, she probably needs to be in top shape to do so, not crushed under a century and a half of memories and all their conflicts. May reluctantly agrees, but when True Name goes on a bit of a rant about the position she's found herself in, May gets too frustrated and signals to End Waking to start the merge process anyway. True Name collapses under the weight of having to actually process those memories, and May breaks down on realizing what she's done.
 
-##### Part 3 --- Apprehension
+**Part  3 --- Apprehension**
 
 After a few hours, True Name is back up on her feet, but it's not until the next day that she's actually more with it. She requests that they head out to the lake, since she now has End Waking's desire for being outside (and hatred of being inside), where the three of them talk about what happened. She says she understands how May did this --- using all of her May powers to convince both End Waking to merge down and True Name to accept the merge --- and maybe even the why, but also says that May has essentially split her mind in two. It gets kind of tense, so Ioan asks what good memories she has now, rather than just all of the conflicting pride/penance. She lists a few things, but ends by thanking May for thinking of her. After all, now she has all these memories of her telling End Waking about not wanting her to die, too.
 
@@ -392,7 +392,7 @@ Back home, May and True Name finally explain what their huge conversation was: Z
 
 Since Zacharias found True Name at Arrowhead Lake, that means that sim is no longer secure, so Ioan grabs a plains environment with a section of river off the reputation exchange and sets it up outside eir home so that True Name can retreat out there when feeling the need for solitude and no walls. This allows End Waking to visit a few times, talking with True Name and trying to understand where both she and May are coming from now that he's involved in this, too. In the process of talking, Ioan and May mention her vague thoughts on merging down, and True Name is oddly rather for it. She feels unbalanced, and if she were able to go into the merge knowing full well what to expect, what to keep or discard, and knowing that she could fork beforehand, she'd have a much easier time and might come out the other side far better. Eventually, the three of them say 'fuck it' and decide to go through with it so long as they approach it very carefully and respect Ioan and May's boundaries.
 
-##### Part 4 --- Reconciliation
+**Part  4 --- Reconciliation**
 
 After a week of conversations determining what those boundaries are, including some discussions with End Waking about how this merge will differ from the previous one, May finally merges down. Despite what she said in *Toledot* --- a small lie to try and keep Ioan from digging too much --- May hasn't merged down since 2155, longer ago than the most recent of End Waking's merges, so it's a doozy. However, they're far more deliberate about it. True Name is kept cozy in bed rather than basically being dropped on the floor like before, she's allowed to fork beforehand, and May is there to keep her comfortable and talk her through anything that comes up. By that night, True Name is mostly stuck up in her head, but can speak haltingly. However, May doesn't want to leave her to fend for herself and is unwilling to sleep without Ioan, so they decide to expand the bed so that Ioan can sleep with May and True Name still be nearby. There's some gentle ribbing about keeping Ioan away from True Name, but basically everyone's awkward. Shortly before they fall asleep, True Name jolts upright shouting 'ey knows!', showing that True Name#Castor never passed on the fact that Codrin now knows AwDae's name. In the middle of the night, she rolls over and winds up curled with May, so Ioan wakes up hugging them both which is kind of awkward for everyone, and there's a lot of talk about that; True Name says that she can see what May sees in Ioan, can see a universe in which she loves em, but not how to get from this universe to that one, at which May requests that she call her 'May' instead of 'May Then My Name'.