update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/toledot/index.md

@@ -75,7 +75,7 @@ Nearing the 200th anniversary of System secession from humanity, the System and
     * [X] [Launch: launch-side: Codrin#Pollux](launch/launch/Codrin-pollux/002) - Makes up with Dear, who gives suggestions on some names to interview and how to go about them - 1373
     * [X] [Secession: sys-side: True Name](secession/sys/True-Name/002) - Meets with Jonas to discuss latest post from Yared, picking up on secession undertones, Jonas admits to own clade standing in for him (explain that reputation doesn't exactly go down, but is spread among instances (changed later)). - 2587
     * [X] [Launch: phys-side: Douglas](launch/phys/Douglas/005) - Douglas walks the station, processing news of Michelle's death, then talks with May - 3969
-    * [O] [Launch: launch-side: Codrin#Castor](launch/launch/Codrin-castor/003) - Author who wrote an outline for a book, has been writing them independently on launches and sending back to editor sys-side, who is compiling them; mentions as postscript for Ioan only that given what ey learned about early clade, should maybe pass on communications between LVs encrypted - 2963
+    * [X] [Launch: launch-side: Codrin#Castor](launch/launch/Codrin-castor/003) - Author who wrote an outline for a book, has been writing them independently on launches and sending back to editor sys-side, who is compiling them; mentions as postscript for Ioan only that given what ey learned about early clade, should maybe pass on communications between LVs encrypted - 2963
     * [O] [Secession: sys-side: Michelle](secession/sys/Michelle/003) - Debarre meets with Michelle to talk about AwDae, Ode Clade, losing control of herself, why keep the name secret (AwDae wasn't supposed to defect to S-R Bloc, even if ey helped form the System - total lie, though), reiterates promise that her new clade won't overtake the Council of Eight - 1754 - Expand?
     * [O] [Launch: sys-side: Ioan](launch/sys/Ioan/005) - Musician who set up transmission of music between sys/phys, gets #Castor's note, discusses with May - 1740 - Expand?
 * [O] Part III - Acceleration (Conspiracies start to pick up)

writing/post-self/toledot/launch/launch/Codrin-castor/003.md

@@ -1,18 +1,18 @@
 # Codrin Bălan#Castor --- 2325
 
-The first interview that Codrin Bălan conducted was with an author who had chosen to invest completely in the launches, leaving no one behind. 
+The first interview of note that Codrin Bălan conducted was with an author who had chosen to invest completely in the launches, leaving no one behind. 
 
 At first, Codrin wondered why it was that this author had chosen to be a part of the interview process, why it was that Dear had recommended him. He seemed, on the surface to be entirely uninteresting. He was an author. That was that.
 
-His name was Martin Rankin, and while Codrin had not read any of his works prior to the suggestion, ey had certainly heard the name in the various literary circles that ey trawled on occasion. A man prone to grand literary gestures, one who leaned heavily on the twisting of endless sentences, ceaseless streams of fragments, prose that bordered on florid even by Codrin’s relatively flowery standards. Ey knew that ey were prone to many of the same pitfalls, but this man took it to an extreme that they found unreasonable.
+His name was Martin Rankin, and while Codrin had not read any of his works prior to the suggestion, ey had certainly heard the name in the various literary circles that ey trawled on occasion. A man prone to grand literary gestures, one who leaned heavily on the twisting of endless sentences, ceaseless streams of fragments, prose that bordered on florid even by Codrin’s relatively flowery standards. Ey knew that ey was prone to many of the same pitfalls, but this man took it to an extreme that they found unreasonable.
 
 Codrin, to prepare for the interview, had read two of Rankin's books. They were not without their merit, as might any such book be that garnered so much attention, but they still took plenty of work to get through. He wrote most often about contemporary life within the system in all its deliriously boring intricacies.
 
-That said, much of his work was bound up in a sense of magical realism that was, ey had to admit, enticing. This was something that Codrin has never managed to capture emself, and so ey set aside some time to study the ways in which Rankin used surrealism to enhance the story at hand without distracting.
+That said, much of his work was bound up in a sense of magical realism that was, ey had to admit, enticing. This was something that Codrin had never managed to capture emself, and so ey set aside some time to study the ways in which Rankin used surrealism to enhance the story at hand without distracting.
 
-Meeting Rankin was exactly as they had expected. There was nothing about him that did not shout Martin Rankin. He wore his identity on his face, on his chest, in the way his hands moved across the table as they talked, there at the cafe, there sitting out on the street, there sipping their espressos.
+Meeting Rankin was exactly as had expected. There was nothing about him that did not shout Martin Rankin. He wore his identity on his face, on his chest, in the way his hands moved across the table as they talked, there at the cafe, there sitting out on the street, there sipping their espressos.
 
-"So, you are the illustrious Codrin Bălan." His voice was imperious, veering dangerously close to pompous, looking over the rim of the demitasse appraisingly at em as he sipped espresso.
+"So, you are the illustrious Codrin Bălan." His voice was imperious, veering dangerously close to pompous, looking over the rim of the demitasse appraisingly at em as he sipped coffee.
 
 Something about the man grated. Ey wasn't quite sure what it was at first, whether it was the self-assured way he spoke, or the self-aggrandizing expression he wore on his face. It was nigh intolerable.
 
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ Ey nodded, smiling ingratiatingly. The man was clearly used to having the chance
 
 The simpering tone appeared to appeal to Rankin's sensibilities, as he smiled down to Codrin with all the patronizing disdain of *bless your heart.* "I do believe so. What can we say but 'launch-side' and 'sys-side'? Do those truly say anything about our existence here? We are hurtling out into space at some terrifying speed, driven by the momentum imparted by the spin of the station and the deliciously thin membranes of those solar sails. Ah! What a journey on which we have decided to embark! We lucky few. Those back on the System know nothing of our experiences out here, even if they have also decided to join. There is no way to accurately transmit that experience through text alone."
 
-Hiding a grimace behind a sip of eir own espresso, Codrin jotted down the author's words. The first thing that Rankin had done upon meeting up with em was to make a similarly patronizing comment about the anachronistic nature of pen and paper. Ey had supposed at first that ey'd met a fellow admirer of fine pens, fine paper, and the joy of beautiful inks.
+Hiding a grimace behind a sip of eir own espresso, Codrin jotted down the author's words. The first thing that Rankin had done upon meeting up with em had been to make a similarly patronizing comment about the anachronistic nature of pen and paper. Ey had supposed at first that ey'd met a fellow admirer of fine pens, fine paper, and the joy of beautiful inks.
 
 *Alas.*
 
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ Hiding a grimace behind a sip of eir own espresso, Codrin jotted down the author
 
 "If we could--" Ey cut emself off and recomposed eir plastic smile. "I've heard that you are working on a project that capitalizes on this. Can you expand on that?"
 
-"Of course! Of course. I will always help a fellow writer." He set his cup aside and made a grand sweep of his arm. "You look around you, and you see so many going about their lives as the might have otherwise. Even I am guilty of the dalliance of getting up, drinking coffee, perhaps sitting and reading a while. We lucky few--" Codrin knew that some two and a half billion personalities were on the launches, but ey declined to comment. "--can draw so much inspiration from a project on so grand a scale. My project is one that utilizes the base nature of a personality embedded in a system that cares not about consistency between its two constituent parts.
+"Of course! Of course. I will always help a fellow writer." He set his cup aside and made a grand sweep of his arm. "You look around you, and you see so many going about their lives as the might have otherwise. Even I am guilty of the dalliance of getting up, drinking coffee, perhaps sitting and reading a while. We lucky few--" Codrin knew that some two and a half billion personalities were on the launches, but ey declined to comment. "--can draw so much inspiration from a project on so grand a scale. My project is one that utilizes the base nature of a personality embedded in a system that cares not for consistency between its two constituent parts.
 
 "Before I disappeared from the L<sub>5</sub> system, I wrote an outline for a new book describing the universal feelings of exploration that are bound up in this endeavor, and now I am working writing the book which follows that outline. My counterpart on the Pollux launch is doing the same --- he had better be! --- and we are sending the results of our labors back to the System to an editor who is a most trusted companion, and he is compiling them into a single book which will serve to showcase the similarities and differences that one mind can hold when it has lost a unifying sense of self!"
 
@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ Codrin wrote quickly, not just to keep up, but also to keep eir eyes on the page
 
 "Does that make sense, my dear Codrin?"
 
-"Oh, yes, yes it does, Mr. Rankin."
+"Oh, yes. Yes it does, Mr. Rankin."
 
 He sat back in his seat with a self-satisfied smirk. "I think that you'll like the end product. I've read some of your own works, by the way. You pick some quite interesting projects about our post-human life, though I must admit that your style is quite dry."
 
@@ -54,13 +54,13 @@ He sat back in his seat with a self-satisfied smirk. "I think that you'll like t
 
 Rankin laughed. "Of course, of course, I forget myself. You'll have to send me your notes for this current project, and I'll see if I can pull them together into something coherent and readable."
 
-Ey nodded. "Of course, I'll see about doing so when I'm done. Back to your work, however; do you have any predictions on how the works will differ?"
+Ey bit eir tongue and nodded. "Of course, I'll see about doing so when I'm done. Back to your work, however; do you have any predictions on how the works will differ?"
 
-"The *work*, Codrin. It's a very singular work. Both me and my counterpart are writing the exact same work, and the only difference is the circumstances." He waved off any reply before continuing. "Though imagine that our two takes will begin quite similar, and then start to diverge further as time continues, such as a fork might diverge from its down-tree instance. How interesting! A work that, in some core mechanism, follows the exact same path as our daily existence."
+"The *work*, Codrin. It's a very singular work. Both me and my counterpart are writing the exact same work, and the only difference is the circumstances." He waved off any reply before continuing. "Though imagine that our two takes began quite similar, and then started to diverge further as time continues, such as a fork might diverge from its down-tree instance. How interesting! A work that, in some core mechanism, follows the exact same path as our daily existence."
 
 "And you have an editor who is merging these two threads? Are they planning on doing something special with the presentation of it?"
 
-"Yes. Yes! Of course, what is a book but an experience? A book should be delightfully difficult to read, if it is to be enjoyed to the fullest. You are engaging with a topic, you must --- *must* --- put in the same amount of effort that the author has! We have plans to arrange the two texts side-by-side, locked together at the points specified at the outline, as well as any similarities that the texts share. Imagine, I, Rankin#Castor, writing, "And so, in my heart of hearts, I knew the truth among the stars" while Rankin#Pollux writes, "And so, in my heart of hearts, I know the truth among the wheeling of the stars." From there, we can have the texts line up on the page, and perhaps even highlight the similarities. My editor promises that he won't send me any of the result until it's complete and ready for manuscript sign off, lest #Pollux's writing influence my own."
+"Yes. Yes! Of course, what is a book but an experience? A book should be delightfully difficult to read, if it is to be enjoyed to the fullest. You are engaging with a topic, you must --- *must* --- put in the same amount of effort that the author has! We have plans to arrange the two texts side-by-side, locked together at the points specified in the outline, as well as any similarities that the texts share. Imagine, I, Rankin#Castor, writing, "And so, in my heart of hearts, I knew the truth among the stars" while Rankin#Pollux writes, "And so, in my heart of hearts, I know the truth among the wheeling of the stars." From there, we can have the texts line up on the page, and perhaps even highlight the similarities. My editor promises that he won't send me any of the result until it's complete and ready for manuscript sign off, lest #Pollux's writing influence my own."
 
 Once ey had finished jotting in eir shorthand, Codrin asked, "Do you have any idea on how the work will be received?"
 
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ Rankin frowned, at which Codrin took secret pleasure. "No. There are some aspect
 
 "What is the act of quitting but that of death?"
 
-Codrin withheld eir thoughts on the matter, asking instead, "Perhaps there's a story there, too. Read a book, quit, and then write about the experience of only having the memory of reading that book. It seems to fall in line with the scope of your current project."
+Codrin withheld eir thoughts on the matter, asking instead, "Perhaps there's a story there, too. Read a book, quit, and then write about the experience of having only the memory of reading that book. It seems to fall in line with the scope of your current project."
 
 Rankin's expression grew colder. "An interesting problem for you to tackle, my dear Codrin. I look forward to your monograph on the subject."
 
@@ -86,7 +86,7 @@ A little bit of sucking up warmed him again, and Codrin once again marveled at w
 
 Ey gave a hint of a bow, a moment of silence to show eir appreciation, and then continued. "Do you have any projects planned after this book? Perhaps something to work on alongside it?"
 
-"Of course! It's important not to fall into the trap of working on a single project, otherwise you'll feel obliged to refine and refine and refine! Keep it varied. I'm also working on a novel exploring income inequalities within the System. Or Systems, perhaps. This will hopefully be released concurrent with my main work. This is being done by a separate fork, and we merge weekly on the project. It takes no small amount of focused to keep either one of us from getting sidetracked, but it's important that we continue our work at a good pace. We may have all the time in the world, but it's easy enough to be forgotten in our current market if we don't keep coming out with more and more works, eh?"
+"Of course! It's important not to fall into the trap of working on a single project, otherwise you'll feel obliged to refine and refine and refine! Keep it varied. I'm also working on a novel exploring income inequalities within the System. Or Systems, perhaps. This will hopefully be released concurrent with my main work. This is being done by a separate fork, and we merge weekly on the project. It takes no small amount of focus to keep either one of us from getting sidetracked, but it's important that we continue our work at a good pace. We may have all the time in the world, but it's easy enough to be forgotten in our current market if we don't keep coming out with more and more works, eh?"
 
 "There is that, yes. At least there's not a livelihood resting on it."
 
@@ -128,7 +128,7 @@ Dear gasped, paw to muzzle. *"A curse! Codrin! I am shocked."*
 
 "I'll get the wine," its partner said, still laughing.
 
-They gathered around the table on the couch where Codrin could lounge against Dear with eir feet up in its partner's lap.
+They gathered on the couch where Codrin could lounge against Dear with eir feet up in its partner's lap.
 
 *"So, how was it, really? Was he really that bad?"* Dear asked.
 
@@ -144,7 +144,7 @@ Codrin laughed and poked the fox in the side. "Yeah, those things. I'm guessing
 
 "The dual text thing?" Dear's partner asked.
 
-"Yeah. Did it tell you about that?"
+"Yeah. Did he tell you about that?"
 
 "Mmhm. It sounds interesting, at least on the surface. We'll have to see how the execution works out, though. It could be stupendously boring."
 
@@ -158,7 +158,7 @@ Codrin laughed and poked the fox in the side. "Yeah, those things. I'm guessing
 
 "Right. Come to think of it, even Rankin said that he started with an outline to keep the two instances organized. We could probably do with more organization between the three of us."
 
-*"Or the three of our groups, at least. Perhaps Pollux launch and Ioan taken together will provide us with a good idea of where we should be working next"*
+*"Or the three of our groups, at least. Perhaps Pollux and Ioan taken together will provide us with a good idea of where we should be working next"*
 
 "Do you want to send Ioan a note to start coordinating?"