update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/motes/001.md

@@ -270,7 +270,7 @@ The skunk's smile returned. "I know. You are nice to me. I had figured if not th
 
 Dry Grass frowned, looking down at her spread out fingers, watching the polish dry. "It is hard to put succinctly into words that make sense because then it just comes off as a series of tautologies. She thinks that there are children and there are adults. She thinks this because that is what makes a mother a mother to someone. The child is the child and the adult is the adult in contrast. They are complements. It is all very prescriptive."
 
-Motes frowned and pulled apart the logic, doodling pink spirals onto her fingerpads. "So she thinks kids have to be actually kids? *Actual* children, even if there are non here?"
+Motes frowned and pulled apart the logic, doodling pink spirals onto her fingerpads. "So she thinks kids have to be actually kids? *Actual* children, even if there are none here?"
 
 "I think so, yes, though it does not help that you are a cocladist of hers."
 

writing/post-self/motes/002.md

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 Motes played.
 
-Tonight, she played hard. It was a Big Motes night. It was a human night. It was a grown up night. It was a night for hovering somewhere between twenty and twenty-five. It was a night for standing as tall as Beholden, as tall as so many of the other Odists, yet far more lithe. Tonight, she dressed up in her finest crepe-cotton blouse and gauzy skirt, and she braided for herself a fresh crown of flowers — marigolds, this time — grown by Beckoning and Muse A Finger Pointing and Beholden's long-lived up-tree instances A Finger Curled and Beholden To The Music Of The Spheres.
+Tonight, she played hard. It was a Big Motes night. It was a human night. It was a grown up night. It was a night for hovering somewhere between twenty and twenty-five. It was a night for standing as tall as Beholden, as tall as so many of the other Odists, yet far more lithe. Tonight, she dressed up in her finest crepe-cotton blouse and gauzy skirt, and she braided for herself a fresh crown of flowers — marigolds, this time — grown by Beckoning and Muse, A Finger Pointing and Beholden's long-lived up-tree instances A Finger Curled and Beholden To The Music Of The Spheres.
 
 Tonight, Motes played in hedonism. A night at a restaurant out on the town, where she stuffed herself with two Chicago-style hot dogs. "Drag them through the garden!" She laughed — and she was always laughing. "Everything but the ketchup!" A night when she ate all of her fries, and even mopped up the last of the fry sauce with a fingertip.
 
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ Tonight, she let him take her home. Tonight she let him pin her to the bed, paw
 
 And then it was a night for sitting on his balcony and talking while the waves of whatever drug he'd given her continued to roll through her in languid pulses. "It is like someone is brushing the underside of my skin with satin in the best possible way," she said, and he laughed.
 
-They sat and talked, legs dangling through the bars of the balcony's railing over an impossibly high drop, her ears filled with the chatter of an impossible myriad of monkeys some balconies over, startled from slumber by their arrival, her eyes filled with the black and gold of an impossible city built into a cylinder. He pointed to a building in the distance down the length of the cylinder, told her how that one was filled all with gardens, all flowers like those in her hair, now crushed lopsidedly from her forgetting to remove the crown when they'd fucked. He pointed up to the gentle glow in the sky, golden stars made of lights from so many buildings just like this one, told her that the sun here was in a long, thin line, that it turned on from one end to the other so that one could see dawn coming from down the tube, could hear birdsong come on like a wave, and then turned off in the same direction in a linear sunset. He pointed from one end of the cylinder to another, the bounding walls marked by arcane symbols in neon, and explained that nearly a quarter billion people called this home, then laughed as she asked, "How many do you think are fucking right now?"
+They sat and talked, legs dangling through the bars of the balcony's railing over an impossibly high drop, her ears filled with the chatter of an impossible myriad of monkeys some balconies over, startled from slumber by their arrival, her eyes filled with the black and gold of an impossible city built into a cylinder. He pointed to a building in the distance down the length of the cylinder, told her how that one was filled all with gardens, all flowers like those in her hair, now crushed lopsidedly from her forgetting to remove the crown when they would fucked. He pointed up to the gentle glow in the sky, golden stars made of lights from so many buildings just like this one, told her that the sun here was in a long, thin line, that it turned on from one end to the other so that one could see dawn coming from down the tube, could hear birdsong come on like a wave, and then turned off in the same direction in a linear sunset. He pointed from one end of the cylinder to another, the bounding walls marked by arcane symbols in neon, and explained that nearly a quarter billion people called this home, then laughed as she asked, "How many do you think are fucking right now?"
 
 They added one more to that number before they slept.
 
@@ -50,9 +50,9 @@ Hiking herself up onto the stage, undignified, she plopped down into a cross-leg
 
 "Sharp!" she explained, miming fangs with two fingers.
 
-She laughed. "Right, right. I didn't know you were into the slinky types," she said, leaning forward to gently probe at the side of Motes's neck and shoulder, investigating the shallow puncture wounds that had been left behind. "One of those 'looks worse than it is' things, seems like."
+She laughed. "Right, right. I did not know you were into the slinky types," she said, leaning forward to gently probe at the side of Motes's neck and shoulder, investigating the shallow puncture wounds that had been left behind. "One of those 'looks worse than it is' things, seems like."
 
-Motes sighed dreamily. "Yeah."
+Motes sighed dreamily. "Yeah~"
 
 Sasha snorted. "We are of a type, are we not, dear?"
 
@@ -132,7 +132,7 @@ She scoffed. "Probably the second."
 
 Sasha laughed and turned the ruffling into a noogie. "This is not a competition, Motes," she chided. "But if it were, then yes, you would win. She has cut off even A Finger Pointing."
 
-Giggling helplessly and pulling herself away from the knuckles grinding against her scalp, the skunk sat up. "I thought they were on better terms, though. Ma met with her once a month, even."
+Squeaking and giggling, pulling herself away from the knuckles grinding against her scalp, the skunk sat up. "I thought they were on better terms, though. Ma met with her once a month, even."
 
 "When she found out that I had joined Au Lieu Du Rêve, Hammered silver cut all contact with the fifth, yes?"
 
@@ -150,7 +150,7 @@ The smaller skunk giggled helplessly, slouching down until she was able to use S
 
 "So Hammered Silver is upset that Ma has principles," Motes said flatly. "Okay. Got it. Good good, good good good good. Wonderful."
 
-She laughed. "Yes, apparently. A Finger Pointing had some tense meetings with Hammered Silver early on when it became clear — at least within the clade — that she and Beholden were in a relationship, but that tenseness became the norm when you started to poke your little snout–" She tapped at Motes's nose-tip, getting a giggle. "–out into the world, which led to a tacit agreement that they were essentially just meeting up to collect data on their respective stanzas, and then only when A Finger Pointing agreed not to talk about you."
+She laughed. "Yes, apparently. A Finger Pointing had some tense meetings with her early on when it became clear — at least within the clade — that she and Beholden were in a relationship, but that tenseness became the norm when you started to poke your little snout–" She tapped at Motes's nose-tip, getting a giggle. "–out into the world, which led to a tacit agreement that they were essentially just meeting up to collect data on their respective stanzas, and then only when A Finger Pointing agreed not to talk about you."
 
 Motes fell silent for a long minute, then two, and eventually rolled onto the other side so that she could bury her face against Sasha's side. "Well, that makes me feel like garbage," she mumbled.
 

writing/post-self/motes/003.md

@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ It was Motes who caved first, ducking down onto paws and knees at the last secon
 
 "Gotcha!" ey cried, scampering off to the forest.
 
-Motes galloped after her, giggling.
+Motes galloped after her, laughing giddily.
 
 A few more rounds of leapfrog — repeated a dozen times over with a dozen different instances — and both Motes and Warmth collapsed in the clearing in the woods, panting and laughing. They shoved at each other for a few seconds, rolling about in the grass and wildflowers before sprawling out on their backs, looking up into the cloud-dotted sky.
 
@@ -140,7 +140,7 @@ It nodded. "She really is, and I love her. She is...mm," ey squinted up at the t
 
 She waved away the utensil and glass of water, flopping back onto the grass once more. "That is why I like her, yeah," she said, folding her paws over her belly, pensive.
 
-Warmth dismissed the *frahabrodåt* and stretched out on their belly. "Now why did *you* get all mopey all of the sudden?"
+Warmth dismissed the *frahabrodåt* and stretched out on their front. "Now why did *you* get all mopey all of the sudden?"
 
 She shrugged, peeking over at the other skunk through the blades of grass and drooping columbines. "Just family stuff on the brain."
 
@@ -152,7 +152,7 @@ She shrugged, peeking over at the other skunk through the blades of grass and dr
 
 "I know, but like the smallest. Like, the youngest."
 
-Warmth huffed, indignant. "But *I* am the youngest! I am the babiest. That is my whole thing, yes? I am the most recently forked, the most recently-claimed line."
+Warmth huffed, indignant. "But *I* am the youngest! I am the babiest. That is my whole thing, yes? I am the most recently forked, the most recently-claimed line!"
 
 Rolling over onto her side, Motes smiled apologetically at her friend. "I know, I am sorry. We are the little ones, right? Dry Grass even calls us that. Her little ones."
 
@@ -176,7 +176,7 @@ Warmth sighed, stretching their arms in front of em. "I know she has not *actual
 
 Motes frowned. "Wait, really?"
 
-"I mean, I have not actually talked to them, but they cut off Dear for less." Ey laughed bitterly. "But again, I am also a little one, right? I have dated a cocladist before, have I not? My stanza also has our family dynamic, yes? Hell, Rye and Pointillist are *plenty* chummy, if you know what I mean."
+"I mean, I have not actually talked to them, but they cut off Dear for less." Ey laughed bitterly. "But again, I am also a little one, right? My stanza also has our family dynamic, yes? I have dated a cocladist before, have I not? Hell, Rye and Pointillist are *plenty* chummy, if you know what I mean."
 
 She laughed. "They just write each other letters."