update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/qoheleth/Ioan/001.md

@@ -3,19 +3,19 @@
 
 Ioan Bălan awoke to an urgent message.
 
-Ey didn't really like these, the sensorium messages. Ey liked paper messages. Letters. Notes. Missives. Scrawled signatures and careful handwriting.
+Ey didn't really like these, the sensorium messages. Much better to received paper messages. Letters. Notes. Missives. Scrawled signatures and careful handwriting.
 
-Ey mostly just liked paper, if ey was honest. Always accruing more paper, more pens. Paper messages, rich messages attached to paper that played on its surface, ones that messed with the reader's sensorium; ey sent them all. Eir friends found it creepy. Antiques from a world more physical than this.
+Ey mostly just liked paper, if ey was honest. Always accruing more paper, more pens. Paper messages, rich messages attached to paper that played on its surface, ones that messed with the reader's sensorium; ey sent them all. Eir friends found it perhaps a little disturbing. Antiques from a world more physical than this.
 
 But to have one that just barged in on eir vision and endocrine system like this made em anxious. This one included a tiny jolt of adrenaline as an alert. Waking up to a zap of panic to have a partial sensory takeover felt rude.
 
 At least ey didn't have to get out of bed to deal with it.
 
-The opacity on the message was turned up high so that even in eir dark room with eir eyes closed (and heart still pounding), ey could see the fox. Bipedal, dressed sharply. It was sitting on a plain wooden chair situated in an empty room. The room had wood floors the same color as the chair. Something light, maple or pine. The walls were concrete where they weren't glass. Outside the glass was a sere shortgrass prairie, a cloudy day.
+The opacity on the message was turned up high so that even in eir dark room with eir eyes closed (and heart still pounding), ey could see the fox. Bipedal, dressed sharply. It was sitting on a plain wooden chair situated in an empty room. The room had wood floors the same color as the chair. Something light: maple or pine. The walls were concrete where they weren't glass. Outside the glass was a sere shortgrass prairie, a cloudy day.
 
 The combination of the fox's white fur, glistening and iridescent, combined with the room and landscape was all so painfully postmodern. Ey didn't think emself much of a pomophobe, but this was...intense, to say the least.
 
-*"Hi Mx Bălan,"* the fox was saying. It seemed to speak in italics, though how, Ioan could not say. A sense, a sensation. *"I have a proposition for you."*
+*"Hi Mx Bălan,"* the fox was saying. It seemed to speak in italics, though how, Ioan could not say. A sense. A sensation. *"I have a proposition for you."*
 
 Ioan grunted. The message was simplex, thank goodness. One way. No interaction required.
 
@@ -37,12 +37,12 @@ Ioan lay in bed, thinking. It was still an hour before ey had to get up, and ey
 
 Ey spent a few minutes researching the public basics on Dear. Pronouns (it/its), species (fennec fox), age (old --- the Ode clade was an early adopter), some of its art. Really out there stuff. No further hints as to why it would need em in particular. Something on the markets piqued its interest, perhaps?
 
-With still a half hour before eir alarm, Ioan stretched out of bed. The least ey could do was get a shower and some coffee. If there were any reason that the founders of the system had included sensoria in the works it must have been for those.
+With still a half hour before eir alarm, Ioan stretched out of bed. The least ey could do was get a shower and some coffee. If there were any reason that the founders of the system had included full sensoria in the works it must have been for those.
 
 Those done and clothes donned --- ey knew ey could never out-natty the fox, so the usual faux-academia garb it was --- ey penned Dear a short note with a time. If it was day in that sim, or even late afternoon, it should get the note before dinner or bed.
 
 *Besides,* ey thought. *Maybe it will get the fox to stop using sensorium messages.*
 
-No luck. Less than thirty seconds later, Ioan received a sensorium ping of acknowledgment, a shiver up eir spine.
+No luck. Less than thirty seconds later, Ioan received a sensorium ping of acknowledgment, a shiver up eir spine for eir trouble.
 
 Ey forked and sent the copy of emself, \#c1494bf, out to the meeting. Meanwhile, ey'd get some food, perhaps work on eir current project.

writing/post-self/qoheleth/RJ/001.md

@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ Those speakers were signing off, going to bed one by one through RJ's gentle min
 
 "Hey boss, got a headset. Where do you want me to start?"
 
-"Grab the leads, first," RJ murmured. "Then Sarah and Catherine, they've got the nice mics. All of them should have a tiny number painted on the costume side that matches up with their box. All of the boxes are stacked in the pit, by the front wall, you should be able to get them out in one load, though be careful taking them back."
+"Grab the leads, first," RJ murmured. "Then Sarah and Catherine, they've got the nice mics. All of them should have a tiny number painted on the costume side that matches up with their box. The boxes are stacked in the pit, by the front wall, you should be able to get them out in one load, though be careful taking them back."
 
 "Got it, heading down to the pit now."
 
@@ -25,17 +25,17 @@ The theater's job was to simply work with RJ and the lighting crew, responding t
 
 All sound was under RJ's jurisdiction. Cast and crew both: ey spent as much time managing communication between the hands, the manager, and emself and Caitlin as ey did maintaining the sound from the performers. Private jokes kept on the down-low.
 
-They to be as ghosts in this. Even the theater.
+They had to be ghosts in this. Even the theater.
 
 Their jobs were ones that should be invisible to the audience, because it would only become visible if they fucked up. No one wanted to fuck up. Even the theater seemed to feel a sense of pride in doing its job and doing it well.
 
-RJ soothed the room with gentle cooing and reluctantly started the process of pulling back. Ey closed the channel with Ross and put all of the headsets to bed last of all, before ey slipped back from the interface. Felt for that cool breeze of reality on the back of eir neck --- or perhaps something akin to a neck --- and backed out. Blinked as ey adjusted to seeing the cavernous hall with eir own eyes. Lifted eir fingers slipped from the contact points and leaned back from the headrest.
+RJ soothed the room with gentle cooing and reluctantly started the process of pulling back. Ey closed the channel with Ross and put all of the headsets to bed last of all, before ey slipped back from the interface. Felt for that cool breeze of reality on the back of eir neck --- or whatever passed for a neck so immersed --- and backed out. Blinked as ey adjusted to seeing the cavernous hall with eir own eyes. Lifted eir fingers slipped from the contact points and leaned back from the headrest.
 
-Ey shook eir head to clear it and stood, stretching, before ambling from the tech booth down the stairs towards the stage. Letting gravity carry eir lanky form down two steps at a time. Air against eir face. The treble note of dust and conditioned air only added to the newborn feeling of pulling back.
+Ey shook eir head to clear it and stood, stretching, before ambling from the tech booth down the stairs towards the stage. Letting gravity carry eir lanky form down two steps at a time. Breeze against eir face. The treble note of dust and conditioned air only added to the newborn feeling of pulling back.
 
 Ross was in the front row, standing still and staring at the floor, muttering agitated questions into the headset.
 
-"Hey bud, I'm here. The house is sleeping now."
+"Hey Ross, I'm here. The house is sleeping now."
 
 Ross jumped, then looked embarrassed as he tugged the headset off his head. "Sorry, was wondering where you'd gone. I just heard a beep."
 
@@ -81,7 +81,7 @@ Once home, ey slipped out of eir jacket and welcomed the warmth of eir little fl
 
 A meow, indignant, followed em to the kitchen.
 
-Ey set eir take-away on the counter and scooped a cup of dry food into a fresh dish, setting it on the tile for the delicate cat. Indignant purrs replaced by purring and crunching.
+Ey set eir take-away on the counter and scooped a cup of dry food into a fresh dish, setting it on the tile for the delicate cat. Indignant meows replaced by purring and crunching.
 
 Ey thumbed eir phone to start music playing. Some of the stuff that reminded em of eir dad to go along with the curry that reminded em of eir mom. Quiet, but present.
 

writing/post-self/qoheleth/RJ/002.md

@@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ The fox nodded, tugging eir shirt straight and moving over to the chair opposite
 
 "Not too late. One something. Made good time home at least. Rehearsal ran late."
 
-Sasha laughed, "You know, every time you talk about rehearsal and such, I just think back to school. You hunched over the sound booth, you know? It's hard for me to picture you as having grown up and taken that up as a job."
+Sasha grinned. "You know, every time you talk about rehearsal and such, I just think back to school. You hunched over the sound booth, you know? It's hard for me to picture you as having grown up and taken that up as a job."
 
 AwDae adopted a look of mock-despair. "Isn't it? I went to uni just for it and everything. But hey, London ain't bad, I can't complain any. Besides, not like you left it either."
 
@@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ Sasha shrugged, nodded, shrugged once more, fiddled with a vcard. No eye contact
 
 AwDae reached out to take one of her paws in own, black fur on tan mismatched and complementary. Both had opted for mostly hand-like paws, but differences were evident on contact. Where Sasha's fur was an even, silky black marked by white stripes that were a little too sharp, a little too exact, AwDae had labored to construct a version of emself as a fennec fox to exacting detail, down to the point where eir muzzle couldn't even form the two letters that made up eir name offline.
 
-Exacting, minus perhaps the two-legged-ness. Even then, ey had an av free of humanity stashed away somewhere.
+Exacting, minus perhaps the two-legged-ness, the hands, the humanity around the eyes. Even then, ey had an av free of humanity stashed away somewhere.
 
 Thoughts of honing versus forging blurred surroundings. AwDae had honed emself to a finer and finder point while everyone else forged ahead. Always a way to be a better tech. Always a chance to become more vulpine online. Always a way to become better at what one already was. To become more the AwDae AwDae felt ey was.