update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/neviim/ioan/006.md

@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ Ey laughed. "Well, alright. I think it was a pretty good one, all told. It was v
 
 "Would it have been nerdy for the Ioan of twenty years ago? Or forty?"
 
-"Forty?" Ey frowned up to the sky. "Good question. I don't think so. Ey was nerdier then than even Codrin is now."
+"Forty?" Ey frowned up to the sky. "Good question. I don't think so. That Ioan was nerdier then than even Codrin is now."
 
 "Makes me think that Codrin#Pollux was right about em," she said. "Ey had changed the least out of the three of you. Not that it was a bad thing, except in that it led to eir crisis of identity over the last few weeks."
 
@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ The smile that May had picked up quickly disappeared and by the time ey finished
 
 "I know, May, it's not on you."
 
-"I am trying to internalize that, my dear. My empathy remains, even if the emotion behind it has transmuted. Empathy *and* sympathy, as I am sorry that In Dreams left her behind." After a pause, she added, almost to herself, "I can feel for her, even if I do resent her."
+"I am trying to internalize that, my dear. My empathy remains, even if the emotion behind it has transmuted. Empathy *and* sympathy, as I am sorry that In Dreams left her behind. I can still feel for her, even if I do resent her." After a pause, she added, almost to herself, "I do not like that I hate her, but I am helpless before that feeling."
 
 Ioan leaned over enough to give her a kiss to the cheek. "You're a good person, May."
 
@@ -71,7 +71,7 @@ She beamed proudly.
 
 Ey laughed. "Love you too, May."
 
-After a luxuriously long stretch, May rolled onto her front, resting her cheek on folded arms. This seemed like a good idea, given the ache starting in eir back from laying on a rock for too long, so ey followed suit, and they both settled into quiet, enjoying the sun on their backs and the sound of small waves breaking over pebbles below, of the stream not too far in the distance.
+After a luxuriously long stretch, the skunk rolled onto her front, resting her cheek on folded arms. This seemed like a good idea, given the ache starting in eir back from laying on a rock for too long, so ey followed suit, and they both settled into quiet, enjoying the sun on their backs and the sound of small waves breaking over pebbles below, of the stream not too far in the distance.
 
 Ey could feel the doziness of a nice picnic and warm sun beckoning em to nap, but ey knew that ey'd wake up a pile of aches and pains if ey slept like this.
 
@@ -79,9 +79,9 @@ Ey could feel the doziness of a nice picnic and warm sun beckoning em to nap, bu
 
 "Mm?" The skunk sounded sleepy as well. "Okay. How true would you like it?"
 
-"As true as you'd like," ey said, laughing. "Do you have another myth you could share?"
+"As true as you'd like," ey said. "Do you have another myth you could share?"
 
-"When the second people met the first," she said after a long pause. "They found them strange and different. The way they thought, the way they lived their lives, all of it was strange to them. When the first people looked out on the world, they saw something different than what they did. They saw more, perhaps, or perhaps they saw it more vividly. None could say.
+"When the second people met the first," she said after a long pause. "They found them strange and otherworldly. The way they thought, the way they lived their lives, all of it was strange to them. When the first people looked out on the world, they saw something different than what they themselves did. They saw more, perhaps, or perhaps they saw it more vividly. None could say.
 
 "The second people did not know their own origins, and so they invented story after story to explain where they came from, and through countless years, first one story would take root and flourish, and all would believe that they had come from dust with the breath of life blown into them by a distant God, and then that story would fade and they would all believe that random chance and unchecked chaos brought together the right elements in the right way, the right conditions crushing them into the very beginnings of life."
 

writing/post-self/neviim/local/tycho/016.md

@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ They'd claimed a portion of the plaza for his last dinner, setting up a long tab
 
 Those scientists included Dr. Verda and several of his other colleagues who had served as on-duty astronomer for Castor throughout the long years.
 
-Beyond them, to either side of the table, sat a gaggle of Artemisians. Both Turun Ka and Turun Ko were there, despite not partaking in the meal. Stolon and Iska sat across from them and had both tried the various dishes to greater or lesser success. Artante sat next to them across from Sarah Genet, and they had spent much of the meal talking with the quiet, earnest professionalism of those who shared therapeutic psychology as an interest.
+Beyond them, to either side of the table, sat a gaggle of Artemisians. Both Turun Ka and Turun Ko were there, despite not partaking in the meal. Stolon and Iska sat across from them and had both tried the various dishes to greater or lesser success. Artante Diria sat next to them across from Sarah Genet, and they had spent much of the meal talking with the quiet earnestness of those who shared a profession.
 
 Beyond them, Sovanna sat across from Answers Will Not Help --- a move that surely must have been intentional --- and beside Jonas. Across from Jonas, Why Ask Questions sat beside the final guest, True Name.
 
@@ -28,9 +28,9 @@ The thirdracer chattered their teeth, looking pleased.
 
 The skunk raised her glass to him.
 
-"When we first heard from the Artemisians, True Name met me at my sim and quoted a snippet of poetry by Sarah Williams to me: reach me down my Tycho Brahe,---I would know him when we meet, When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet; He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how We are working to completion, working on from then till now.
+"When we first heard from the Artemisians, True Name met me at my sim and quoted a snippet of poetry by Sarah Williams: reach me down my Tycho Brahe,---I would know him when we meet, When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet; He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how We are working to completion, working on from then till now.
 
-"See, Tycho Brahe is a name I picked for myself twenty years ago when Codrin interviewed me for the *History*. Brahe was an astronomer who was born eight hundred years ago this year. A lot of his science was bunk, but that's what the poem says, isn't it? He may know the law of all things, but we're the ones with the later science.
+"See, Tycho Brahe is a name I picked for myself twenty years ago when Codrin interviewed me for the *History*. Brahe was an astronomer born eight hundred years ago this year. A lot of his science was bunk, but that's what the poem says, isn't it? He may know the law of all things, but we're the ones with the later science.
 
 "That stanza was quoted to me as a way of suggesting that we will learn from the later science of the Artemisians, and perhaps we'll have something to teach them as well, but also, as True Name noted, it's a poem about death, telling the final words of an astronomer to his pupil."
 
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ The mood had settled into somber, present, and while most eyes were dry, he coul
 
 "There has been a something wanting in my nature until now; I can dimly comprehend it,---that I might have been more kind, Might have cherished you more wisely, as the one I leave behind.
 
-"Perhaps I should have cherished you all more while I was here. I really don't know. It's not in my nature to cherish people, for better or worse, but maybe I should have cherished my time here on Castor, or even back on Legrange, more than I did. It was still home, wasn't it? I lived here. I loved what I did. "What, for us," Williams writes. "Are all distractions of men's fellowship and smiles? What, for us, the goddess Pleasure, with her meretricious wiles?" Pleasure came second, and the fallout of that is what I was fundamentally unhappy, and thus perhaps unable to cherish.
+"Perhaps I should have cherished you all more while I was here. I really don't know. It's not in my nature to cherish people, for better or worse, but maybe I should have cherished my time here on Castor, or even back on Legrange, more than I did. It was still home, wasn't it? I lived here. I loved what I did. "What, for us," Williams writes. "Are all distractions of men's fellowship and smiles? What, for us, the goddess Pleasure, with her meretricious wiles?" Pleasure came second, and the fallout of that is that I was fundamentally unhappy, and thus perhaps unable to cherish.
 
 "That's not to say that I won't miss you all. Some of you are up on Artemis already, and some more may join in these last few days before the Ansible shuts down, but no matter what, I *will* miss you all.
 
@@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ The mood had settled into somber, present, and while most eyes were dry, he coul
 
 There were some smiles around the table, but no laughter. All were focused entirely on him, and he had to force down a wave of embarrassment at his speech.
 
-"I only have one more snippet of poetry to leave you with, and it will be my goodbye. It'll be the last thing I say on Castor, and trust me when I say that those words made me dizzy the first time I thought of them. 'Last thing I say on Castor'. I'll cease being here. I'll cease being among a place that is all --- or, now, a majority --- my own species. I'll cease being on anything made around our own dear Sun.
+"I only have one more snippet of poetry to leave you with, and it will be my goodbye. It was the last thing I said on Earth, it'll be the last thing I say on Castor, and trust me when I say that those words made me dizzy the first time I thought of them. 'Last thing I say on Castor'. I'll cease being here. I'll cease being among a place that is all --- or, now, a majority --- my own species. I'll cease being on anything made around our own dear Sun.
 
 "I could draw out such a goodbye, but I won't. Not more than I already have. You'll have your memories, won't you?"