update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/qoheleth/Qoheleth/004.md

@@ -3,7 +3,9 @@
 
 Qoheleth is a patient man.
 
-I have time. Enough time, at least. I know I'm gone. My memory, split as it is across an archive and nearly thirty exos, is a millstone around my neck. It drags me down. It drowns me even in plentiful air. I can feel the way it crams up against every recess of my skull, demanding to be let out. The Name, the Ode, every act since uploading as so many that Michel took --- that *I* took --- before that. It drags me down. It nips at my heels. It fogs my vision. There are no metaphors that clearly show just how horrifying the inability is to forget, and so I find myself reaching for every analogy that I can find.
+I have time. Enough time, at least. I know I'm gone. My memory, split as it is across an archive and nearly thirty exos, is a millstone around my neck. It drags me down. It drowns me even in plentiful air. I can feel the way it crams up against every recess of my skull, demanding to be let out. The Name, the Ode, every act since uploading as so many that Michelle took --- that *I* took --- before that. It drags me down. It nips at my heels. It fogs my vision.
+
+There are no metaphors that clearly show just how horrifying the inability is to forget, and so I find myself reaching for every analogy that I can find.
 
 I'm a lost cause, but much of the clade still has their faculties about them. I think so, at least. I hope so. So long as they act within the decade, we'll be here. Any longer, and we'll risk further degradation, further madness.
 

writing/post-self/qoheleth/RJ/015.md

@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ The vote was not there, and yet the answer was. There was the shadow of intentio
 
 What mattered the vote? What mattered the comments? What mattered the content, the cost? What mattered the golden fleece, or any MacGuffin? It could have been a flashlight with an amber filter in a suitcase just as easily as it could have been a declaration of war against the Sino-Russian Bloc. Chekhov's vote.
 
-It didn't matter. All that mattered is that those who had seen it --- had seen the vote, who had interacted with it, who had interacted with it at however many levels of remove --- were *personae non gratae* from that point on. Easier for them to not be, easier to admit the mystery of the lost, than to let such come to light. What cared the world of billions for the hundreds of lost? What cared the powers that be for the resistance of however many dozens were now lost?
+It didn't matter. All that mattered is that those who had seen it --- had seen the vote, who had interacted with it, who had interacted with it at however many levels of remove --- were *personae non gratae* from that point on. Easier for them to not be. Easier to admit the mystery of the lost into the collective consciousness than to let such come to light. What cared the world of billions for the hundreds of lost? What cared the powers that be for the resistance of however many dozens were now lost?
 
 Ey rambled beyond the deck, beyond eir flat, beyond Prisca. Ey wandered across the interior of eir skull until ey stepped up onto the stoop of eir exo.
 
@@ -45,18 +45,18 @@ And reviewed. Ey walked, a fox, with baton in paw, skirt and blouse dreamed into
 
 Ey reviewed and marveled at the preciseness with which eir mind obeyed itself. Madness be damned: if ey could control nothing else in this non-world, ey could control emself.
 
-Ey did not ask.
+Ey very carefully did not ask.
 
-And there it was.
+And there it was: the answer.
 
 There, standing tall, as proud as any other memory, was a routine. And when AwDae gazed into its porcelain face, ey understood. And when that porcelain face gazed back, it smiled beatifically.
 
-There it was: the very routine, the very bug exploited, the very program triggered at the order of some higher power. The very entity which painted the inside of eir exo with silver and left em trapped within. There was the virus in all its glory. Its subtle curves meant to fit the space of an exo's logic perfectly. Its ability to recognize actions. Its ability to cut off the outside world. Its ability to ride shotgun along regular software updates. *Security*, it promised. *Added security along the barrier between waking and dreaming.*
+There it was: the very routine, the very bug exploited, the very program triggered at the order of some higher power. The very entity which had painted the inside of eir exo with silver and left em trapped within. There was the virus in all its glory. Its subtle curves meant to fit the space of an exo's logic perfectly. Its ability to recognize actions. Its ability to cut off the outside world. Its ability to ride shotgun along regular software updates. *Security*, it promised. *Added security along the barrier between waking and dreaming.*
 
 It smiled, and AwDae laughed.
 
 "The only time I know my true name is when I dream," ey spoke through tears. "And may then my name die with me."
 
-Madness grew to a cruel point, pierced bubble of the dream, and then dissolved fox.
+Madness grew to a cruel point, pierced bubble of dream, and then dissolved fox.
 
 Ey dreamed.

writing/post-self/qoheleth/index.md

@@ -178,9 +178,9 @@ Check when edited
     * [X] Chapter: [Carter 010](Carter/010) --- Messages Caitlin and Johansson, heads to RJ, threatened by mooks
 4. [O] Act III
     * [X] Chapter: [Ioan 007](Ioan/007) --- Mustering the Odists
-    * [O] Chapter: [RJ 015](RJ/015) --- deduces meaning of getting loss
+    * [X] Chapter: [RJ 015](RJ/015) --- deduces meaning of getting loss
     * [-] Chapter: <!--[Carter 011](Carter/011) - makes it to RJ, gets mirror rig in place, gets attacked, Caitlin fights mooks while Carter dives in.--> (REJECTED merged with next chapter)
-    * [O] Chapter: [Qoheleth 004](Qoheleth/004) --- Qoheleth is patient
+    * [X] Chapter: [Qoheleth 004](Qoheleth/004) --- Qoheleth is patient
     * [O] Chapter: [Ioan 008](Ioan/008) --- Ready to head out
     * [O] Chapter: [RJ 016](RJ/016) --- going crazy, bending world to eir whim.
     * [O] Chapter: [Qoheleth 005](Qoheleth/005) --- Qoheleth gets Dear's ping