update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/motes/003.md

@@ -176,15 +176,19 @@ 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? 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."
+"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? And My and I have been getting close again, too."
 
-She laughed. "They just write each other letters."
+Motes laughed and clapped her paws.
+
+Grinning, it continued, "Hell, Rye and Pointillist are *plenty* chummy, if you know what I mean."
+
+She scoffed. "They just write each other letters."
 
 "Yeah. *Sexy* letters."
 
 "Well, okay," Motes said, still giggling. "Do you really think they have cut you off? Effectively if not actually, I mean."
 
-"I have not talked with them, but neither have they talked with me," they said. "I think that I am one step away from being in their cross-hairs. I am over here doing my weird stuff, making things and food and whatever. I am not really political, I am not being sneaky or dating a Bălan or whatever. I *am* part Dear, though, and I *am* small like you."
+"I have not talked with them, but neither have they talked with me," they said. "I think that I am one step away from being in their cross-hairs. I am over here doing my weird stuff, making things and food and such. I am not really political, I am not being sneaky or dating a Bălan or whatever, and My is off doing her own thing now. I *am* part Dear, though, and I *am* small like you."
 
 "Which do you think would piss them off more?"
 
@@ -198,7 +202,7 @@ Ey shrugged. "It would suck, but yeah." It thought for a moment, then shrugged.
 
 "Sorry, Mote." Warmth scooted closer and draped an arm over her front. "I did not mean to rub it in any."
 
-She nodded and tugged Warmth's arm up to hug her own around it. "It is okay, just had not heard it put like that before."
+She nodded and tugged Warmth's arm up to own around it. "It is okay, just had not heard it put like that before."
 
 "Dear got its fair share of getting cast out as it became more and more of a snotty little shit, and some of that rubbed off onto us. I have a fair few people who dislike me because of that."
 

writing/post-self/motes/004.md

@@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ This was not supposed to happen.
 
 Michelle/Sasha sneered through that omnipresent exhaustion. "Some mote who styles herself Motes. Some grasper-after-fame. Some fetishist who wishes only to taint the Ode with lurid visions of youth." 
 
-In her free hand/paw, this ghost brought into being a dagger, silver-bladed, wood-hilted, ruby-pommeled. She reached out and slowly, almost tenderly, pressed it into Motes's paw. Holding her wrist, she brought that paw up so that the tip of the blade was pressed against the skunk's neck, pricking at the skin over her jugular. When she let go, Motes found her paw remained there, immobile, unresponsive to her efforts to pull it away.
+In her free hand/paw, this ghost brought into being a dagger, silver-bladed, wood-hilted, ruby-pommeled. She reached out and slowly, almost tenderly, pressed it into Motes's paw. Holding her wrist, she brought that paw up so that the tip of the blade was pressed against the skunk's neck, pricking at the skin over her carotid. When she let go, Motes found her paw remained there, immobile, unresponsive to her efforts to pull it away.
 
 "This is your kink, is it not 'Motes'? Your fetish, 'Speck'? 'Skunklet'?" Sasha/Michelle leaned forward, nearly nose to nose, whispered, "*'Dóttir'?*"
 
@@ -116,7 +116,7 @@ Both of the skunks fell into laughter, sprawled awkwardly beneath their down-tre
 
 "We will swim!  We will be happy!" Motes chimed in.
 
-Sighing dreamily, A Finger Pointing nodded. "We should have been poets."
+Sighing fondly, A Finger Pointing nodded. "We should have been poets."
 
 Motes could tell what they were doing. She was as adept at this as they were. The job of an actor is to trick the audience — just for a moment! — that the story playing out before them is more real than the rest of the world, that it is the rest of their lives that is merely a play. A Finger Pointing and Beholden, Ma and Bee, were nudging her to set aside for now this dream-rotted headspace, this mopery.
 
@@ -142,7 +142,7 @@ No one answered the door when she knocked, so she hesitantly pressed the doorbel
 
 *Why am I so nervous?* one part of her wondered, and then another answered, *Perhaps because you are worried she will tell you the truth.* Another chimed in, *Is that not the goal? Perhaps–*
 
-She was startled out of her anxious spiral by a gentle ping in return. *"Speck? What is up? I am the ALDR library. Would you like me to cycle the door?"*
+She was startled out of her anxious spiral by a gentle ping in return. *"Speck? What is up? I am at the ALDR library. Would you like me to cycle the door?"*
 
 Motes nodded. *"Hi Slow Hours. Yes please."*
 
@@ -164,7 +164,7 @@ Motes huffed.
 
 She was a long time in opening up, which seemed to suit her cocladist just fine. Slow Hours summoned up a blanket and, disregarding the patio furniture that littered the concrete that ringed the solarium as well as the hard-packed dirt trail, picked her way out into the prairie. Holding two of the corners, she threw the blanket out to spread it over the shin-high grass. It seemed to float there, and for a long moment, neither of them moved. Skunk and woman observed this magic carpet in gingham hovering inches above the ground, bending blades and heads of stiff-stalked grass.
 
-When Motes remained in place, Slow Hours instead stepped onto the blanket and tramped dutifully around the rim of it, tamping down the grass so that they would not sink so deep into the blanket. That done, she lowered herself to sit cross-legged near the center and patted her lap.
+When Motes hesitated, Slow Hours stepped onto the blanket and tramped dutifully around the rim of it, tamping down the grass so that they would not sink so deep into the blanket. That done, she lowered herself to sit cross-legged near the center and patted her lap.
 
 At last, the skunk sighed and stepped onto the blanket, lowering herself to all fours and crawling forward to flop down beside her cocladist, resting her head on her thigh.
 
@@ -174,7 +174,7 @@ Unable to hide a smile, she replied, "You cannot just steal my weirdo questions
 
 "Can and will."
 
-She giggled. "Well, okay. My second greatest joy is that you brought a fricking picnic blanket out here because you knew I would just get all frumpy in one of those stupid chairs, and my third greatest fear iiiis..." She trailed off for a moment, thinking. "I am afraid you are going to just tell me this is nothing."
+She giggled faintly. "Well, okay. My second greatest joy is that you brought a fricking picnic blanket out here because you knew I would just get all frumpy in one of those stupid chairs, and my third greatest fear iiiis..." She trailed off for a moment, thinking. "I am afraid you are going to just tell me this is nothing."
 
 "When have I ever been able to stop myself at "it is nothing", Speck?" Slow Hours tweaked one of the skunk's ears gently. "And if I do say that it is nothing, would that be so bad? You may have spent some time worrying, but is that not also time spent thinking through your emotions? We will still have spoken about *why* it is nothing."
 
@@ -200,7 +200,7 @@ She was not so sure now. The immediacy of the dream felt too bound to time. Sure
 
 She was not so sure that dreams were meaningless firings of neurons composed into some semblance of order in the process of waking as she recalled tearfully the way that Michelle had caught her up by the scruff and told her horrible things — such horrible, horrible things — and then bade her drive home the blade to end her own life.
 
-All throughout, Slow Hours listened in silence, letting her talk while brushing her fingers slowly through the thick fur of her mane. Even after she finished speaking, while she lingered a while in those tears, her cocladist simply sat with her in silence, stroking through her fur. It was a comforting silence. Thoughtful. Patient, with no need of filling.
+All throughout, Slow Hours listened in silence, letting her talk while brushing her fingers slowly through the thick fur of her mane. Even after she finished speaking, while she lingered a while in those tears, her cocladist simply sat with her in silence, stroking through her fur and sharing in those tears. It was a comforting silence. Thoughtful. Patient, with no need of filling.
 
 Once her tears began to slow and she wiped at her nose with a tissue, Slow Hours leaned down to kiss her cheek. "I am sorry, Motes. You deserve better than what your sleeping mind has told you," she said gently. "It sounds as though this false vision of your past self was upset with two things: your explorations around age and your explorations around death, yes?"
 
@@ -248,7 +248,7 @@ Motes shrugged. "I guess."
 
 Slow Hours nodded, letting her paws go. "I will not say "fuck 'em", much as either of us might want. You must not hyperfixate on them, but neither must you disregard them."
 
-"Why? Do you have a prophecy for me?" Motes asked, grinning faintly. "The last time you gave me a prophecy, it was about whether I should stay friends with someone I met at a club."
+"Why? Do you have a prophecy for me?" Motes asked, grinning faintly. "The last time you gave me a prophecy, it was about whether I should stay friends with Alexei."
 
 She laughed. "I remember that, yes. You were bound to run into someone who was also into kidcore stuff as Big Motes, and we were stifling you." The mirth faded to something more thoughtful. "But, yes, I have a prediction for you: the clade is not done with you, And We Are The Motes In The Stage-Lights. Even those who have cut you off have not forgotten you, and it is best that you not forget them."