update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/selected-letters/018.md

@@ -7,27 +7,27 @@ Hi all.
 
 I hope you've been doing well of late.
 
-It's been heartening watching everyone reconnect over the last year, if I'm honest. I know I say it just about every time I write, but I've been worried. You've all mentioned in the past feeling like I'm someone grounding that you can talk to, and...well, I hope this isn't weird of me to say, but I've been feeling protective of you all of late. It's not quite the realm of parenthood or anything like that, but it does kind of feel like I'm watching over the clade, in a way. I don't know if it's a root instance thing, a shared past thing, or a me-as-I-am-now thing.
+It's been heartening watching everyone reconnect over the last year, if I'm honest. I know I say it just about every time I write, but I've been worried. You've all mentioned in the past feeling like I'm someone grounding that you can talk to, and...well, I hope this isn't weird of me to say, but I've been feeling protective of you all in turn. It's not quite the realm of parenthood or anything like that, but it does kind of feel like I'm watching over the clade, in a way. I don't know if it's a root instance thing, a shared past thing, or a me-as-I-am-now thing.
 
 It's probably the last.
 
-I think it's high time to admit aloud that all of these memories of Rareș are starting to pile up for me, and this protectiveness stems from those memories of him after mom and dad's death. I've been struggling to keep my mind off him, honestly. There have been a few abortive attempts at pulling the thoughts together into a book or screenplay or something, just as a way to process my feelings.
+I think it's high time to admit aloud that all of these memories of Rareș are starting to pile up for me, and at least some of this protectiveness stems from those memories of him after mom and dad's death. I've been struggling to keep my mind off him, honestly. There have been a few abortive attempts at pulling the thoughts together into a book or play or something, just as a way to process my feelings.
 
-The thing is, if I want to be successful at something like that, I'll have to actually sit down and research the past. That's where I've been failing. I know it's something I'd need to do if I'm to do any project like that justice, and probably something I need to do if I'm to find a way to come to terms with the past, but there's some emotional block. Lately, every time I get close to engaging with the topic head on, I have a panic attack. Honest to goodness, full blown, hyperventilating-and-feeling-like-I'm-dying panic attack.
+The thing is, if I want to be successful at something like that, I'll have to actually sit down and research the past. That's where I've been failing. I know it's something I'd need to do if I'm to do any project like that justice, and probably something I need to do if I'm to find any sort of peace, but there's some emotional block. Lately, every time I get close to engaging with the topic head on, I have a panic attack. Honest to goodness, full blown, hyperventilating-and-feeling-like-I'm-dying panic attack.
 
-It's something I've been working on a lot with Sarah. I certainly don't like the feeling, but neither do May or, when she's around, Sasha like seeing that happen.
+It's something I've been working on a lot with Sarah since it's rather upsetting all around. I certainly don't like the feeling, but neither do May or Sasha like seeing that happen.
 
-I know you know more about this than I do, Codrin, but please let me work on this myself.
+I know you know more about this than I do, #Pollux, but please let me work on this myself.
 
 Anyway, that's only part of why I'm writing. The way that this topic has affected me has led to a series of conversations between May and I around the interplay of immortality and relationships. I know I won't do the topic justice, so she's written up some of her thoughts, which I'm including here.
 
 > One unintended consequence of immortality is not just that memories of relationships pile up, but the *way* in which they pile up. We do not simply remember lost loves with fondness, but also with caution.
 >
-> It seems counter-intuitive, does it not? We might expect that our everlasting lives might add in some more cavalier attitude toward the relationships that we form. This has not borne out over the centuries. We do not find ourselves trying ever new things in the ways in which we form relationships; perhaps some do, but neither of our clades do. We keep our lives as a whole interesting, but we constantly refine our relationships.
+> It sounds counter-intuitive, does it not? We might expect that our everlasting lives might add in some more cavalier attitude toward the relationships that we form. This has not borne out over the centuries. We do not find ourselves trying ever new things in the ways in which we form relationships; perhaps some do, but neither of our clades do. We keep our lives as a whole interesting, but we constantly refine our relationships.
 >
-> The Ode speaks of honing and forging, and so many of those who have uploaded and sought out entanglement have found themselves honing rather than forging. It is a search for the more perfect love. We speak constantly of "learning from our mistakes" and "doing better by them/ourselves".
+> The Ode speaks of honing and forging, and so many of those who have uploaded and sought out entanglement have found themselves honing rather than forging. It is a search for a more perfect love. We speak constantly of "learning from our mistakes" and "doing better by them/ourselves".
 >
-> This is no bad thing! We do this out of a desire to be better people in the ways that we are closest to others. These just happen to be the ways most likely to hurt others, too. We shy away from trying new things with our relationships because that puts our view of ourselves as good people at risk.
+> This is no bad thing! We do this out of a desire to be better people in the ways in which we engage with those with whom we are closest. These just happen to be the ways most likely to hurt others, too. We shy away from trying new things with our relationships because that puts our view of ourselves as good people at risk should they go wrong.
 >
 > And so we look back on the relationships that we have formed, kept, lost, or let slip away into so many years, and we remember the good times cautiously. We hunt for the things that went wrong, we see all of the places where we fucked up and we tear them apart as one might a hole in a piece of clothing: thread by thread. We idly pull a thread, inspect it, and hunt for the weak point that led to the hole forming in the first place. We think back on arguments and hunt for where we could have kept it from blossoming into a fight. We think back on missed expectations and wonder what we might have said. We think back on crossed boundaries and hunt for a sign pointing to the boundary that we simply overlooked.
 >
@@ -51,9 +51,9 @@ Anyway, beyond that, things are going well. *I&R*'s release last month seems to
 
 Aurel's off with Sasha now, and has been for a few months. For a while there, her periods of solitude were coming pretty often, and ey was popping in and out of existence with some frequency, but she seems to be settling down into a more predictable pattern. It's my hope that ey'll eventually be able to spend a year or so at a time with her, if not longer.
 
-She's been doing well, too. I think she's really starting to come into her own as Sasha. Always in threes, but still always Sasha. She's been getting a bit grumpy about the whole spotted skunk thing, though, and I think that, before long, she'll see if she can find a way to go back to striped skunk. She keeps complaining about the shorter tail. Aurel's been teasing her by calling it cute, eliciting the usual threats of biting.
+She's been doing well, too. I think she's really starting to come into her own as Sasha. Always in threes, but still always Sasha. She's been getting a bit grumpy about the whole spotted skunk thing, though, and I think that, before long, she'll see if she can find a way to go back to her stripes. She keeps complaining about the shorter tail and relative lack of fluff. Aurel's been teasing her by calling it cute, eliciting the usual threats of biting.
 
-She's just about wrapped up her work on the companion volume to the *History*, which she's tentatively calling simply *Ode*. I've had a chance to read it and...well, I'll let her share it when she's ready. It will take a lot of work for it to have the effect she plans, and the consequences will be far-reaching for the Ode clade. She says she won't publish it for another decade or so for reasons which will become clear when you have the chance to read it. In the interim, she's mentioned a few other writing projects she'd like to tackle, all of which sound good.
+She's just about wrapped up her work on the companion volume to the *History*, which she's tentatively calling simply *Ode*. I've had a chance to read it and...well, I'll let her share it when she's ready. It will take a lot of work for it to have the effect she plans, and the consequences will be far-reaching for the Ode clade. She says she won't publish it for another decade or so for reasons which will become clear when you have the chance to read it. In the interim, she's mentioned a few other writing projects she'd like to tackle and release first, all of which sound good.
 
 Debarre's back with E.W., which is good to see, and given the fact that we're now plopped right in the middle of a forest sim, they've come over to visit and camp a few times. Or, well, Debarre will come stay with us for most of the day while E.W. and Sasha go off and explore, and then they'll meet back up around dinner when Sasha returns to Aurel. Debarre's loosened up some, but I don't think he'll ever be totally comfortable with Sasha, which she seems to have accepted.
 

writing/post-self/selected-letters/019.md

@@ -5,17 +5,17 @@
 
 All,
 
-Thank you all so much for the birthday wishes. I was caught off guard when I first received Codrin#Castor's. Clearly I've forgotten to keep track of the non-Artemisian dates. It felt a little silly, too, getting a birthday greeting from someone I used to be, but then, we've diverged plenty by now. That, and it reminded me a little of my place in the whole grand scheme of things. I was born back on *Earth* almost *150 years ago!* It's staggering, the scale of all of this. Billions of kilometers, decades and decades, it's enough to make one feel insignificant, and yet I'm still significant to someone out there.
+Thank you all so much for the birthday wishes. I was caught off guard when I first received Codrin#Castor's. Clearly I've forgotten to keep track of the non-Artemisian dates. It felt a little silly, too, getting a birthday greeting from someone I used to be, but then, we've diverged plenty by now. That, and it reminded me a little of my place in the whole grand scheme of things. I was born back on *Earth!* Almost *150 years ago!* It's staggering, the scale of all of this. Billions of kilometers, decades and decades, it's enough to make one feel insignificant, and yet I'm still significant to someone out there.
 
 Of course, that meant I got Ioan's a few weeks later, and then Codrin#Pollux's a few weeks after that. It was a delightful set of letters, and the pictures you each sent along are all wonderful. I'm glad to see they got at least still images working across all three Systems now. Are they still worried about bandwidth for audio and video?
 
-It's really interesting seeing the ways in which you've all changed, and how that differs from my memories and imaginings. Ioan's as calm and pleasant as I remember, but somehow more...I don't know, attentive? Present? I don't know quite how to put it. My memories are of being all caught up in my internal life and somewhat distant from those around me, whereas ey seems to have come down out of eir head.
+It's fascinating seeing the ways in which you've all changed, and how that differs from my memories and imaginings. Ioan's as calm and pleasant as I remember, but somehow more...I don't know, attentive? Present? I don't know quite how to put it. My memories are of being all caught up in my internal life and somewhat distant from those around me, whereas ey seems to have come down out of eir head.
 
-And all of your partners! Goodness! May Then My Name looks as adorable as ever, and I was pleased to see both instances of Dear looking appropriately smug, though even it has diverged, both from my memories of it and the two instances from each other. I remember it being a slight critter, and Dear#Castor is still quite slender, though not nearly so waifish as I'd been picturing, but Dear#Pollux has filled out a bit. It looks good!
+And all of your partners! Goodness! May Then My Name looks as adorable as ever, and I was pleased to see both instances of Dear looking appropriately smug, though even it has diverged, both from my memories of it and the two instances from each other. I remember it being a slight critter, and Dear#Castor is still quite slender, though not nearly so waifish as in my memories, but Dear#Pollux has filled out a bit. It looks good!
 
-I'm not really sure what I was expecting about Sasha. All I'd really pictured was someone looking essentially like May Then My Name but spotted. I guess I was picturing spots like one might see on a leopard, though of course that wouldn't make sense with such long fur. She looks very pretty, though, and certainly plenty happy with Aurel! The Odists all seem to wear their emotions on their sleeves, don't they? I'll admit that seeing May Then My Name looking so happy with someone with so much of True Name in her in her life --- holding paws, no less! --- is still a little surprising, but I'm pleased all the same.
+I'm not really sure what I was expecting about Sasha. All I'd really pictured was someone looking essentially like May Then My Name but spotted. I guess I was picturing spots like one might see on a leopard, though of course that wouldn't make sense with such long fur. She looks very pretty, though, and certainly very content with Aurel! The Odists all seem to wear their emotions on their sleeves, don't they? I'll admit that seeing May Then My Name looking so happy with someone with so much of True Name in her in her life --- holding paws, no less! --- is still a little surprising, but I'm pleased all the same.
 
-Life here continues much as it has, otherwise. I've fallen into a steady routine that doesn't feel all that different from the one I had before Dear's introduction...God, was it really almost fifty years ago? I've built myself a sim that's sort of like a comfortable mix between Serene's prairie and Ioan's house. The house itself is comfortable and familiar, and the prairie gives me room to walk and just enjoy the wide open spaces that I remember.
+Life here continues much as it has. I've fallen into a steady routine that doesn't feel all that different from the one I had before Dear's introduction...God, was it really almost fifty years ago? I've built myself a sim that's sort of like a comfortable mix between Serene's prairie and Ioan's house. The house itself is comfortable and familiar, and the prairie gives me room to walk and just enjoy the wide open spaces that I remember.
 
 The days are much the same, too. I spend my time writing and working on this or that --- though rather than research projects, I'm working with individuals. I drink more coffee than I ought, eat simply, sleep in silence. Once I found the rhythm again, it was easy to slip back into that life, and for that, it's all the more comfortable, especially in what might otherwise be an overwhelmingly strange place.