From c91f8096c67095219a99d0ecd3237ea8bdc30fc5 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Madison Scott-Clary Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2024 11:20:06 -0800 Subject: [PATCH] update from sparkleup --- writing/post-self/motes/005.md | 2 +- writing/post-self/motes/006.md | 16 ++++++++-------- 2 files changed, 9 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-) diff --git a/writing/post-self/motes/005.md b/writing/post-self/motes/005.md index 5b4da294..1af0ec48 100644 --- a/writing/post-self/motes/005.md +++ b/writing/post-self/motes/005.md @@ -91,7 +91,7 @@ And then it was dark and she was alone, her body and this mere mote of a Motes w Days passed out of time and time passed out of mind and mind drifted only in darkness where darkness gave no count of days. Delineations came only ever from within. She knew, for instance, that she got hungry at one point and quickly turned the sensation off. She knew that at one point she got too warm and so she commanded the room to be colder so that she could bundle up. -The only interruption that came from the outside was the door at one point creaking open. Motes did not know how long had passed — this life without play admitted no hours — but she did know that it must have been night, for precious little light came in, and what light did make it into the room was Moon silver. She knew also that she was far closer to her body now, perhaps halfway there. +The only interruption of note that came from the outside was the door at one point creaking open. Motes did not know how long had passed — this life without play admitted no hours — but she did know that it must have been night, for precious little light came in, and what light did make it into the room was Moon silver. She knew also that she was far closer to her body now, perhaps halfway there. Even with so little light, it was plain to see A Finger Pointing's silhouette, tall and slender, and so she remained where she was. diff --git a/writing/post-self/motes/006.md b/writing/post-self/motes/006.md index 961a46a0..30efb7f9 100644 --- a/writing/post-self/motes/006.md +++ b/writing/post-self/motes/006.md @@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ And Michelle cried. She cried because — people-pleaser her — she wanted noth It was all so silly! She was a kid! She was five and a half! Of course she was going to get messy. Of course there would be paint on her hands, and so why should there not also be paint on her pants? She was a kid and she was clumsy, and a mess like that was just a part of her life. -Her mother picked her sobbing daughter up from school, and after much cajoling, much reassuring her that she would not abandon her, would not leave her by the side of the road to be picked up by...who exactly? She reassured her that the paint stain was fine, and that she would have a chat with Miss Willard. When your daughter's neurodivergence presents itself in anxiety, perhaps you get used to reassuring her that you love her, and when you are mother, perhaps you never tire of doing so. +Her mother picked her sobbing daughter up from school, and after much cajoling, much reassuring her that she would not abandon her, would not leave her by the side of the road to be picked up by...who exactly? She reassured her that the paint stain was fine, and that she would have a chat with Miss Willard. When your daughter's neurodivergence presents itself in anxiety, perhaps you get used to reassuring her that you love her, and when you are a mother, perhaps you never tire of doing so. ----- @@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ Sometime in the late 2100s, Motes was invited to a strange, hyper-formal event, Warmth dressed in its best mixture of clothes, something that shifted slowly over time between masculine and feminine, and yet those in attendance addressed em as almost exclusively 'she', and partway through, they pulled Motes aside to have a little grumbly bitch session. The bitch session quickly turned into into an emotional wave, a tide rolling inexorably in, and Motes burst into tears. She had dressed up in a fine black dress, hip-hugging and chic, and it was making her absolutely miserable. -As Warmth and her on-again-off-again partner, Hold My Name, comforted her, four or five Warmths surrounding her while Hold My Name brushed her hair, the three of them got to talking about identity and the ways in which appearance and social situations ground up against that. Warmth wanted– no, needed that recognition of fluidity that night. +As Warmth and her on-again-off-again partner, Hold My Name, comforted her, four or five Warmths surrounding her while Hold My Name brushed her hair, the three of them got to talking about identity and the ways in which appearance and social situations ground up against that. Warmth wanted– no, *needed* that recognition of fluidity that night. Motes increasingly needed out of this strict adherence to form. @@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ She fell into and out of friendships and forgot, perhaps, how to form adult frie Motes leaned hard into that memory. She leaned into the laughter and joy of painting with her fingers and, apparently, her pants, as well as the tears of fear of being abandoned for having messed up so badly. -It was not always a kid thing. She aged down her appearance, sure, falling into a comfortable vision of a twenty-something, but it was not just appearance. It was the way she acted. It was owning of playfulness as a form of hedonism, much as the rest of the fifth stanza owned hedonism as a core part of their identity. +It was not always a kid thing. She aged down her appearance, sure, falling into a comfortable vision of a twenty-something, but it was also not just an appearance thing. It was the way she acted. It was owning of playfulness as a form of hedonism, much as the rest of the fifth stanza owned hedonism as a core part of their identity. She owned playfulness because life is play. She owned it because it was so easy to forget the role that play plays in one's life, with its carefully delineated fun times that one fits in around work and sleep and obligations. Life is play, and over time, Motes *became* play. @@ -84,13 +84,13 @@ She liked that. ----- -Slow Hours, Motes's big sister, had once had it said about her by Deny All Beginnings, town crier to her town scryer, "It seems so often to me that you have the criss-cross pattern of a schoolyard tool imprinted on your face, no doubt hurled at at you by a god." She explained this to Motes that there was some contemporary interpretation of the Greek god Apollo hurling a dodgeball at the innocent to bless them with the gift of prophecy. +Slow Hours, Motes's big sister, had once had it said about her by Deny All Beginnings, town crier to her town scryer, "It seems so often to me that you have the criss-cross pattern of a schoolyard tool imprinted on your face, no doubt hurled at at you by a god." She explained this to Motes that there was some contemporary interpretation of the Greek god Apollo hurling a dodgeball at the unwitting to bless them with the gift of prophecy. And she had indeed become the prophet of the clade, the one checkered with predictions and who bore the heady scent of omens. She was the Delphic oracle to so many other prognosticators. She would get this dreamy, distant smile on her face and then she would speak. She would say, "I will tell you two truths and one lie about the future" and then she would say unnerving things that would almost certainly come to pass. Yes, they might take years to do so, but she was uncanny in her accuracy. So Motes came to her, to the crowd of other crew, who always seemed to tolerate Slow Hours better than the cast, came to her and threw herself dramatically across her cocladist's lap, requesting some brushings to get the paint flecks out of her tail while she thought about how to say what she needed to say. -"Slow Hours, I made a friend," she said, relying on the comparatively formal name as opposed to Slow — and she was the only one Slow Hours would accept that name from — or Slowers to convey a bit of the gravity of the question. +"Slow Hours, I made a friend," she said, relying on the comparatively formal name as opposed to Slow — and she was the only one from whom Slow Hours would accept that name — or Slowers to convey a bit of the gravity of the question. "Tell me of your friend, my dear," Slow Hours replied, setting up a cone of silence. @@ -146,7 +146,7 @@ Once Motes saw what she was saying, saw through the everblue tint of prophecy an Motes understood after some days of consideration that it was not her prophecy. It was theirs. It was Slow Hours's and A Finger Pointing's and Beholden's and Unbidden's and the whole rest of Au Lieu Du Rêve's. -She was still good friends with that person, that kid who was not a creep, never had been a creep, years later. That person and so many more. +She was still good friends with Alexei, that kid who was not a creep, never had been a creep, years later. That person and so many more. ----- @@ -154,9 +154,9 @@ Motes should not, she is told, do many things. She should not look too much like a child. She should not look like a kid because there are those with paraphilias surrounding children, and this would be both potentially harmful to her, as well as to the optics of the Ode clade as a whole. -She should not act too much like a child. She should not act like a kid because, while a focus on play is all well and good, a sense of maturity would keep her grounded in the world around her where leaning into childhood would not, and would potentially be harmful to the optics of the Ode clade as a whole. +She should not act too much like a child. She should not act like a kid because, while a focus on play is all well and good, a sense of maturity would keep her grounded in the world around her while leaning into childhood would not, and would potentially be harmful to the optics of the Ode clade as a whole. -She should not treat her stanza as family. She should not treat her down-tree as her mother, nor A Finger Pointing's partner, Beholden, as a parent, nor Slow Hours and Time Rushes as her sisters, as the rest of the fifth stanza as siblings throughout, because family dynamics within one extended definition of a singular person create more room for potentially unhealthy modes of interaction, just as might intraclade romantic relationships, and this might also potentially be harmful to the optics of the Ode clade as a whole. +She should not treat her stanza as family. She should not treat her down-tree as her mother, nor A Finger Pointing's partner, Beholden, as a parent, nor Slow Hours and Time Rushes as her sisters, the rest of the fifth stanza as siblings throughout, because family dynamics within one extended definition of a singular person create more room for potentially unhealthy modes of interaction, just as might intraclade romantic relationships, and this might also potentially be harmful to the optics of the Ode clade as a whole. Motes should not, she is told, do many things, and yet she does them anyway. She is careful. She is gradual. She has allies.