update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/selected-letters/006.md

@@ -9,11 +9,11 @@ I'm breaking my communications embargo to message you directly in the strictest
 
 Well. I say 'yet another tearful letter', but there's only been three --- one for each of them --- so I'm hardly being bombarded, but I just...I can't, Ioan.
 
-I need to talk to someone about this. I need to talk to someone who truly understands. I talk to Sarah quite a bit, of course, both in a therapeutic and a professional context, but there needs to be that sense of connection to the matter on a more personal level than just therapist to client. She's a delight to work with and an amazing teacher (as are Artante and Anin Li).
+I need to talk to someone about this. I need to talk to someone who truly understands. I talk to Sarah quite a bit, of course, both in a therapeutic and a professional context, but there needs to be that sense of connection to the matter on a more personal level than just therapist to client. She's a delight to work with and an amazing teacher.
 
-In our sessions, we came up with a very specific way to deal with this decision that I've made. In order to ensure that I can learn to cherish who I was and who was in my life, I need to reinforce the positive memories of what I had. I need to make sure that those are stronger than the negative ones. I don't want that final, terrible morning to weigh on me more strongly than all of the good times that we had together.
+In our sessions, we came up with a very specific way to deal with this decision that I've made. In order to ensure that I can learn to cherish who I was and who was in my life, I need to reinforce the positive memories of what I had. I need to make sure that those are stronger than the negative ones. I don't want that final, terrible morning to weigh on me more heavily than all of the good times that we had together.
 
-You know, it's weird, though. I say 'final, terrible morning'. At the time, I don't remember it being so terrible. Final, yes, but not terrible. I remember being very tired. I remember waking up and slipping away from Dear and █████ and making coffee in a cone of silence. I remember walking out onto the prairie. I remember suddenly seeing Codrin beside me, walking, head down in thought, as I focused on becoming me as quickly as possible. I remember walking past that brand new failing in the land with Codrin and not even having the mental capacity to think about it. All I remember doing was forking with each step, becoming who I am by the second and trying to move as far away from the life I had without losing my sense of self.
+You know, it's weird, though. I say 'final, terrible morning'. At the time, I don't remember it being so terrible. Final, yes, but not terrible. I remember being very tired. I remember waking up and slipping away from Dear and █████ and making coffee in a cone of silence. I remember walking out onto the prairie. I remember suddenly seeing Codrin beside me, walking, head down in thought, as I focused on becoming me as quickly as possible. I remember walking past that brand new failing in the land with Codrin and not even having the mental capacity to think about it. All I remember was forking with each step, becoming who I am by the second and trying to move as far away from the life I had without losing my sense of self.
 
 It wasn't terrible. It was busy. It was purpose-driven. It was constructive. I walked from that cairn to the next with Codrin beside me and then we talked for, what, five minutes? Ten? And then I kissed em on the cheek, grabbed a stone from the cairn, and left. I still have the stone somewhere. I hid it from view a while back and have forgotten where I put it.
 
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ Codrin was the first to contact me, about a month after I left. Eir message was.
 
 But we aren't, Ioan. We rushed that differentiation, that individuation, didn't we? We pushed as hard as we could for me to be a different person from em, and all we had in common was a last name and a history.
 
-I haven't heard since in the years since I arrived, but I worry that ey's still heartbroken. There must be some word for that little piece of yourself that lives on in your up-tree instances, even if it's only the memory that they were borne from you. There has to be a word for that feeling of shared identity that is incomplete enough that one is not the same.
+I haven't heard since in the time since I arrived, but I worry that ey's still heartbroken. There must be some word for that little piece of yourself that lives on in your up-tree instances, even if it's only the memory that they were borne from you. There has to be a word for that feeling of shared identity that is incomplete enough that one is not the same.
 
 The next two letters, the ones from my exes, came at the same time about a month ago. I wouldn't call those nearly so heartbroken as Codrin's, but I could tell that eir pain was affecting them as well.
 
@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ They still have each other back on Castor, though. They still love each other, l
 
 The real crux --- really, the real reason this is all making me panic so much --- is that I'm forgetting.
 
-Forgetting! How novel, right?
+Forgetting! How novel!
 
 I remember what Dear smelled like, the feeling of its fur on my face. I remember the way its ears would bob when it shook its head.
 

writing/post-self/selected-letters/008.md

@@ -8,11 +8,11 @@
 
 The Bălan clade,
 
-For as often as we talk about being trackers, I sometimes wonder if we aren't maybe more aligned with the Odists than we give ourselves credit for. Not the structure, perhaps, but to hear May and Dear talk, this idea that each of the first lines would fork to explore an interest isn't that unfamiliar to us, is it? We fork to work on projects and usually merge back, and yet when we are taken up by fixation, individuation sets in and we are suddenly no longer who we were.
+For as often as we talk about being trackers, I sometimes wonder if we aren't maybe more aligned with the Odists' approach to dissolution than we give ourselves credit for. Not the structure, perhaps, but to hear May and Dear talk, this idea that each of the first lines would fork to explore an interest isn't that unfamiliar to us, is it? We fork to work on projects and usually merge back, and yet when we are taken up by fixation, individuation sets in and we are suddenly no longer who we were.
 
 That's not all the Odists do, though --- and, apparently, it's not all we do, either. They have their secret, long-lived selves, those who drift away from who they used to be, and they fork often enough to work on a task. Their instances will linger to track a task from start to finish and then they'll merge back down, just as we did.
 
-All this by way of greeting. Ioan and I have flipped a coin as to who would be the one to send this letter, for even though ey's listed as the sole author, that I am borne from the work that went into *Individuation and Reconciliation* --- and indeed *was* em for much of its writing --- gave me some claim over writing this.
+All this by way of greeting. Ioan and I have flipped a coin as to who would be the one to send this letter, for even though ey's listed as the sole author, that I am borne from the work that went into *Individuation and Reconciliation* --- and indeed *was* em for much of its writing --- means that I do have some claim over writing this.
 
 Attached is the full manuscript. This is one that I'd like to be very careful with given its contents. The ways in which it will affect the entirety of the Ode, Jonas, and Bălan clades are too complicated to wholly understand, so the more input we can have on it, the better.
 
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ Sorina, you are welcome to offer what input you might have or completely disrega
 
 To that end, I've set a portion of this letter as eyes-only for Codrin largely due to the context of our relationships with the Odists --- em with Dear, Ioan with May, and now me with Sasha. I don't want to come off as hiding anything from you, but I do want to ask before I send a bunch of stuff that might cause distress given all that's been going on of late.
 
-On that note, how are you doing? We've been quite worried about you. I know that trying to balance the emotional pain of being so far away from your exes and Codrin doesn't play well with the ownership of your life that goes with individuation and being the only Bălan on Artemis.
+On that note, how are you doing? We've been quite worried about you. I know that trying to balance the emotional pain of being so far away from your exes and Codrin doesn't play well with the ownership of your life that comes with individuation and being the only Bălan on Artemis.
 
 Know that Ioan and thus I love you for all of your individuality and strength. Stay safe, stay in touch, okay?
 
@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ I will note that this is in spite of the apparent differences between the societ
 
 And what of the Odists?
 
-I know that we're fond of blaming them for how complicated things get sometimes. They seem to heap plenty of blame on themselves, for that matter. E.W. (*né* End Waking) spoke to this several times, describing their clade identity as a sort of idolatry, and not in a positive wa.
+I know that we're fond of blaming them for how complicated things get sometimes. They seem to heap plenty of blame on themselves, for that matter. E.W. (*né* End Waking) spoke to this several times, describing their clade identity as a sort of idolatry, and certainly not in a positive way.
 
 I'm starting to wonder just how universal that is, though. How much is their complication a factor in others' lives? I suspect for more people than not, they're simply weird. Dear's weird. May's weird. Were he to speak with anyone else with any regularity, I'm sure that many would find E.W. weird too.
 

writing/post-self/selected-letters/009.md

@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@
 
 All,
 
-I know that the transmission delays are starting to make conversations around this awkward. It'll be four months before I hear back from Pollux and I don't even know how long from Artemis (Sorina, please don't feel obligated to respond; never mind the distance, I can see how this would be uncomfortable). Still, I've just gotten Aurel's letter, and figured I should probably update the clade on current goings on.
+I know that the transmission delays are starting to make conversations around this awkward. It'll be four months before I hear back from Pollux and I don't even know how long from Artemis (Sorina, please don't feel obligated to respond; never mind the distance, I can see how this would be uncomfortable). Still, I've just finished the book that came with Aurel's letter, and figured I should probably update the clade on current goings on before I address that.
 
 Dear, Serene, and I had a chance to sit down with █████ and come to a better understanding all around. They expressed that, while they're quite happy for us and who we've become, the three of us have all diverged so far in the last 25 years that the shape of the relationship just wasn't comfortable for them. They apologized for leaving in the way that they did, but said that if they didn't do so all at once, they'd never have the courage and would just get more and more uncomfortable. They initially used the word 'miserable' at which both Dear and I got quite upset, but they quickly amended that to 'uncomfortable'. 
 
@@ -13,13 +13,13 @@ They don't really know how to feel about the ways in which we've changed, and, h
 
 It all makes sense. There was no acrimony (though there were plenty of tears). They're going to take a while off and figure out how they feel a little bit better before either reengaging or stepping away for good.
 
-It makes sense, yes, but that doesn't make it feel any better. Our experiences with loss are limited and all bound up in trauma. What am I to do with this? What am I to do with emotions that have wrecked not only me, but also a loved one? We can support each other to some extent, but we each grieve in our own complex ways. We've stepped on each other's toes more than once by missing the mark in our support.
+So yes, it makes sense, but that doesn't make it feel any better. Our experiences with loss are limited and all bound up in trauma. What am I to do with this? What am I to do with emotions that have wrecked not only me, but also a loved one? We can support each other to some extent, but we each grieve in our own complex ways. We've stepped on each other's toes more than once by missing the mark in our support.
 
-Serene, of all of us, has been the most successful at managing her reaction. Of course, she spent the least amount of time with them of all of us and has been away for a while now anyway, but she's expressed quite a bit of guilt for what she sees as her role as catalyst. Still, she's somehow managed to sneak in a tightly regimented day for the three of us without either Dear or I noticing, and that's helped. We still wake at the same time, still eat and work and walk and talk together as those in love ought, and perhaps that gives us room to process, but we're all still hurting.
+Serene, of all of us, has been the most successful at managing her reaction. Of course, she spent the least amount of time with them of all of us and has been away for a while now besides, but she's expressed quite a bit of guilt for what she sees as her role as catalyst. Still, she's somehow managed to sneak in a tightly regimented day for the three of us without either Dear or I noticing, and that's helped. We still wake at the same time, still eat and work and walk and talk together as those in love ought, and perhaps that gives us room to process, but we're all still hurting.
 
 Anyway, that's the state of mind I've been in, so it's obviously going to color a lot of my response to *Individuation and Reconciliation*.
 
-The larger part of me is impressed --- not just at the goings on and how convoluted everything got so quickly, but at the writing. Well done, you two. I'll admit to being curious how Jonas is going to spin this in order to keep working as he'd like, though I don't doubt his abilities, not least of all because he apparently still has seven of the ten Odists in True Name's stanza working with him.[^zack]
+The larger part of me is impressed --- not just at the goings on and how convoluted everything got so quickly, but at the writing. Well done, you two. I'll admit to being curious how Jonas is going to spin this in order to keep working as he'd like, though I don't doubt his abilities, not least of all because he apparently still has seven of the ten Odists in True Name's stanza working with him[^zack] and who knows how many others besides.
 
 And Sasha! I will admit that, when I read about her, I found it almost hard to picture, so I'll have to largely take your word for it. When Dear read that bit, though, it got incredibly excited and wouldn't shut up about it for days, so clearly she's done something more meaningful than either of them can express. *"We have all been so afraid of becoming what we were,"* it keeps saying, though I can't quite piece together what it means. It's even mentioned leaving the clade once or twice. Weird, but I won't complain: it's the most active and excited that I've seen it in quite a while.
 
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ Be careful, Ioan and Aurel. Keep May and Sasha safe. Even if their lives aren't
 
 Confidentially, I've had more than one nightmare since █████ left about what might happen to any one of us when confronted with the loss of all our partners. █████ left, but Dear and Serene are here, yes? If they were to leave, if Sasha or May were to leave, what would happen to us?
 
-This is what I mean by current goings on framing my interpretation of *I&R*. Sorina has been keeping herself busy, burying herself in work, yes, but what I suspect happened is that Codrin and her rushing individuation during those ten minutes turned missing her exes, as she called them, into part of her identity. She cemented her opinions around them in place in her rush to diverge as quickly as possible. She gave herself the out of 'being able to quit whenever she wanted', but without the ability to fork and with her no longer being a Codrin at all, that suddenly veers awfully close to suicide.
+This is what I mean by current goings on framing my interpretation of *I&R*. Sorina has been keeping herself busy, burying herself in work, yes, but what I suspect happened is that Codrin and her rushing individuation during that last morning turned missing her exes, as she called them, into part of her identity. She cemented her opinions around them in place in her rush to diverge as quickly as possible. She gave herself the out of 'being able to quit whenever she wanted', but without the ability to fork and with her no longer being a Codrin at all, that suddenly veers awfully close to suicide.
 
 She has mechanics on her side to keep herself around, but what do we have? If May or Sasha were to disappear from your lives, I--