update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/toledot/launch/launch/Codrin-castor/006.md

@@ -110,7 +110,7 @@ Jonas laughed, shaking his head and tugging that fiber on the couch all the loos
 
 "Keeps growing? Can you expand on that?"
 
-"It's nothing complex. The larger a system --- that's system with a lower-case 's' --- is, the more stable it is because it tends towards stasis. This applies to political systems, as well. The Western Fed and the S-R Bloc kept their stalemate for god knows how long because they were too large to do anything but, and the only reason they stopped was that they were each subsumed into even larger political entities."
+"It's nothing complex. The larger a system --- that's system with a lower-case 's' --- is, the more stable it is because it tends towards stasis. This applies to political systems, as well. The Western Fed and the S-R Bloc kept their stalemate for God knows how long because they were too large to do anything but, and the only reason they stopped was that they were each subsumed into even larger political entities."
 
 "So, if I'm understanding you right, keeping the population of the System growing over time--"
 
@@ -148,7 +148,7 @@ Jonas saw em to the door, saying, "I hope I didn't add to your stress, Mx. Băla
 
 It wasn't until Codrin was back at the house on the prairie, back with eir family, back where ey was comfortable enough to work on transcribing eir notes, that ey came across the phrase that had left em so wrong-footed during the interview.
 
-Ey frowned, stood up, and paced around eir office for a few minutes, stopping at the end of each circuit to stare out at the prairie beyond the windows. Ey was starting to feel as though there were coils of some sort wrapping around em. Thick, fleshy things that squeeze around eir middle, bound eir hands, held em silent. They did not kill em, did not force em to move, to watch. They did not force em do do anything. They just held em there, letting em know that, at all times, they were present.
+Ey frowned, stood up, and paced around eir office for a few minutes, stopping at the end of each circuit to stare out at the prairie beyond the windows. Ey was starting to feel as though there were coils of some sort wrapping around em. Thick, fleshy things that squeezed around eir middle, bound eir hands, held em silent. They did not kill em, did not force em to move, to watch. They did not force em do do anything. They just held em there, letting em know that, at all times, they were present.
 
 So ey sat at eir desk and wrote a footnote for eir transcript that ey'd send back to Ioan and May Then My Name.
 

writing/post-self/toledot/launch/launch/Codrin-pollux/006.md

@@ -192,7 +192,7 @@ user11824 rolled his eyes and finished his wine.
 
 "In Toledot Yeshu, Paul is actually hinted at being a plant from the Jewish authorities, though it is vague as to who, whose goal was to introduces enough changes to the budding religion to cause it to split away so that it wouldn't remain a sect of Judaism."
 
-*"Many viewed Jesus as a rabbi,"* Dear interjected. *"And had that lasted to the point where Judaism headed into a rabbinical tradition, his teachings would have become part of the faith."*
+*"Many viewed Jesus as a rabbi,"* Dear interjected. *"And had that lasted to the point where Judaism headed into a rabbinical tradition, his teachings would have become part of the faith and Judaism would have looked very different."*
 
 Codrin frowned. "Are you suggesting that Secession was engineered to keep the System from remaining a part of society, phys-side?"
 

writing/post-self/toledot/secession/sys/True-Name/006.md

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ True Name was early to her meeting, and that, she figured was okay. On a whim, s
 
 She ordered herself one of those beers that she loved to hate, sat down in a corner booth with a commanding view of the entrance, tail flopped over the edge, and waited.
 
-While she waited, she thought about all of the different reasons that Debarre might have asked to meet. There was always the possibility that the weasel had figured out just how deep she and Jonas had gotten in their work, though she suspected that that wasn't the case. Debarre was smart, yes, but political adroitness was not his strong point. That had been the root of the worry --- shared by him --- that he had been let onto the council merely by his proximity to Michelle and connection with the lost.
+While she waited, she thought about all of the different reasons that Debarre might have asked to meet. There was always the possibility that the weasel had figured out just how deep she and Jonas had gotten in their work, though she suspected that that wasn't the case. Debarre was smart, yes, but political adroitness was not his strong suit. That had been the root of the worry --- shared by him --- that he had been let onto the council merely by his proximity to Michelle and connection with the lost.
 
 It could also be that he had further questions about why it was that Michelle had chosen the Ode as a clade scheme, and that perhaps he wanted to discuss why it was that all of the clade seemed so averse to mentioning the author of the poem.
 
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ The weasel doodled lazily on the tabletop with a claw. "For all my bitching, I'm
 
 True Name smiled. *Perfect.*
 
-"You know," he said thoughtfully. "I was thinking about Cicero a few days back, and how, after he hung himself, I thought thought that the grief would never end. Like, I thought that I had been completely redefined from 'Debarre the weasel' to 'Debarre who grieves', and that's just who I was from then on out."
+"You know," he said. "I was thinking about Cicero a few days back, and how, after he hung himself, I thought thought that the grief would never end. Like, I thought that I had been completely redefined from 'Debarre the weasel' to 'Debarre who grieves', and that's just who I was from then on out."
 
 She hid a sudden surge of emotion behind a sip of her flat beer, nodding. "It was hard. Both of those losses were hard."
 
@@ -78,7 +78,7 @@ After a pleasant greeting in the lobby of the library, they wound their way up t
 
 He grinned. "You guess correctly. I have been considering some aspects of that, as it is. Before I go off on that, however, I would like to hear your ideas."
 
-True Name nodded, absentmindedly brushing fingerpads over the spines of law books and case files. "Firstly, there are some aspects of the clade that I would like to remain within the clade. The Name is an obvious example, but I would also like to keep the impact that we have had within the Council minimized to a level more believable for Michelle's initially stated goal."
+True Name nodded, lazily brushing fingerpads over the spines of law books and case files. "Firstly, there are some aspects of the clade that I would like to remain within the clade. The Name is an obvious example, but I would also like to keep the impact that we have had within the Council minimized to a level more believable for Michelle's initially stated goal."
 
 "To confirm," he said, looking thoughtful. "You want to ensure that it appears that each of us did a tenth of the work that she was doing previously and that our voice was only as loud as any other council-member's. Correct?"
 
@@ -88,7 +88,7 @@ She nodded.
 
 "It will require a bit of fudging, at least for myself, as to how many instances actually exist for the clade. I believe that it would reflect poorly on us to say that we were initially ten, and then for someone to dig up that I had already forked three or four times less than a year after Michelle's decision."
 
-His laugh was kind and relieved. "Oh, good. I am glad that I am not the only one."
+His laugh was kind. "Oh, good. I am glad that I am not the only one."
 
 "Not by a long shot," True Name said. "It seemed like a good thing downplay."
 

writing/post-self/toledot/secession/sys/True-Name/007.md

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 The Only Time I Know My True Name Is When I Dream walked.
 
-She walked from sim to sim, finding intricate ways to build up a sign, a sigil from them. Finding ways for disparate streets to connect, finding alleyways to open into deer paths, finding breathlessly exposed parks that, when a corner was turned around a tree or perhaps a low hill, might open out again into the lobbies of libraries, the shelves of which couldbecame a hedge maze.
+She walked from sim to sim, finding intricate ways to build up a sign, a sigil from them. Finding ways for disparate streets to connect, finding alleyways to open into deer paths, finding breathlessly exposed parks that, when a corner was turned around a tree or perhaps a low hill, might open out again into the lobbies of libraries, the shelves of which could become a hedge maze.
 
 Perhaps there was more to the sims that she walked, but she did not notice. As soon as she felt herself drawn to any one particular place, any one particular feature of any one particular sim, as soon as she began to feel anchored, she left. All of the things that people --- her people --- built passed beneath her feet, passed before her eyes.