update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/mitzvot/033.md

@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ May had shushed her and held up the covers for her to climb in, letting her sett
 
 It had certainly worked well enough, with Ioan rising at eir usual eight o'clock while the two skunks slept in for another hour. Later that day, May had instructed --- or perhaps reminded --- her how to get at least some comfort out of sleeping curled up with a fork.
 
-Still, once a week or so, they'd wake to her asking to join them, and eventually Ioan had given in and expanded their bed by a half meter to at least make it roomier when she did. She'd at least been quite understanding when May had requested that it not be every night.
+Still, once a week or so, they'd wake to her asking to join them, and eventually Ioan had given in and expanded their own bed by a half meter to at least make it roomier when she did. She'd at least been quite understanding when May had requested that it not be every night.
 
 Ey was unsure of eir feelings on the matter. On the one hand, it was still intensely weird to see True Name, of all people, openly seeking affection and a shared bed, and stranger still to see May welcoming that.
 
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ They'd all begun seeing Sarah regularly again, which was a relief. The three of
 
 Ioan found eir own sessions particularly helpful when it came to disentangling eir thoughts on the past. Sarah had urged em to trace eir relationship not just with True Name or May, but with the entire Ode clade from that first message of Dear's through to the present, charting eir feelings about each of them and how they differed or were the same. It helped to pull apart what it was that ey liked about them as well as what it was that left em stressed, exasperated, or just plain tired from their interactions.
 
-Ey didn't know what the two skunks talked about in their sessions, whether apart or together, but it seemed productive. Not always pleasant, *per se;* both were left in tears after a few meetings, and ey suspected that, as much as it had been lessened, that resentment May had felt had never gone away completely, and likely never would.
+Ey didn't know what the two skunks talked about in their sessions, whether apart or together, but it seemed productive. Not always pleasant, granted: both were left in tears after a few meetings.
 
 Still, through it all ey was genuinely pleased to see them happy, or at least on their way to happiness.
 
@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ Ey just needed boredom and ey needed out.
 
 It took some convincing --- on all three of their parts, since ey needed to convince emself as much as True Name and May --- but eventually, Ioan worked up the courage to leave the house, seeking out some much needed solitude, even if it was only in the anonymity of public spaces.
 
-The coffee shop ey'd frequented for so long may have been safe, but given that eir last visit had included an attempt on a friend's life, ey stayed away, opting instead for an afternoon in a library. The one ey frequented also felt fraught, given its association with all of those meetings with Jonas and so many others during the research for the *History*, so ey chose one ey'd never been to before from the directory. Besides, the information was technically available anywhere, libraries just provided a familiar physical location to access it, a social place for gathering around the topic of information, and some physical tools used for manipulating that information that individuals rarely had room for.
+The coffee shop ey'd frequented for so long may have been safe, but given that eir last visit had included an attempt on a friend's life, ey opted instead for an afternoon in a library. The one ey frequented also felt fraught, given its association with all of those meetings with Jonas and so many others during the research for the *History*, so ey chose one ey'd never been to before from the directory. Besides, the information was technically available anywhere, libraries just provided a familiar physical location to access it, a social place for gathering around the topic of information, and some physical tools used for manipulating that information that individuals rarely had room for.
 
 Beyond that, though, it was the very idea of the space that appealed to em and so many others. Ey'd long ago let go of eir desire to be a librarian. Codrin#Pollux had that covered, and ey'd made eir choice, influenced as it was by eir life with May, to settle into theatre.
 
@@ -70,7 +70,7 @@ Ey imagined the two skunks also would appreciate some time out of the house, too
 
 "Still, it's become personally meaningful to us over the years, and we're finding ourselves missing it. I don't know if we necessarily need a copy of it, but would it be possible for you to come take a look at it and see about what all would go into creating something similar? It'd be a modification of my home sim. There's no rush, and if nothing else, it'd be good to say hi sometime. Talk soon."
 
-Further reading was largely a failure. Ey couldn't get back into any of the books ey'd started, and a certain listlessness tamped down any desire to head back to the shelves to hunt more. Ey left them on a page's cart, an act that almost certainly just reshelved them, and hunted down a cafe cart.
+Further reading was largely a failure. Ey couldn't get back into any of the books ey'd started, and a certain listlessness tamped down any desire to head back to the shelves to hunt more. Ey left them on a page's cart, an act that almost certainly just recycled the physical instances, and hunted down a cafe cart.
 
 Serene sent a gentle sensorium ping just as ey picked up eir tea.
 
@@ -124,7 +124,7 @@ Ey shook eir head. "You guys seriously have your hands in everything, don't you?
 
 "I haven't the faintest."
 
-"Well, how many of us do you think there are?"
+"Well, how many of *us* do you think there are?"
 
 "Right." Ey smirked. "'Nominally' a hundred."
 
@@ -240,7 +240,7 @@ Once May had changed her clothes and stepped away, a few long minutes of silence
 
 It was, ey realized, the first time they'd been alone together in weeks. The three of them had been cooped up together since both skunks had overflowed. The circumstances had rather forced their hands in the matter, at least until today. 
 
-There was some lingering discomfort in the air, though, some careful distance between them. Something about what memories True Name had of em --- something ey couldn't possibly know --- and what that meant for them still made its presence known. It wasn't that they hadn't interacted. Far from it, actually. She'd opened up far more than ey'd expected after the merge, watching May practice her monologue, talking about the decades and centuries before ey'd known her, about the time lost between her and the 'other side of the clade'. And it wasn't as though they'd not touched. Though far from intimate, the nights she'd spent in their bed were beyond simple casual touches.
+There was some lingering discomfort in the air, though, some careful distance between them. Something about what memories True Name had of em --- something ey couldn't possibly know --- and what that meant for them still made its presence known. It wasn't that they hadn't interacted. Far from it, actually. She'd opened up far more than ey'd expected after the merge, watching May practice her monologue, talking about the decades and centuries before ey'd known her, about the time lost between her and the 'other side of the clade', about the root of fear that drove the Odists through the centuries. And it wasn't as though they'd not touched. Though far from intimate, the nights she'd spent in their bed were beyond simple casual touches.
 
 But it was all still very cautious. Those nights felt like a necessity borne out of overwhelming emotion. She and May had touched plenty --- True Name had taken to resting her head in the other skunk's lap, enjoying doting affection --- but she'd maintained a sheen of that True Name-brand polite professionalism with em. Friendly, to be sure, but still distant.
 
@@ -260,7 +260,7 @@ She yawned and levered herself up to a sitting position again, rubbing her eyes.
 
 Ey knit eir brow and nodded. "Of course."
 
-"Even at her friendliest and most open, May believed that these merges would make me, in some way, a more complete person. Even I began to believe such. The whole clade has spent too long accusing itself of being incomplete people based on our origins." She paused to collect her thoughts, looking down at her paws. "But she killed me, in her own kind way. She who was True Name is dead, and now I am of three minds. I am True Name and I am May and I am End Waking. There is some unified core --- there must be --- as I am not strictly May or End Waking, and perhaps that core will yet have some other name, but I am of three minds."
+"Even at her friendliest and most open, May believed that these merges would make me, in some way, a more complete person. Even I began to believe such. The whole clade has spent too long accusing itself of being incomplete people based on our origins." She paused to collect her thoughts, looking down at her paws. "But she killed me, in her own kind way. She who was True Name is dead, and now I am of three minds. I am what remains of True Name and I am May and I am End Waking. There is some unified core --- there must be --- as I am not strictly May or End Waking, and perhaps that core will yet have some other name, but I am of three minds."
 
 "In terms of conflicts?"
 
@@ -294,7 +294,7 @@ Ey leaned away from her as best ey could to give her some space. "Sorry, True Na
 
 After a few slow breaths, she shook her head and slumped over to the side, draping herself across eir lap, face buried in her arms on in the beanbag on the other side of eir legs, a jumble of skunk. "This is stupid, Ioan. This is stupid and it is awkward and it is confusing, just as expected," she grumbled. "Pet my ears, please."
 
-"What? Oh." Ey hesitantly brushed fingers over her ears as ey'd done countless times before with May. Her fur felt exactly the same, her voice was very similar, and were it not for the difference in clothes, the slight changes in body shape, and the benefit of two and half decades of time spent living with May, ey could probably have confused one for the other. "Too awkward?"
+"What? Oh." Ey hesitantly brushed fingers over her ears as ey'd done countless times before with May. Her fur felt exactly the same, her voice was very similar, and were it not for the difference in clothes, the slight changes in body shape, and the benefit of almost three decades of time spent living with May, ey could probably have confused one for the other. "Too awkward?"
 
 "I do not know. The closer to another I get, even in just simple proximity, the more May I become, so the greater part of me is simply pleased to be touched now that we are close, and by none other than you," she mumbled against the beanbag. "But I am not her, so the rest of me is unsure of what to make of it. Completely baffled, even. Do I feel like her to you? We are cut from the same cloth, are we not? This ought to feel the same, yes? Does it?"
 
@@ -306,9 +306,9 @@ The skunk squirmed enough to get her tail off to the side and her face away from
 
 She nodded. "It may yet be enough for Jonas, but even if not, I think that it will be enough for me. It is stupid and awkward, but-- no, do not stop," she interrupted herself, laughing, when ey pulled eir hand away. "Awkward, but not bad."
 
-They fell into thought, then. Or at least ey did. Ey kept up the careful petting while trying to tease apart eir own feelings on the matter. It all felt too big, leaving em feeling in far over eir head. Even trying to define what True Name was now felt far above eir pay grade. Ey'd read up on plurality when she'd first mentioned it, and this felt similar in many ways, yet still inexact. The comparison was there to be made, and doubtless much that had gone into incorporating plurality into one's life would prove useful to her, but the addition of the parallel nature of their existences apart, the singular lives they'd led concurrently, added a layer of complication.<!--this feels like an apology - better, but still...-->
+They fell into thought, then. Or at least ey did. Ey kept up the careful petting while trying to tease apart eir own feelings on the matter. It all felt too big, impossible to pin down. Even trying to define what True Name was now felt far above eir pay grade. Three at once, or one after the other? Parallel or serial? Both? And yet they'd lived wholly separate, concurrent lives prior to the merges.
 
-Doubtless there was some way ey could just approach this simply, could just share uncomplicated time with friends. Something about the Odists just made that feel inaccessible, though. All of them were so complicated in such roundabout ways, and now True Name triply so.
+Doubtless there was some way ey could just approach this simply, could just share uncomplicated time with friends. Something about the Odists just made that feel inaccessible, though. All of them were so complex in such roundabout ways, and now True Name triply so.
 
 *If only I could just turn off the overthinking part of me,* ey thought. Aloud, ey said, "What do you think you'll do after all of this?"
 
@@ -364,7 +364,7 @@ She pushed herself quickly to her feet and began pacing before the beanbag, paws
 
 Ey frowned. "It was unexpected, but I don't know if it crossed--"
 
-"It crossed one of *my* boundaries," she snapped, then forced herself to stand still and slow her breathing as she stared out into the night through the windows. "I am sorry, Ioan. I did not mean to get snippy with you. As I said, it is awkward and confusing. I feel like I have been given control of some new, unwieldy machine and am only learning how to use it only through trial and error."
+"It crossed one of *my* boundaries," she snapped, then forced herself to stand still and slow her breathing as she stared out into the night through the windows. "I am sorry, Ioan. I did not mean to get snippy with you. As I said, it is awkward and confusing. I feel like I have been given control of some new, unwieldy machine and am only learning how to use it through trial and error."
 
 Ey nodded, tamping down the urge to apologize again. "Take the space you need."