update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/toledot/launch/phys/Douglas/008.md

@@ -134,7 +134,7 @@ So, when he returned back to his room to a series of messages that felt loud, br
 
 **May Then My Name:** Ioan will be fascinated to hear. Why is that?
 
-**Douglas:** It actually started around a fictionalized account of forking. They sometimes called themselves clades, but the name never stuck. It's kind of a weird love/hate relationship with the System that they have. They love it enough to try and emulate it in their social groups, but they also loathe the idea of uploading and a lot of other things that go along with the System.
+**Douglas:** It actually started around a fictionalized account of forking. They sometimes called themselves clades, but the name never stuck in the wider world. It's kind of a weird love/hate relationship with the System that they have. They love it enough to try and emulate it in their social groups, but they also loathe the idea of uploading and a lot of other things that go along with the System.
 
 **Douglas:** de, on the launch commission, is a member of a much more liberal collective. Still will never upload, but really seems to take pride in their job.
 
@@ -150,7 +150,7 @@ So, when he returned back to his room to a series of messages that felt loud, br
 
 **May Then My Name:** Yep, got it in one.
 
-**May Then My Name:** I am glad that none of these were successful on the scale that they had hoped. We do not know what happens to us if the System breaks. There have been a few instances of discontinuity over the centuries, but we don't see them except that systime jumps ahead. Were the System to explode in some fiery spectacle, we would just stop.
+**May Then My Name:** I am glad that none of these were successful on the scale that they had hoped. We do not know what happens to us if the System breaks. There have been a few instances of discontinuity over the centuries, but we don't see them except that systime jumps ahead. Were the System to explode in some fiery spectacle, we would just stop. Probably. Maybe.
 
 **May Then My Name:** Theologians and mystics have been disappointed to find no answers in what comes after death when one quits, so we are as in the dark as you are.
 
@@ -194,7 +194,7 @@ So, when he returned back to his room to a series of messages that felt loud, br
 
 **Douglas:** Why, though?
 
-**May Then My Name:** Two reasons. One: the one with the greater restrictions wins out, and I will say yes to almost anything and anyone. Ey would not. Two: I will gain a simply enormous amount of satisfaction out of teasing em afterwards.
+**May Then My Name:** Two reasons. One: the one with the greater restrictions wins out, and I will say yes to almost anything and anyone. Ey would not. Two: I will gain an absolute enormous amount of satisfaction out of teasing em afterwards.
 
 **Douglas:** Of course you would.
 

writing/post-self/toledot/launch/phys/Douglas/009.md

@@ -2,25 +2,25 @@
 
 The arrangements required for this surprise for May Then My Name quickly began to feel overly complicated to Douglas, but, as Ioan kept reminding him, she was a very complicated person. She was also very perceptive, so there was, apparently, much required to make this plan work.
 
-The lead-up to uploading was surprisingly easy. He supposed that much of it was that so much excitement combined with so much anxiety eventually left him feeling more numb than anything, some protective emotional reaction that kept him from simply exploding on one of his many, many walks.
+The lead-up to uploading, however, was surprisingly easy. He supposed that much of it was that so much excitement combined with so much anxiety eventually left him feeling more numb than anything, some protective emotional reaction that kept him from simply exploding on one of his many, many walks.
 
-But anticlimax is simply the way of the world, and so, when the night before the one-year anniversary of the Launch arrived, hey simply signed a waiver walked to the clinic, answered a few questions, and then underwent the procedure. It was uncomfortable, disorienting, and, were he pressed to pick one, probably the worst physical experience of his life, but at that point, he was well past any point where he could turn back, and even then, he knew he wouldn't.
+But anticlimax is simply the way of the world, and so the night before the one-year anniversary of the Launch arrived, he simply signed a waiver walked to the clinic, answered a few questions, and then underwent the procedure. It was uncomfortable, disorienting, and, were he pressed to pick one, the worst physical experience of his life, but at that point, he was well past any point where he could turn back, and even then, he knew he wouldn't.
 
 And then, there was simply a brief discontinuity, and then he was standing in a grey cube of a room, naked, dizzy, blinking at a light that seemed to come from nowhere.
 
 Anticlimax indeed.
 
-A quiet voice came from behind him, a soft tenor that contained an accent that he couldn't place. "Good evening, Douglas. I'm facing the wall, if you're concerned about your nudity, but I'll talk you through fixing that."
+A quiet voice came from behind him, a soft tenor or low alto that contained an accent that he couldn't place. "Good evening, Douglas. I'm facing the wall, if you're concerned about your nudity, but I'll talk you through fixing that."
 
-He crouched down, covering himself with his hands, and turned slowly. There was a short person standing in the corner of the room, hands behind their back while they faced the wall. They were dressed in a sweater vest and a pale yellow dress shirt. Nice slacks, nice shoes, tousled hair. "Wh-who..." he croaked.
+He crouched down, covering himself with his hands, and turned slowly. There was a short person standing in the corner of the room, hands clasped loosely behind their back while they faced the wall. They were dressed in a sweater vest and a pale yellow dress shirt. Nice slacks, nice shoes, tousled hair. "Wh-who..." he croaked.
 
 "Can you guess?"
 
 Douglas swallowed a few times, working up enough saliva to un-parch his throat. "Ioan? Is that you?"
 
-Ey laughed, nodded. "Got it in one. Now, do you want to get dressed?"
+Ey laughed, nodded. "Well spotted. Now, do you want to get dressed?"
 
-"Please," he said, looking around for clothes.
+"Please," he said, looking around for clothes. There was only the gray floor, gray walls, gray ceiling.
 
 "Okay. I had to look up the script for this, so I hope it makes sense to you. Close your eyes and think about the outfit you know best. It doesn't have to be one that you love or anything, just the one that you're most used to. Got it?"