From 32d24b5ea243200b0b54ca1ce54d5f67c13b2efa Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Madison Scott-Clary Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2024 16:30:12 -0800 Subject: [PATCH] update from sparkleup --- writing/post-self/motes/008.html | 8 ++++++++ 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+) diff --git a/writing/post-self/motes/008.html b/writing/post-self/motes/008.html index f7ab9e5cd..f63f7e513 100644 --- a/writing/post-self/motes/008.html +++ b/writing/post-self/motes/008.html @@ -92,6 +92,14 @@

Still, she managed to clean her plate, managed to straighten herself up for the meeting with Waking World, managed to only yell at him a little bit. She managed as best she could as they did their best to learn what paths forward they had.

She tamped down her emotions throughout, press-fit them into place within her so that they would not spill over into the world around her, bottled them up, wrote a label on the jar, and set it on a shelf high in her mind to deal with later, right next to all of the other jars about which she had promised the same.

She had to, at least for now, at least for the time being. She would need to reckon with the person that she had built herself up into. She would need to deal with all of the compromises that she had made in order to be Beholden. She was Beholden To The Heat Of The Lamps! Sound and music director for the troupe! She was lead sound tech! This was the cost of engaging so closely with what had once been her dearest friend’s specialty. This was the price she paid for being Au Lieu Du RĂªve’s very own AwDae. It was her fragility, and the only way she knew to reinforce herself was through setting such emotions aside. She would need to confront that, but not just yet, not with so much before her.

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And so, when A Finger Pointing stood, wobbled, and requested that she take her home, Beholden had been immediately ready to stand up and gently guide her partner from the library and back to the neighborhood. She let her partner hold onto her to the extent that she was comfortable, rather than the other way around, trusting that she would take only what touch she needed lest she get yet more overwhelmed.

She knew well by now the ways in which A Finger Pointing had changed over the years, about how the crash had affected her.

She knew well because she had seen the exhaustion or fear or slackness in her partner’s expression when the dissociation would crawl over her, had heard how she would turn down her sensorium almost all the way just to survive.