From 4b724f76350a2170cd5b568b45a25595d86fdbd6 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Madison Scott-Clary Date: Sun, 8 May 2022 12:20:15 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] update from sparkleup --- writing/post-self/neviim/local/codrin/009.html | 8 ++++---- writing/post-self/neviim/remote/codrin/004.html | 6 +++--- 2 files changed, 7 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-) diff --git a/writing/post-self/neviim/local/codrin/009.html b/writing/post-self/neviim/local/codrin/009.html index 9c58deb2f..580702892 100644 --- a/writing/post-self/neviim/local/codrin/009.html +++ b/writing/post-self/neviim/local/codrin/009.html @@ -25,7 +25,7 @@

Lunch after that had been filled with laughter and truly terrible jokes. Sarah, it turned out, collected them, and the delegates unanimously voted hers the worst.

All throughout, though, Codrin couldn’t shake the image of True Name throwing a very short, very tightly controlled tantrum. The sight of her letting loose so strong an emotion had immediately knocked em back to an interview — decades ago, now — where she’d wound em up enough that ey’d started shouting at her in her own office, then bounced em from her sim.

That, ey’d later understood, had been intentional on her part. It had been a way for her to spin her story in a very carefully crafted way. It set it to a level that sat just on the other side of the line between plausible and absurd. It had wrapped em up in a story that was just a little too much to believe, and the end result was a softening of the impact of the History.

-

Nothing about that experience had been done with a wink and a nudge, just as nothing about this had contained any such acknowledgement that it was intentional, but ey was nothing if not primed to expect her actions to be based in manipulation. There was a non-zero chance that this tantrum had been more for the benefit of the other delegates than anything. It was a way to show that she, too, was frustrated, just as the pun-off that had followed had been a way to loosen everyone up by lampshading the absurdity of the whole venture.

+

She was a consummate actor. Nothing about that experience had been done with a wink and a nudge, just as nothing about this had contained any such acknowledgement that it was intentional, but ey was nothing if not primed to expect her actions to be based in manipulation. There was a non-zero chance that this tantrum had been more for the benefit of the other delegates than anything. It was a way to show that she, too, was frustrated, just as the pun-off that had followed had been a way to loosen everyone up by lampshading the absurdity of the whole venture.

And then, it was over. True Name cleared away her plate, explained that she was going to write a letter to her #Artemis instance, made a final joke about needing to do so over letters being much more up Codrin’s alley, and then stepped into her room to work in silence.

“What was that about?” Sarah asked, once the skunk and Why Ask Questions had wandered off again.

“What, the thing about the letters?” Ey shrugged. “I guess it was deemed a risk setting up radio between the DMZ and–“

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Codrin sat up straighter. “You mean the Odists struggling over there?”

She nodded. “It sounds like moving them to a unison room is helping, but they’re still struggling with that…what did Codrin#Artemis call it? The omnipresence of time?”

“Yeah. Dear had talked about it some. It called the feeling of being lost as being stuck in an ‘endless place of no time’.”

-

“I was going to call that poetic, but the more I think about it, the less I think I could describe it without a whole lot of metaphors, myself.” She pushed a few remaining pieces of lettuce around her plate with her fork. “I was wondering if maybe she’s trying to hide how she’s feeling about that by amping up other emotions. Hiding trauma with humor is not uncommon.”

+

“I was going to call that poetic, but the more I think about it, the less I think I could describe it without a whole lot of metaphors, myself.” She pushed a few remaining pieces of lettuce around her plate with her fork. “I was wondering if maybe she’s trying to hide how she’s feeling about that by amping up other emotions. Hiding trauma with humor is not uncommon, and I’m sure she has trauma of her own.”

Ey frowned. “It would make sense, yes. This morning’s letter from Codrin talked a bit more about them, about how they seem to be struggling in masking more powerful emotions. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen an Odist well and truly furious,” ey said, which I agree with. I’ve seen Dear angry, and Ioan says that ey’s seen May Then My Name get furious — at True Name, no less — but I’ve never seen any of them truly furious. “True Name keeps getting these flashes, though, where her face will twist up in what I can only call abject fury. It’ll only last a second or so, and then it’s over and she’s back to looking tired or in control or whatever she was before”.”

“Anger is a strong emotion. It’s hard to cover up something that overwhelming.”

“Right. Anger and sadness or depression seem to be the two that keep cropping up. They’ve had to take a few breaks so far when Why Ask Questions wound up in a crying jag.”

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Finally, Sarah said, “I guess I have a few thoughts on it: the first is that Answers Will Not Help struck me as less grounded than Why Ask Questions. They’re both weird, but Answers Will Not Help was always much more intense, and she sometimes got petty or cruel. The second was that maybe we could ask Tycho. We got a few days with the two of them, but he’s been working with them for much longer, since they led with a bunch of science.”

“Alright,” ey said, scratching out another quick note to emself. “I’ll figure out a way to ask if that’s where the observation came from.”

“Oh? As in maybe Tycho noticed that and told Codrin#Artemis?”

-

“Right, yeah. Maybe he picked up on it first because he’s had more time with her, or maybe her reaction to the skew tipped him off. Why knows?”

+

“Right, yeah. Maybe he picked up on it first because he’s had more time with her, or maybe her reaction to the skew tipped him off. Who knows?”

“Think you’ll ask in a hint, too?”

Ey nodded. “There’s some subtext there that I’m not totally picking up on, and it seems best to be safer than not.”

“Any guesses as to that subtext?” she asked.

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