update from sparkleup
This commit is contained in:
Madison Scott-Clary
parent
0a6d0c1cad
commit
53acbd7cbc
|
|
@ -80,7 +80,7 @@
|
|||
<p><strong>May Then My Name:</strong> Less immediately threatening to us, but still, that is terrible. Do you know why this collective (is this like a group, or is there a deeper meaning?) felt so strongly against Launch?</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>Douglas:</strong> Yes, a collective is a group of people who have decided to lose as much of their unique identity as they can to live as singular facets of a shared identity.</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>May Then My Name:</strong> Ioan will be fascinated to hear. Why is that?</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>Douglas:</strong> 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.</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>Douglas:</strong> 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.</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>Douglas:</strong> 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.</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>Douglas:</strong> So I think it was some of that hatred that was at play. They hated the lack of control that is inherent in the System. They hated all that went into Secession, how it made the System this political entity. They hated Launch because, by phys-side collaborating with sys-side, it was a sign that we were equals. They felt that the System has been interfering with phys-side politics ever since Secession. They hated the System for lots of reasons.</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>May Then My Name:</strong> Do a lot of people phys-side think that the System is interfering with politics?</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -88,7 +88,7 @@
|
|||
<p><strong>May Then My Name:</strong> Oh, that bit is definitely true.</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>Douglas:</strong> Yeah, figured as much. You all up there steepling your fingers and talking in hushed tones about how you’re going to do everything from crash the economy to hire Michelle Hadje’s distant ancestor specifically to work on your nefarious plot.</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>May Then My Name:</strong> Yep, got it in one.</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>May Then My Name:</strong> 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.</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>May Then My Name:</strong> 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.</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>May Then My Name:</strong> 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.</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>Douglas:</strong> Maybe a bit less, because at least one possibility of what comes after death for us is living sys-side.</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>May Then My Name:</strong> This is true! We are ghosts up here, haunting silicon and whatever else makes up the physical elements of the System these days.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -110,7 +110,7 @@
|
|||
<p><strong>Douglas:</strong> You won’t ask em yourself?</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>May Then My Name:</strong> No. It is quite important that ey ask me, and not the other way around.</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>Douglas:</strong> Why, though?</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>May Then My Name:</strong> 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.</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>May Then My Name:</strong> 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.</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>Douglas:</strong> Of course you would.</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>May Then My Name:</strong> I am pleased that you have come to understand me so well.</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>May Then My Name:</strong> Now, I am getting froth everywhere, so I will have to run.</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -14,16 +14,16 @@
|
|||
<article class="content">
|
||||
<h1 id="douglas-hadje-2326">Douglas Hadje — 2326</h1>
|
||||
<p>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.</p>
|
||||
<p>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.</p>
|
||||
<p>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.</p>
|
||||
<p>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.</p>
|
||||
<p>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.</p>
|
||||
<p>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.</p>
|
||||
<p>Anticlimax indeed.</p>
|
||||
<p>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.”</p>
|
||||
<p>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.</p>
|
||||
<p>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.”</p>
|
||||
<p>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.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Can you guess?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Douglas swallowed a few times, working up enough saliva to un-parch his throat. “Ioan? Is that you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Ey laughed, nodded. “Got it in one. Now, do you want to get dressed?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Please,” he said, looking around for clothes.</p>
|
||||
<p>Ey laughed, nodded. “Well spotted. Now, do you want to get dressed?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Please,” he said, looking around for clothes. There was only the gray floor, gray walls, gray ceiling.</p>
|
||||
<p>“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?”</p>
|
||||
<p>He squeezed his eyes shut. “Mmhm.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Now, deep breath in and think to yourself, then say to yourself, “I really wish I was wearing this now” as you breathe out.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -148,7 +148,7 @@
|
|||
<p>The rest of the day from there on was, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the happiest that Douglas had ever had. He learned of the Ode, of the Name. He learned of Codrin and Dear. He learned of all of the vast vagaries of the System, of the new arts and the new sciences that could exist only outside of the physical world. He learned, watching the way Ioan and May Then My Name looked at each other, spoke to each other, touched each other, what happiness even was, and that he was a part of it lent more of a sense of completion than any celebration could.</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
<footer>
|
||||
<p>Page generated on 2021-09-24</p>
|
||||
<p>Page generated on 2021-09-25</p>
|
||||
</footer>
|
||||
</main>
|
||||
<script type="text/javascript">
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
Loading…
Reference in New Issue