update from sparkleup
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Madison Scott-Clary
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<h1 id="ioan-balan-2346">Ioan Bălan — 2346</h1>
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<p>Depression, Ioan had long known but never internalized, was fundamentally different from sadness. It was just as different from May’s overwhelming waves of emotions.</p>
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<div class="codehilite"><pre><span></span><code><span class="err">Convergence T-0 days, 1 hour, 3 minutes</span>
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</code></pre></div>
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<p>Depression, Ioan had long known but struggled to internalize, was fundamentally different from sadness. It was just as different from May’s overwhelming waves of emotions.</p>
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<p>Ey was confronted with it now, forced to see the way the emotion — or non-emotion, as May put it — affected one on a more fundamental level than anything so simple as sadness could hope to. Those overwhelming waves, as the one she’d just recovered from, were fundamental in their own way, but far, far less existential.</p>
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<p>It was bound by the cycle of the day, and so Ioan and May would spend their mornings strategizing their evenings, ensuring that they were able to have as pleasant a time as that ashen feeling May described would allow, to work as well as they could manage through that fog.</p>
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<p>“We are not unfamiliar with it, Ioan,” A Finger Pointing had said when, after watching Death Itself and I Do Not Know quit, May’s countenance grew duller and duller, and the skunk spoke less and less. “We know depression from the embodied world, and it comes up every now and then for each of us here, too.”</p>
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@ -21,8 +24,8 @@
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<p>She had nodded. “It will pass, and we will make the shows work, my dear. Keep her company and be good to her, and you need not worry.”</p>
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<p>Some dark look must have crossed eir face at which the director had shaken her head and hugged em. “Do not worry about that, Ioan. There is no death in her. I am sorry that there are no easy ways to explain it, but I promise that what I expect she is feeling is separate from what our cocladists felt.”</p>
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<p>When presented with this along with eir anxious expression, the skunk had laughed and tousled eir hair. “She is right, my dear. It feels uncomfortable at best, bad at worst, but only ever bad. I am simply a bit crashy after a little too much all at once.”</p>
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<p>So for the last few days, they’d strategized in the mornings and then done what they could in the evenings. Scenes in plays were reworked, dinner menus shifted towards comfort foods, temperatures and weather adjusted, old comfort-hobbies dredged up from the past — the skunk had been littering the house with origami cranes. Ey’d even tried reading aloud to her, her with her head parked on eir chest and em with a book held above them. This had gone over well, and ey had that on the menu for later in the evening after dinner.</p>
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<p>Today still contained the first meeting with Sarah Genet, however, so ey focused on making a good breakfast, and spending a bit of time relaxing on the porch swing with May, giving her pets and quiet company.</p>
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<p>So for the last few days, they’d strategized in the mornings and then done what they could in the evenings. Scenes in plays were reworked for understudies, dinner menus shifted towards comfort foods, temperatures and weather adjusted, old comfort-hobbies dredged up from the past — the skunk had been littering the house with origami figures. Ey’d even tried reading aloud to her, her with her head parked on eir chest and em with a book held above them. This had gone over well, and ey had that on the menu for later in the evening after dinner.</p>
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<p>Today still held the first meeting with Sarah Genet, however, so ey focused on making a good breakfast, and spending a bit of time relaxing on the porch swing with May, giving her pets and quiet company.</p>
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<p>“How are you feeling about this?” ey asked, voice muffled. May had requested a brushing of her tail, which meant a face full of fluff.</p>
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<p>“I do not know. I am anxious. I am trying to keep up that sense of hopefulness that I had when we began planning this, but the anxiety is getting in the way.”</p>
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<p>Ey tamped down the urge to ask what the anxiety was over, knowing that the answer would likely be <em>I do not know</em> or <em>nothing</em> — rightly so, for eir own anxiety often seemed to have no basis in reality. Instead, ey asked, “Do you want me to be there with you?”</p>
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<p>May stayed quiet, shifting the rest of the way so that she could lay her head on eir lap, looking off into the yard. Finally, she murmured, “We will need to talk about that at some point, Sarah and I. The pressure surrounding it is building.”</p>
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<p>This did not seem to be an open conversation, so ey nodded, settling into silence with eir partner.</p>
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<p>Sarah arrived an hour later, a quiet knock at the door accompanying the sensorium ping of her arrival.</p>
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<p>May had melted into a beanbag when they’d come back inside and was folding paper crane after paper crane from a bottomless stack of origami paper, so Ioan capped eir pen and slid eir project into a drawer of eir desk. The skunk studiously avoided eir gaze, the tightness of her expression showing anxiety and tears at hand.</p>
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<p>May had melted into a beanbag when they’d come back inside and was folding paper crane after paper crane from a bottomless stack of origami paper, so Ioan capped eir pen and slid eir project into a drawer of eir desk. The skunk studiously avoided eir gaze, the tightness of her expression showing anxiety and tears near at hand.</p>
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<p>“Mx. Bălan?” the psychologist said, bowing. “Nice to meet you.”</p>
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<p>“And you, Ms. Genet.” Ey stood aside, gesturing toward the hall. “Please, come inside.”</p>
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<p>“Just Sarah is fine.” Smiling kindly to em, she nodded and stepped inside. She seemed to be taking the sight of their home in with some deeper understanding than ey could grasp. Ey wondered just how much she could tell by how clean or messy a place might be, and thanked past-Ioan for cleaning up quite well after breakfast. </p>
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@ -47,8 +50,9 @@
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<p>May smiled weakly. “Lots of work. We share jobs from start to finish. There are more of us working as stage hands and crew than there are working as actors. Ioan even writes many of our plays.”</p>
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<p>“I guess that means you both know your way around the craft better than most, since you have to keep all of that in your heads. I’m curious, though; what all goes into the crew side? Are you also…what’s the term. Stage managers? Techs?” Sarah shrugged, looking almost embarrassed at her lack of knowledge. “Lights? Sound?”</p>
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<p>At the word ‘sound’, a stricken look washed over the skunk’s face. She sat, rigid, in her chair for a moment before shaking her head, the movement jerky and uneven. “I…I will leave…I will leave Ioan to answer that.”</p>
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<p>Alarmed at the sudden change in her demeanor, Ioan looked between May and Sarah, the latter’s face set in an expression of concern. “May?” ey asked quietly</p>
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<p>She swallowed compulsively several times in a row, as she always seemed to do when tamping down a wave of emotion. “You must…you must forgive me. I have to…lay down or something.”</p>
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<p>Alarmed at the sudden change in her demeanor, Ioan looked between May and Sarah, the latter’s face set in an expression of concern.</p>
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<p>“May?” ey asked quietly</p>
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<p>She swallowed several times in a row, as she always seemed to do when tamping down a wave of emotion. “You must…you must forgive me. I have to…lay down or something.”</p>
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<p>The skunk stood and swayed, clutching at the edge of the table hard enough for claws to dent the wood.</p>
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<p>“Of course, May Then My Name. Would you like to meet another–“</p>
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<p>“Please discuss with Ioan,” she whispered, eyes clenched shut.</p>
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<p>“No, I don’t think so. She’s been kind of depressed over the last few days, which is different than the overwhelmed experience. She says it’s not uncommon for her to ‘crash’ after really big events. She slows down and has a hard time enjoying things, which I suspect is common with depression. But also, little things will trigger large emotional reactions.”</p>
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<p>Sarah nodded. “Alright, that makes sense, at least. ‘Trigger’ is probably the right word, there. That certainly looked like a trauma response. One she was trying very hard to control, of course, but I could almost see the adrenaline rush through her.”</p>
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<p>“There’s been quite a bit of trauma of late, with her cocladists quitting.”</p>
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<p>“Very much so, yeah.”</p>
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<p>“Very much so, yes.”</p>
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<p>Ey rubbed at eir eyes. They were burning, though whether from exhaustion or eir own emotions, ey couldn’t tell. “I have no clue what was the trigger there, though.”</p>
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<p>Sarah waved her hand. “She and I will talk that through, it’s alright. How are you doing, though?”</p>
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<p>“Me?” Ey frowned. Talking with a therapist had never been on the table for em through this whole endeavor, but ey was so wrapped up in it now… “I’m stressed. I’m tired and stressed and feeling like I’m just fumbling in the dark to find something that will keep May safe.”</p>
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<p>“Shush, you’re fine. I think she, of all people, understands a reaction like that.” Ey picked up another square of paper from the stack and began trying to fold again. “But that’s enough talk of that for now. If you want dinner, you have to help me get at least one of these made.”</p>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-01-12</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-01-16</p>
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<article class="content">
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<h1 id="ioan-balan-2346">Ioan Bălan — 2346</h1>
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<div class="codehilite"><pre><span></span><code><span class="err">Convergence T-1 day, 0 hours, 11 minutes (transmission delay: 7.23 days)</span>
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<div class="codehilite"><pre><span></span><code><span class="err">Convergence T-4 days, 0 hours, 11 minutes (transmission delay: 7.23 days)</span>
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</code></pre></div>
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<p>Ioan#98ae38dc arrived at the appointed coffee shop a good hour in advance. The meeting had been eir idea, but it had also been eir primary source of stress during the day prior to it.</p>
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<h1 id="ioan-balan-2346">Ioan Bălan — 2346</h1>
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<div class="codehilite"><pre><span></span><code><span class="err">Convergence T-2 days, 16 hours, 21 minutes (transmission delay: 7.23 days)</span>
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<div class="codehilite"><pre><span></span><code><span class="err">Convergence T-6 days, 16 hours, 21 minutes (transmission delay: 7.23 days)</span>
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</code></pre></div>
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<p>The dinner that Do I Know God After The End Waking had prepared for them was…rustic. That was the first term that ey had come up with to describe it, and no matter how else Ioan tried to nail it down further, ey was left with little else that fit.</p>
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<h1 id="ioan-balan-2346">Ioan Bălan — 2346</h1>
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<div class="codehilite"><pre><span></span><code><span class="err">Convergence T-2 days, 8 hours, 48 minutes</span>
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<div class="codehilite"><pre><span></span><code><span class="err">Convergence T-5 days, 8 hours, 48 minutes</span>
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</code></pre></div>
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<p>Ioan,</p>
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<p>Ey shrugged. “They deserve to know more than just the synopses and sugar-coated aspects of our society. The thing with Answers Will Not Help is something she and True Name dreamt up, but not representative of us as a whole. We’re more complex as a species than just her, or than even the five of us.”</p>
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<p>Flipping through the pages at the rate of about one per second, Turun Ko said, “A conversation will happen-occur when leaders Turun Ka and True Name return shortly-momentarily. Please wait. Their conversation-discussion is artificial-superficial, intended to give-provide delegates other than leadership options to change-shape outcomes.”</p>
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<p>Ey stared at the firstracer. “You mean–“</p>
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<p>“A step in the process of convergence is assessing the willingness of non-leaders to act other than their leaders might, or even the stated structure of the discussions, in order to forward what they believe the good common to all races,” Artante said. “It allows us to assess the strength of individuality and self-sacrifice.”</p>
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<p>“A step in the process of convergence is assessing the willingness of non-leaders to act other than their leaders might, or even the stated structure of the discussions, in order to forward what they believe the good common to all races,” Artante said. “It allows us to assess the strength of individuality and self-sacrifice for the betterment of all.”</p>
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<p>“Opportunities were provided,” Turun Ko said simply.</p>
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<p>That feeling of being in way over eir head that ey had felt so often during the writing of the <em>History</em> hit em full force once more and, stunned to silence, ey leaned back in eir chair, looking between the Artemisians and Sarah.</p>
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<p>“So,” the psychologist began. “Is this a good step?”</p>
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<p>“Please wait,” Turun Ko repeated, then lifted its head and glanced over toward Turun Ka.</p>
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<p>This must’ve been a signal of some sort, as the other firstracer held up a hand to stop the conversation it was having with True Name, gesturing her back to the table.</p>
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<p>The skunk was halfway through the act of pulling out her chair before she noticed the books that the other Artemisians held, the titles in bold on their covers. Her gaze whipped toward Codrin so quickly and with such intensity that ey shied away from her. “Codrin, what–“</p>
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<p>The skunk was halfway through the act of pulling out her chair before she noticed the books that the other Artemisians held, the titles in bold on their covers. Her gaze whipped toward Codrin so quickly and with such fiery intensity that ey shied away from her. “Codrin, what–“</p>
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<p>“Leader True Name,” Turun Ka said, interrupting her gently, but with enough authority that she stopped immediately. “This is the penultimate item on the checklist of convergence that we were just discussing. All that remains is the point of decision.”</p>
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<p>Ey watched as the skunk’s eyes widened, gaze darting between em, Turun Ka, and the book in Turun Ko’s hands, now about half-finished. She sat down heavily on the chair and sagged against the back. “Well, fuck me.”</p>
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