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<h2 id="in-progress">In progress</h2>
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<li class="done2"> RPG: <del><a href="fate.html">Post-Self in Fate Core</a></del> <a href="pbta.html">Post-Self in PbtA</a></li>
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<li class="done0"> RPG: <a href="lagrange-station/index.html">Post-Self (ish) in SS14</a></li>
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<li class="done1"> Story idea: <a href="idumea/index.html">Idumea</a></li>
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<h2 id="canon-works">Canon Works</h2>
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<p>Page generated on 2024-04-04</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2024-04-28</p>
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<p>“I merged down before New Year’s.”</p>
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<p>“Yeah? And? I don’t–” it began, then flushed red in its cheeks. It started to laugh as well, “Oh no, Reed. You kept the memories?”</p>
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<p>“Yeah. It was a confusing night, you merged down before I’d forked my new instance, then my spare instance quit,” I said. I slouched down in my seat, feeling the heat rise to my cheeks as I watched both of my cocladists laugh while Dry Grass sat, smiling earnestly at me. I knew that smile well, knew it from nights and nights together, from Sunday brunches and afternoons lounging in the sun. I shook my head to clear it. “You really want to talk about this now?”</p>
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<p>She nodded. “I would like to talk about anything — <em>literally</em> anything other than what we have been talking about for days — and I will never turn down the chance to talk about feelings.”</p>
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<p>She nodded. “I would like to talk about anything — <em>literally</em> anything — other than what we have been talking about for days, and I will never turn down the chance to talk about feelings.”</p>
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<p>“It’s not a bad idea, Reed,” Cress said, still grinning. “If you want to, I mean. I imagine it’s gotta be weird as hell.”</p>
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<p>“Oh, it is!” I said. “I certainly wasn’t thinking I’d wind up with a bunch of feelings for someone I’ve only met a handful of times. I have six or seven years of memories of you two together, seeing each other every day, even you falling in love, and those have always gone to the instance that merged down with Marsh.”</p>
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<p>“Wait, so…everything?”</p>
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<p>I shrugged. “I left some of the merge to finish after I merged down, but then my up-tree quit and I was left with most of a merge already complete just so I merged the rest to have less weighing on me, you know?”</p>
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<p>I shrugged. “My up-tree quit and I was left with a whole merge just sitting there so I merged the rest anyway to have less weighing on me, you know?”</p>
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<p>Dry Grass nodded. “Pending memories get uncomfortable after a while, yes.”</p>
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<p>“Right, and I know we usually talk before I keep any memories, but there was so much going on and I had already merged most of the memories about your relationship.”</p>
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<p>“Right, and I know we usually talk before I keep any of those, but there was so much going on and I really didn’t know what to do or think about what else to do in that moment.”</p>
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<p>“Why, then, did you not choose to quit in favor of your up-tree? To let those memories go?”</p>
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<p>I looked down at my plate, nudging my skewers into a neat row. “I don’t know. Stress? All of that stuff started happening with Marsh and it felt more important to focus on that. I was the one who tried pinging them, right? It was very in my face, very immediate.”</p>
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<p>“So now you’re left with our feelings,” Cress said. The laughter had left its features, as had the embarrassment. “You’re left with our relationship.”</p>
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<p>“So now you’re left with our feelings,” Cress said. The laughter had left its features, but so had the embarrassment. “You’re left with our relationship.”</p>
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<p>I nodded.</p>
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<p>“You’re left with our hyperfixation, more like it,” Tule followed on, laughing. “God, we were both just head over heels for you, love.”</p>
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<p>Dry Grass scoffed, hand to her chest in mock effrontery. “Are you not still?”</p>
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<p>All three of them smiled, all three looked a bit bashful.</p>
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<p>“You’re all really cute together, is what I’m saying.”</p>
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<p>Dry Grass gave a hint of a bow. “We do try, I believe.” She reached forward to the box of empty skewers and tapped it against the edge of the box, cycling through options until she wound up with another set of sliced lamb to drop into the bubbling broth before her. “Are these memories of us, of Tule’s relationship, clashing with your lived experience to date? And how about those of Sedge and Rush?”</p>
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<p>More food sounded good, if only for something for me to do, so I tapped through options until I came up with a skewer of fish cakes — Dry Grass having requested we skip my usual choice of thin-sliced pork for her own dietary restrictions — which I let slip into the bubbling pot. “Since Sedge’s merge-down fork incorporated Tule’s memories wholesale, they weren’t exactly tainted. And besides, they mostly tallied with what Sedge, Rush, and I know of you already.”</p>
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<p>“That does not quite answer my question,” she said gently, lifting her skewer and nudging the slivers of chicken onto a bit of rice in her bowl. “I am pleased to hear that there was no great clash up against what you know of us. What I would like to know, however, is how memories of being in a relationship with someone you already know are fitting in with your lived experience of <em>not</em> being in one with them. We have met, yes? Attended the same dinner parties? We have seen each other here and there, chatted now and then. Throughout all of that, I have just been that weird old woman that lives with Cress, and then with Tule, and now some part of you remembers, I suppose, loving me.”</p>
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<p>More food sounded good, if only for something for me to do, so I tapped through options until I came up with a skewer of fish cakes — Dry Grass having requested we skip my usual choices of thin-sliced pork or shrimp for her own dietary restrictions — which I let slip into the bubbling pot. “Since Sedge’s merge-down fork incorporated Tule’s memories wholesale, they weren’t exactly tainted. And besides, they mostly tallied with what Sedge, Rush, and I know of you already.”</p>
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<p>“That does not quite answer my question,” she said gently, lifting her skewer and nudging the slivers of meat onto a bit of rice in her bowl. “I am pleased to hear that there was no great clash up against what you know of us. What I would like to know, however, is how memories of being in a relationship with someone you already know are fitting in with your lived experience of <em>not</em> being in one with them. We have met, yes? Attended the same dinner parties? We have seen each other here and there, chatted now and then. Throughout all of that, I have just been that weird old woman that lives with Cress, and then with Tule, and now some part of you remembers, I suppose, loving me.”</p>
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<p>Following her lead, I pulled my own skewers and rested them on my bowl of rice. It was a good distraction, a moment for me to think as I nudged the fish cakes off of the skewer onto a bite of rice.</p>
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<p>Or, well, I had hoped that I would have a chance to think.</p>
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<p>Instead, I found my mind hopelessly empty. I found my thoughts focused on trying to get the chili-stained fish to stay atop that morsel of rice, on trying to get as much of that as possible held in the precarious grip of my chopsticks, on trying to fit it all in my mouth without looking like a complete idiot.</p>
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<p>Both Cress and Tule visibly relaxed. “So it’s not exactly something you’re thinking about, then?” Cress asked.</p>
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<p>“Well…” I started, then stalled out.</p>
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<p>“I suspect he might not be,” Dry Grass said, speaking slowly with her curious gaze lingering on me, as though prepared to stop at the first sign of me jumping in. “Except for the fact that we have been working together quite closely these last few days, yes? That is part of why we are here now, is it not?”</p>
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<p>I nodded. “I guess so. If things were…uh, more normal, then I guess there might be a strange moment or two at dinner parties, but we’ve been together more often than not the last few days, so it’s…I don’t know. It’s weird.”</p>
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<p>I nodded. “I guess so. If things were…uh, more normal, then I guess there might be a strange moment or two at dinner parties, I would’ve missed you for a while, but we’ve been together more often than not the last few days, so it’s…I don’t know. It’s weird.”</p>
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<p>“I bet,” Tule mumbled. He still looked flushed from the previous rush of embarrassment. “I can’t imagine what that must be like.”</p>
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<p>“Surreal,” I said, laughing. “It’s really highlighted just how parallel our lives are, because I’ll be reminded of all of these things when you speak, Dry Grass, or by the way you look or move, and it’ll mean two different things to me.”</p>
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<p>“Is that unpleasant?” she asked.</p>
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<p>“Jokes aside,” she said once we had calmed down, “what I am asking is if ignoring these memories is comfortable for you. I suspect not entirely, or we would not be having this conversation.”</p>
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<p>Put like that, I really did have to sit and think for a moment. I poured myself a cup of tea and watched as the other three settled back into a more mundane conversation. I watched as Dry Grass ladled broth from the hot pot over her bowl of rice to eat it like a soup, watched the way that she talked with her partners, my cocladists, one of whose memories rode shotgun alongside my own.</p>
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<p>I had lived two lives in parallel, Tule’s and mine, and so I let that parallel continue into the future in my own imaginings. One Reed slipped almost effortlessly into a relationship alongside his cocladists, one woman acting as the pivot for our three lives. That Reed sat Hanne down to dredge up the topic of polyamory, untouched these last few years, to discuss this new relationship. That Reed forked to share time where it was required. That Reed grew ever closer to Cress and Tule in this shared orbit around Dry Grass, fell in step with however many others had found themselves mingling with the Ode clade over the more than three centuries they had been alive. However many had had conversations in their heads exactly like this.</p>
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<p>And the other Reed made the explicit decision to step back. It would have to be explicit, to; I wasn’t sure I could ever keep such a thing from Dry Grass if I wanted, her whole personality seemed to be built around openness. That Reed simply…slipped back into life as it had been. There would be a few awkward meetings here and there sure, but then those memories would fade into comfortable normalcy, as might any dream that sticks with one. Life with Hanne would continue as it was. Life with the clade would be as it had always been. And what would that matter to Dry Grass? She didn’t have these memories, this internal strife.</p>
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<p>And the other Reed made the explicit decision to step back. It would have to be explicit, to; I wasn’t sure I could ever keep such a thing from Dry Grass if I wanted, her whole personality seemed to be built around openness. That Reed simply…slipped back into life as it had been. There would be a few awkward meetings here and there. Some part of me would still love her, but then those memories would fade into comfortable normalcy, as might any dream that sticks with one. Life with Hanne would continue as it was. Life with the clade would be as it had always been. And what would that matter to Dry Grass? She didn’t have these memories, this internal strife.</p>
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<p>Dry Grass had truly left me two forks in the road of equal value. There was no ‘winning’ or ‘losing’, no better or worse. The only path that felt unequal was to continue trying to ignore these feelings. Not just unequal, it felt inaccessible to me. She’d forced the topic out into the open, for better or worse.</p>
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<p>Better, I suspect. She knew the clade well enough to read those signs of discomfort in my words — no great feat; “I can even mostly ignore it” sounded like an equivocation even to me — that she had nudged me toward some more complete understanding by talking it out.</p>
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<p>Better, I suspect. She knew the clade well enough to read those signs of discomfort in my words — no great feat; “I can even mostly ignore it” sounded like an equivocation even to me — that she had nudged me toward some more complete understanding by talking it out. She did so before anyone got hurt, too.</p>
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<p>I — that me who had his own memories and not Tule’s — could certainly see what had drawn my cocladists to her.</p>
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<p>Setting down my tea and reaching forward to snag the ladle in the broth alerted the others to my return to the present. I focused on the task at hand, filling my half-full rice bowl with broth before sitting back once more. “Thanks for talking this through with me,” I said. “I think you’re right, that it’d just be uncomfortable for me to keep trying to ignore it.”</p>
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<p>“Wonderful,” she said, smiling.</p>
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<p>It laughed, holding up its hands. “Alright, I wasn’t going to say anything else, but fair enough.” It turned to me, grinning. “Just enjoy dinner with us, is all I’m saying.”</p>
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<p>“I am,” I replied. “It’s been too long since I’ve had hotpot.”</p>
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<!-- for later, "God, Lily really *would* throw a fit..."-->
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<hr />
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2024-04-13</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2024-04-28</p>
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</footer>
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<li class="done3"> <a href="006.html">006</a> — Dinner with Reed, Hanne, friends (Warmth, My, Jess, Dry Grass), the Marshans, Lily sort of reconciles with Dry Grass, conversation 1 about what it means to be a clade without a root instance. — 4379</li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li class="done3"> Part 2 — Phys-side is being a little sketchy about what happened, turns out there was a reset and a lot of work behind the scenes after a coordinated attack between phys- and sys-side, taking the form of a generalized weapon that wiped out most of the System. Large chunks of it were restored after a lot of work and help from the Artemisians, but not total success — virus loophole was fixed (incl singular attacks), but no guarantee there won’t be another work-around, plans to split the System into smaller pieces, move some of them to Earth/Sun Lagrange points<ul>
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<li class="done2"> Part 2 — Phys-side is being a little sketchy about what happened, turns out there was a reset and a lot of work behind the scenes after a coordinated attack between phys- and sys-side, taking the form of a generalized weapon that wiped out most of the System. Large chunks of it were restored after a lot of work and help from the Artemisians, but not total success — virus loophole was fixed (incl singular attacks), but no guarantee there won’t be another work-around, plans to split the System into smaller pieces, move some of them to Earth/Sun Lagrange points<ul>
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<li class="done3"> <a href="007.html">007</a> — Dry Grass loops Reed & co into discussion with phys-side admin and engineers, Günay made point and admin pushed to the side, Huddle to talk about why they’re being so cagey — 5747</li>
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<li class="done3"> <a href="008.html">008</a> — Dinner and talking with Dry Grass, Cress, and Tule about feelings, Reed catching feelings — 3324</li>
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<li class="done2"> INTERLUDE: Millwright</li>
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<li class="rejected"> 009 — (MERGED DOWN)</li>
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<li class="done3"> <a href="010.html">010</a> — Clade representatives form a group, contact chill phys-side systech, learning even more about both what happened WRT CPV bomb and collectives, plus how phys-side is seeing things, various changes to the System, AWNH and Jonas Fa are into knife play — 5877</li>
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<li class="done3"> <a href="011.html">011</a> — Meeting with member of The System Consortium, who is a member of a conservative collective, learning more about why the System was bombed — 2346</li>
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<li class="done3"> <a href="012.html">012</a> — Visiting the morgue, funeral for Marsh, fight with Lily, who is reacting to grief with anger. — 3345</li>
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<li class="done2"> 009 — (MERGED DOWN)</li>
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<li class="done2"> <a href="010.html">010</a> — Clade representatives form a group, contact chill phys-side systech, learning even more about both what happened WRT CPV bomb and collectives, plus how phys-side is seeing things, various changes to the System, AWNH and Jonas Fa are into knife play — 5877</li>
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<li class="done2"> <a href="011.html">011</a> — Meeting with member of The System Consortium, who is a member of a conservative collective, learning more about why the System was bombed — 2346</li>
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<li class="done2"> <a href="012.html">012</a> — Visiting the morgue, funeral for Marsh, fight with Lily, who is reacting to grief with anger. — 3345</li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li class="done3"> Part 3 — The ramifications, both global and personal (but mostly personal) — a lot of talk among the Marshans, their partners, and a chill phys-side systech — looking into trying to reconstruct Marsh by cross-tree merging Reed, Lily, and Cress — it doesn’t work, so it turns into coming to terms with letting go of the past<ul>
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<li class="done3"> <a href="013.html">013</a> — Dry Grass mourns, Reed catches Cress and Tule up with regards to System changes, cross-tree merges — 2395</li>
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<li class="done3"> <a href="014.html">014</a> — Reed and Hanne talking, Reed admits to starting to grieve now that things are calming down, expresses doubts about reconstruction — 1775</li>
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<li class="done3"> <a href="015.html">015</a> — Date with Dry Grass, talking about reconstruction — 2002</li>
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<li class="done3"> <a href="016.html">016</a> — Discussing social changes both phys- and sys-side, improvements on the table, someone digging into Artemisian archives, Reed decides to go through with cross-tree merge — 3975</li>
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<li class="done2"> Part 3 — The ramifications, both global and personal (but mostly personal) — a lot of talk among the Marshans, their partners, and a chill phys-side systech — looking into trying to reconstruct Marsh by cross-tree merging Reed, Lily, and Cress — it doesn’t work, so it turns into coming to terms with letting go of the past<ul>
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<li class="done2"> <a href="013.html">013</a> — Dry Grass mourns, Reed catches Cress and Tule up with regards to System changes, cross-tree merges — 2395</li>
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<li class="done2"> <a href="014.html">014</a> — Reed and Hanne talking, Reed admits to starting to grieve now that things are calming down, expresses doubts about reconstruction — 1775</li>
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<li class="done2"> <a href="015.html">015</a> — Date with Dry Grass, talking about reconstruction — 2002</li>
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<li class="done2"> <a href="016.html">016</a> — Discussing social changes both phys- and sys-side, improvements on the table, someone digging into Artemisian archives, Reed decides to go through with cross-tree merge — 3975</li>
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<li class="done2"> INTERLUDE: Nasturtiums</li>
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<li class="done3"> <a href="017.html">017</a> — It doesn’t work, there is only them, no Marsh, Vos gets <em>very mad</em>, clade admits it’s time to start grieving proper — 3619</li>
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<li class="done2"> <a href="017.html">017</a> — It doesn’t work, there is only them, no Marsh, Vos gets <em>very mad</em>, clade admits it’s time to start grieving proper — 3619</li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li class="done2"> Epilogue — Life after<ul>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2024-04-13</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2024-04-28</p>
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