update from sparkleup
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Madison Scott-Clary
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<p>His name was Martin Rankin, and while Codrin had not read any of his works prior to the suggestion, ey had certainly heard the name in the various literary circles that ey trawled on occasion. A man prone to grand literary gestures, one who leaned heavily on the twisting of endless sentences, ceaseless streams of fragments, prose that bordered on florid even by Codrin’s relatively flowery standards. Ey knew that ey was prone to many of the same pitfalls, but this man took it to an extreme that they found unreasonable.</p>
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<p>Codrin, to prepare for the interview, had read two of Rankin’s books. They were not without their merit, as might any such book be that garnered so much attention, but they still took plenty of work to get through. He wrote most often about contemporary life within the system in all its deliriously boring intricacies.</p>
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<p>That said, much of his work was bound up in a sense of magical realism that was, ey had to admit, enticing. This was something that Codrin had never managed to capture emself, and so ey set aside some time to study the ways in which Rankin used surrealism to enhance the story at hand without distracting.</p>
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<p>Martin Rankin was exactly as had expected. There was nothing about him that did not shout Martin Rankin. He wore his identity on his face, on his chest, in the way his hands moved across the table as they talked, there at the cafe, there sitting out on the street, there sipping their coffees.</p>
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<p>Martin Rankin was exactly as ey had expected. There was nothing about him that did not shout Martin Rankin. He wore his identity on his face, on his chest, in the way his hands moved across the table as they talked, there at the cafe, there sitting out on the street, there sipping their coffees.</p>
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<p>“So, you are the illustrious Codrin Bălan.” His voice was imperious, veering dangerously close to pompous, looking over the rim of the demitasse appraisingly at em as he sipped espresso.</p>
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<p>Something about the man grated. Ey wasn’t quite sure what it was at first, whether it was the self-assured way he spoke, or the self-aggrandizing expression he wore on his face. It was nigh intolerable.</p>
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<p>All the same, ey tried eir best to keep up eir smile as ey spoke. “And you’re Martin Rankin. It’s a pleasure to finally get the chance to meet you in the flesh. Thank y–“</p>
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<p><em>“They do not need to be. They are all the same.”</em></p>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-11-07</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-11-17</p>
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<p><strong>Douglas:</strong> I’m sorry.</p>
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<p><strong>May Then My Name:</strong> Douglas, let me tell you a story.</p>
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<p><strong>May Then My Name:</strong> One of the times I had the chance to meet Michelle, I visited her sim with her. She had not built herself a house or anything, like most do, but instead built for herself an endless green field of rolling hills. Except, that, rather than letting that field be perfect, it was absolutely covered with dandelions. Weeds, basically. It was not that it was some weeded lot, but that it was a field of very obviously well-kept grass, dotted every few feet with these clusters of perfectly imperfect flowers, little suns peeking up out of their spray of leaves.</p>
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<p><strong>May Then My Name:</strong> From what you say of Earth, a field of well-kept grass would be incredibly rare, and so I imagine that you understand what it would mean for something so pristine to to become filled with these flowers that everyone considered a nuisance.</p>
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<p><strong>May Then My Name:</strong> From what you say of Earth, a field of well-kept grass would be incredibly rare, and so I imagine that you understand what it would mean for something so pristine to become filled with these flowers that everyone considered a nuisance.</p>
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<p><strong>May Then My Name:</strong> But Michelle was obsessed with them. She loved their smell, and loved how bright they stood out against the grass. There it was, this amazing field of the richest grass that invited one to roll in it, and it was dotted with these intensely yellow flowers.</p>
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<p><strong>May Then My Name:</strong> Her sim was intentional in its imperfections. It was a dialectic. It was a koan, a contradiction in which sat a kernel of universal truth, understood only when one realized that both sides of that contradiction could be true at the same time.</p>
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<p><strong>May Then My Name:</strong> I did not know why she invited me over to her sim to meet with me, rather than meet up at some cafe or park or office, but when I arrived, I saw that she seemed to be having a bad day, as so many of hers were. When she had a bad day, it was visible in her very body. She would flicker between two different forms, like one might flicker between two different avatars on the ‘net. I am still not sure how that worked, as it was generally a violation of the norms, but no one ever called her on it, no System process ever made her stop.</p>
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<p>He embraced that calm, rolled onto his side, and slept.</p>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-10-19</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-11-17</p>
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<p>“Sure. You find the booth, I’ll get the drink, then we can talk.”</p>
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<p>The booth in the corner is where the sim diverged from the one she had known so well back on the net. Where those at the Crown had been high-walled, wood dividers reaching up to the ceiling even after the cushioned backs ended, these were low-backed and reminded her more of the types of padded benches one might find on the bus or train.</p>
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<p><em>Ah well, they cannot all be perfect.</em></p>
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<p>She waited until Jonas sat and she ribbed him good-naturedly about this choice of a fruity vodka drink before setting up the cone of silence.</p>
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<p>She waited until Jonas sat and she ribbed him good-naturedly about his choice of a fruity vodka drink before setting up the cone of silence.</p>
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<p>“So,” he said, offering her the neon-pink cherry out of his drink.</p>
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<p>“So.” She bit the cherry off the stem and chewed thoughtfully, the fruit sweet enough to make her sinuses burn. “Have you read Yared’s recent post?”</p>
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<p>He nodded.</p>
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<p>“I trust you’ll keep quiet about it.”</p>
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<p>True Name grinned, putting her finger to her snout in the universal hush sign. “It is a neat enough trick. I think that the Ode clade already differs too much to send one of them in my place, so perhaps not for me.”</p>
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<p>“It’s up to you, yeah.” Jonas sat back against the couch, one arm draped casually along the back. “I honestly was surprised when no one noticed my reputation drop, but then I figured out that most people just look at the clade’s reputation, rather than the instances. I have a feeling that’ll change eventually, but for now, no one seems to pay all that much attention.”</p>
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<p>The skunk frowned, browsed the markets — something that felt more akin to remembering what the stats were, rather than looking anything up — and saw that, while she had less reputation than Michelle had before she forked, the clade had a good bit more, likely from what each of them were doing to build reputation. Jonas naming his clade after himself was a fairly savvy move, in the end. ‘Ode’ having no direct ties to Michelle it seem like something unrelated.</p>
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<p>The skunk frowned, browsed the markets — something that felt more akin to remembering what the stats were, rather than looking anything up — and saw that, while she had less reputation than Michelle had before she forked, the clade had a good bit more, likely from what each of them were doing to build reputation. Jonas naming his clade after himself was a fairly savvy move, in the end. ‘Ode’ having no direct ties to Michelle it seems like something unrelated.</p>
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<p><em>Ah well. I am still happy to have done it,</em> she thought. <em>And perhaps we will find our own way to build reputation that does not involve a constant game of make believe.</em></p>
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<p>“Thank you again for your trust, Jonas,” she said, standing. Neither the booth nor the couch had been all that kind on her tail. “I am going to go do some digging in the recent news from the NEAC and wait for our dear Yared to get in touch with us again.”</p>
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<p>He nodded up to her. “Alright. I’ll be in touch, I’m sure.”</p>
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<p>He laughed and waved her away.</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-10-22</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-11-17</p>
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