update from sparkleup
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<p><a href="ideas.html">Notes and ideas</a></p>
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<h2 id="current">Current</h2>
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<ul>
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<li class="done3"> <a href="post-self/neviim/index.html">Nevi’im</a></li>
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<li class="done2"> <a href="post-self/mitzvot/index.html">Mitzvot</a></li>
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<h2 id="mfa">MFA</h2>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-05-04</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-05-16</p>
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<article class="content">
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<h1 id="ioan-balan-2349">Ioan Bălan — 2349</h1>
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<p><em>How has this become my life?</em> Ioan thought — as ey always did — when stepping away from home to the now familiar café.</p>
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<p>May had — as she always did — dotted her nose against eir cheek, licked at eir nose a little too wetly, and said, “Good luck, have fun, say hi for me, and do not die,” and then ey stepped from home to arrive in front of the squat wood paneled coffee shop. The same sign proclaiming “Open 24 hours” fading in the sun. The same chipper baristas. The same sparklingly clean espresso machine. The same couch in the corner.</p>
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<p>May had — as she always did — dotted her nose against eir cheek, licked at eir nose a little too wetly, and said, “Good luck, have fun, and do not die,” and then ey stepped from home to arrive in front of the squat wood paneled coffee shop. The same sign proclaiming “Open 24 hours” fading in the sun. The same chipper baristas. The same sparklingly clean espresso machine. The same couch in the corner.</p>
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<p>The same thing, month after month, stepping into the coffee shop to order the same coffee — delicious as always — and wait for the same True Name to arrive.</p>
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<p>Their standard greeting would be for Ioan to stand and bow — ey was always there too early — set up a cone of silence, and share a bit of chit-chat, however many little nothings felt appropriate for the day, for the month since they’d last seen each other, before settling back down on the L-shaped couch, each to work on their own projects.</p>
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<p>Then, as ever, one or the other of them would call an end to the meeting, if meeting it was, and they’d stand once more, bow as always, and each would step back home.</p>
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<p>“Some day you should,” she had said. “Though it is my suspicion that she is, as you have said, losing her easy confidence. She is struggling with the fact that she must constantly dump energy into keeping up the appearance of always being so in control.”</p>
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<p>Ioan had leaned back in eir chair, ey remembered, and stared up at the ceiling. “That certainly tallies with what she’s said in the past.”</p>
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<p>“She is the type of person who will always take more upon herself, more and more and more until she cracks,” May had murmured, quiet enough that Ioan had to strain to hear. “That she has been at this for more than two and a quarter centuries and the strain is only now showing is, if anything, a testament to her strength.”</p>
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<p>Ever since that conversation, that conversation would rise to the fore of eir memory whenever ey met up with the other skunk for coffee. They would have their conversation, sip their coffees, and then get down to whatever projects they were working on, and there would always be a small portion of eir mind dedicated to squaring what ey knew of her with just how old she was.</p>
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<p>What ey’d not managed to bring up in that conversation, however, was that ey seemed plagued with a deep-seated desire to help. Somehow. Ey wanted to find what it was that was wearing so much on True Name and find a way to ease it. There was a problem there, and problems were made for solving, yes?</p>
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<p>It was something about em that May doubtless knew, but which ey’d never shared with the skunk, because ey knew that her response would either be the gentle teasing that she was so good at heaping on em or the gentle inquisition that she was equally adept at conducting. She’d ask em where the feeling stemmed from; was it from within eir mind, or within eir heart? Was it related to <em>all</em> problems? Was it because True Name looked so much like her, eir partner? When had it started? Launch? Convergence? Never mind if it were a problem that ey could not solve, as was almost certainly the case, what would ey do if it was a problem she did not <em>want</em> solved?</p>
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<p>Ever since that day, that conversation would rise to the fore of eir memory whenever ey met up with the other skunk for coffee. They would have their conversation, sip their coffees, and then get down to whatever projects they were working on, and there would always be a small portion of eir mind dedicated to squaring what ey knew of her with just how old she was.</p>
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<p>What ey’d not managed to bring up in that conversation, however, was that ey seemed plagued with a pathological desire to help. Somehow. Ey wanted to find what it was that was wearing so much on True Name and find a way to ease it. There was a problem there, and problems were made for solving, yes?</p>
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<p>It was something about em that May doubtless knew, but which ey’d never shared with her, because ey knew that her response would either be the gentle teasing that she was so good at heaping on em or the gentle inquisition that she was equally adept at conducting. She’d ask em where the feeling stemmed from; was it from within eir mind, or within eir heart? Was it related to <em>all</em> problems? Was it because True Name looked so much like her, eir partner? When had it started? Launch? Convergence? Never mind if it were a problem that ey could not solve, as was almost certainly the case, what would ey do if it was a problem she did not <em>want</em> solved?</p>
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<p>Ey knew she’d ask em those questions because whenever ey asked them of emself, ey heard them in her voice. Even when ey’d asked Sarah, eir therapist (or, well, all three of their therapists), there was some subconscious overlay of the skunk’s lilting voice floating above the question, and ey’d find emself dropping contractions and leaning on the anaphora that all Odists seemed stuck with.</p>
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<p>“You seem particularly lost in thought today, Ioan.”</p>
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<p>Ey jolted at the sudden intrusion of a voice on eir thoughts, then smiled sheepishly at True Name. “Sorry about that. I hope I wasn’t mumbling to myself.”</p>
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<p>True Name looked up to the ceiling, head tilted thoughtfully. “I do not think there is any disputing that I will load myself up with responsibility to the point of overloading. I remember some of that from before I was forked, though I do not think Michelle was of quite the same temperament. She took on more than she could handle more out of a sense of social obligation than…whatever it is that drives me.”</p>
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<p>“Determination? Persistence?”</p>
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<p>She shrugged. “Perhaps. What is it that Dear says so often? “I do not make art because I know why; if I knew why, I would not need to make art”? It is like that for me. I do not strive because I know what drives me. If I knew what that was, who knows if I would continue to strive?”</p>
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<p>Ey marveled, as ey so often did, at just how many of the Odists seem to speak in well structured paragraphs. Hook, hypothesis, synthesis.</p>
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<p>Ey marveled, as ey so often did, at just how many of the Odists seem to speak in well structured paragraphs. Thesis, hypothesis, synthesis.</p>
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<p>“It seems like it’s wearing on you,” ey said. Realizing that it had been nearly five minutes of em trying to psych emself up to say so, ey added, “All that you’ve got going on, I mean.”</p>
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<p>She frowned, leaned forward to pick up her coffee, and took a lapping sip. “Does it? I am feeling increasingly overloaded, yes, but that is not new. How is it visible?”</p>
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<p>“You just seem more tired every time I see you.”</p>
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<p>“Oh?”</p>
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<p>“The expanded ACLs on cones of silence, for example. It is nice to be able to obscure the occupants, yes? No more hiding one’s mouth or expression. Limiting sensorium messages into or out of them by individual or clade is also quite nice for guaranteeing information security. Your interlocutor cannot be used to spy on you, yes? But how does one pass on the knowledge of the upgrades to the System? There are various feeds, yes, but even something as small as that requires some thought put into how to announce it. Do we hail it as a technological advancement, or do we put a tone of resignation on it, as though we have been given something no one wanted? Perhaps we announce it with a resounding chorus of “fucking <em>finally</em>”.”</p>
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<p>“It seems to have gone over well, at least.”</p>
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<p>“It did, yes.” Then, with a tilt of her head, ey felt the ACL-scape of the cone they were within shift, and there was a subtle blurring to the world around them as she opaqued the cone from the outside. “Now considers the effects of A/V transmission between sys- and phys-side.”</p>
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<p>“It did, yes.” Then, with a tilt of her head, ey felt the ACL-scape of the cone they were within shift, and there was a subtle blurring to the world around them as she opaqued the cone from the outside. “Now consider the effects of A/V transmission between sys- and phys-side.”</p>
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<p>Ey blinked and sat up straighter. “Wait, what?”</p>
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<p>“You see? Much thought must be put into managing expectations.”</p>
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<p>“Back up a moment. Are we going to actually get that?”</p>
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<p>She laughed. “Holy shit, indeed. I have no clue as to the tech that goes into it, which is made all the more complicated from it being inspired by our dear Artemisian friends, but what I do know is that this will shift many of the plans in place around stability. When I sit here in silence, drinking my coffee and looking deep in thought, I am working on that. I write my speeches or talk with my cocladists or other versions of myself, and fill out the exo I have dedicated to the topic.”</p>
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<p>“And that wears you out?” Ey hastened to add, “Not to say that it isn’t work, of course.”</p>
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<p>The skunk gave a hint of a bow in acknowledgement. “It is part of a larger work landscape in progress, yes. So much to keep in my head, so many conversations to be had, so many tiny social interactions to monitor, both in person and over the text of the perisystem feeds.”</p>
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<p>Ey nodded. There was so much to process in just the new tech, not to mention the reminder that, even if ey’d long since started thinking of True Name as a complete and complex person and not some shady villain, she still had her fingers in just about every political pie that could possibly exist on the three incarnations of the System.</p>
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<p>Ey nodded. There was so much to process in just the new tech, not to mention the reminder that, even if ey’d long since started thinking of True Name as a complete and complex person and not some shady, two-dimensional villain, she still had her fingers in just about every political pie that could possibly exist on the three incarnations of the System.</p>
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<p>“Does writing not wear you out, Ioan?”</p>
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<p>“Well, sometimes,” ey hedged. “I guess it depends on what all is going into whatever it is that I’m writing. The <em>History</em> wore me out at some points, particularly during research, but for the most part, writing was just…what I did. It didn’t wear me out any more than breathing might.”</p>
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<p>She laughed. “And theatre?”</p>
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<p>“Oh, that definitely wears me out.”</p>
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<p>“I remember that, yes. Even just standing backstage, waiting for one’s moment to enter felt exhausting sometimes. I would get all worn out and want nothing more than to go home and fall over, afterwards.”</p>
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<p>“Didn’t you go get shitty diner food or whatever?”</p>
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<p>“Oh, nearly every time,” she said, grinning. “I would never let so sacred an act be spoiled by something as silly as sleep.”</p>
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<p>Ey nodded. “A Finger Pointing holds to it like a ritual, yeah. It’s a toss up whether or not she drinks me under the table.”</p>
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<p>“Oh, nearly every time,” she said, grinning. “I would never let so sacred a ritual be spoiled by something as silly as sleep.”</p>
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<p>Ey nodded. “A Finger Pointing holds to it like a ritual, yeah. It’s a toss up whether or not she drinks us all under the table.”</p>
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<p>“Of course.” The skunk grinned and finished her coffee before setting it down on the table. “We studied long and hard to build up such a tolerance.”</p>
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<p>“Doesn’t sound super healthy.”</p>
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<p>“I suppose not. At least, not back phys-side.”</p>
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<p>Ey nodded. “Sure. Until next time?”</p>
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<p>The skunk stood and bowed. “Yes. Until next time. Enjoy the rest of your day, my dear.”</p>
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<p>The cone of silence dropped, letting in a jolt of noise, and the skunk stepped from the sim. Ey finished eir coffee, then stepped back home.</p>
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<p>“I am pleased to see that you did not die,” May said, looking up from her notebook, grinning.</p>
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<p>Ey kicked off eir shoes and set down eir own notebook on her desk before walking over to give the skunk a kiss between the ears. “Nope, not yet. Stuck with me for a while yet.”</p>
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<p>“I am pleased to see that you did not die,” May said, looking up from her notebook.</p>
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<p>Ey kicked off eir shoes and set down eir own notebook on eir desk before walking over to give the skunk a kiss between the ears. “Nope, not yet. Stuck with me for a while yet.”</p>
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<p>She set her pen down and stretched her arms up over her head before leaning up to dot her nose against eirs, arms draped up around eir shoulders. “Good, I am not finished wringing all I can out of you. One day, you will be left a broken husk of a Bălan and I will move on to my next victim.”</p>
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<p>Shaking eir head, ey returned that nosepress before straightening up. “You’re doing a crap job of it, May. You keep adding to my life rather than taking away from it.”</p>
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<p>She laughed. “Even when you are joking, you are adorable. Love you too, my dear. How was True Name?”</p>
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<p>“I will tell you if I would like to drop the topic, I promise,” she said, then laughed. “Sorry, my dear. I did not mean to interrupt.”</p>
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<p>“No, it’s okay. She actually did that quite well today.” Ey leaned eir head back on the beanbag. “I asked why she kept up with me with the coffee meetings, and she said that it’s just nice to have a friend.”</p>
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<p>May tilted her head up, enough to bump eir nose against the underside of eir chin. “Are you? Friends, I mean.”</p>
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<p>“That’s what we talked about. Neither of us could really decided on anything beyond ‘friends for lack of a better term’.” Ey hesitated, feeling incredibly conscious of eir partner resting against em, her stated resentment of her down-tree instance, how that had bordered for so long on hatred. Ey continued, speaking carefully, “I like having interesting people to talk to and she’s been pretty good company. She likes having someone to just be around and talk with that isn’t herself or Jonas.”</p>
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<p>“That’s what we talked about. Neither of us could really decide on anything beyond ‘friends for lack of a better term’.” Ey hesitated, feeling incredibly conscious of eir partner resting against em, her stated resentment of her down-tree instance, how that had bordered for so long on hatred. Ey continued, speaking carefully, “I like having interesting people to talk to and she’s been pretty good company. She likes having someone to just be around and talk with that isn’t herself or Jonas.”</p>
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<p>“Are they still not getting along?”</p>
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<p>“Worse, maybe. That’s where she requested that I drop the topic. She said that they made good coworkers, but not necessarily friends, and I asked if that was always the case, and she said she wasn’t comfortable having that conversation. Very politely, of course, but it looked like it took a lot of effort.”</p>
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<p>“Mm.” The skunk lowered her muzzle again, letting em peek down at her again. “I have been working on how I define myself in relation to True Name. I do not like that I spent so long hating her. I do not want that to be a part of who I am. I hold no such compunctions about Jonas, though, and I am sorry that she still feels she must engage with him. He was a piece of shit then and he is far worse now.”</p>
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<p>“What, ‘fuck you too’?” The skunk shook her head. “It just sounds so strange coming from your mouth.”</p>
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<p>“I’m not as good at the well placed profanity as all of you.”</p>
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<p>“It is an art we have perfected. It increases the impact when they do show up. Even True Name does it, I am sure.”</p>
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<p>“She has once or twice, yeah. You two still sound much the same, though, in terms of your voices, so I feel like I’m used to it.”</p>
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<p>“She has once or twice, yeah. You two still sound similar enough in terms of your voices, so I feel like I’m used to it.”</p>
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<p>May nodded, leaned down, and licked em squarely across the nose before settling down on eir front again. “Yes, I suppose we do. Here is where we drop the topic, however.”</p>
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<p>“Alright,” ey said, wiping eir face. “Want dinner?”</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-05-08</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-05-16</p>
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<p>“We all have a bit of that in us, do we not? You find yourself at a bar or maybe in some class somewhere, you look over, and there they are, right? You look over and you maybe catch their eye and you come undone at the seams. You fall into those big, beautiful eyes — for when you are built to love, every eye that catches yours is the most beautiful thing of all time — and you begin to flake away at the edges.</p>
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<p>“And to be built to love is to be all edges. They catch on your clothes, they brush against walls and furniture. You are all edges so that love can fill the cracks and soften those jagged corners.</p>
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<p>“You are spiked and barbed. You are almost built that way on purpose, so that the slightest breeze can blow you about and catch you up on some future love.”</p>
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<p>The skunk had been sitting on a barstool, hunched over a pint and slurring half to the glass, half to some absent bartender. She slid to her feet, wobbled for a moment, the righted herself.</p>
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<p>The skunk had been sitting on a barstool, hunched over a pint and slurring half to the glass, half to some absent bartender. She slid to her feet, wobbled for a moment, then righted herself.</p>
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<p>“Actually, you know what? I have heard it said so many times that to hate — truly hate, burn up inside with that passion — is to actually be in love with the object of your hatred, but I think there is a little bit of hatred in love, too. You fall so completely for someone that you just cannot help but resent them. It is a mirror of that hatred for yourself, for all your jagged edges and prickly burrs, a reflection of the resentment that you feel towards yourself for having been built to love. And look at me!” She gestured down at herself, a grand sweep of the paw outsized in her intoxication. “I fuckin’ loathe myself! Can you imagine how deeply I must love others, then?”</p>
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<p>After a moment’s wild laughter, she stumbled back until her tail crumpled against the edge of the stool. “Ow! Fuck. Yeah, I deserved that one, I think.”</p>
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<p>She moved to finish her pint, frowned on finding it empty, and shuffled away from the bar.</p>
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<p>Ey shared a secret smile with emself as the skunk trailed off, continuing to write, tongue-tip peeking out from her muzzle.</p>
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<p>“Also,” she said once she’d finished. “The answer is that I do not know how many of me are still in relationships. There are at least three, and I know of at least five that have quit, though I declined the merges out of privacy. I never made it a requirement that they keep in touch. Beyond that, I think there are…mm, seven, perhaps?”</p>
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<p>“So that makes me your sixteenth relationship?”</p>
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<p>“Something like that, yes.” She slid over and swung her legs up onto the stage so that she could rest her head in eir lap. “Did my monologue really get you thinking about all this?”</p>
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<p>“Something like that, yes. Sixteenth truly serious one.” She slid over and swung her legs up onto the stage so that she could rest her head in eir lap. “Did my monologue really get you thinking about all this?”</p>
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<p>“It’s a good monologue,” ey said, petting over her ears. “Or start, at least. You said it should be five minutes, right?”</p>
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<p>She nodded. “Around that, yes. I am still working on it.”</p>
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<p>“Mmhm. It’s good so far, though. It got me thinking, but I’m also just fascinated by you, which helps.”</p>
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<p>“Absolutely not, no.”</p>
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<p>Ey tugged on her ear. “Fascinated and annoyed.”</p>
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<p>“Yes, well, too bad. You remain stuck with me, Mx. Bălan.” She continued more seriously, “I did not expect this to be fascinating to you. I try to be careful talking about my other relationships.”</p>
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<p>“I don’t really mind,” ey said after giving it due thought. “That was past May, right? It’d be like getting upset over someone having had relationships in the past, or having exes. If it were multiple partners at the same time, that’d probably be a separate conversation.”</p>
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<p>“I don’t really mind,” ey said after giving it due thought. “That was past May, right? It’d be like getting upset over someone else having had relationships in the past, or you having exes. If it were multiple partners at the same time, that’d probably be a separate conversation.”</p>
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<p>She shook her head. “I could not do that. I am not built the same as Dear. I am only in multiple relationships in the sense that there are multiple mes, but only ever one me involved with one other.”</p>
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<p>“Why?”</p>
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<p>“Because,” she said, rolling onto her back so that she could smile up to em. “I am also helpless before devotion, and that takes the whole of me.”</p>
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<p>“And Douglas?”</p>
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<p>Her answer was a while in coming. “Were our friendship to head in that direction, I would fork, but I do not foresee that being the case.”</p>
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<p>“Really?” Ey frowned. “Wouldn’t that be awkward? Us going over there to see him and the other you together?”</p>
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<p>“Oh, incredibly awkward,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I have done similar in the past, and it would take a year or two to shake out. It is uncomfortable for me, as well, as I am left with the same attachment even as my up-tree instance gets fulfillment.”</p>
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<p>“Oh, incredibly awkward,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I have done similar in the past, and it would take a year or two to shake out. It is uncomfortable for me, as well, as I am left with the same desire even as my up-tree instance gets fulfillment.”</p>
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<p>“I can imagine.”</p>
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<p>“No, Ioan, I do not think you can,” she said primly. “You actually think about the way you feel as you are feeling it like a normal person rather than just crashing headlong into overwhelming emotions like a fucking Odist.”</p>
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<p>“Well, fair.”</p>
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<p>“Ow!” Ey laughed and tapped a finger on her nose lightly. “You’re adorable.”</p>
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<p>She licked at eir fingertip, saying, “Thank you, my dear, in all earnestness. It makes me happy to be able to have a conversation about this.”</p>
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<p>“Of course, May. I figure it ought to be an open topic for us.”</p>
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<p>She nodded and stretched out on the stage. “Agreed. We can come back to it later, though. I would like to run this through once more,” she said, waggling the notebook at em. “And then head home to get ready for dinner, though. Debarre is coming over and I plan on flirting with him outrageously in front of you all night to make you as jealous as I can.”</p>
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<p>She nodded and stretched out on the stage. “Agreed. We can come back to it later, though. I would like to run this through once more,” she said, waggling the notebook at em. “And then head home to get ready for dinner. Debarre is coming over and I plan on flirting with him outrageously in front of you all night to make you as jealous as I can.”</p>
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<p>Ey laughed and pushed at her until she sat up before sliding off the stage and walking back to eir seat. “Alright. Once more, from the top.”</p>
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