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<p>Ioan,</p>
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<p>I’m breaking my communications embargo to message you directly in the strictest confidence. I don’t know the details, but I’m pretty sure this will pass through Castor without pinging Codrin or my exes (or anyone, for that matter). The last thing I want is yet another tearful letter from any of them just because my name flashed across their feeds.</p>
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<p>Well. I say ‘yet another tearful letter’, but there’s only been three — one for each of them — so I’m hardly being bombarded, but I just…I can’t, Ioan.</p>
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<p>I need to talk to someone about this. I need to talk to someone who truly understands. I talk to Sarah quite a bit, of course, both in a therapeutic and a professional context, but there needs to be that sense of connection to the matter on a more personal level than just therapist to client. She’s a delight to work with and an amazing teacher (as are Artante and Anin Li).</p>
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<p>In our sessions, we came up with a very specific way to deal with this decision that I’ve made. In order to ensure that I can learn to cherish who I was and who was in my life, I need to reinforce the positive memories of what I had. I need to make sure that those are stronger than the negative ones. I don’t want that final, terrible morning to weigh on me more strongly than all of the good times that we had together.</p>
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<p>You know, it’s weird, though. I say ‘final, terrible morning’. At the time, I don’t remember it being so terrible. Final, yes, but not terrible. I remember being very tired. I remember waking up and slipping away from Dear and █████ and making coffee in a cone of silence. I remember walking out onto the prairie. I remember suddenly seeing Codrin beside me, walking, head down in thought, as I focused on becoming me as quickly as possible. I remember walking past that brand new failing in the land with Codrin and not even having the mental capacity to think about it. All I remember doing was forking with each step, becoming who I am by the second and trying to move as far away from the life I had without losing my sense of self.</p>
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<p>I need to talk to someone about this. I need to talk to someone who truly understands. I talk to Sarah quite a bit, of course, both in a therapeutic and a professional context, but there needs to be that sense of connection to the matter on a more personal level than just therapist to client. She’s a delight to work with and an amazing teacher.</p>
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<p>In our sessions, we came up with a very specific way to deal with this decision that I’ve made. In order to ensure that I can learn to cherish who I was and who was in my life, I need to reinforce the positive memories of what I had. I need to make sure that those are stronger than the negative ones. I don’t want that final, terrible morning to weigh on me more heavily than all of the good times that we had together.</p>
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<p>You know, it’s weird, though. I say ‘final, terrible morning’. At the time, I don’t remember it being so terrible. Final, yes, but not terrible. I remember being very tired. I remember waking up and slipping away from Dear and █████ and making coffee in a cone of silence. I remember walking out onto the prairie. I remember suddenly seeing Codrin beside me, walking, head down in thought, as I focused on becoming me as quickly as possible. I remember walking past that brand new failing in the land with Codrin and not even having the mental capacity to think about it. All I remember was forking with each step, becoming who I am by the second and trying to move as far away from the life I had without losing my sense of self.</p>
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<p>It wasn’t terrible. It was busy. It was purpose-driven. It was constructive. I walked from that cairn to the next with Codrin beside me and then we talked for, what, five minutes? Ten? And then I kissed em on the cheek, grabbed a stone from the cairn, and left. I still have the stone somewhere. I hid it from view a while back and have forgotten where I put it.</p>
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<p>It’s not a terrible memory. The worst part was Codrin asking if I wanted to go back and say goodbye, but that was over in a flash as I made my decision not to.</p>
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<p>The rest of the morning wasn’t even that bad. I stepped to Convergence and waited for True Name to show up and then walked into Customs and I was off to Artemis.</p>
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<p>Codrin was the first to contact me, about a month after I left. Eir message was…well, I said tearful, but I’m struggling to put it any other way. It was just text on a page, but if it had been an actual letter, mailed across the millions of kilometers between Castor and Artemis, delivered to my stoop, surely the ink would have run from a tear drop or two. I could hear eir emotion through the page, and I could feel the very same tugging in my heart that I knew ey was feeling, for are we not alike?</p>
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<p>But we aren’t, Ioan. We rushed that differentiation, that individuation, didn’t we? We pushed as hard as we could for me to be a different person from em, and all we had in common was a last name and a history.</p>
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<p>I haven’t heard since in the years since I arrived, but I worry that ey’s still heartbroken. There must be some word for that little piece of yourself that lives on in your up-tree instances, even if it’s only the memory that they were borne from you. There has to be a word for that feeling of shared identity that is incomplete enough that one is not the same.</p>
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<p>I haven’t heard from em since in the time since I arrived, but I worry that ey’s still heartbroken. There must be some word for that little piece of yourself that lives on in your up-tree instances, even if it’s only the memory that they were borne from you. There has to be a word for that feeling of shared identity that is incomplete enough that one is not the same.</p>
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<p>The next two letters, the ones from my exes, came at the same time about a month ago. I wouldn’t call those nearly so heartbroken as Codrin’s, but I could tell that eir pain was affecting them as well.</p>
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<p>I don’t <em>want</em> them to hurt, though! I don’t want them to hurt. I want us all to move on. I want to continue being, as I have been, happy here. I want to continue in the process of healing from trauma. I want <em>them</em> to continue in the process of healing from trauma. I want them to remain whole and I want to be whole myself.</p>
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<p>Clearly, I’m not.</p>
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<p>That’s not what happened, though. I got right to work with Sarah and Artante, and later Anin Li, learning all of these really amazing therapeutic techniques (such as reframing my old partners as exes, even if there was no real break-up event) that help me just as much as they help everyone else.</p>
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<p>They still have each other back on Castor, though. They still love each other, living out on that prairie in that ridiculous house, and all their letters serve to do is to drag me back into that mindset.</p>
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<p>The real crux — really, the real reason this is all making me panic so much — is that I’m forgetting.</p>
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<p>Forgetting! How novel, right?</p>
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<p>Forgetting! How novel!</p>
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<p>I remember what Dear smelled like, the feeling of its fur on my face. I remember the way its ears would bob when it shook its head.</p>
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<p>And the food! God, I remember the food. If there’s one thing I miss, it’s all the wonderful food. A bunch of fifthracers here are starting to set up restaurants, and some of fourthrace’s food is pretty good, but it’s not food from home, you know?</p>
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<p>But I can’t remember the sound of their voices. I can’t remember our everyday mundane conversations. I can’t remember what the quiet house was like, when we were all working on our own projects in our own spaces, each of us heads down over some creative problem, poking and prodding for weaknesses in whatever blocked us until we could have a breakthrough and go show the others.</p>
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13 er-ularaeäl, 4778 Artemis Reckoning</p>
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<h2 id="aurel-balan-the-balan-clade">Aurel Bălan — The Bălan clade</h2>
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<p>The Bălan clade,</p>
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<p>For as often as we talk about being trackers, I sometimes wonder if we aren’t maybe more aligned with the Odists than we give ourselves credit for. Not the structure, perhaps, but to hear May and Dear talk, this idea that each of the first lines would fork to explore an interest isn’t that unfamiliar to us, is it? We fork to work on projects and usually merge back, and yet when we are taken up by fixation, individuation sets in and we are suddenly no longer who we were.</p>
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<p>For as often as we talk about being trackers, I sometimes wonder if we aren’t maybe more aligned with the Odists’ approach to dissolution than we give ourselves credit for. Not the structure, perhaps, but to hear May and Dear talk, this idea that each of the first lines would fork to explore an interest isn’t that unfamiliar to us, is it? We fork to work on projects and usually merge back, and yet when we are taken up by fixation, individuation sets in and we are suddenly no longer who we were.</p>
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<p>That’s not all the Odists do, though — and, apparently, it’s not all we do, either. They have their secret, long-lived selves, those who drift away from who they used to be, and they fork often enough to work on a task. Their instances will linger to track a task from start to finish and then they’ll merge back down, just as we did.</p>
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<p>All this by way of greeting. Ioan and I have flipped a coin as to who would be the one to send this letter, for even though ey’s listed as the sole author, that I am borne from the work that went into <em>Individuation and Reconciliation</em> — and indeed <em>was</em> em for much of its writing — gave me some claim over writing this.</p>
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<p>All this by way of greeting. Ioan and I have flipped a coin as to who would be the one to send this letter, for even though ey’s listed as the sole author, that I am borne from the work that went into <em>Individuation and Reconciliation</em> — and indeed <em>was</em> em for much of its writing — means that I do have some claim over writing this.</p>
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<p>Attached is the full manuscript. This is one that I’d like to be very careful with given its contents. The ways in which it will affect the entirety of the Ode, Jonas, and Bălan clades are too complicated to wholly understand, so the more input we can have on it, the better.</p>
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<p>Through a winding series of events following the ordeal between Sasha and Jonas, then between Sasha (<em>née</em> True Name) and the rest of the Ode clade, we’ve found use for yet another one of us. I chose the name ‘Aurel’ mostly on a whim, as well as in response to some gentle ribbing about gender from a few people now. A name with diminutives that can head masculine or feminine seemed like a simple way to explore that a bit more. As I’ve stated in the past, I like being a Ioan and have never enjoyed ‘Ioana’ (two many bad memories from school, perhaps?), but we’re nothing if not deliberate, right?</p>
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<p>Through a winding series of events following the ordeal between Sasha and Jonas, then between Sasha (<em>née</em> True Name) and the rest of the Ode clade, we’ve found use for yet another one of us. I chose the name ‘Aurel’ mostly on a whim, as well as in response to some gentle ribbing about gender from a few people now. A name with diminutives that can head masculine or feminine seemed like a simple way to explore that a bit more. As I’ve stated in the past, I like being a Ioan and have never enjoyed ‘Ioana’ (too many bad memories from school, perhaps?), but we’re nothing if not deliberate, right?</p>
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<p>I will likely only be around off and on, forked as needed to track this intermittent identity, so if at all possible, avoid individual eyes-only material for me. I don’t know if quitting and merging back down, then forking again will let me access eyes-only stuff should it arrive after the fact. I’ll be testing that over the next time I merge back down, and I’ll let you know the results. There’s some info on the perisystem feeds, but not as much as I would like, so, better safe than sorry.</p>
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<p>Separate letters for each of you to follow.</p>
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<p><strong>SORINA BĂLAN INDIVIDUAL-EYES-ONLY MATERIAL</strong></p>
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<p>Sorina, you are welcome to offer what input you might have or completely disregard the manuscript. I know that your relationship with the Odists is complicated, and the last thing I want to do is make you feel bad without recourse. I’ve only been Aurel for a few weeks now, so I have memories of our all of our correspondences to date.</p>
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<p>Sorina, you are welcome to offer what input you might have or completely disregard the manuscript. I know that your relationship with the Odists is complicated, and the last thing I want to do is make you feel bad without recourse. I’ve only been Aurel for a few weeks now, so I have memories of all of our correspondences to date.</p>
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<p>To that end, I’ve set a portion of this letter as eyes-only for Codrin largely due to the context of our relationships with the Odists — em with Dear, Ioan with May, and now me with Sasha. I don’t want to come off as hiding anything from you, but I do want to ask before I send a bunch of stuff that might cause distress given all that’s been going on of late.</p>
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<p>On that note, how are you doing? We’ve been quite worried about you. I know that trying to balance the emotional pain of being so far away from your exes and Codrin doesn’t play well with the ownership of your life that goes with individuation and being the only Bălan on Artemis.</p>
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<p>On that note, how are you doing? We’ve been quite worried about you. I know that trying to balance the emotional pain of being so far away from your exes and Codrin doesn’t play well with the ownership of your life that comes with individuation and being the only Bălan on Artemis.</p>
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<p>Know that Ioan and thus I love you for all of your individuality and strength. Stay safe, stay in touch, okay?</p>
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<p><strong>END</strong></p>
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<p><strong>CODRIN BĂLAN INDIVIDUAL-EYES-ONLY MATERIAL</strong></p>
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<p>Please feel free to take your time with it, but we really would like to hear your thoughts on both the project and the events. Releasing something on any one system is essentially equivalent to releasing it on all three Systems, so we can’t simply release it here and see what happens before sending it over to the LVs. Do you have any expectations as to the reception given the general mood of the various societies? I will note that this has already been given to Jonas here, which means it has doubtless been sent out to Castor and Pollux for them to prepare for its arrival. The events were not quite what the Jonas here on Lagrange was expecting, so I doubt that his expectations on the LVs were all that different.</p>
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<p>I will note that this is in spite of the apparent differences between the societies themselves. I know I wasn’t able to properly articulate it in my letters at the time, as writing letters and writing a book are quite different activities, but it’ll soon become clear that the Jonas lives within these three different societies has diverged little, that all three of them share the same goals they began with perhaps even centuries back and the launches have become yet one more tool.</p>
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<p>And what of the Odists?</p>
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<p>I know that we’re fond of blaming them for how complicated things get sometimes. They seem to heap plenty of blame on themselves, for that matter. E.W. (<em>né</em> End Waking) spoke to this several times, describing their clade identity as a sort of idolatry, and not in a positive wa.</p>
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<p>I know that we’re fond of blaming them for how complicated things get sometimes. They seem to heap plenty of blame on themselves, for that matter. E.W. (<em>né</em> End Waking) spoke to this several times, describing their clade identity as a sort of idolatry, and certainly not in a positive way.</p>
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<p>I’m starting to wonder just how universal that is, though. How much is their complication a factor in others’ lives? I suspect for more people than not, they’re simply weird. Dear’s weird. May’s weird. Were he to speak with anyone else with any regularity, I’m sure that many would find E.W. weird too.</p>
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<p>But complicated? How much of that is just observation bias? Do they seem complicated because their relationships with us are complicated? Dear’s relationship with you two is full of complications that we initially chalked up to the fact that Dear’s weird. May’s relationship with Ioan is full of complications that we initially chalked up to True Name making her what she is and shoving her Ioan’s way.</p>
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<p>And now here I am, having wound up in yet another relationship with yet another Odist. Or perhaps more than one. It is unclear to me<sup id="fnref:multiskunk"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:multiskunk">1</a></sup> just how to count Sasha in terms of quantities. She is that of True Name, that of E.W., and that of May, and yet there’s this fourth part of four that is something new, something else.</p>
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(transmission delays)</p>
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<p>All,</p>
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<p>I know that the transmission delays are starting to make conversations around this awkward. It’ll be four months before I hear back from Pollux and I don’t even know how long from Artemis (Sorina, please don’t feel obligated to respond; never mind the distance, I can see how this would be uncomfortable). Still, I’ve just gotten Aurel’s letter, and figured I should probably update the clade on current goings on.</p>
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<p>I know that the transmission delays are starting to make conversations around this awkward. It’ll be four months before I hear back from Pollux and I don’t even know how long from Artemis (Sorina, please don’t feel obligated to respond; never mind the distance, I can see how this would be uncomfortable). Still, I’ve just finished the book that came with Aurel’s letter, and figured I should probably update the clade on current goings on before I address that.</p>
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<p>Dear, Serene, and I had a chance to sit down with █████ and come to a better understanding all around. They expressed that, while they’re quite happy for us and who we’ve become, the three of us have all diverged so far in the last 25 years that the shape of the relationship just wasn’t comfortable for them. They apologized for leaving in the way that they did, but said that if they didn’t do so all at once, they’d never have the courage and would just get more and more uncomfortable. They initially used the word ‘miserable’ at which both Dear and I got quite upset, but they quickly amended that to ‘uncomfortable’. </p>
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<p>They don’t really know how to feel about the ways in which we’ve changed, and, honestly, the more we talked, the more I came to agree with them. Their prime example was the ways in which welcoming Serene in changed the dynamics between us. It changed Dear, in particular, and while they like the new Dear, it’s not the same one they fell in love with.</p>
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<p>It all makes sense. There was no acrimony (though there were plenty of tears). They’re going to take a while off and figure out how they feel a little bit better before either reengaging or stepping away for good.</p>
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<p>It makes sense, yes, but that doesn’t make it feel any better. Our experiences with loss are limited and all bound up in trauma. What am I to do with this? What am I to do with emotions that have wrecked not only me, but also a loved one? We can support each other to some extent, but we each grieve in our own complex ways. We’ve stepped on each other’s toes more than once by missing the mark in our support.</p>
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<p>Serene, of all of us, has been the most successful at managing her reaction. Of course, she spent the least amount of time with them of all of us and has been away for a while now anyway, but she’s expressed quite a bit of guilt for what she sees as her role as catalyst. Still, she’s somehow managed to sneak in a tightly regimented day for the three of us without either Dear or I noticing, and that’s helped. We still wake at the same time, still eat and work and walk and talk together as those in love ought, and perhaps that gives us room to process, but we’re all still hurting.</p>
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<p>So yes, it makes sense, but that doesn’t make it feel any better. Our experiences with loss are limited and all bound up in trauma. What am I to do with this? What am I to do with emotions that have wrecked not only me, but also a loved one? We can support each other to some extent, but we each grieve in our own complex ways. We’ve stepped on each other’s toes more than once by missing the mark in our support.</p>
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<p>Serene, of all of us, has been the most successful at managing her reaction. Of course, she spent the least amount of time with them out of all of us and has been away for a while now besides, but she’s expressed quite a bit of guilt for what she sees as her role as catalyst. Still, she’s somehow managed to sneak in a tightly regimented day for the three of us without either Dear or I noticing, and that’s helped. We still wake at the same time, still eat and work and walk and talk together as those in love ought, and perhaps that gives us room to process, but we’re all still hurting.</p>
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<p>Anyway, that’s the state of mind I’ve been in, so it’s obviously going to color a lot of my response to <em>Individuation and Reconciliation</em>.</p>
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<p>The larger part of me is impressed — not just at the goings on and how convoluted everything got so quickly, but at the writing. Well done, you two. I’ll admit to being curious how Jonas is going to spin this in order to keep working as he’d like, though I don’t doubt his abilities, not least of all because he apparently still has seven of the ten Odists in True Name’s stanza working with him.<sup id="fnref:zack"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:zack">1</a></sup></p>
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<p>The larger part of me is impressed — not just at the goings on and how convoluted everything got so quickly, but at the writing. Well done, you two. I’ll admit to being curious how Jonas is going to spin this in order to keep working as he’d like, though I don’t doubt his abilities, not least of all because he apparently still has seven of the ten Odists in True Name’s stanza working with him<sup id="fnref:zack"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:zack">1</a></sup> and who knows how many others besides.</p>
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<p>And Sasha! I will admit that, when I read about her, I found it almost hard to picture, so I’ll have to largely take your word for it. When Dear read that bit, though, it got incredibly excited and wouldn’t shut up about it for days, so clearly she’s done something more meaningful than either of them can express. <em>“We have all been so afraid of becoming what we were,”</em> it keeps saying, though I can’t quite piece together what it means. It’s even mentioned leaving the clade once or twice. Weird, but I won’t complain: it’s the most active and excited that I’ve seen it in quite a while.</p>
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<p>Still, there is no small part of me that remains worried and cautious. The last time I spoke with True Name here on Pollux, she was quite friendly and relaxed, almost familiar. While this fits with Sasha’s comment about Jonas and Zacharias framing her reaction differently on each System, it doesn’t fit very well with the note that True Name sent back to Lagrange. Perhaps it’s an artifact of this apparent collusion between the LVs. That the notes from both True Name#Castor and #Pollux were identical bespeaks a level of organization surrounding how Sasha was treated in the decades leading up to her assassination attempt — and was to be treated after — that has me worried for her safety and thus Aurel’s, Ioan’s, and May’s.</p>
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<p>How cynical must one be to set up a situation where one’s own fork is left so beaten down? Even if True Name on the LVs was manipulated into doing so, that still requires a certain level of buy-in to go along with, right? I’m inclined to agree with E.W.’s assessment that Jonas is treating politics as a plaything, and would add on that the same is apparently true of many of the Odists.</p>
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<p>Be careful, Ioan and Aurel. Keep May and Sasha safe. Even if their lives aren’t at risk, this is quite a lot. Clearly a sizeable chunk of the clade is quite upset with them, and that can’t be easy.</p>
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<p>Be careful, Ioan and Aurel. Keep May and Sasha safe. Even if their lives aren’t at risk, this is quite a lot. Clearly a sizable chunk of the clade is quite upset with them, and that can’t be easy.</p>
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<p><strong>Ioan and Aurel eyes only</strong></p>
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<p>Confidentially, I’ve had more than one nightmare since █████ left about what might happen to any one of us when confronted with the loss of all our partners. █████ left, but Dear and Serene are here, yes? If they were to leave, if Sasha or May were to leave, what would happen to us?</p>
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<p>This is what I mean by current goings on framing my interpretation of <em>I&R</em>. Sorina has been keeping herself busy, burying herself in work, yes, but what I suspect happened is that Codrin and her rushing individuation during those ten minutes turned missing her exes, as she called them, into part of her identity. She cemented her opinions around them in place in her rush to diverge as quickly as possible. She gave herself the out of ‘being able to quit whenever she wanted’, but without the ability to fork and with her no longer being a Codrin at all, that suddenly veers awfully close to suicide.</p>
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<p>This is what I mean by current goings on framing my interpretation of <em>I&R</em>. Sorina has been keeping herself busy, burying herself in work, yes, but what I suspect happened is that Codrin and her rushing individuation during that last morning turned missing her exes, as she called them, into part of her identity. She cemented her opinions around them in place in her rush to diverge as quickly as possible. She gave herself the out of ‘being able to quit whenever she wanted’, but without the ability to fork and with her no longer being a Codrin at all, that suddenly veers awfully close to suicide.</p>
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<p>She has mechanics on her side to keep herself around, but what do we have? If May or Sasha were to disappear from your lives, I–</p>
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<p>Well.</p>
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<p>I’m not in a good enough spot to finish this letter. I’m sorry.</p>
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<p>Ioan,</p>
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<p>I hope this letter finds you well. I have a question for you.</p>
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<p>I’d like to start with an apology, though, for coming off as so emotional in the last one. As mentioned, I’ve been struggling with my keeping my emotions in check here on Artemis. While I’m far from the only fifthracer to be so afflicted, it doesn’t seem to be a pattern many are worried about. Probably 1-2% of us are affected, and not in such a way as to be debilitating. I know the Odists struggle with the occasional bout of depression, and this is certainly no more dramatic than that.</p>
|
||||
<p>I’d like to start with an apology, though, for coming off as so emotional in the last letter. As mentioned, I’ve been struggling with keeping my emotions in check here on Artemis. While I’m far from the only fifthracer to be so afflicted, it doesn’t seem to be a pattern many are worried about. Probably 1-2% of us are affected, and not in such a way as to be debilitating. I know the Odists struggle with the occasional bout of depression, and this is certainly no more dramatic than that.</p>
|
||||
<p>The drama of such emotions aside, I also don’t think that they are wholly disconnected from reality. Codrin <em>does</em> feel all of those things, and they <em>do</em> make me uncomfortable. However, my reaction to them is something I’ve been working on with Sarah.</p>
|
||||
<p>On to my question, though.</p>
|
||||
<p>Years ago, back when I was newly in a relationship with Dear and █████, I remember thinking to myself that a lot of what I’d labeled boredom was likely loneliness. I’m not totally sure how much I agree with that assessment anymore. It’s not that I <em>wasn’t</em> lonely. I was!<sup id="fnref:iam"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:iam">1</a></sup> I was lonely, but part of me is wondering if the constant interaction that goes along with cohabitation means that more of my time was simply occupied by dealing with others. Dinner with others. Walking the prairie with others. Working with others. Chatting with others. There was always someone around, for Dear rarely left the home entirely. Its inability to stop working meant that there was usually still one of it left around scribbling away at its desk.</p>
|
||||
<p>But all of it? Probably not. I was still bored on occasion, and even now I get bored. One of the things that I noticed even going back to convergence was just how quotidian everything was. Aliens, sure, but they’re also just people, such as it is, living their day-to-day lives. They eat, they sleep, they talk and argue and doubtless make love (I know the fourthracers do, but that’s a subject for a different letter).</p>
|
||||
<p>So now that we’re settling into our own quotidian lives aboard Artemis, we’re experiencing our boredom again. We’re eating, sleeping, talking, arguing, and, yes, making love.</p>
|
||||
<p>Is that what I’m missing?</p>
|
||||
<p>Am I missing the eating-sleeping-talking-arguing-sex that goes along with having a relationship? Is that something I should be seeking out? I don’t know. I’ve never really entered a relationship of my own volition, not entirely. Yes, deciding to date or whatever is a collaborative effort, but the Odists will ever be themselves, and even though its focus was never on the sorts of things that May Then My Name focused on, even it admitted that it, what was it…it “conducted a relentless campaign to wear down some of the emotional barriers that I’d put up.” █████ disagreed with the phrasing, saying that Dear couldn’t turn down a good quip to save its life. <em>“Slander,”</em> it called it.<sup id="fnref:bet"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:bet">2</a></sup></p>
|
||||
<p>Am I missing the eating-sleeping-talking-arguing-sex that goes along with having a relationship? Is that something I should be seeking out? I don’t know. I’ve never really entered a relationship of my own volition, not entirely. Yes, deciding to date or whatever is a collaborative effort, but the Odists will ever be themselves, and even though its focus was never on the sorts of things that May Then My Name focused on, even Dear admitted that it, what was it…it “conducted a relentless campaign to wear down some of the emotional barriers that I’d put up.” █████ disagreed with the phrasing, saying that Dear couldn’t turn down a good quip to save its life. <em>“Slander,”</em> it called it.<sup id="fnref:bet"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:bet">2</a></sup></p>
|
||||
<p>I’m sure I don’t need to elaborate on what you’ve told me of May Then My Name’s own manipulation.</p>
|
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<p>All this to say I’ve never done this before. I’ve never gone and sought out a relationship of my own. Do I date? Go to cafes and try to pick up a partner? Do I go to parties and drink with people until we wind up in bed?</p>
|
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<p>None of these sound like me, or like us. We’re not the type to go and actively seek out a relationship.<sup id="fnref:orsex"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:orsex">3</a></sup> We’re the type to have a relationship fall into our laps and then think and think and think and maybe in the end go along with it. It’s not a bad way of approaching it, all told.</p>
|
||||
<p>But is that something I want? Were a relationship to fall in my lap, would I go along with it? Is ‘picking up people in a cafe/at a party’ just setting up situations where such a thing might happen? I don’t know.</p>
|
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<p>More importantly, <em>should</em> I go along with it? Am I now so lonely that I need to seek out a relationship in order to feel whole again, or is that just me missing my exes?</p>
|
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<p>Maybe it’s worth a try. Nothing need be permanent — both of our partners made sure that was we understood that. I can try, and if it doesn’t work out, fine. It need not be permanent, just as I said my existence here need not be permanent.<sup id="fnref:quit"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:quit">4</a></sup></p>
|
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<p>I’ve written fourteen question marks so far and not yet gotten to the question I wanted to ask. Should I seek out a new relationship <em>before</em> I reengage with my exes? I want to know if I should in general, of course, but in particular, I want to know your thoughts on trying to actively process these thoughts on what relationships mean to me before I go about processing what breakups mean.</p>
|
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<p>Maybe it’s worth a try. Nothing need be permanent — both of our partners made sure that we understood that. I can try, and if it doesn’t work out, fine. It need not be permanent, just as I said my existence here need not be permanent.<sup id="fnref:quit"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:quit">4</a></sup></p>
|
||||
<p>I’ve written twelve question marks so far and not yet gotten to the question I wanted to ask. Should I seek out a new relationship <em>before</em> I reengage with my exes? I want to know if I should in general, of course, but in particular, I want to know your thoughts on trying to actively process these thoughts on what relationships mean to me before I go about processing what breakups mean.</p>
|
||||
<p>I don’t know, I’m feeling my emotions get in the way of my words again. I really don’t mean to dump on you like this, but, as I said, your grounded, anchoring nature makes you an obvious source of comfort. Thank you for listening to me.</p>
|
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<p>All my love,</p>
|
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<p>Sorina Bălan</p>
|
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<p>They bet on my reaction; did I ever tell you that? They planned out this whole conversation with me, with █████ on point while Dear acted as backup. Though they may accuse us of being nerds, they’re hardly innocent in this. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:bet" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text">↩</a></p>
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|
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<p>Or sex, for that matter — it was plenty good, but I am not missing it so badly as to worry about it <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:orsex" title="Jump back to footnote 3 in the text">↩</a></p>
|
||||
<p>Or sex, for that matter — it was plenty nice, but I am not missing it so badly as to worry about it <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:orsex" title="Jump back to footnote 3 in the text">↩</a></p>
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<p>This has been greatly complicated by my inability to fork. Codrin and I rushed individuation so quickly and so effectively that, in a world where I cannot create a copy of myself that will live on, quitting becomes suicide in a very real way. I am the only Sorina, and to die would be to end anything resembling Sorina in the entire universe. That hasn’t been an issue for us since the 2230s! I know that you’ve been thinking about Rareș more of late, but even our death to him was not permanent. We disappeared, yes, other than those few notes back, but we were not dead. Death has taken on a new flavor for us, and now I’m remembering the bitter tang of it from before we uploaded. I will need to put more thought into it. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:quit" title="Jump back to footnote 4 in the text">↩</a></p>
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<p>All,</p>
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<p>Last night, I mentioned off-hand that I felt like things were “settling into a new normal”, at which Dear and Serene both threw cookies at me. It took a while to get them to stop laughing to explain that “new normal” had become something of a forbidden phrase back phys-side prior to the creation of the System. Something about it just didn’t sit right with people, I guess, so everyone would just wrinkle their noses whenever it came up like someone had said something particularly disgusting.</p>
|
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<p>Before my time, though. Why it needed to trigger a food fight is beyond me, but I never claimed to understand foxes.</p>
|
||||
<p>That was before my time, though. Why it needed to trigger a food fight is beyond me, but I never claimed to understand foxes.</p>
|
||||
<p>All the same, it really does feel like we’re settling into a new sort of normal, here. We wake up, make coffee, have some breakfast, then each head off to do our own work.<sup id="fnref:boring"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:boring">1</a></sup> We’ve mostly been just getting lunch on our own since I’m spending much of the day out of the house, these days. We’ll meet back up for dinner, then just relax together until bed.</p>
|
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<p>Food has honestly been the biggest adjustment for me. For a while, Dear and I just stopped eating. █████ cooked just about everything, and while each of us know how to make some of our own favorites, even just engaging with food left a sort of longing for how things had been. Wasn’t required, was painful, why bother?</p>
|
||||
<p>It was Serene who knocked us out of that particular slump. Dear was starting to get particularly jittery, lots of restless forking, and I pulled her aside to mention that I thought it might be on the way to overflowing, to which she agreed readily. We wound up heading out for sushi at a place that floats plates of sushi down to you along a little canal that winds its way between the tables — J2? Do they have that on Lagrange? Well, turns out you can special order there, too, and they’ll float a whole boat down to your table. It’s built like a full three-masted ship,<sup id="fnref:barque"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:barque">3</a></sup> complete with little cloth sails, and on each of the decks, rolls are piled up or splayed out in neat rows. We ate way, <em>way</em> too much sushi, and the two foxes got in a small contest of adding larger and larger amounts of wasabi to their bites until both had tears streaming down their faces.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was Serene who knocked us out of that particular slump. Dear was starting to get particularly jittery, lots of restless forking, and I pulled her aside to mention that I thought it might be on the way to overflowing, to which she readily agreed. We wound up heading out for sushi at a place that floats plates of sushi down to you along a little canal that winds its way between the tables — J2? Do they have that on Lagrange? Well, turns out you can special order there, too, and they’ll float a whole boat down to your table. It’s built like a full three-masted ship,<sup id="fnref:barque"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:barque">3</a></sup> complete with little cloth sails, and on each of the decks, rolls are piled up or splayed out in neat rows. We ate way, <em>way</em> too much sushi, and the two foxes got in a small contest of adding larger and larger amounts of wasabi to their bites until both had tears streaming down their faces.</p>
|
||||
<p>Again, I’ve never claimed to understand them.</p>
|
||||
<p>After that, we tried to make sure we ate at least once a week, then at least a day. It took us a while to sort out just how, though, as none of us are spectacular cooks. I make a pretty good tocană and a few other stews besides, but those are mostly cold-weather food. The Odists have their own stock set of recipes, but we’ve had to make up a few on the fly. There have been a lot of salads, a lot of sandwiches. Still, it gives us all a chance to sit down together and just stop whatever it is we’re working on, a little marker for when the day ends and the evening begins.</p>
|
||||
<p>Evenings have largely been slow and calm, relaxing on the couch or out on the patio. We’ve gone exploring a few times, too. As mentioned previously, Serene redid much of the sim to add some variety to the otherwise unending plain. To the east, it continues uninterrupted, while to the west, after a scant mile of hillocks, craggy, aged mountains jut up at a steep angle. These take the form of flat planes of red rock broken at acute angles pushing up from the earth directly west of the house, followed by a more conventional range. To the north, this continues along a ridge that slowly transforms into line of boulders and sandstone ridges. To the south and further west, the hills are covered in a dense pine forest. Directly to the south of the house, a river runs out of the mountains to travel south and east. It’s lined with willows, oaks, and cottonwoods. There was much good-natured ribbing of Serene for the latter. <em>“Cheap plastic trees! Sneeze-factories that shed branches at the slightest breeze!”</em> Dear had opinions.</p>
|
||||
<p>Evenings have largely been slow and calm, relaxing on the couch or out on the patio. We’ve gone exploring a few times, too. As mentioned previously, Serene redid much of the sim to add some variety to the otherwise unending plain. To the east, it continues uninterrupted, while to the west, after a scant mile of hillocks, craggy, aged mountains jut up at a steep angle. These take the form of flat planes of red rock broken at acute angles pushing up from the earth directly west of the house, followed by a more conventional range. To the north, this continues along a ridge that slowly transforms into a line of boulders and sandstone ridges. To the south and further west, the hills are covered in a dense pine forest. Directly to the south of the house, a river runs out of the mountains to travel south and east. It’s lined with willows, oaks, and cottonwoods. There was much good-natured ribbing of Serene for the latter. <em>“Cheap plastic trees! Sneeze-factories that shed branches at the slightest breeze!”</em> Dear had opinions.</p>
|
||||
<p>Our explorations have largely been to the south and west, where we’ve been hunting down my cairns. Serene somehow built the terrain up beneath them so that they remain dotting the slopes of the hills, between trees, or atop mountains (we skipped the climbing part of that to go check). We’ve camped out there a few times, but it’s been a lot of day hikes.</p>
|
||||
<p>I’m told that we’ll soon get inter-System A/V transmissions, though it’ll be restricted to still images for bandwidth’s sake. I’ll make sure you get some pictures of us as well as of the landscape.</p>
|
||||
<p>There have been a few bumps as we sort things out. Obviously, we still occasionally wind up feeling low from █████’s absence. There’s been a few days where one or the other of us winds up in a sulk, though we’re increasingly getting used to this new life.</p>
|
||||
<p>Dear and Serene have also wound up in feedback loops a few times. Remember when I wrote “Two foxes in the same house? Never again”? Well, I still have my occasional moments of regret. One of them will get a little extra sarcastic and the other will try to one-up them. Or, worse, one will get a little snippy, and it’ll turn into a quick volley of shitty comments followed by a sulk, then back to as it was before.<sup id="fnref:asitwas"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:asitwas">2</a></sup> When this happens, either I’ll step out, or I’ll kick them both out to deal with it. It’s been a quick adjustment, honestly; far easier than when █████ was here. Maybe just because there are fewer different interpersonal dynamics at play? I’m still thinking about it.</p>
|
||||
<p>I have seen █████ a few times, for what it’s worth. It’s not like they just up and cut contact. We’ve gotten coffee a few times, and they stopped by for an incredibly awkward dinner party. While we have largely worked out that things are just kind of over between us than them, that doesn’t mean that our feelings have just dissipated — nor, indeed, have theirs: “It’s still a break-up, I’m still hurting over it, even if it’s for the best.”</p>
|
||||
<p>I have seen █████ a few times, for what it’s worth. It’s not like they just up and cut contact. We’ve gotten coffee a few times, and they stopped by for an incredibly awkward dinner party. While we have largely worked out that things are just kind of over between us and them, that doesn’t mean that our feelings have just dissipated — nor, indeed, have theirs: “It’s still a break-up, I’m still hurting over it, even if it’s for the best.”</p>
|
||||
<p>And you know, as I take a look back at who we were, at who Codrin#Castor is and, hell, who you and Aurel are, I see where they’re coming from. We can’t stay the same forever. Our happinesses change as the world around us changes. We can’t possibly remain the same, but neither can we possibly change in exactly the same ways. Something like this was bound to happen eventually, and it has me thinking that there will probably come a day when Dear and I drift apart. I don’t know if that’ll be any easier for being the second time around, or just differently hard, but I suppose one upside of the whole thing is that it has me focusing on the love I have in front of me.</p>
|
||||
<p>Speaking of the love in front of us! Aurel and Sasha? What a delight! At first, I was surprised that it took as long as it did, but then I realized that Sasha’s far more complex than just “May Then My Name plus two friends”. Then I was surprised that Ioan and May Then My Name’s relationship didn’t just expand to include her, but of course not everyone’s relationship structure need mirror ours (never mind the fact that I don’t even know what the dynamic is between May Then My Name and Sasha; it sounds friendly enough, at least).</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>Ioan eyes-only</strong></p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -38,7 +38,7 @@
|
|||
<p>I guess I ask because there’s at least a small analogy to be made between our two situations, in that I’m no longer with █████ but still with Dear. I know — or at least suspect — that it’s not exactly the same, as Aurel’s still a fork, however long-lived, and thus not <em>not</em> in a relationship with May Then My Name, just that that’s on pause.</p>
|
||||
<p>If I’m to keep seeing █████ on occasion, then I’m going to have to figure out how to interact in a way that isn’t strictly in a relationship, yet also isn’t as fragile as I feel.</p>
|
||||
<p>All the same, I wish the three/four/six/seven/however-you-count-it of you the best.</p>
|
||||
<p>Also, some of your letters are starting to sound a little despondent when it comes to Rareș. Are you okay? Is there anything we can help with? I…will admit that I know a bit more about the current status,<sup id="fnref:library"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:library">5</a></sup> but I’m not going to dump that on you without your permission.</p>
|
||||
<p>Also, some of your letters are starting to sound a little despondent when it comes to Rareș. Are you okay? Is there anything we can help with? I will admit that I know a bit more about…the current status,<sup id="fnref:library"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:library">5</a></sup> but I’m not going to dump that on you without your permission.</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>End</strong></p>
|
||||
<p>All my love. Dear and Serene both send theirs as well.</p>
|
||||
<p>Codrin Bălan#Pollux</p>
|
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<p>Page generated on 2022-11-01</p>
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