update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/motes/001.html

@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
             <article class="content">
                 <h1 id="motes-2362">Motes — 2362</h1>
 <p>Motes played.</p>
-<p>She played in color. She played in paint. She painted the backdrops for the productions. She painted the props that sat on the stage or rested in the actors&rsquo; hands. She painted the stage itself, the matte black of so many past productions long abandoned. She painted her nails, her claws, herself. She got it on her fur. She got it on her clothes. She got polka-dots on her nose and stripes over her ears. She painted her dreams, those serene and idyllic landscapes interrupted by hyperblack squares, unexpected and unexplained holes in the world that depicted a nothing-ness, a missing-ness, a not-there-ness that slid easily between the border of absurd and unnerving. She painted the holes in the world that she dreamed about, afraid to touch and yet which would not stop touching her mind in turn.</p>
+<p>She played in color. She played in paint. She painted the backdrops for the productions. She painted the props that sat on the stage or rested in the actors&rsquo; hands. She painted the stage itself, the matte black of so many past productions long abandoned. She painted her nails, her claws, herself. She got it on her fur. She got it on her clothes. She got stripes over her ears and polka-dots on her nose. She painted her dreams, those serene and idyllic landscapes interrupted by hyperblack squares, unexpected and unexplained holes in the world that depicted a nothing-ness, a missing-ness, a not-there-ness that slid easily between the border of absurd and unnerving. She painted the holes in the world that she dreamed about but was afraid to touch and yet which would not stop touching her mind in turn.</p>
 <p>She played in her free time, such as it was — after all, her work, such as it was, was a joy beyond joys, but everything is a sometimes food. She played hide-and-seek in the auditorium. She played tag with the performers and techs. She played pretend. She played horses and kitties and mousies. She played with Warmth In Fire, endless forks dotting countless landscapes, leapfrogging over each other across fields and between trees, bouncing off the walls of canyons and cities, colliding with force enough to knock them spinning and send them dizzy. She hunted down her friends and played hide-and-seek, yes, and tag and horses and kitties and mousies. She hunted down her friends and played puzzle games and rhythm games and stealth games and real life platformers and turn-based sims that locked her in place when it was not her turn.</p>
 <p>She played with her form. She played with her fur. She played with her mane. She played with her claws and with her tail. She played with her size. She played with her age. She played when she presented as twenty. She played when she presented as twelve. She played when she presented as five. She played always, even when she was as old as the rest of her clade — what was it, now? 275? 276? She played with identity. She played with fire.</p>
 <p>She played with life, enjoying and enjoying and enjoying. </p>
@@ -26,7 +26,6 @@
 <p>And so Motes played. </p>
 <p>She sat atop her stool, one of her feet perched up there with her so that she could rest her chin somewhere while she painted. A palette sat on an infinitely positionable nothing beside her. A canvas sat on an easel, rickety and well-loved, before her. A brush sat in her paw, and paint sat on the brush. A thin, black rectangle sat on that canvas, as did a mountainous landscape. Music sat in her ears, chirpy and glitchy to offset the serenity of the scene in a new way.</p>
 <p>She hummed, her tail fwipped this way, flopped that, and she painted until the painting was finished — there was no guarantee of when that would be: the painting would be finished when it was finished, and when it was finished, she stopped.</p>
-<p>The painting was finished, and the time had come to stop.</p>
 <p>Slipping off her stool, she stumbled clumsily to the side, laughing at the sudden rush of pins-and-needles to her backside and the base of her tail. She inserted a step in her list of things to do before cleaning and plopped down onto her belly, using the remainder of the ochre paint in the brush to doodle the face of a fennec fox on the hardboard floor of her studio. It was one of thousands by now, and they had long since started to overlap.</p>
 <p>Once feeling returned to her rump, she pushed herself back to sit cross-legged and started the process of cleaning up.</p>
 <p>She used to just wave away her supplies, either letting them dissipate back into her memories or float back to their proper locations in her studio, but some decades prior, she had started using the process of putting things away by hand to unwind from the context of painting.</p>
@@ -165,7 +164,7 @@
 <p>&ldquo;Perish the thought!&rdquo; The Odist laughed and leaned over to hug her cocladist, careful of her nails. &ldquo;I will not. Do not worry, my dear, you are stuck with me for a good while yet. I would rather tell Hammered Silver to go fuck herself.&rdquo;</p>
             </article>
             <footer>
-                <p>Page generated on 2024-01-19</p>
+                <p>Page generated on 2024-01-22</p>
             </footer>
         </main>
         <script type="text/javascript">