Updates per edits

motes-played/content/006.tex

@@ -32,6 +32,7 @@ She will be a Motes who gets sneered at. She will be scolded for some vague infr
 
 She is also going to be a Motes who inspires feelings of protection, of care, of \emph{joie de vivre.} She is going to be one who shows the hedonism in play, one whose \emph{raison d'être} is to have fun, and inspire in others a sense of compersion for that fun. She is going to be a Motes who makes one want to play in turn. She is going to be the one you want to hold in your lap, the one you want to call adorable, the one you want to hold close and protect from pain.
 
+\begin{comment}
 \secdiv
 
 Sometime in the late 2100s, Motes was invited to a strange, hyper-formal event, one of Rye's book releases. She and her cocladists, her friends, all grumbled about it for their own reasons.
@@ -41,6 +42,7 @@ Warmth dressed in its best mixture of clothes, something that shifted slowly ove
 As Warmth and her on-again-off-again partner, Hold My Name, comforted her, four or five Warmths surrounding her while Hold My Name brushed her hair, the three of them got to talking about identity and the ways in which appearance and social situations ground up against that. Warmth wanted-- no, \emph{needed} that recognition of fluidity that night.
 
 Motes increasingly needed out of this strict adherence to form.
+\end{comment}
 
 \secdiv
 

motes-played/content/007.tex

@@ -198,13 +198,23 @@ He was not beside her now.
 
 The first thing that he did upon arriving at the Au Lieu Du Rêve library—a location carefully chosen for the ease with which it might be secured—was to open his arms to Dry Grass and, when she dashed to him, wrap her up in a hug.
 
-Once he had guided her to one of the overstuffed chairs and she had had her cry—one of relief, this time, rather than fury—he pulled up a seat to join the loose circle within the solarium.
+Once he had guided her to one of the overstuffed chairs and she had had her cry—one of relief, this time, rather than fury or despair—he pulled up a seat to join the loose circle within the solarium.
 
 ``Wifey is pissed,'' he began, then laughed. ``I called her that and she hit me so hard I saw stars. Usually, I just get a \emph{look.}''
 
+A Finger Pointing sat bolt upright. ``\emph{What?!}''
+
+``Jesus,'' Dry Grass whispered, eyes wide.
+
+He shrugged. ``It is not the first time.''
+
 Beholden, leaning back with her arms crossed over her chest, snorted. ``Great,'' she said. ``I know that Sasha said that she was not an existential threat, but apparently we still have to worry about violence.''
 
-He held up his hands and shook his head. ``No, no, I do not think you do. She hit me because that is the relationship that we have. Despite how often we say `I love you' or the fact that we share a bed, despite the fact that I \emph{do} earnestly love her, she remains staunchly of the opinion that we are in no way in a relationship.''
+He held up his hands and shook his head. ``No, no, I do not think you do. She hit me because that is the relationship that we have.''
+
+``\,`Relationship'?''
+
+``Yes. A lover's spat. Despite how often we say `I love you' or the fact that we share a bed, despite the fact that I \emph{do} earnestly love her, she remains staunchly of the opinion that we are in no way in a relationship.''
 
 ``Okay, but how can you love her after all she has done?'' the skunk snapped. A Finger pointing rested a hand on her paw, but she continued regardless. ``Motes is fucking catatonic in bed now. She cut us all off, cut off whole stanzas, cut off the Bălans. Now she has cut off Dry Grass—one of her own—and here you are, skulking into the library because you know that she cannot track you here.''
 
@@ -234,19 +244,19 @@ Waking World shrugged. ``She even sent me one. I got it while in the next room o
 
 ``Is that something we need to be concerned about, though?'' she asked. ``Beholden is not the only one worried about her getting violent.''
 
-``Really, no, I do not think you have anything like that to worry about from her''. Rubbing his palms together, he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. ``I might, but that is my role in this: I rein her in by being a target.''
+``Really, no, I do not think you have anything like that to worry about from her.'' Rubbing his palms together, he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. ``I might, but that is my role in this: I rein her in by being a target.''
 
 ``Well, is there anything we can do about it, then? I do not like your role in this either, but again, that will be a conversation for later. I find myself all but blind with fury, though, and the thought that I might just let this slide back into silence is unconscionable. Were she to allow us to be in the same room\ldots{}'' She trailed off, letting the aposiopesis speak for her.
 
-``I am half tempted to find a way back just to give her a punch to the gut,'' Dry Grass growled. ``But I have been locked out of the entire sim.''
+``I am half tempted to find a way back just to give her a punch to the gut, if she is hitting you,'' Dry Grass growled. ``But I have been locked out of the entire sim.''
 
 Waking World laughed weakly. ``Please do not do that, my dear. That is not what anyone needs right now, least of all her.''
 
 ``What \emph{does} she need, then?''
 
-``She needs to feel like she has hurt you,'' he said, speaking slowly. ``She needs to know that her words had the power to do that. She needs to feel like she accomplished something through them.''
+``She needs to feel like she has hurt you,'' he said, speaking slowly. ``She needs to know that her words had the power to do that, since silence did not work. She needs to feel like she accomplished something through them.''
 
-``She did hurt us, though,'' A Finger Pointing said flatly. She could feel a wave of dissociation, of vertigo. She pushed it down so that she could continue. ``She hurt Motes—quite literally. She hurt Dry Grass, and she re-traumatized us all all over again. I would say that she succeeded admirably.''
+``She \emph{did} hurt us, though,'' A Finger Pointing said flatly. She could feel a wave of dissociation, of vertigo. She pushed it down so that she could continue. ``She hurt Motes—quite literally. She hurt Dry Grass, and she re-traumatized us all all over again. I would say that she succeeded admirably.''
 
 He shrugged helplessly.
 
@@ -256,9 +266,29 @@ They sat in silence for nearly a minute while Waking World thought. A Finger Poi
 
 ``Hammered Silver is having a tantrum,'' he said at last. ``She does not want to argue with you. She will not be convinced because she does not really care if anything changes. She does not \emph{want} anything to change, I think. She does not want to win. She just wants to be angry and she just wants you to hurt.''
 
+``A \emph{tantrum?!}'' Beholden cried, then quickly and visibly tamped down her temper. ``She is having a tantrum? A tantrum does not lead to bleeding children.''
+
+Waking World once more raised his hands in placation. ``I cannot speak to that, Beholden, I promise. What I \emph{can} promise is that she would never strike anyone.'' He winced, his previous words standing in immediate contrast. ``Well, okay. I, uh\ldots all that to say, I do not know what happened to Motes, but I cannot believe that it was her doing.''
+
+Furrowing her brow, A Finger Pointing nodded to Beholden, feeling her sense of the world lag behind. ``I am with Waking World on that. I cannot believe she would do that, herself, and we do not know what happened to Motes, may not until she returns to us,'' she said slowly, then let her gaze shift over to him. ``But I am also with Beholden on her incredulity. What does it mean to have such a tantrum? What cruelty goes into wanting us to hurt?''
+
+``I do not know, A Finger Pointing,'' he said, lowering his hands to rub them over his knees. ``I try to hold her back. I try to mellow her role.''
+
+``What even \emph{is} her role?'' Beholden asked.
+
+``Family,'' he said, then rushed to continue, heading off complaints about the family before him. ``She focuses on the idea of familial connections between sys- and phys-side, how people maintain them, how families deal with relatives uploading.''
+
+``Do found families not count?'' Beholden sneered.
+
+``They do, but she is\ldots prescriptive about them.''
+
+The skunk snorted.
+
+``No--'' A Finger Pointing paused, regained her sense of self for a moment, continued. ``No, Beholden, it is as internally consistent as Jonas's thoughts on intraclade relationships. It makes sense, it is just wrong. It hurts for us—and it \emph{does} hurt, Waking World, she has succeeded in that—because we have our own internally consistent view that she doubtless sees as just as wrong. We just do not throw tantrums that lead to such pain. We hate less.''
+
 ``For as much as she apparently hates Motes, she sure is being a fucking child about this,'' Beholden mumbled.
 
-A Finger Pointing snorted. ``You are not wrong, my love. Motes at her youngest has never thrown a tantrum quite like this. Do we just drop it, then? Let her feel superior?''
+A Finger Pointing laughed bitterly. ``You are not wrong, my love. Motes at her youngest has never thrown a tantrum quite like this. Do we just drop it, then? Let her feel superior?''
 
 ``That would certainly work,'' he said, shrugging. ``I do not know how much it would accomplish for your feelings, but she would leave you alone. She really does just want to feel like she is in the right, and no amount of argument will make her feel anything but justified.''
 
@@ -430,13 +460,13 @@ It was an expectation of herself and others. It was a standard to which she and
 
 And thus it was an expectation one might fall short of. It was a standard one might not reach. It was a trust that could be breached.
 
-At some point in the past—there were so many admonitions against joy that she could choose from!—A Finger Pointing's friendship with Hammered Silver came to an end. The most visible of these was perhaps when Sasha joined Au Lieu Du Rêve as stage manager in systime 231, five years after she had become Sasha. That was when Hammered Silver had moved beyond cutting off Sasha herself and the entirety of the eighth, first, and part of the ninth stanzas, and had included the entirety of the fifth stanza.
+At some point in the past—there were so many admonitions against joy that she could choose from!—A Finger Pointing's friendship with Hammered Silver came to an end. The most visible of these was perhaps when Sasha joined Au Lieu Du Rêve as stage manager in systime 231, five years after she had become Sasha. That was when Hammered Silver had moved beyond cutting off Sasha herself and the entirety of the eighth stanza for their politicking, the first for their spying, and part of the ninth for their mere association, and had included the entirety of the fifth stanza.
 
 For the rest of the fifth stanza also included this expectation, this standard, this trust that there was within all people something worth friendship, some kernel of joy, and none of them shunned Sasha, either.
 
 Cutting contact is one hell of a way to end a friendship, yes?
 
-But no, the end of their friendship came far earlier. Decades earlier.
+But no, the end of their friendship had almost certainly come far earlier. Decades earlier.
 
 At some point back in the early 2100s, Motes had begun exploring this role of the babiest Odist of the fifth stanza—in her twenties, sure, but a being built entirely out of play. A note arrived.
 

motes-played/includes/secdiv.tex

@@ -7,5 +7,5 @@
 %   \end{center}
 % }
 \newcommand\secdiv{
-  \begin{center}$\star$\end{center}
+  \begin{center}\HebFont ✨\end{center}
 }