Ebook, idumea

motes-played/content/006.tex

@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ Motes increasingly needed out of this strict adherence to form.
 
 The inflection point came when she, the Motes who had been forked not three years prior, the Motes who was still a human who looked much like A Finger Pointing, her immediate down-tree, sat in a paint tray while painting a stage-wide sunset on a scrim.
 
-There she was, kneeling carefully on the stage and twisting around to see the red splotch ground into the seat of her sturdy work overalls, and laughing. She laughed as she recognized the mess she had made—one big butt-print on the matte black of the stage—and she laughed at the way the paint had very clearly started to seep into the denim of her overalls. She laughed as memories flooded into her mind, of red paint on corduroy, of Miss Willard's snippy admonition, of her mom's patient reassurances. She laughed and, rather than wave away the mess that she had made on her overalls, she lay down on her front and summoned up a smaller paintbrush instead of the roller she had been using, loaded it up with paint, and started filling in the awkward splotch on the stage into the body of some critter, round and soft. She took a break from her sunset and instead painted a fat, cartoonish skunk all in red.
+There she was, kneeling carefully on the stage and twisting around to see the red splotch ground into the seat of her sturdy work overalls, and laughing. She laughed as she recognized the mess she had made—one big butt-print on the matte black of the stage—and she laughed at the way the paint had very clearly started to seep into the denim of her overalls. She laughed as memories flooded into her mind, of red paint on corduroy, of Miss Willard's snippy admonition, of her mother's patient reassurances. She laughed and, rather than wave away the mess that she had made on her overalls, she lay down on her front and summoned up a smaller paintbrush instead of the roller she had been using, loaded it up with paint, and started filling in the awkward splotch on the stage into the body of some critter, round and soft. She took a break from her sunset and instead painted a fat, cartoonish skunk all in red.
 
 By the time That It Might Give The World Orders, the play's director, found her, she had added an idealized field of grass and dandelions, had painted in a frolicking fennec fox in blue, and still lay on her front, the seat of her pants colored in red from the paint she had sat in.
 
@@ -142,7 +142,7 @@ Still wrong-footed, Motes leaned away from her cocladist. ``And the third?''
 
 After a moment, Slow Hours spoke again, the knife-edge of prophecy letting off of her throat. ``There are as many reasons to keep someone for yourself as there are ways to do so. The whole of the fifth stanza—and, to a lesser extent, the whole of Au Lieu de Rêve—has closed around you. Not tight, of course, we are not keeping you trapped and hidden away, but we are all intensely, intensely protective of you. We have all endeavored to make your life here the best that it can be, as you have invited us to do. This was part of our conversations going all the way back, was it not? That you enjoyed leaning into being cared for, and we enjoyed having someone to collectively care for? We do not like creeps around our Motes, and so we see creeps everywhere.''
 
-Once Motes saw what she was saying, saw through the everblue tint of prophecy and her own little game of two truths and a lie, the skunk's shoulders relaxed and she slumped against her, sniffling.
+Once Motes saw what she was saying, saw through the everblue tint of prophecy and her own little game of two truths and a lie, the skunk's shoulders relaxed and she slumped against her cocladist, sniffling.
 
 ``We all love you, Speck. That is all.''
 
@@ -222,6 +222,6 @@ Motes dreamed.
 
 She dreamed and dreamed and dreamed, her mind wandering over her past, there in the dark, there alone, after A Finger Pointing left, there in her extra soft bed with her overstuffed duvet and all of her stuffed animals.
 
-At some point, hours or days or minutes later, she slept and dreamed true. She dreamed that she was sitting in a field of well-tended grass that was nonetheless dotted liberally with dandelions, speckled with bumblebees. She dreamed that she had all the wonder of a child and that the day was sunny and lovely and the grass was inviting her to roll around in it, and just above, just in the distance, a hyperblack rectangle, a hole in the world that hungrily devoured all of the light that it could, lingered, and it was neither good nor bad, and even with its insatiable hunger, the day was sunny and lovely and the grass was inviting her to roll around in it.
+At some point, hours or days or perhaps mere minutes later, she slept and dreamed true. She dreamed that she was sitting in a field of well-tended grass that was nonetheless dotted liberally with dandelions, speckled with bumblebees. She dreamed that she had all the wonder of a child and that the day was sunny and lovely and the grass was inviting her to roll around in it, and just above, just in the distance, a hyperblack rectangle, a hole in the world that hungrily devoured all of the light that it could, lingered, and it was neither good nor bad, and even with its insatiable hunger, the day was sunny and lovely and the grass was inviting her to roll around in it.
 
 And then she awoke.

motes-played/content/007.tex

@@ -170,7 +170,7 @@ And so they fell in love, each in their own way. They fell in love and, for the
 
 There were, of course, the social implications to consider, the taboo around intraclade relationships, the implications of narcissism and other, far more crass terms. Suggestions were made from on high, such as it were, from across the clade.
 
-True Name suggested. She suggested that, as pleased as she was for them—and she \emph{was} pleased!—their relationship remain something for behind closed doors. Something where they kept their I-love-yous and kisses for a shared bed rather than out on the town or at however many gatherings they might wish to go to. Politics was, as ever, politics, and here are the political reasons laid bare. Jonas had, after all, set the plan before her after he had already spun it into being, and even she was beholden to it, much as it rankled for her, too. Much as it was nearly the death of her.
+True Name suggested. She suggested that, as pleased as she was for them—and she \emph{was} pleased!—their relationship remain something for behind closed doors. Something where they kept their I-love-yous and kisses for a shared bed rather than out on the town or at however many gatherings they might wish to go to. Politics was, as ever, politics, and here are the political reasons laid bare. Jonas had, after all, set the plan before her after he had already spun it into being, and even she was beholden to it, much as it rankled for her, too. Much as it would decades later nearly the death of her.
 
 Hers were the kind suggestions. The comprehensible suggestions. The ones based in logic and explained clearly: maintaining a sense of taboo in what was quickly becoming a queer-normative society added to the desire for change by providing something to reach for. Comprehensible, yes; the logic was sound, internally consistent. Wrong, of course, but if such was to be the way of things in this plan-twisted world, if such were the optics to which they were all held to account, then so be it. Such were the optics to which they were all held to account.
 
@@ -418,9 +418,31 @@ It was curling in the corner in a fetal position because to do aught else was to
 
 She wished dearly that she could do so now.
 
+\secdiv
+
+The first time Motes called A Finger Pointing `mom', there had been a conversation, full of various confusions and hurts, inquiries and boundaries, tears and tears and tears. Both came to an agreement that this was not comfortable. Not now. Not yet.
+
+These optics they must consider, this awful taboo, they spoke of intraclade relationships in terms of incest, and now here was her Motes reifying this abstract concept of family by calling her `mom'! Such language had ever been used as a weapon against her and her Beholden, and it was not yet time to reclaim that.
+
+It built up a false equivalence within all three of them. It allowed them to consider this taboo as applying to all relationships within a clade beyond simple community, simple friendship; all those big-R Relationships like those of A Finger Pointing and Beholden, and like those of Motes with the two of them were of equal dire import. This desire for such family to be constrained to a private setting must apply to all types of family dynamics, yes?
+
+A year later—for what is a year to a cladist?—Motes did it again, and this time she asked first, and permission was granted to see how it felt. It was still quite uncomfortable, but perhaps there was joy to be found. Perhaps there were expectations and standards and trust that could be built up, refinements to be made. Not mother, no, but perhaps `ma' was alright. Not daughter, no, but what of \emph{dóttir?} What of `Ma' and `Dot'?
+
+``Beholden and I are still smarting because we must sequester our affection for one another in private. That is why I have been hesitant to take on the caregiver role that you have sought from me,'' A Finger Pointing had said during that quiet night's conversation, skunklet curled beside her on the couch, getting pets. ``But I do care for you, do I not? I do feel like a sort of matron amidst the fifth stanza, do I not? Perhaps it is time I reconsidered my aversion to such language. Perhaps it is time I considered reclamation. After all, everything I have done has been so that you can live in peace. Are you living in peace, Motes? Are you at peace when you must restrain your feelings for me for reasons neither of us particularly care for?''
+
+And so, as it had been with each of Motes's tentative explorations and gentle testing of mutable boundaries, this became a thing that was okay at home, okay in limited doses, okay for a trial period. It was worthy of exploration, for if there was the potential for joy—and everyone deserved such—then perhaps there was some way Motes could be granted such a thing.
+
+This private setting, this iterative context, this ongoing play allowed for growth and change.
+
+There was still soreness, of course. There was soreness that A Finger Pointing and her Beholden still had to deal with the optics, that it was still not permissible for this reason or that for them to kiss in public, for them to share their I-love-yous where others might witness that joy. There was still soreness that such soreness affected Motes.
+
+And so it remained largely at home, at home with the three of them and at home in the neighborhood that was slowly building up around them. It remained a secret, but, like A Finger Pointing and Beholden's relationship, it remained an open one. The quiet of the secret allowed them live to their fullest, and the openness allowed them to share joy where they felt safe doing so.
+
+\secdiv
+
 ``I am tired, Beholden.''
 
-``I know, love,'' the skunk said, sitting beside her on the couch and dreaming up a glass of water for her.\pagebreak
+``I know, love,'' the skunk said, sitting beside her on the couch and dreaming up a glass of water for her.
 
 She could still comprehend, at least, and could still see Beholden there beside her, a look of tired concern painted on her face.
 
@@ -466,7 +488,7 @@ And thus it was an expectation one might fall short of. It was a standard one mi
 
 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 bore this expectation, this standard, this trust that there was within all people something\pagebreak\ worth friendship, some kernel of joy, and none of them shunned Sasha, either.
+For the rest of the fifth stanza also bore 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?
 
@@ -482,24 +504,6 @@ For this was true of all of her up-trees, and for much of Au Lieu Du Rêve besid
 
 She was their matron, in a way. She was their protector. She shielded them as best she could from the politics that so much of their cocladists were engaging in throughout the rest of the System. ``But that is my job,'' she reasoned aloud when she became\pagebreak\ more open about this protection. ``That is why we have an administrator for Au Lieu Du Rêve, yes? Someone has to deal with the politics of running a theatre, yes?''
 
-The first time Motes called A Finger Pointing `mom', there had been a conversation, full of various confusions and hurts, inquiries and boundaries, tears and tears and tears. Both came to an agreement that this was not comfortable. Not now. Not yet.
-
-These optics they must consider, this awful taboo, they spoke of intraclade relationships in terms of incest, and now here was her Motes reifying this abstract concept of family by calling her `mom'! Such language had ever been used as a weapon against her and her Beholden, and it was not yet time to reclaim that.
-
-It built up a false equivalence within all three of them. It allowed them to consider this taboo as applying to all relationships within a clade beyond simple community, simple friendship; all those big-R Relationships like those of A Finger Pointing and Beholden, and like those of Motes with the two of them were of equal dire import. This desire for such family to be constrained to a private setting must apply to all types of family dynamics, yes?
-
-A year later—for what is a year to a cladist?—Motes did it again, and this time she asked first, and permission was granted to see how it felt. It was still quite uncomfortable, but perhaps there was joy to be found. Perhaps there were expectations and standards and trust that could be built up, refinements to be made. Not mother, no, but perhaps `ma' was alright. Not daughter, no, but what of \emph{dóttir?} What of `Ma' and `Dot'?
-
-``Beholden and I are still smarting because we must sequester our affection for one another in private. That is why I have been hesitant to take on the caregiver role that you have sought from me,'' A Finger Pointing had said during that quiet night's conversation, skunklet curled beside her on the couch, getting pets. ``But I do care for you, do I not? I do feel like a sort of matron amidst the fifth stanza, do I not? Perhaps it is time I reconsidered my aversion to such language. Perhaps it is time I considered reclamation. After all, everything I have done has been so that you can live in peace. Are you living in peace, Motes? Are you at peace when you must restrain your feelings for me for reasons neither of us particularly care for?''
-
-And so, as it had been with each of Motes's tentative explorations and gentle testing of mutable boundaries, this became a thing that was okay at home, okay in limited doses, okay for a trial period. It was worthy of exploration, for if there was the potential for joy—and everyone deserved such—then perhaps there was some way Motes could be granted such a thing.
-
-This private setting, this iterative context, this ongoing play allowed for growth and change.
-
-There was still soreness, of course. There was soreness that A Finger Pointing and her Beholden still had to deal with the optics, that it was still not permissible for this reason or that for them to kiss in public, for them to share their I-love-yous where others might witness that joy. There was still soreness that such soreness affected Motes.
-
-And so it remained largely at home, at home with the three of them and at home in the neighborhood that was slowly building up around them. It remained a secret, but, like A Finger Pointing and Beholden's relationship, it remained an open one. The quiet of the secret allowed them live to their fullest, and the openness allowed them to share joy where they felt safe doing so.
-
 But then, some time back around systime 182, back around the time the clocks ticked over to 2306, back around the time Michelle/Sasha had summoned them all to her field to merge centuries of memory and then quit—perished—Hammered Silver sent one of her longest letters yet. It was in some ways a screed. It was beyond simply admonition, note, or missive. It was an epistle, some general letter intended to be a point of instruction not just to her but to the world as a whole.
 
 The screed—well worth embodying as a physical letter if only to be torn up, ripped to shreds, burnt to ash, soaked with tears to douse the fire, ground into a paint, and used to spell out anger and despair—laid out in nigh-unintelligible detail all of the ways in which she and hers had fallen short.

motes-played/content/008.tex

@@ -112,7 +112,7 @@ She hesitated, simply letting the swing carry her for a few moments. ``I do not
 
 Dry Grass nodded.
 
-``So it took me a lot of getting used to.'' She hesitated, looked down to the gravel as she kicked a foot through it. ``I am a little ashamed to say that I backed off from her for a while when she did that. I took a lot of walks like this or went out to clubs on my own to\ldots well, to not be around her. I loved her even then, but it felt like too much. `Bee' is a compromise that felt on the edge of comfort at the time, though now it feels really good when she calls me that. She was so patient with me.'' Drawing her attention back to Dry Grass, she smiled, adding, ``She calls you `Ma 2.0', did you know that?''
+``So it took me a lot of getting used to.'' She hesitated, looked down to the gravel as she kicked a foot through it. ``I am a little ashamed to say that I backed off from her for a while when she did that. I took a lot of walks like this or went out to clubs on my own to\ldots well, to not be around her. I loved her even then, but it felt like too much. `Bee' is a compromise that felt on the edge of comfort at the time, though now it feels really good when she calls me that. She was so patient with me.'' Drawing her attention back to Dry Grass, she smiled, adding, ``She calls you `Ma 2.0'; did you know that?''
 
 Dry Grass blinked, then burst out in laughter, laughing until once more the tears flowed down her cheeks, until she sobbed, holding herself still on her swing with feet planted firmly on the ground.
 
@@ -170,7 +170,7 @@ She pressed those emotions down and instead lingered on love. She lingered on he
 
 Once A Finger Pointing was settled at home and Motes had been checked on, once the message had been sent to Hammered Silver and they had eaten and settled down on the couch for the night to rest, to at least pretend to work, only then, did Beholden very carefully open the jarred emotions from earlier, delicately withdrawing them one by one and laying them out before herself in her mind. She did not touch them, hot as they were. She used tweezers or tongs or perhaps chopsticks to lift them free, nudge them to lay flat that she might read deeper into them.
 
-And then, exhausted by day, by the last few days, by worry over her Dot, her \emph{dóttir}, by worry over her boss—``not your boss'' the common refrain—she just as carefully replaced all of those emotions, still unprocessed, into their container and once more sealed it tight.
+And then, exhausted by the day, by the last few days, by worry over her Dot, her \emph{dóttir}, by worry over her boss—``not your boss'' the common refrain—she just as carefully replaced all of those emotions, still unprocessed, into their container and once more sealed it tight.
 
 She could not do it, could not push her way into engaging with these feelings, these emotions. Not yet. Not tonight.