Warmth updates

content/prelim/005.md

@@ -352,9 +352,9 @@ The Woman shrugged, the barest hint of her shoulders to go with an expression th
 
 The Oneirotect nodded. "Okay. I am glad to hear that you are still living your life," she said with a grin, a brief, rhythmic sway of her tail providing accompaniment for the mood. "What is it you wanted to talk about?"
 
-I asked my beloved up-tree, "Perhaps you could speak to what it is that you actually do my dear. What is it that you enjoy? We have been talking about such things."
+The Woman looked to me, and I took up the lead. I asked my beloved up-tree, "Perhaps you could speak to what it is that you actually do my dear. What is it that you enjoy? We have been talking about such things."
 
-"Well, I am an oneirotect," it answered. "A construct artist, if you must be such a bore. I think of myself most of all as an aficionado of nostalgia."
+"I have focused on oneirotecture," it answered. "A construct artist, if you must be such a bore. I think of myself most of all as an aficionado of nostalgia."
 
 The Woman tilted her head in that way so familiar to us. "Nostalgia? Is there a draw to that for you, or is that something you find others hungering for?"
 
@@ -368,11 +368,12 @@ The Oneirotect, clearly delighted by so simple a question, brought its paws toge
 
 I chuckled, shrugged.
 
-"Very well. I favor culinary constructs now, but that has only become the case since I met Codrin. That said, I did begin with endangered and extinct fruits! Most of the heavy lifting had already been done by the time I began exploring oneirotecture, but there remained gaps in what was available. That experience was most formative."
+<!-- Want to rework 'endangered and extinct'; maybe bring up climate crisis? -->
+"Very well. I favor culinary constructs now, but that has only become the case since I met Codrin. That said, I did begin with fruits! I wanted to recreate some of what was lost to the climate disaster. Most of the heavy lifting had already been done by the time I began exploring oneirotecture, but there remained gaps in what was available. That experience was most formative, but it was Codrin's cooking that sent me down this path."
 
 "Not █████? Not Codrin and Dear's partner?" The Woman asked. She asked, of course, after one remembered fondly, and one whose name is not yours to know, dear readers, or perhaps you know it intimately, but with a wink and a nudge like a joke kept between us. "Are they not the chef?"
 
-The Oneirotect smiled wryly. "Well, sure, but my interest lies more in the food that others love to their core. █████'s food is delightful, yes. It is _enjoyable,_ and often it is _loved,_ but it is not really _beloved._\label{rakoff} I would rather focus on the food those remember with fondness their mothers and grandmothers cooking. Remembered foods. Cherished foods, yes?"
+The Oneirotect smiled wryly. "Well, sure, but my interest lies more in the food that others love to their core. █████'s food is delightful, yes. It is *enjoyable,* and often it is *loved,* but it is not really *beloved.*\label{rakoff} I would rather focus on the food those remember with fondness their mothers and grandmothers cooking. Remembered foods. Cherished foods, yes?"
 
 "I suppose this is where the nostalgia comes in, then, yes? Reaching back for the things that others loved, rather than simply ate out of necessity?"
 
@@ -386,9 +387,9 @@ There was a moment of silence as The Woman parsed this, her gaze distant. When h
 
 "I am not the first to be named Warmth In Fire," it answered with a note of melancholy.
 
-There was such a pang within me that I had not felt in ages, for The Oneirotect was right. There was some years back, some centuries back, another Which Offers Heat And Warmth In Fire. And then, one day, there was not. She worked and strove and wept and bled over her chosen path, and then she was naught.
+There was such a pang within me that I had not felt in ages, for The Oneirotect was right. There was some years back, some centuries back, another Which Offers Heat And Warmth In Fire. And then, one day, there was not. They worked and strove and wept and bled over their chosen path, and then they were naught.
 
-She — that other Warmth In Fire — was lost to us. She was gone from us. Her art took her from us, it killed her. Such is the danger of art, dear readers: it takes as easily — more easily! — than it gives. It was some centuries back, but– ah! Centuries change only the flavor of the loss when one cannot forget it. It is a loss that still stings to this very day.
+They — that other Warmth In Fire — was lost to us. They were gone from us. Their art took them from us, it killed them. Such is the danger of art, dear readers: it takes as easily — more easily! — than it gives. It was some centuries back, but– ah! Centuries change only the flavor of the loss when one cannot forget it. It is a loss that still stings to this very day.
 
 "Ah," The Woman said, her expression falling subtly — nearly too subtly to notice but by this point, I was quite focused on everything about her. "Right. I remember hearing of a death within the clade early on. Systime 54, was it? I was rather disconnected from the clade at the time, I am sorry to say, and was unable to focus enough to learn of just who."
 
@@ -423,9 +424,10 @@ The Woman furrowed her brow in that ineffably still way of hers. "I remember tha
 There followed a moment of The Oneirotect visibly mastering a note of annihilation upon hearing this. It was, I think, one of those things which hurts to hear, and yet which is completely right: ey is not yet another instance of The Instance Artist, nor has ey been for centuries, and yet there is that of The Instance Artist still within em, is there not? "When I stepped from that sim," ey explained, "I did so with the commitment, both to myself and to it, that what was Dear had changed, and that who was Dear must embrace that. I am unsure, however, that I have ever quite addressed the fact that, often when I hear about Dear from others, there is a rankling within me. Sometimes, when I am feeling particularly bad about myself, I feel like it stole my very name from me. I feel like a leftover, a shadow on the floor of the stage of my own show."
 
 "The clade will ever be as it is," I said, tagging along with that thought, "which is a bunch of crotchety old creatures with a fixation on names that borders on neurotic. Do not doubt that this applies to our stanza as well."
-The Woman laughed.
 
-"There were those within the clade who fussed and fussed and fussed, and I would be remiss if I did not say that we had — and, as Warmth mentions, continue to fuss — about the role that names play in identity. We will ever be who we are, though, yes?
+The Woman smirked, nodded.
+
+"There were those within the clade who fussed and fussed and fussed, and I would be remiss if I did not say that we had — and, as Warmth mentions, continue to fuss — about the role that names play in identity. We will ever be who we are, though, yes?"
 
 My beloved up-tree spent some time pensively structuring its thoughts, trying to reclaim some sort of agency before it fell into a negativity spiral; such topics as these are always especially difficult for us to stumble across, and it had already started to recite some of those familiar phrases it so often repeats even to this day. "You have come to Rye and I searching for joy through creativity. I wonder: What do you imagine yourself to be, End Of Endings, other than the only one living there I get to call 'kitty' from time to time?"
 
@@ -433,31 +435,33 @@ The Woman laughed — and what a blessing a laugh is in comparison to a smile!
 
 It beamed, smug and sly and looking quite pleased for the change it had had a paw in working. It was very *not* Dear in that moment — it was (and is!) very Warmth In Fire because, while it shared some of that quippiness that Dear was so well-known for, Dear shared little of my 'motherly warmth', as it put it. Dear did not inherit such from me — or perhaps had lost it over long years with too many quips — but my beloved up-tree did.
 
-Here was The Oneirotect being warm. Here was The Oneirotect being insightful and supportive. Here was her taking control for The Woman's sake. Here was it looking for some way to stop trauma-dumping on her and start guiding her closer towards self-understanding, towards a resolution, towards peace.
+Here was The Oneirotect being warm. Here was The Oneirotect being insightful and supportive. Here was her taking control for The Woman's sake. Here was it looking for some way to stop trauma-dumping on her and start guiding her closer toward self-understanding, toward a resolution, toward peace.
 
 "But no, I imagine myself being other than just She Who Is Kitty From Time To Time. I imagine myself as someone who has found a purpose within her life other than, as Rejoice put it, simply being one who is built to suffer. Suffering may well be inescapable, but would that I were aught else than She Who Suffers."
 
-"Is that what you feel you are now, my dear? Do you not find joy in each day? Each hour? You, and all the others in that melancholy home of yours, have committed to perhaps the world's direst bit, but it is worth it, in the end, is it not? There is still tomorrow, and the opportunity it offers, is there not?"
+"Is that what you feel you are now, my dear?" The Oneirotect asked, her tone veering further into direness once more, her words filled with ache and earnestness. "Do you not find joy in each day? Each hour? You, and all the others in that melancholy home of yours, have committed to perhaps the world's direst bit, but it is worth it, in the end, is it not? There is still tomorrow, and the opportunity it offers, is there not?"
 
 The Woman sat with this in thoughtfulness, her expression perhaps now distant, perhaps now curious. Her gaze drifted from my beloved up-tree to me, and then somewhere over my shoulder, out toward the far wall, toward the door, and then panned once more over toward the windows, where the leaves of spring fluttered in a pleasant visual static.
 
 When once more her eyes returned to us, her expression had settled into what, I do not know exactly. Pensive? Introspective? I cannot say, dear readers. I cannot say.
 
-"I do feel joy, yes. I think that one of the things that sparked this train of thought was actually one such case of joy. I visited No Hesitation for a simple coffee date, and from there I was left with joy that lasted. It was a comfort to me." The faintest of smiles turned up the corners of her mouth. "No, it was not just a comfort, it was a thing I clung to jealously, and when I felt that it was being slowly parceled out to others at home — for they too deserve joy — and when I was asked about it by Ever Dream, I felt as though it was slipping away from me with no recourse. Is joy to always do such? Is every time I receive such joy, is it only to slip away?"
+"I do feel joy, yes. I think that one of the things that sparked this train of thought was actually one such case of joy. I visited No Hesitation for a simple coffee date, and from there I was left with joy that lasted some few days. It was a comfort to me." The faintest of smiles turned up the corners of her mouth. "No, it was not just a comfort, it was a thing I clung to jealously, and when I felt that it was being slowly parceled out to others at home — for they too deserve joy — and when I was asked about it by Ever Dream, I felt as though it was slipping away from me with no recourse. Is joy to always do such? Every time I receive such joy, is it only to slip away?"
 
-There was a sense then in The Oneirotect of discomfort at this sentiment: that joy is fleeting. It had worked so hard to become able to appreciate the joys it had, despite the equally-ephemeral agonies it suffered at the hands of perfectionism and impostor syndrome — as do we all at times, yes? "It will always be true that you shared that comfort together, End Of Endings," she said, my own maternal concern echoed in its voice, so many hours spent helping hold eir head above water while they wallowed in a spiral of self-loathing. "What is it that slipped away?"
+There was a sense then in The Oneirotect of discomfort at this sentiment: that joy is fleeting. It had worked so hard to become able to appreciate the joys it had, despite the equally-ephemeral agonies it suffered at the hands of perfectionism and impostor syndrome — as do we all at times, yes? 
+
+"It will always be true that you shared that comfort together, End Of Endings," she said, my own maternal concern echoed in its voice, so many hours spent helping hold eir head above water while they wallowed in a spiral of self-loathing. "What is it that slipped away?"
 
 "The..." The Woman started, then immediately fell off into silence. There was a frown on her face, though it was one of concentration rather than consternation. "What it feels has slipped away is the possibility of the permanence of joy, or even joy that lasts longer than suffering. I suppose that is what I am seeking in this exercise. I am seeking joy that lasts. Even if not forever, I am seeking joy that lasts. I am seeking intentionality in joy. I am seeking agency in joy."
 
-My beloved up-tree was along for the ride up until the word 'agency,' at which it scrunched up its face and reared eir head back as though someone had — as often I have done — pressed on the tip of her little nose. How often had ey struggled for its own agency? How often pawing feebly at a thing for years and years and feeling as if nothing it made met its own standards? How often wallowing and feeling helpless but to wallow? How often caught in a spate of ineffectual pining, of disinterest born of despair, of the sort of pain that festers and festers until she broke down into tears and overflowed? Ah–! But it replied, "Is the pain as well not itself as fleeting? Does it not fly away in the wind when a gust of joy blows your way? Does despair not crumble at the feet of relief, euphoria, pleasure? Is it not dashed away on the rocks of even one moment of the right kind of comfort?" It fell silent for a moment, gaze drifting outward towards those very same leaves as caught the Woman's eye. "It is still worth it, is it not? It must be worth it, or else all the world's [sic] a horror."\label{shakespeare} 
+My beloved up-tree was along for the ride up until the word 'agency,' at which it scrunched up its face and reared eir head back as though someone had — as often I have done — pressed on the tip of her little nose — or, it is not so little; it is a big honker of a schnoz as some cartoon might have. How often had ey struggled for its own agency? How often pawing feebly at a thing for years and years and feeling as if nothing it made met its own standards? How often wallowing and feeling helpless but to wallow? How often caught in a spate of ineffectual pining, of disinterest born of despair, of the sort of pain that festers and festers until she broke down into tears and overflowed? Ah–! But it replied, "Is the pain as well not itself as fleeting? Does it not fly away in the wind when a gust of joy blows your way? Does despair not crumble at the feet of relief, euphoria, pleasure? Is it not dashed away on the rocks of even one moment of the right kind of comfort?" It fell silent for a moment, gaze drifting outward toward those very same leaves as caught the Woman's eye. "It is still worth it, is it not? It must be worth it, or else all the world's a horror."\label{shakespeare} 
 
 Here, now, was a moment of quiet between us all as The Oneirotect grappled with its silently tearful emotions. I have spoken of the ways in which we cry, the whys and wherefores, the shamelessness of it all, and so it grappled with its own whys and wherefores, its own shamelessness, and we — The Woman and I — looked on with curiousity and compassion and empathy, for we felt also some of these things.
 
-Here, my friends, I must explain something. I must explain the Warmth In Fire before The Warmth In Fire. I must explain The Sightwright who is no more.
+Here, my friends, I must explain something. I must explain the Warmth In Fire before Warmth In Fire. I must explain The Sightwright who is no more.
 
 It is as my beloved up-tree says: we also suffer. Have I not spoken of such? Of course I have! I cannot but! I cannot help myself in this. 
 
-The Sightwright suffered as I do, as The Oneirotect does, and perhaps even as The Woman did.\label{winthrop} It was so long ago that they left us, left me, and though I remember, I remember through the lens of centuries, through a glass darkly.\label{1cor13} They suffered because of their art. They suffered because of the world around them. They suffered perhaps because we are all built to suffer.
+The Sightwright suffered as I do, as The Oneirotect does, and perhaps even as The Woman did.\label{winthrop} It was so long ago that they left us, left me, and though I remember, I remember through the lens of centuries, through a glass, darkly.\label{1cor13} They suffered because of their art. They suffered because of the world around them. They suffered perhaps because we are all built to suffer.
 
 They suffered as do my beloved up-tree and I, but they also suffered as did — I must explain, also, or perhaps remind — Death Itself and I Do Not Know.
 
@@ -467,29 +471,29 @@ They suffered too much. They were, and then they were not.
 
 I must explain and I must remind to set before you the context of what The Oneirotect said next.
 
-My beloved up-tree's tears did not ebb before ey spoke. No, in fact, they flowed and flowed, a cascade of emotion trickling and then creeping and then washing across its face. I have spoken about the way I cry already, and, well, surely they got it from somewhere, yes? "There has been enough of death in the clade, my dear," it plead, wiping its eyes to no avail. Fur remained wet. Nose remained clogged. Voice remained round. Ey pulled eir paws away from eir face, looking appalled at the strands of spit and snot and salty tears. Such are the realities of a good cry, yes? They are as worthy of acknowledgment as the reality of breath, sys-side. We do not cease being subject to our gross anatomy. "Please tell me that you do not intend to quit," it croaked through another sob.
+My beloved up-tree's tears did not ebb before ey spoke. No, in fact, they flowed and flowed, a cascade of emotion trickling and then creeping and then washing across its face. I have spoken about the way I cry already, and, well, surely they got it from somewhere, yes? "There has been enough of death in the clade, my dear," it plead, wiping its eyes to no avail. Fur remained wet. Nose remained clogged. Voice remained round. Ey pulled eir paws away from eir face, looking appalled at the strands of spit and snot and salty tears. "Please tell me that you do not intend to quit," it croaked through another sob. "You will not leave us, right? Please say yes."
 
 The Woman smiled, and this smile was not a blessing but a benediction, and it was not for me but for solely The Oneirotect. It was my job only to witness this smile, this validation of pain. "No, dear one. I do not intend to quit." She let these words hang there in the air before us, a monument to such an intent. "No, I am seeking not just meaning but purpose. I have explored meaningful things and pleasurable things, but now I wish to explore direction."
 
-The Oneirotect is not The Child, but my beloved up-tree is also my very own little one. With this comes at least some of the baggage of being small, including tears that seem to flow with an outsized force. So overcome by the gross reality of a good, hard cry was it that ey could not help but laugh at emself. "Oh, good!" she managed, sucking back what ick she could. "I will hold you to that. If you quit, I will wipe this snot all over your headstone! It will cake itself between the grooves of your epitaph. It will dry there in the cracks and no dandelions will grow upon its stony bed; it will be the worst!"
+The Oneirotect is not The Child, but my beloved up-tree is also my very own little one. With this comes at least some of the baggage of being small, including tears that seem to flow with an outsized force. So overcome by the base reality of a good, hard cry was it that ey could not help but laugh at emself. "Oh, good!" she managed, sucking back what ick she could. "I will hold you to that. If you quit, I will wipe this snot all over your headstone! It will cake itself between the grooves of your epitaph. It will dry there in the cracks and no dandelions will grow upon its stony bed; it will be the worst!"
 
-At this, The Woman and I smiled. There perhaps was also room for laughter, but a simpler acknowledgment was required for now. A box of tissues was summoned. Glasses of water. Hugs and soft pets and gentle kisses between the ears such as might offer comfort.
+At this, The Woman and I smiled. There perhaps was also room for laughter, but a simpler acknowledgment was required for now. A box of tissues was summoned. Glasses of water. Hugs and soft pets and gentle kisses between the ears such as might offer comfort. Such are the realities of a good cry, yes? The distasteful and the compassionate realities both? They are as worthy of acknowledgment as the reality of breath, sys-side. We do not cease being subject to our gross anatomy.
 
-"A reminder, that art is not strictly joy, but also suffering," I cautioned most gently. "With art comes fear.\label{artandfear} There is suffering of a sort in failure. There is suffering in falling short, as well; even if you succeed in an endeavor in your own eyes, you may feel the pain of lack." Despite her expectant silence, I held up a paw as though to forestall comments, for even movement is communication. "You are strong, End Of Endings, and I know — I think we know — that you are up to such a task, but I must remind you as well."
+"A reminder: art is not strictly joy, but also suffering," I cautioned most gently. "With art comes fear.\label{artandfear} There is suffering of a sort in failure. There is suffering in falling short, as well; even if you succeed in an endeavor in your own eyes, you may feel the pain of lack." Despite her expectant silence, I held up a paw as though to forestall comments, for even movement is communication. "You are strong, End Of Endings, and I know — I think we know — that you are up to such a task, but I must remind you as well."
 
 The Woman bowed her head, though whether in acknowledgment or a pensive shift in her thoughts, I could not tell. Perhaps it was both. Perhaps she felt then as I have so much lately: as though the world is not quite as it seems, as though there is something more beneath or above. Perhaps she felt keenly our superlative friend. "I understand, of course. I suppose that has also been the case in my explorations of late, that there ever be this balance." She lifted her head to smile wryly. "There is, as you say, suffering in many things, but the suffering of failure carries a particular tang of disappointment, does it not?"
 
-The Oneirotect finally recomposed itself, reassured of The Woman's longevity. "Yes," she answered most bluntly. "Emphatically, yes. And yet, after nearly two and a half centuries, I am still doing it. Rye, you still write your stories, yes? Serene, she yet weaves her wilds, yes?" Its cadence fireed up, its tone almost a challenge, daring End Of Endings to oppose this conviction forged in agony. "I still dream up my little wonders and Dry Grass still keeps them on her mantle and those who I will never know still greedily gobble their favored food from my work on the Exchange."
+The Oneirotect finally recomposed itself, reassured of The Woman's longevity. "Yes," she answered most bluntly. "Emphatically, yes. And yet, after nearly two and a half centuries, I am still doing it. Rye, you still write your stories, yes? Serene, she yet weaves her wilds, yes?" Its cadence fired up, its tone almost a challenge, daring End Of Endings to oppose this conviction forged in agony. "I still dream up my little wonders and Dry Grass still keeps them on her mantle and those who I will never know still greedily gobble their favored food from my work on the Exchange."
 
-She paused, planting its paws between its knees to lean forward in eir seat. "There is vanity in art, and it is in vanity that we artists dwell. We mean to expose some part of ourselves, and there is torture in knowing _precisely_ how wrong every act has turned out." The Oneirotect's fervor softened into something more familiar to me, more an expression of shared adversity than the bitter lesson of so many shattered dreams littering the waters in its wake. "That is why we must do this for more than ourselves, End Of Endings, why our art must have its own value lest we fall into the perpetual pursuit of some cruel point."
+She paused, planting its paws between its knees to lean forward in eir seat. "There is vanity in art, and it is in vanity that we artists dwell. We mean to expose some part of ourselves, and there is torture in knowing *precisely* how wrong every act has turned out." The Oneirotect's fervor softened into something more familiar to me, more an expression of shared adversity than the bitter lesson of so many shattered dreams littering the waters in its wake. "That is why we must do this for more than ourselves, End Of Endings, why our art must have its own value lest we fall into the perpetual pursuit of some cruel point."
 
 The Woman tilted her head — that habit that so often follows each and every one of us around like a little puppy. "You mean to consider my audience?"
 
-I wobbled a paw. "While that is perhaps some of it — a great deal, even, as that validation does drive one on — there is more to art than that." I am not ashamed to say that I fall so easily back into that teacher mode of speaking. We were such for how many years, phys-side? And I have been such off and on for how many more, here? "You speak of purpose: it is also the sharing of what goes _into_ art, too. I write for myself, yes, for the joy of it, and I write for others, too. But if my failures are instructive, then shall I not also pass that instruction on to others? I teach. I write _with_ others. I read and give feedback."
+I wobbled a paw. "While that is perhaps some of it — a great deal, even, as that validation does drive one on — there is more to art than that." I am not ashamed to say that I fall so easily back into that teacher mode of speaking. We were such for how many years, phys-side? And I have been such off and on for how many more, here? "You speak of purpose: it is also the sharing of what goes *into* art, too. I write for myself, yes, for the joy of it, and I write for others, too. But if my failures are instructive, then shall I not also pass that instruction on to others? I teach. I write *with* others. I read and give feedback."
 
-At this she smiled wryly. "We _were_ teachers, after all. You have already mentioned communalism, too."
+At this she smiled. "Teaching has stuck with us, after all. You have already mentioned communalism, too."
 
-"Yes, that is it!" The Oneirotect said, a bright smile plastered across its face. "Have we not all of us in our hearts our own little shrines to _communitas?"_ it pondered. "I want for every person on Lagrange to be able to do what we do, to weave dreams tangible or otherwise into being with the ease of centuries of experience. I want for them to enjoy the food of their lives back phys-side, to imagine what flavors the Artemisians indulge, to draw up from memory the last best moment they ever beheld. That is why I go with Jove and Why Ask Questions to their little skillshare, yes, but it is also why I have taken a liking to oneiro-impressionism. I do not want for this to be so hard for everyone forever.
+"Yes, that is it!" The Oneirotect said, a bright smile plastered across its face. "Have we not all of us in our hearts our own little shrines to *communitas?* I want for every person on Lagrange to be able to do what we do, to weave dreams tangible or otherwise into being with the ease of centuries of experience. I want for them to enjoy the food of their lives back phys-side, to imagine what flavors the Artemisians indulge, to draw up from memory the last best moment they ever beheld. That is why I go with Jove and Why Ask Questions to their little skillshare, yes, but it is also why I have taken a liking to oneiro-impressionism. I do not want for this to be so hard for everyone forever.
 
 "It is just as industry made our lives gentler, yes?" ey went on, tone shifting further into something perilously close to exhaustion. The pain it was tanking to explain itself to The Woman was plain to see on its face as it grappled with eir own doubts. It spoke with confidence to her, but The Oneirotect spoke also to itself, and I am proud to say that in the years that followed, this conversation proved fruitful for at least one of us.
 
@@ -499,7 +503,7 @@ I am *proud* of em. I am as proud as any mother, as any attentive aunt, as any f
 
 It, too, fills me with commiseration with its exhaustion, for such is also as I have felt in the ways that I move through the world and I move through my life and I move through my art. I have spoken and doubtless will speak yet more about my overflow, my graphomania, and will whine forever about the pain that comes with it, the feelings of inadequacy and lack when I consider as well that others will willingly read my words. Would that– ah! But I wander...
 
-"I had not thought to question what art I might create provides to others," The Woman said after a silent moment's thought. "Now that I say that aloud, I am a little ashamed that I had not considered it. Much of this exercise that I have been undertaking has been focused on *my* joy, on what *I* might gain from being able to pick up this or that, whether it be hedonism or love or art."
+"I had not thought to question what art I might create provides to others," The Woman said after a silent moment's thought. "Now that I say that aloud, I am a little ashamed that I had not considered it. Much of this exercise that I have been undertaking has been focused on *my* joy, on what *I* might gain from being able to pick up from this or that, whether it be hedonism or love or art."
 
 The sheepishness in her tone, dear readers, cut. I ached for her, even if she herself in that moment once more wore that blessed wry smile.
 
@@ -507,7 +511,7 @@ Beyond that, though, did I not also have thoughts on this? Did I not also have f
 
 And yet.
 
-"It is no bad thing to consider those first, my dear," I said. "One must remember oneself first, though certainly not to the exclusion of others, of community. You cannot, after all, give to your community if you are unable to give, yes? The Golden Rule applies also to you, yes? You must treat _yourself_ well, yes?"
+"It is no bad thing to consider those first, my dear," I said. "One must remember oneself first, though certainly not to the exclusion of others, of community. You cannot, after all, give to your community if you are unable to give, yes? The Golden Rule applies also to you, yes? You must treat *yourself* well, yes?"
 
 She chuckled and gave a nod of acknowledgment. "Of course, Rye. I should not rush to judge this exploration so harshly this soon." Her shoulders sagged, then, and the ache within me swelled. "Perhaps I am simply sick of this suffering that Rejoice speaks of. Perhaps I am ready to move away from it. Not to quit, but to find some new basis for myself."
 
@@ -515,13 +519,13 @@ She chuckled and gave a nod of acknowledgment. "Of course, Rye. I should not rus
 
 She nodded. "I remain split on it, as yet. It is more complicated than I had imagined, given what you two have said, yes? It is much like Slow Hours's and Beholden's full-attention reading and listening. It takes the whole of me and is exhausting. I am exhausted even at the thought of starting."
 
-I thought back to my first creations, to the first stories and poems and novels that I wrote, back when I was still learning how to forge and how also to hone, and laughed. "Oh, my dear, it is exhausting to _remember_ starting. I will let you leave with one of my first stories. Thank goodness I did not allow it to see the light of day."
+I thought back to my first creations, to the first stories and poems and novels that I wrote, back when I was still learning how to forge and how also to hone, and laughed. "Oh, my dear, it is exhausting to *remember* starting. I will let you leave with one of my first stories. Thank goodness I did not allow it to see the light of day."
 
 "That tiring, then?"
 
 I nodded. "Beyond tiring. I do not know how it felt for Warmth, but for me, I would move in fits and starts, now loving my art and now feeling like it was trash, that I was treading already trod ground, that it was derivative. I suppose I had to learn how to learn, first, but even after that. I wanted to have become a great author, without going through the becoming part."
 
-The Oneirotect snickered softly, resting a paw on my knee. "I had the advantage of your example to learn from," she started, looking to End Of Endings. "And my predecessor's. I _started_ easily enough, but the despair of mediocrity ever tainted my motivation. That first week was full to brimming with excitement, that second worthy but deprived of euphoria, and on the third I inevitably stumbled into a wallowing spiral until the fourth, when I swore I would never try again, only for a new ambition to spring up the next." It shook its head, as though in disbelief at itself. I found it understandable, dear readers, and perhaps you do as well. Even after three hundred years, the ambition always returns. Perhaps it was not disbelief, then, that led my beloved up-tree to shake eir head, but a world-weary recognition of this — but I digress. "I have not improved very much at all in this respect; it is agony, but it has at least turned out to be sustainable. I only wish it did not _hurt_ so much."
+The Oneirotect snickered, resting a paw on my knee. "I had the advantage of your example to learn from," she started, looking to End Of Endings. "And my predecessor's. I *started* easily enough, but the despair of mediocrity ever tainted my motivation. That first week was full to brimming with excitement, that second worthy but deprived of euphoria, and on the third I inevitably stumbled into a wallowing spiral until the fourth, when I swore I would never try again, only for a new ambition to spring up the next." It shook its head, as though in disbelief at itself. I found it understandable, dear readers, and perhaps you do as well. Even after three hundred years, the ambition always returns. Perhaps it was not disbelief, then, that led my beloved up-tree to shake eir head, but a world-weary recognition of this — but I digress. "I have not improved very much at all in this respect; it is agony, but it has at least turned out to be sustainable. I only wish it did not *hurt* so much."
 
 Furrowing her brow, The Woman looked down to her glass of water. "More complicated, indeed," she murmured, more to herself than anything — so evidently so that my beloved up-tree and I let her have that moment for herself, as though hesitant to interrupt it. "You speak of works you would not let see the light of day, Rye, and of the pain of creation. You both clearly still find meaning in it — as do Slow Hours and Beholden, of course, and Motes — so I am left wondering what one does with these feelings of...ah, I hesitate to say, but perhaps they are feelings of unworthiness. What does one do when one's works feel mediocre, especially if one is to create also for others?"
 
@@ -531,7 +535,7 @@ It took me some time to disentangle The Woman's words. They were starting to fal
 
 The answer felt less than satisfactory, or perhaps not quite as true as it could have been, for there was work of mine that I loved for this utility and yet was unwilling to publish, not now, not work from when I was in the novitiate in my art. There is work of mine even now that I hate, that I loathe for, as The Oneirotect said, the wallowing spiral that spawned it and it makes me wonder, and at times it makes me tremble, that I must say there is worth in art when so much of mine feels worthless.
 
-"End Of Endings, my dear," The Oneirotect said, slipping down from her stool, "I am beginning to see myself in you, and that fills me with fear. You have promised me that you do not intend to quit, but if there _is_ that of death in you, whatever art you choose will bring you perilously close to the brink time and time and time again." It padded up beside The Woman, placing both paws on her knees and looking up into her face. "Tell me, kitty, is it better to disappear into a blizzard, or should someone lay down their weary bones in a grave when they are through?"
+"End Of Endings, my dear," The Oneirotect said, slipping down from her stool, "I am beginning to see myself in you, and that fills me with fear. You have promised me that you do not intend to quit, but if there *is* that of death in you, whatever art you choose will bring you perilously close to the brink time and time and time again." It padded up beside The Woman, placing both paws on her knees and looking up into her face. "Tell me, kitty, is it better to disappear into a blizzard, or should someone lay down their weary bones in a grave when they are through?"
 
 
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