Edits

content/draft/009.md

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 Motes thought of play.
 
-She thought of all of the play that she had taken part in over the years, all of the games and make believe, all of the jungle-gyms and slides, all of the tag and red-light-green-light and duck-duck-goose, everything going back 276 years, as much as she could remember. She thought of all her toys, from the mound of stuffed animals occupying her bed beside her right now to the awful and cheap RC car she had received on her fifth birthday that worked for that day and that day alone, that never again turned on. She thought of all her friends, of Alexei on the playground the other day — three days ago? Four? — calling out to her as she fell under the spike of panic, of Frida Couch who she had met in kindergarten, who she had told her parents she was dating in third grade, who had died some years after Michelle had uploaded.
+She thought of all of the play that she had taken part in over the years, all of the games and make believe, all of the jungle-gyms and slides, all of the tag and red-light-green-light and duck-duck-goose, everything going back 276 years, as much as she could remember. She thought of all her toys, from the mound of stuffed animals occupying her bed beside her right now to the awful and cheap RC car she had received on her fifth birthday that worked for that day and that day alone, then never again turned on. She thought of all her friends, of Alexei on the playground the other day — three days ago? Four? — calling out to her as she fell under the spike of panic, of Frida Couch who she had met in kindergarten, who she had told her parents she was dating in third grade, who had died some years after Michelle had uploaded.
 
 She thought of the way that play defined the Motes that she had become, the way it had shaped the way she interacted with the world, the way it shaped her very form. She thought of how Au Lieu Du Rêve had accepted readily just how well it fit her self-definition. She thought of the family that she had built up around her.
 
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ The eggs were fried over easy and the sausage cooked to just this side of burnt
 
 Her plate laden with two burritos in one hand and mimosa in the other, she made her way to the couch rather than the dining table and settled down with a long, worn-out sigh.
 
-What was missing...ah! Coffee. 
+What was missing...? Ah! Coffee. 
 
 While there was joy in making her own, she was already down, she was already comfortable, she was already finished with her time in the kitchen, and so she deemed it easier to just wave a steaming mug into being on the low table before her, already dosed with cream and sugar.
 
@@ -70,7 +70,7 @@ Laughing, the skunk gave her one more of those nose-dot kisses before disentangl
 
 "Okay," she said. "Tender, I guess. Sore, maybe? I am not feeling bad, but I am not yet feeling good. I am feeling like the slightest bump with leave me with a bruise."
 
-Her cocladist nodded. "I imagine so. Are you up to speaking about what happened?"
+A Finger Pointing nodded. "I imagine so. Are you up to speaking about what happened?"
 
 She nodded. "A little bit. I will let you know if I need to bow out."
 
@@ -86,7 +86,7 @@ The answer was a long time coming, the silence filled with the gentle tink of gl
 
 Beholden tasted her drink, nodded appreciatively, then asked, "Have you come to any conclusions?"
 
-"I think so," she said, looking down at her mimosa. Beholden had topped it with a maraschino cherry poked through with a cocktail umbrella. There was a warmth of adoration starting to fill that hollow space in her chest. "I am not going to stop playing, not going to stop being her, but...but that really fucking hurt, and I need to know what to do with that pain before I reengage with that, you know?"
+"I think so," she said, looking down at her mimosa. Beholden had topped it with a maraschino cherry poked through with a cocktail umbrella. There was a warmth of adoration starting to fill that hollow space in her chest. "I am not going to stop playing, not going to stop being Little Motes, but...but that really fucking hurt, and I need to know what to do with that pain before I reengage with that, you know?"
 
 Letting her free arm dangle over the arm of the couch, glass held by the rim, A Finger Pointing tucked her own cocktail umbrella into Motes's hair behind her ear, adding a wheel of bright pink to the yellow of the dandelions before draping her arm around her shoulder. "That does make sense, yes. That was one of my worries, even: that this would leave you too wounded to reengage with that part of you that has been so important over the years."
 
@@ -104,7 +104,7 @@ Beholden smiled, reached out to brush some of her curls away from her face, adde
 
 Her shoulders slumped and she nodded. "Alright. I think my answer still stands, though. I like it when you call me that, even when I am Big Motes. I do not imagine...well, no. I am *sure* this will not last longer than two weeks. That is the deadline I have given myself to process this."
 
-"Of course, Dot," A Finger Pointing said, tightening her grip in a squeeze before gently nudging her to sit back upright. "With this of all things, there will be more than enough processing to fill that time. The situation has...resolved itself while you were sleeping, but even that resolution is complicated."
+"Of course, Dot," A Finger Pointing said, tightening her grip in a squeeze before gently nudging her to sit back upright. "With this of all things, I am sure there will be more than enough processing to fill that time. The situation has...resolved itself while you were sleeping, but even that resolution is complicated."
 
 "Oh?"
 
@@ -122,7 +122,7 @@ When she finished and all questions had been answered or deferred, they fell int
 
 Finally, Motes huffed and flopped back against the couch. "What a fucking bitch."
 
-"Dot, language," Beholden scolded, laughing.
+"Dot, language," Beholden scolded.
 
 "Fuck fuck fuck," she said, grinning wildly. "Bitch bitch bitch! You can yell at Little Motes~"
 
@@ -232,7 +232,7 @@ She furrowed her brow, using her shoe to flatten out the gravel beneath her as s
 
 "That's your name, though. Tell me about how that doesn't *feel* like cutting you out of the clade." Sarah smiled gently, adding, "Not that I don't believe you, I just want to understand where you're coming from on this."
 
-"I guess it is that she has not told anyone but her stanza not to talk to me. To us, I mean. Her and In Dreams's stanzas talk to each other. They still talk to the second, third, and fourth. They still talk to What Lives and so on in the ninth. We talk to all of those people, too." She smiled sidelong at Sarah. "So I guess I see where you are going. I do still see her as an aunt because she has not actually said that we are not family — or like a family — she has just cut off contact. She has implied that we *are* still family, but that I did something wrong."
+"I guess it is that she has not told anyone but her stanza not to talk to me. To us, I mean. Her and In Dreams's stanzas talk to each other. They still talk to the second, third, and fourth. They still talk to What Lives and so on in the ninth. We talk to all of those people, too." She smiled sidelong at Sarah. "So I guess I see where you are going. I do still see her as an aunt because she has not actually said that we are not family — or like a family — she has just cut off contact. She has implied that we *are* still family, but that I did something wrong by...I do not know. Tempting Dry Grass?"
 
 Sarah laughed. "I really was just trying to figure things out, not lead you along, but that's an important connection to make, there. Family members cutting off others in the family is common enough to be a whole area of study. How does it feel to treat the rest of the clade as an extended family, though?"
 
@@ -254,9 +254,9 @@ Motes frowned.
 
 Motes snorted. "*One* thing I can do is reclaim it and turn it into a family spat, right?"
 
-Sarah laughed and pushed herself to start swinging. "That's what I was getting at, yeah. But tell me more about being Big Motes. You've talked about the family aspect of it, but it sounds like you were thinking about this even before Hammered Silver sent you her letter."
+Sarah pushed herself to start swinging. "That's what I was getting at, yeah. But tell me more about being Big Motes. You've talked about the family aspect of it, but it sounds like you were thinking about this even before Hammered Silver sent you her letter."
 
-Before she realized what she was doing, Motes was already starting to swing along with Sarah. Back to that movement, back to that little twinge of play. *This* was why she appreciated her therapist, all of these little nudges, all of this meeting her on her terms. After all, had she not appeared at first as a girl a few years older than her, as she had so many times before? One of those girls who seems infinitely wise to someone younger?
+Before she realized what she was doing, Motes was already starting to swing along with Sarah. Back to that movement, back to that little twinge of play. *This* was why she appreciated her therapist, all of these little nudges, all of this meeting her on her terms. After all, had she not appeared at first as a girl a few years older than Little Motes, as she had so many times before? One of those girls who seems infinitely wise to someone younger?
 
 Motes smiled faintly out to the world as it swung beneath and around her. "I do not know that there was anything that spurred on all of the discussions or the dream — though I imagine the dream was a result of all of the thinking that I had been doing leading up to it. It was just on my mind. Maybe I have been doubting myself more of late."