Update draft

content/draft/001.md

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 Motes played.
 
-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' 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.
+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' 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.
 
 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.
 
@@ -22,19 +22,17 @@ And so Motes played.
 
 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.
 
-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.
-
-The painting was finished, and the time had come to stop.
+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, as it now was, and when it was finished, she stopped.
 
 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.
 
-Once feeling returned to her rump, she pushed herself back to sit cross-legged and started the process of cleaning up.
+Once feeling returned to her rump, she pushed herself back to sit cross-legged and started the process of actually cleaning up.
 
 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.
 
-She split the difference today, and forked quickly into four Moteses: one hauled the stool up above her head and trundled over to plop it down in the corner by the workbench; one ran off with the brush and palette to wash them off in the sink; one brought the easel, painting still clamped to it, over to the corner to dry; one tried to do a handstand in the middle of the room while Motes#root watched. Eventually, she managed for a few seconds before collapsing into a giggling heap.
+She split the difference today, and forked quickly into four Moteses: one hauled the stool up above her head and trundled over to plop it down in the corner by the workbench; one ran off with the brush and palette to wash them off in the sink; one brought the easel, painting still clamped to it, over to the corner to dry; one tried to do a handstand in the middle of the room while Motes#Root watched. Eventually, she managed for a few seconds before collapsing into a giggling heap.
 
-One by one, the various Moteses quit until #root was the only one remaining. She pushed herself to her feet, stretched, and padded out of the pleasantly cluttered studio.
+One by one, the various Moteses quit until #Root was the only one remaining. She pushed herself to her feet, stretched, and padded out of the pleasantly cluttered studio.
 
 "Lights, Dot."
 
@@ -42,7 +40,7 @@ Motes jolted at the sound of A Finger Pointing's voice from the couch beside the
 
 "All done painting?" Beholden asked, the other, larger skunk not yet looking up from where she was slicing a lime into wedges at the bar.
 
-"Mmhm!"
+"Mmhm."
 
 A Finger Pointing ruffled a hand lazily through the skunk's mane. "What were you working on, my dear?"
 
@@ -50,7 +48,7 @@ A Finger Pointing ruffled a hand lazily through the skunk's mane. "What were you
 
 "Are you going to wind up painting thin black lines in another hundred years?" Beholden asked from the bar, a grin audible in her voice. "Just a beautiful landscape cut in half by a hair?"
 
-Motes giggled. "I do not know! Probably. Are you making drinks, Bee?"
+Motes giggled. "I do not know. Probably. Are you making drinks, Bee?"
 
 The other skunk scoffed, tossing her head back, adopting a scolding tone. "Am I making drinks? Am *I* making drinks? And We Are The Motes In The Stage-Lights of the Ode clade, what happened to your brain?" She laughed, adding, "Why? Want one too?"
 
@@ -60,31 +58,35 @@ Motes blew a raspberry in response. "Yes please!"
 
 "Right, virgin gin fizz it is."
 
-"*Maaa,*" Motes whined. "I am a grown up!"
+"*Maaa~*" Motes whined. "I am a grown up!"
 
 "You are seven, my dear," A Finger Pointing retorted.
 
 Another raspberry.
 
-Beholden poured a tall gin fizz to share with herself and her partner-*cum*-cocladist, lime muddled with sugar and cardamom bitters, gin and soda water. Then she made a second glass sans gin and turned to lean back against the edge of the bar, drink in one paw and bottle of gin in the other, finally facing the two cuddled up on the couch. She absentmindedly started to top up the glass from the bottle. Or, well, 'absentmindedly'. "Oh, *right!* You said virgin," she said, mock surprise in her voice. Gin continued to pour. She winked to the skunklet. "Oh no. *Oh no!* That is *way* too much! Motes! You had better not drink this!"
+Beholden poured a tall gin fizz to share with herself and her partner-*cum*-cocladist, lime muddled with sugar and cardamom bitters, gin and soda water. Then she made a second glass sans alcohol and turned to lean back against the edge of the bar, drink in one paw and bottle of gin in the other, finally facing the two cuddled up on the couch. She 'absentmindedly' started to top up the glass from the bottle. "Oh, *right!* You said virgin," she said, mock surprise in her voice. Gin continued to pour. She winked to the skunklet. "Oh no. *Oh no!* That is *way* too much! Motes! You had better not drink this!"
 
 They all laughed.
 
-Beholden padded over to join them on the couch. She took a long sip from one of the glasses before passing it over to A Finger Pointing, handing the other glass over to Motes. "We are headed out to a pub tonight with a few others, my dear. Jazz and burgers and too much whiskey."
+Beholden padded over to join them on the couch. She took a long sip from one of the glasses before passing it over to A Finger Pointing, handing the other over to Motes. "We are headed out to a pub tonight with a few others, my dear. Jazz and burgers and too much whiskey."
 
-"Is that why you are all dressed up?" Motes asked, her paint-spattered overalls contrasting the both of their all-black ensembles.
+"Is that why you are all dressed up?" Motes asked, her paint-spattered overalls contrasting with both of their all-black ensembles.
 
 They both nodded.
 
+"Who will be there?"
+
+"Ioan, May Then My Name, Unbidden, Ray and Loam..." Beholden said, ticking off names on her fingers. "The usual crowd."
+
 "Can I come?"
 
 A Finger Pointing shrugged. "I do not see why not. Do you want to?"
 
-Motes grinned. "Not really! I just wanted to see if I could."
+Motes grinned. "Not really. I just wanted to see if I could."
 
 Her down-tree pinched her ear between her fingers. "Very well. Will you be staying here by yourself, then?"
 
-She laughed, tilting her head and taking a lapping sip of her drink. "Maybe! Maybe I will find someone to flop with."
+She laughed, tilting her head and taking a lapping sip of her drink. "Maybe. Maybe I will find someone to flop with."
 
 "Cuddly Dot?" Beholden asked, leaning closer to sandwich her between her two guardians, between Ma and Bee.
 
@@ -92,7 +94,7 @@ Motes wriggled right in between them. "Mmhm. Not tired, just lazy."
 
 "Flop away," A Finger Pointing said fondly. "Who do you think you will ask?"
 
-She shrugged. "Beckoning and Muse. Slow Hours, maybe? Dry Grass? I think Warmth is feeling a bit fussy."
+She shrugged. "Beckoning and Muse? Slow Hours, maybe? Dry Grass? I think Warmth is feeling a bit fussy."
 
 "Two peas in a pod," Beholden said. "Two little fusspots."
 
@@ -130,7 +132,7 @@ Motes snorted. "You are also a fat skunk, though."
 
 "You just have a bit to commit to," A Finger Pointing said, nodding. "And we are nothing if not ourselves when it comes to committing to a bit."
 
-"Exactly! We are the same age, right? We were the same person until we were 41, right? I have just had, like...two hundred years to pick my own bit to commit to. I am the kid, you are the weirdo who makes really crazy music, ma is the one who does all the schmoozing and stuff."
+"Exactly! We are the same age, right? We were the same person until we were 41, right? I have just had, like...two hundred years to pick my own bit to commit to. I am the kid, you are the weirdo who makes really crazy music, Ma is the one who does all the schmoozing and stuff."
 
 "*Schmoozing,* huh?" A Finger Pointing laughed. "I suppose that is as good a way to put it as any. Someone has to keep this band of layabouts moving. Someone has to grease all the squeaky wheels in the clade."
 
@@ -144,11 +146,11 @@ Motes snorted. "You are also a fat skunk, though."
 
 The playful banter continued, and while she would occasionally poke her snout in to make a quip of her own, Motes largely just savored her drink, bitter and sour and sweet, and the comfort of being nestled in between her two cocladists, thinking.
 
-She thought about the more than two centuries that had passed since A Finger Pointing had forked into the other nine instances of her stanza, that point when Motes had become Motes. She thought about the time that had followed when she remained essentially a version of A Finger Pointing who had taken up responsibility for sets and props, about those slow years of individuation and differentiation. She thought about the way she had started to toy with her appearance, her actions, her approach to life, and how she had steered herself into this focus on play to reclaim a childhood that had, yes, been pleasant enough, and yet which could have been so much more, now that she had all the time in the world..
+She thought about the more than two centuries that had passed since A Finger Pointing had forked into the other nine instances of her stanza, that point when Motes had become Motes. She thought about the time that had followed when she remained essentially the version of A Finger Pointing who had taken up responsibility for sets and props, about those slow years of individuation and differentiation. She thought about the way she had started to toy with her appearance, her actions, her approach to life, and how she had steered herself into this focus on play to reclaim a childhood that had, yes, been pleasant enough, and yet which could have been so much more, now that she had all the time in the world.
 
 It had not always been smooth, to be sure. The compromises she made early on far outnumbered the ways in which she was earnest to herself.
 
-She did not blame A Finger Pointing, never once. She, of all those in her life, was trustworthy. Motes had once been her, after all, yes? They had had their spats, more than a few, as would be the case between any parent and child — as would be the case between any two individuals. She had had spats with more than just ma. She and Beholden had fought, and at times bitterly, and it was at those times that Bee's guardianship had felt most precarious. It had never disappeared, but it had verged well into the realm of sister — the realm of Slow Hours — or bestest friend — the realm of Warmth In Fire — and away from guardian, away from that parental love.
+She did not blame A Finger Pointing, never once. She, of all those in her life, was trustworthy. Motes had once *been* her, after all, yes? They had had their spats, more than a few, as would be the case between any parent and child — as would be the case between any two individuals. She had had spats with more than just Ma. She and Beholden had fought, and at times bitterly, and it was at those times that Bee's guardianship had felt most precarious. It had never disappeared, but it had verged well into the realm of sister — the realm of Slow Hours — or bestest friend — that of of Warmth In Fire — and away from guardian, away from that parental love.
 
 She did not remember what the spats were about. She could, yes, her memory was as perfect as anyone else's on the three Systems. But she would not, because that was not the point. The point was that she was Motes. She was their Dot, their *Dóttir.* She was the kid, and they were the grown-ups who loved her.
 
@@ -158,13 +160,13 @@ And that is where the friction came from. It came from others fussing about Mote
 
 She was not always. Often, she was in her early twenties. Certainly a far cry from the 41 she had been when she had been forked, or the 32 she had been when Michelle Hadje had first uploaded, but still, far more acceptable in the eyes of the System, far more acceptable in the eyes of the rest of the Ode clade.
 
-It was them, through A Finger Pointing and, on a few occasions, through Slow Hours and Time Rushes, who suggested that she should not do this thing. It was too close, they said, to unwelcome paraphilias, here on the System where one had to be at least eighteen to upload. It was too close, they said, to coming off as someone seeking unwanted attention, affection, sexuality. "I understand that you wish to reclaim childhood," they told her through her ma or siblings. "But you must understand the optics." Never mind that she had long since set aside sexuality in this form, in all but the most carefully curated moments, that she harbored her own fears of those offering unwanted attention, affection, sex. No, it was the optics that needed minding.
+It was them, through A Finger Pointing and, on a few occasions, through Slow Hours and Time Rushes, who suggested that she should not do this thing. It was too close, they said, to unwelcome paraphilias, here on the System where one had to be at least eighteen to upload. It was too close, they said, to coming off as someone seeking unwanted attention, affection, sexuality. "I understand that you wish to reclaim childhood," they told her through her ma or siblings. "But you must understand the optics." Never mind that she had long since set aside sexuality while in this form, that she harbored her own fears of those offering unwanted attention, affection, sex. No, it was the *optics* that needed minding.
 
 And so she kept it under wraps for years and decades.
 
 First it was the feelings she kept to herself. She alone knew them, and then her stanza alone knew them, but no one else.
 
-Then, it was the appearance that she kept to herself. While, shortly after happening on these feelings, she had built herself into an image of youth parked squarely in her early twenties, a human who dressed in flower-embroidered jeans and blouses, who so often wore a flower crown in her hair, who embodied flower-child, she now spent weeks and months tuning various aspects of her shape, of her sensorium. A skunk like so many of her cocladists, rather than a human. Shorter, yes, but that is not all that makes a child. Shorter, proportionately different, clumsier, less developed in all ways aside from mental acuity.
+Then, it was the appearance that she kept to herself. While, shortly after happening on these feelings, she had built herself into an image of youth parked squarely in her early twenties, a human who dressed in flower-embroidered jeans and blouses, who so often wore a flower crown in her hair, who embodied flower-child, she now spent weeks and months tuning various aspects of her shape, of her sensorium. A skunk like so many of her cocladists, rather than a human. Shorter, yes, but that is not all that makes a child. Shorter, proportionately different, clumsier, less developed in all ways aside from mental acuity. Just a kid.
 
 She alone knew this shape, alone in her room, alone in her apartment, alone in her studio with the doors securely shut and the premises swept. She alone knew what she looked like, and then her stanza knew, but precious few others.
 
@@ -174,19 +176,17 @@ The discussion of optics did not show up for another few years as she tested the
 
 And yet she was of the Ode, was she not? There was an image to maintain that extended beyond the individual.
 
-The feelings, the appearance, rinse and repeat with this and that, with moving in together, with the familial language of 'ma' and 'sis', with sharing a bed when she had a nightmare, as any Odist might. Again and again pushing gently at limitations to search for a slow form of change.
-
-It was her use of 'ma' that caused perhaps the most trouble. It was trouble that came not as a gentle suggestion from 'on high', such as it were, but this suggestion in particular had over time led to frustration and anger in her down-tree instance, A Finger Pointing. She kept it to herself, masked it well enough, but Motes knew the signs.
+The feelings, the appearance, rinse and repeat with this and that, with moving in together, with the familial language of 'Ma' and 'Sis', with sharing a bed when she had a nightmare, as any Odist might. Again and again pushing gently at limitations to search for a slow form of change.
 
 Still, she did as she was told and kept this particular sense of family to herself and those she loved. She was a good girl, of course, always tried to be, but she was also as much an Odist as those who spoke so often of optics. She saw the trends, the prickly taboo against intraclade relationships like that of A Finger Pointing and Beholden, how the subversiveness of found family might rub up against that. She had her guesses, but–
 
 "Motes? Did you hear what I said?" Beholden asked, ruffling her mane all up.
 
-"Nope!" Motes said, smiling primly. "I have been ignoring you both."
+"Nope~" Motes said, smiling primly. "I have been ignoring you both."
 
 Beholden rolled her eyes. "Brat. Lost in thought?"
 
-She shrugged, sipping her drink yet more. "I guess. Was thinking of fusspots and all the trouble calling ma 'ma' caused. Glad it is not a thing anymore."
+She shrugged, sipping her drink yet more. "I guess. Was thinking of fusspots and all the trouble calling Ma 'Ma' caused. Glad it is not a thing anymore."
 
 "*Less* of a thing," A Finger Pointing corrected. "It is not *not* a thing. What Beholden was saying, though, is that we were going to head off. The offer stands for you to join us, Dot."
 
@@ -208,7 +208,7 @@ There was a moment's silence, a sense of laughter, and then, *"Motes Motes Motes
 
 *"And here you are, pinging me, yes."*
 
-*"Mmhm! Was going to make a food or two. Do you want some?"*
+*"Mmhm. Was going to make a food or two. Do you want some?"*
 
 There was a sensation of a haughty frown from Dry Grass. *"Are you allowed to be using the stove, my dear?"*
 
@@ -226,7 +226,7 @@ Dry Grass laughed. *"You had me at maccy-chee. Shall I come over now?"*
 
 *"Yes, please!"*
 
-No sooner had the message completed did Dry Grass blink into being on the default arrival point over by the front door.
+No sooner had the message completed than Dry Grass blinked into being on the default arrival point over by the front door.
 
 Motes finished shoving the tray of salad ingredients up onto the counter and zipped over to her cross-tree cocladist, all but launching herself into her arms. Dry Grass caught her, letting her momentum swing the two of them around in a circle. "Hey kiddo! Way to go almost knocking me over."
 
@@ -238,7 +238,7 @@ Dry Grass followed after more sedately. "Of course. Would not want you losing a
 
 By their powers combined, the two Odists managed to pull together a meal, exactly as Motes had described it. The salad turned out to be the breakaway winner of the bunch. Fries and nuggets are known quantities, but where the macaroni and cheese bake was good, something about the refreshing salad, the tang of the dressing, the satisfying pop of the tomatoes (many of which they wound up leaving whole) managed to hit the spot in a way none of the other dishes did.
 
-Once the dishes had been waved a way and drinks had been made — sweeter cocktails that once more got her a good-natured ribbing — Motes summoned up some simple tatami mats for them to lay on on the floor, side cozied up against side, while she painted her claws and Dry Grass's nails with a fine-tipped brush, little spirals and curlicues in pink and yellow.
+Once the dishes had been waved away and drinks had been made — sweeter cocktails that once more got her a good-natured ribbing — Motes summoned up some simple tatami mats for them to lay on on the floor, side cozied up against side, while she painted her claws and Dry Grass's nails with a fine-tipped brush, little spirals and curlicues in pink and yellow.
 
 "What is on your mind, kiddo?" Dry Grass asked. "Usually you do not want to just flop unless you are already worn out or something got you all thinky."
 
@@ -246,7 +246,7 @@ Once the dishes had been waved a way and drinks had been made — sweeter cockta
 
 "'Being you'?"
 
-"Uh huh, like the whole kidcore thing. I was thinking about how upset it made people for a long time. Even me! I would hear a thing and get all huffy for a while and go Big Motes for a month or two." She giggled, shrugged. "It all seems really silly now, but it stuck with me."
+"Uh huh, like the whole kidcore thing. I was thinking about how upset it made people for a long time. Even me. I would hear a thing and get all huffy for a while and go Big Motes for a month or two." She giggled, shrugged. "It all seems really silly now, but it stuck with me."
 
 Dry Grass hummed thoughtfully. "Well, I am glad that it has gotten to the point of being silly. Are you thinking about the clade stuff?"
 
@@ -258,7 +258,7 @@ Motes tilted her head, squinting at her.
 
 Holding up her hands disarmingly, Dry Grass added quickly, "Not from me, my dear. Never from me. Most all of it came from Hammered Silver. A lot of her up-trees did not particularly care, and you know I actively like it."
 
-The skunk's smile returned. "I know. You are nice to me! I had figured if not the eighth, then In Dreams would have been the one."
+The skunk's smile returned. "I know. You are nice to me. I had figured if not the eighth, then In Dreams would have been the one."
 
 "Oh, she was definitely another one of the big culprits. Do not get me wrong, I like the seventh stanza alright, but In Dreams can be a stickler over...well, most anything, really."
 
@@ -282,15 +282,15 @@ Motes frowned and pulled apart the logic, doodling pink spirals onto her fingerp
 
 Dry Grass laughed as well. "She is already essentially the prissy HOA president. I respect her as a person, but I do not like her, and I *certainly* do not respect her authority."
 
-"Right, because she wants you to not talk to *any* of us!"
+"Right, because she wants you to not talk to *any* of us."
 
 She nodded. "She cut off the first, eighth, part of the ninth, and now the entire fifth stanza since you took on Sasha."
 
-Motes groaned and rolled onto her back, holding her paws up in the air to inspect her claws. "Which is stupid, because Sasha is nice!"
+Motes groaned and rolled onto her back, holding her paws up in the air to inspect her claws. "Which is stupid, because Sasha is nice."
 
 "She really is, though I have not had as much a chance to speak with her as I might like. She was the last straw in a whole series of events. She does not like Sasha, does not like you, she *really* does not like the family dynamic you have set up."
 
-Bristling, Motes glared over at Dry Grass. "It is all well and good that she not like me, but to not like my family is bullcrap."
+Bristling, Motes glared down at the polish and brush. "It is all well and good that she not like me, but to not like my family is bullcrap."
 
 Dry Grass nodded, expression serious. "It absolutely is. She has gotten quite upset about it a few times, but I just smile and nod and tune her out when she goes into her self-righteous spirals. I am not the type to cut anyone out of my life, for better or worse, but I will absolutely ignore people."