Thoughts

content/draft/001.md

@@ -12,12 +12,10 @@ She played with life, enjoying and enjoying and enjoying.
 
 She played with death. She had died countless times, on-stage and off — to knives, to falls, to drowning, to games, to those who said they loved her, to those who said they hated her.
 
-She played because she was a kid.
+Motes played because she was a kid and she was a kid because she played. She was a kid because kids are resilient. She was a kid because kids bounced, because they fell, cried, and then picked themselves up once more and went back to playing. She was a kid because she liked being small. She was a kid because she liked it when others played, too. She liked when others fell into enjoyment and laughter along with her. She liked the way that it brought out the best in those in her life. She was a kid because a life would not truly be complete without kids, and she believed with all of her heart that life should be complete.
 
 She played because she *was* play. Play incarnate.
 
-Motes was a kid because she played. She was a kid because kids are resilient. She was a kid because kids bounced, because they fell, cried, and then picked themselves up once more and went back to playing. She was a kid because she liked being small. She was a kid because she liked it when others played, too. She liked when others fell into enjoyment and laughter along with her. She liked the way that it brought out the best in those in her life. She was a kid because a life would not truly be complete without kids, and she believed with all of her heart that life should be complete.
-
 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.
@@ -30,13 +28,13 @@ Once feeling returned to her rump, she pushed herself back to sit cross-legged a
 
 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.
 
 "Lights, Dot."
 
-Motes jolted at the sound of A Finger Pointing's voice from the couch beside the door. "Oh! Yeah!" she said, forking off one more ephemeral instance to go flip the switch in the studio, make some spooky noises, then quit, all while #root climbed up to join her down-tree instance on the couch, slouching against her side.
+Motes jolted at the sound of A Finger Pointing's voice from the couch beside the door. "Oh! Yeah!" she said, forking off one more ephemeral instance to go flip the switch in the studio, make some spooky noises, then quit, all while #Root climbed up to join her down-tree instance on the couch, slouching against her side.
 
 "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.
 
@@ -50,11 +48,11 @@ A Finger Pointing ruffled a hand lazily through the skunk's mane. "What were you
 
 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?"
+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, what happened to your brain?" She laughed, adding, "Why? Want one too?"
 
 Motes blew a raspberry in response. "Yes please!"
 
-"Beholden To The Heat Of The Lamps of the Ode clade, you had best not be feeding the child gin," A Finger Pointing scolded in turn, leaning hard into her full name. Her scowl was nevertheless patently overwrought.
+"Beholden To The Heat Of The Lamps of the Ode clade, you had best not be feeding the child gin," A Finger Pointing scolded in turn, leaning hard into that full name. Her scowl was nevertheless patently overwrought.
 
 "Right, virgin gin fizz it is."
 
@@ -104,7 +102,7 @@ She shrugged. "Beckoning and Muse? Slow Hours, maybe? Dry Grass? I think Warmth
 
 "I do not know. Usually that happens when ey gets a letter from one of the Dear-cules."
 
-"Mm, usually Pollux, yes." She sighed, passing the drink back to Beholden and resting her head against the back of the couch. "It has been a while since you bothered Dry Grass, then. You flopped on Slow Hours earlier today and pestered your aunts earlier this week. You tracked soil all over the floor."
+"Mm, usually Pollux, yes." She sighed, passing the drink back to Beholden and resting her head against the back of the couch. "It has been a while since you bothered Dry Grass, then. You flopped on Slow Hours earlier today and pestered your aunts earlier this week. You tracked soil all over the floor, remember?"
 
 "Alright, I will ping her soon, then."
 
@@ -146,11 +144,11 @@ 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 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.
+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. Something to live intentionally. Something to savor.
 
 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 — that of 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.
 
@@ -158,7 +156,7 @@ And so their protectiveness made sense, yes? They wanted to keep her safe, yes?
 
 And that is where the friction came from. It came from others fussing about Motes-as-kid.
 
-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.
+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 many on 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 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.
 
@@ -210,7 +208,7 @@ There was a moment's silence, a sense of laughter, and then, *"Motes Motes Motes
 
 *"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?"*
+There was a sensation of a haughty frown from Dry Grass. *"Are you allowed to be using the stove, young miss?"*
 
 Motes sighed dramatically. *"Fiiine, I will fork older."*
 
@@ -242,7 +240,7 @@ Once the dishes had been waved away and drinks had been made — sweeter cocktai
 
 "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."
 
-"I dunno," she said. The use of a contraction itched, brushing against the linguistic idiosyncrasies that plagued all of the Odists, even these many years later, but she had practiced for certain occasions. She shrugged, careful not to mess up the current shape. "I spent the day with Slow Hours and Sasha, and they got to talking about the past because Sasha had a question. Just thinking about being me."
+"I dunno," she said. The use of a contraction itched, brushing against the linguistic idiosyncrasies that plagued all of the Odists, even these many years later, but she had practiced for certain occasions. She shrugged, careful not to mess up the current shape. "I spent the day with Slow Hours and Sasha, and they got to talking about the past because Sasha had a question for Slowers. Just thinking about being me."
 
 "'Being you'?"
 
@@ -260,7 +258,7 @@ Holding up her hands disarmingly, Dry Grass added quickly, "Not from me, my dear
 
 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."
+"Oh, she was definitely another one of the big culprits, at least early on. Do not get me wrong, I like the seventh stanza alright, but In Dreams can be a stickler over...well, most anything, really."
 
 "Yeah, she pulled me aside once and started talking about there being a time and a place and blah blah blah."
 
@@ -270,15 +268,15 @@ The skunk's smile returned. "I know. You are nice to me. I had figured if not th
 
 Dry Grass frowned, looking down at her spread out fingers, watching the polish dry. "It is hard to put succinctly into words that make sense because then it just comes off as a series of tautologies. She thinks that there are children and there are adults. She thinks this because that is what makes a mother a mother to someone. The child is the child and the adult is the adult in contrast. They are complements. It is all very prescriptive."
 
-Motes frowned and pulled apart the logic, doodling pink spirals onto her fingerpads. "So she thinks kids have to be actually kids? *Actual* children, even if there are none here?"
+Motes frowned and pulled apart the logic, doodling pink spirals onto her fingerpads. "So she thinks kids have to be actually kids? *Actual* children, even if there are none here? You still have to be over eighteen to upload."
 
 "I think so, yes, though it does not help that you are a cocladist of hers."
 
 "Is this that stupid optics thing again?"
 
-"I do not know. Certainly in part, though it is also in part because, if you are her, then you could not be her child. You could not be a different age." She hesitated, then added, "It would mean that she had the capability to become you, yes? That any of us would have that, yes?"
+"I do not know. Certainly in part, though it is also in part because, if you are her, then you could not be her child. You could not be a different age." She hesitated, then added, "It means that she has the capability to become like you, yes? That all of us have that within us, yes?"
 
-"Oh god," Motes said, laughing. "I cannot imagine Hammered Silver as a kid. She would be one of those prissy, stuck up girls who was the daughter of the PTA president or something."
+"Oh god," Motes said, laughing. "I cannot imagine Hammered Silver as a kid. She would be one of those prissy, stuck up girls who is the daughter of the PTA president or something."
 
 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."
 
@@ -296,4 +294,4 @@ Dry Grass nodded, expression serious. "It absolutely is. She has gotten quite up
 
 Motes huffed, nodded. "Good. If you stop talking to me, I *will* cry."
 
-"Perish the thought!" The Odist laughed and leaned over to hug her cocladist, careful of her nails. "I will not. Do not worry, my dear, you are stuck with me for a good while yet. I would rather tell Hammered Silver to go fuck herself."
+"Perish the thought!" Dry Grass laughed and leaned over to hug her cocladist, careful of her nails. "I will not. Do not worry, my dear, you are stuck with me for a good while yet. I would rather tell Hammered Silver to go fuck herself."