The Self-Kin · The Standing Thirds

The Tide

Drawn as a Vicsek cross. Every arm returns to the same center.

The Local Rule. Returning toward a setpoint. This is a Self-Kin figure: one person, repeating one thing. Everything further out in the catalogue is built by fusing figures like this one together.

Tending. Each time it is pushed away, the pull back to its usual level comes faster and holds tighter..

Fraying. The pull back loosens, so each push carries it further off before it returns..

Its Turning. Tend. What it builds: rest stops needing to be earned.

Catalogued in The Self-Kin, alongside every other figure at this scale.

In a Weaving

Tending

You're snapping back to your usual level faster each time something pulls you off it.

Fraying

You're drifting further from your usual level each time, and coming back slower.

Tending is not good news, and Fraying is not bad news — a card describes a pattern already present, never an outcome. How to read the two.

Or follow a thread instead

A Standing Third

Two people each easing back and waiting on the other. Room given without forcing, or a stalemate both of them call patience.

A Standing Third

One person drives while the other steadies. A real division of labor, or a standing resentment between the accelerator and the brake.

A Standing Third

A boundary held between two people. It protects something real, or hardens into armor that blocks the connection it was protecting.

A Standing Third

Connection First

Leading with warmth before any content. Warmth that lets hard information land, or warmth standing in for having anything to say.

Part Five — The Standing Thirds

Twelve patterns one person generates alone, each with its Local Rule and both of its poles. Nothing sits underneath them, and every larger figure is built by fusing these.

Part Seven — The Turnings

The Twelve Private Turnings — Self

One per month, kept alone or with whoever's nearest — twelve small occasions, each built to make one Self-Kin's failure mode visible before it hardens.

Part Six — Weavings

The full working deck: fifty-two drawable figures across five kinships, each carrying two readings — plus one figure that's never drawn at all.

Part Five — The Standing Thirds

Nineteen two-person patterns, each one two Self-Kin meeting. Know any two of the three and the third follows, which means changing your own leg changes what the two of you make.