4 (or rather ‘duo-plus-dual-attempts-at-the-third,’ whatever the Latinate quantifier for this would be)
5 (or whatever)
6 (You’re still going to title the cycle ‘Octet.’ No matter if it makes any sense to anybody else or not. You’re intransigent on this point. Whether this intransigence is a kind of integrity or just simply nuts is an issue you refuse to spend work-time stewing about. You’ve cast your lot with the title ‘Octet,’ and ‘Octet’ is what it’s going to be.)
7 (That might not be the right word — too pedantic; you might want to use the word transmit or evoke or even limn (palpate’s been overused already, and it’s possible that the weird psychospiritual probing you mean it to connote by medical analogy won’t come across at all to anybody, which is probably marginally OK, because individual words the reader can sort of skip over and not get too bothered about, but there’s no sense in pressing your luck and hammering on palpate over and over again). If limn doesn’t end up seeming just off-the-charts pretentious I’d probably go with limn.)
8 (Be warned that this has become a near-nauseous term in contemporary usage, relationship, treaclized by the same sorts of people who use parent as a verb and say share to mean talk, and for a late-1990s reader it’s going to ooze all sorts of cloying PC and New Age— associations; but if you decide to use the pseudometaQuiz tactic and the naked honesty it entails to try to salvage the fiasco you’re probably going to have to come right out and use it, the dreaded ‘R’-term, come what may.)
9 (Ibid. on using the verb to be in this culturally envenomed way, too, as in ‘I’ll Be There For You,’ which has become the sort of empty spun-sugar shibboleth that communicates nothing except a certain unreflective sappiness in the speaker. Let’s not be naive about what this 100 %-honest-naked-interrogation-of-reader tactic is going to cost you if you opt to try it. You’re going to have to eat the big rat and go ahead and actually use terms like be with and relationship, and use them sincerely—i.e. without tone-quotes or ironic undercutting or any kind of winking or nudging — if you’re going to be truly honest in the pseudometaQuiz instead of just ironically yanking the poor reader around (and she’ll be able to tell which one you’re doing; even if she can’t articulate it she’ll know if you’re just trying to save your own belletristic ass by manipulating her — trust me on this).)