mania stuff, starting on furry

content/core/014.md

@@ -5,4 +5,4 @@ weight: 14
 
 > Let's talk about mania.
 
-Fine.
+<a class="pulse" href="/from-within">Fine</a>.

content/core/015.md

@@ -1,38 +1,6 @@
 ---
 date: 2019-08-14
-weight: 14
+weight: 15
 ---
 
-Somewhere around 2014, a friend of mine went mad.
-
-> That's a bit dramatic, isn't it?
-
-I really don't know how else to put the sensation of someone's reality not meshing with yours. The closest I can come is the feeling of shock and betrayal that I felt the first (and only) time I experienced an earthquake.
-
-> Do you feel that your friend betrayed you?
-
-Not intentionally.
-
-> Can betrayal be anything but?
-
-Did the earth intend betray me? Almost certainly not. Is it even capable of such?
-
-> And yet you feel it did.
-
-I have trust issues.
-
-> Well, yes.
-
-I trust that some parts of the world around me are static, inert. Or that they move so slowly as to be indistinguishable from such. That's balanced by just how much everything else moves.
-
-This static thing suddenly became something else. A gentle side-to-side motion became a more rapid wobble, lasting perhaps ten to fifteen seconds before fading quickly to stillness once more. In that time, I'd leaped from bed and dashed into the hallway, confused. I was just in the process of calling the dogs when it stopped.
-
-JD simply mumbled "Earthy-quake?" and fell back asleep.
-
-Three minutes later came a small aftershock, lasting no more than five seconds.
-
-> You raced to post it on Twitter, Mastodon, and Telegram, and fill out the I-Felt-It report like a good little Millennial.
-
-I have a type. I'll own that.
-
-Getting that call in 2014, hearing those words that spoke of a different reality. It was an earthquake.
+> Thank you.

content/core/016.md

@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+---
+date: 2019-08-14
+weight: 16
+---
+
+A lot of times, when furries talk, they talk about their fursoñas as their ideal selves. I've found that it's more likely that their fursoñas are them at their most normal, most natural, most earnest.
+
+It's strange that this venue seen as escapist by even its own members is basically just a means of exploring what it means to be earnest in an ironic world.
+
+> Is it?
+
+Every time I think we're living in a post-ironic world, the Internet proves me wrong.
+
+> I wouldn't know.
+
+Do you not experience irony?
+
+> <a class="pulse" href="/koan">A friend asks Maddy: what is irony?</a>

content/core/017.md

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+---
+date: 2019-08-14
+weight: 17
+---
+
+I talk up my style as frumpcore. *It's the synthesis of momcore and downtempo librarian,* I say. In reality, It's an intentionally garbage-y, thrown-together look designed to, I hope, lead onlookers' eyes to slide right off of me as unremarkable.
+
+> Ah yes, the invisible six-foot-one trans woman with purple hair. That tired old trope.
+
+While I've had <a class="pulse" href="/fursona">furso&ntilde;as</a> that were intended to be something better than myself --- Makyo, for a while, was dressed in a nice suit --- more often than not, they've played along similar lines.
+
+Ranna was a gay fox, a bit pudgy, with two tails he readily admitted were an early affectation to differentiate himself from countless other foxes.
+
+Makyo was intentionally a transfeminine vixen who didn't pass.
+
+Maddy's a fat, dumpy, nerdy cis girl who dresses to hide her weight.
+
+> And Madison's a fat, dumpy, nerdy transfeminine girl who doesn't pass and dresses to hide her weight?
+
+I suppose.
+
+> You don't give yourself enough credit.
+
+Is that your department, now? Cheering me on?
+
+> I'm your ally.
+
+But not my friend.
+
+> No, but I am your ally.
+
+Fine. How do I not give myself enough credit?
+
+> Firstly, you're not as invisible as you seem and frumpcore isn't seen as that cohesive from the outside. Secondly, you pass better than you imagine. Everyone tells you that, you just can't yet hear it. Finally, you just got done writing some heavy shit after a day of worrying about work, so of course you're down on yourself. You don't want to pass, remember? You want to be visibly trans. You want to be seen as the trans psychopomp you strive to be.
+
+...Wow.
+
+> Your very words set lie to your insecurities. Your furso&ntilde;as are yourself expressed more earnestly than you can manage in person.
+
+Thank you.
+
+> If you could become Maddy, would you?
+
+Yeah, in a heartbeat.
+
+> Why?
+
+You said it as well as I could. She's the front-stage persona I wish were also my back-stage persona.
+
+> And she's pretty.
+
+I mean, she's still dumpy fat nerd.
+
+> Let's talk about kink.
+
+Oh for Christ's sake.