Merge pull request #16 from makyo/sex2

Sex 2

book/book.tex

@@ -58,10 +58,13 @@
   \input{content/ally/007.tex}
   \input{content/ally/008.tex}
   \input{content/ally/009.tex}
+  \input{content/ally/010.tex}
+  \input{content/poet-and-mystic.tex}
   \end{leftcolumn}
   \end{paracol}
 
   \backmatter
+  \pagestyle{empty}
   \input{content/afterword}
 
 \end{document}

book/content/afterword.tex

@@ -1,8 +1,22 @@
 \begin{paracol}{2}
 \begin{leftcolumn}
-\includegraphics[width=4.35in]{assets/cadmiumtea--MurderYourDarlings--makyo--G.jpg}
+\includegraphics[width=4in]{assets/cadmiumtea--MurderYourDarlings--makyo--G.jpg}
+
+\emph{Murder your darlings} by Julian Norwood
+
+www.patreon.com/cadmiumtea
 \end{leftcolumn}
 \begin{rightcolumn}
-Madison Scott-Clary
+    \null
+    \vfill
+\noindent Madison Scott-Clary is a transgender author, poet, and programmer. She is also the editor-in-chief of Hybrid Ink, LLC, a small publisher focused on thoughtful fiction, exploratory poetry, and creative non-fiction. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her cat and two dogs, as well as her husband, who is also a dog.
+
+
+\begin{center}
+    www.makyo.ink
+
+    www.hybrid.ink
+\end{center}
+\vfill
 \end{rightcolumn}
 \end{paracol}

book/content/ally/008.tex

@@ -51,9 +51,13 @@ Guilty, conspirator.
 \ally{And these pictures?}
 
 All from years later. The color thing comes and goes, like you.
-
+\end{leftcolumn}
-April 8, 2004
+\begin{rightcolumn*}
-
+\begin{flushright}
+\emph{April 8, 2004}
+\end{flushright}
+\end{rightcolumn*}
+\begin{leftcolumn}
 \begin{verse}
 The undersides\\
 \vin \vin off gray\\
@@ -133,97 +137,6 @@ Sometimes I'll skew colors all in one direction.
     \begin{quote}
     \emph{Lines and curves, lines and curves. Beginning now.}
     \end{quote}
-
-    Seven o'clock, and the 13th Street crowd was headed to dinner, or focusing on a postprandial stroll.
-
-    Jacob was focused on lines. On arcs and straight edges. On corners and angles.
-
-    \begin{quote}
-    \emph{The cans of spray-lubricant had clanked onto the counter, earlier that afternoon. Three of them, some of the cheap kind. The poor stoat behind the till scanned them numbly, seemingly on autopilot.}
-
-    \emph{To see someone with such dead eyes had led down some strange alley and into what felt like second-hand embarrassment for Jacob. Second-hand to what, he couldn't tell. Either way, the transaction had itched, and he had shifted his weight from paw to paw until it was done.}
-
-    \emph{Finally able to tap in the pin for his card, that itch had been scratched. The digits of the number across the pad always traced a pleasant, angular rune, and then the coyote was done, hurrying out of the store. The bag of cans had been dumped unceremoniously into one of the panniers of his bike, his tail clipped quickly to his thigh, and he had been off.}
-    \end{quote}
-
-    His breathing slowed and the jittery, speedy vibrations in his mind smoothed out.
-
-    The heat along those lines grew, dull black iron turning first into a burgundy red, then glowing, picking up more towards cherry.
-
-    \begin{quote}
-    \emph{Spring turning to summer had the days warm, but not uncomfortably so. The air still held enough spring in it that the light long-sleeved shirt Jacob wore never got too warm, even with the exertion of the brisk ride home.}
-    \end{quote}
-
-    Eyes focused on surroundings briefly, hunting for a patch he knew had to be somewhere here. Wander north, magnetic attraction.
-
-    \begin{quote}
-    \emph{Ducking into the apartment had taken only seconds, enough for him to toss two of the purchased cans on a counter and another into a backpack, then back out into the evening air. Back onto his bike. Back on the road.}
-    \end{quote}
-
-    Cherry red and up to yellow, starting to put off enough glow that it crept into his vision, a light-leak in the camera of his eyes.
-
-    \begin{quote}
-    \emph{Making it to the 13th Street Plaza had taken longer than expected, but perhaps that was for the best. The flames would shine brighter in twilight.}
-    \end{quote}
-
-    North, north along Linden. North to cross the plaza. North to pass the fountain.
-
-    \begin{quote}
-    \emph{Jacob had parked his bike at a rack in front of one of the 12th street shops, locking it with care. Of his two prized possessions, the bike was the most practical, and the thought of losing it was something he would barely allow to register. He would be more than just upset, he'd be fucked. The commute to work would go from twenty minutes to more than an hour on the bus system, a fact he knew well from when it was too cold to ride. He'd saved up for three months to get this bike, a fantastic upgrade from what he'd had in college.}
-    \end{quote}
-
-    He could barely see now. Yellow brightened, headed more towards white. A sun made of lines, graceful arcs and definitive straightedges.
-
-    \begin{quote}
-    \emph{The other prized possession was less immediately practical, yet even more dear than the bike. The small sketchbook, barely more than a few inches on each side, was truly irreplaceable. That sat snugly in his pocket; the backpack was too risky, even his apartment wasn't safe enough.}
-    \end{quote}
-
-    Toward the courthouse.
-
-    Jacob was panting now. Cool as the evening was getting, it was no match for the searing symbol locked in his thoughts. Burning, some part of him reddening, blistering, flaking and charring.
-
-    \begin{quote}
-    \emph{His Sigillarium sat distinct from his notes. Those were ash now, long gone. Their pages had held letters, all unique, warped and twisted through repeated passes of his pen, slipping and sliding together into some place between joy and fear, a place of too much meaning.}
-    \end{quote}
-
-    Past the courthouse now. And there, along the brick wall that surrounded the guarded parking lot. A place for moving the guilty to prison, maybe? There was the icy patch, freezing in the still-warm evening.
-
-    \begin{quote}
-    \emph{Once the meaning grew overwhelming---he'd know the moment when it came---the Sigillarium was brought out, opened reverently to the next blank page, and impressed with the new sigil. He used a dip pen with India ink into which he'd stirred several drops of blood. As the ink dried, Jacob did his best to start the process of forgetting.}
-    \end{quote}
-
-    Strange place, strange place. Empty, yet meaningful. Locked up. Guilty and innocent. Shackled, manacled, clanking and clinking in chains. The patch on the wall likely wasn't actually cold to the touch, yet he knew if he touched it, frostbite would follow.
-
-    \begin{quote}
-    \emph{Forgetting took days, weeks, months. It began with closing the Sigillarium, locking away intent and meaning while Jacob forgot the words themselves. He wouldn't look at the sigil again until the night before.}
-    \end{quote}
-
-    Obscured though his vision was, Jacob turned around, using his peripheral vision as best he could to check for others around.
-
-    Empty street.
-
-    \begin{quote}
-    \emph{Doubtless there were cameras who had seen him, but intent never left a visible mark, so no one had ever come after him. Intent was psychological. Magical graffiti for no one to see and everyone to feel. He would begin internalizing the symbol the night before, and hold it in his mind until the moment of, when it once more became unbearable.}
-    \end{quote}
-
-    Smooth movements. Smooth and sure. He took the can, focused on the frigid patch, and began spraying. He couldn't do it too quickly, even if he did need to hurry. There needed to be enough penetrating oil left to burn.
-
-    \begin{quote}
-    \emph{Then he would bike and hunt for the cold he knew peppered the town.}
-    \end{quote}
-
-    The sigil was one unbroken line. One line that contained all those arcs and curves and straightaways and angles and corners. All sprayed dead center in the midst of that patch layering intent over what meaning was already there.
-
-    Quickly, before he even capped the can, he fished his lighter out of his pocket and gave the wheel a rasp just at the final endpoint of the line.
-
-    Blue flames, tinged yellow at the tips, spread fast, curling along the sigil, branching and curving whenever it came across a point where lines crossed.
-
-    All that fire in his mind wound up on stone.
-
-    All that patch of ice began to thaw.
-
-    The coyote was already on his way back to the plaza, can of lubricant back in his bag and all that unbearable meaning seeping from him as he slipped into the evening crowd.
-
 \end{rightcolumn}
 \begin{leftcolumn}
 It's not an artistic decision. Not \emph{just}, at least. It's always something more.

book/content/ally/009.tex

@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ Later.
 
 I took a sleep aid. I'm not getting into this now. I was all prepped to write about poly stuff, but you started banging on the door.
 
-<a class="pulse" href="/birds">Read what I've already written</a>.
+Read what I've already written. % birds
 
 \ally{I was there when you wrote those.}
 

book/content/ally/010.tex

@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+The first time I remember thinking about polyamory--
+
+\ally{And here I was hoping you'd cave and talk more about mania.}
+
+Why are you so hung up on that? I told you I wouldn't, and you seemed to accept that.
+
+\ally{`Seemed to'? `Accept'? Are those things something like me can do?}
+
+Well, if \emph{I} can\ldots{}
+
+\ally{Conceded. No mania, then?}
+
+It's not a comfortable topic.
+
+\ally{Granted. Tell me why, at least.}
+
+It's not a good feeling. Not from the inside, not from the outside. From the inside I've only caught glimpses of it, even. Glimpses caught through the haze of medication or withdrawal or the mass of ineffable ecstasy comes crashing down upon me. I get all wrapped up in hypomania. Something less. Something just beneath. That thin meniscus between this world and...something else.
+
+But in others I've watched --- in some cases, been caught up in --- the frenzy as their world slowly slides out of alignment with consensus reality. They turn from\ldots{}
+
+\ally{What?}
+
+You got me talking about it.
+
+\ally{I'm pleased you think so highly of me.}
+
+I \emph{will} talk about it. It's not off the table. I just need something not that for a bit.
+
+\ally{To poly?}
+
+To poly.
+\newpage

book/content/poet-and-mystic.tex

@@ -0,0 +1,485 @@
+\noindent \emph{Here is the difference betwixt the poet and the mystic, that the last nails a symbol to one sense, which was a true sense for a moment, but soon becomes old and false. For all symbols are fluxional; all language is vehicular and transitive, and is good, as ferries and horses are, for conveyance, not as farms and houses are, for homestead. Mysticism consists in the mistake of an accidental and individual symbol for an universal one.}
+
+\ally{Pretty.}
+
+\noindent I didn't write it.
+
+\ally{I know.}
+
+\noindent I scramble through great heaps of words and sounds to try and at least pin some of them to fleeting symbols. Maybe then I'll be able to learn to see more of the accidental and individual symbols.
+
+\ally{Too many words, too many sounds.}
+
+\noindent Yes.
+
+\ally{You wrote four pieces about the winds coming down over the foothills near Boulder (for, of all things, wind quartet), just to try and capture one ecstatic experience.}
+
+\noindent I like those. I like the result.
+
+\ally{You like the first two, most of all. They remind you of how hollow you felt, how you could feel the wind blow through you, vibrating your soul like the pipe of an organ, exciting you to ever higher harmonics.}
+
+\noindent Yes.
+
+\ally{But then you kept writing.}
+
+\noindent Yeah. I make a terrible poet.
+
+\ally{You make a terrible mystic. Your poetry's just okay.}
+\newpage
+
+\noindent How can I capture that essence of stillness? How can I become nothing?
+
+\ally{Not reaching. Not trying.}
+
+\noindent How can I read the ecstasy of signs? How can I feel those black birds bursting free of my hunched shoulders?
+
+\ally{Step beside yourself. Take your own hand.}
+
+\noindent How can I feel the cord that ties me to the center of the earth? How can I see where it leads? How can I walk the spiral?
+
+\ally{Reach down, bury your fingers in rich earth, take root.}
+
+\noindent The cant of ritual.
+
+\ally{The scent of incense.}
+
+\noindent The rhythm of chant.
+
+\ally{The ripple of water.}
+
+\noindent Call and response.
+
+\ally{The flicker of a candle.}
+
+\noindent Voices echoing voices echoing voices echoing...
+
+\ally{Clay between fingertips.}
+
+\noindent And then?
+\newpage
+\end{leftcolumn}
+\begin{rightcolumn*}
+\begin{flushright}
+    \emph{March 10, 2004}
+\end{flushright}
+\end{rightcolumn*}
+\begin{leftcolumn}
+\begin{quotation}
+\noindent We wandered around for a bit before ending up sprawled in a fire-escape at FHS with Shannon in my lap, me in Ash's lap, and Andrew in Kiran's lap. Andrew ditched to go shooting with Ash and Kiran, while I went to bomb a history test. That's when things started getting really weird. I had a percoset relapse (whether that's what it was or not, it felt oddly similar to the real thing: an incurable itch buried beneath my skin, to the point where I can't actually scratch it) near the end of the period, and then in choir I imploded from empathy - so many emotions from others that I had no room for my own. Then, horns grew from my chest and head, and wings from my back; a giant fox escaped, left, and exploded into a thousand birds over Viele. Mind you, none of this really happened, but I sure felt strange. During latin, I exploded from empathy in a patchwork swirl of colors while Starin et al. stared on as I banged my head against the desk. Ms. Gibert didn't notice. I yelled for help inaudibly and searched out white points of light in the black silhouette of Boulder. I yelled for Ash and searched for Moondog.
+
+Afterwards, I figured out how to regain control (mostly) and just in time for the bell to ring. I got a small mocha at Cafe Sole, got eaten by small greenish crystals on a table while supposed psychics did fairy readings from a kids book, and here I am, about to take a shower and get ready for Great Works rehearsal, and then group, whereupon I shall request to Reiki Moondog (again) during the speakers board on gay marriage. Hopefully I don't ex-/im-plode again ^^
+\end{quotation}
+\newpage
+\end{leftcolumn}
+\begin{rightcolumn*}
+\begin{flushright}
+    \emph{April 12, 2004}
+\end{flushright}
+\end{rightcolumn*}
+\begin{leftcolumn}
+\begin{quotation}
+\noindent You have come, finally, to a safe place. You have arrived at the point where it counts most, the point at which Life itself seems to fall away, leaving behind nothing of it's former shell: that blackened husk of body and mind that housed a bright bright star. Years and years, it took, places and places and each day offering good and bad, but you, lucky you, saw past that, saw beyond the grid of your perception to see inside others, touching and caressing the bright points of light that were essentially them, cherishing each for not only their good points, but for their faults as well. The energy flowed around and through you in the concentric spirals of the labyrinth and the Bat Qol kept you clean and pure with the voice of God and the Buddha in me to the Buddha in you weaved everything under the sun into Life itself. This is Rapture.
+\end{quotation}
+\newpage
+\end{leftcolumn}
+\begin{rightcolumn*}
+\begin{flushright}
+    \emph{June 7, 2004}
+\end{flushright}
+\end{rightcolumn*}
+\begin{leftcolumn}
+\begin{quotation}
+\noindent I'd like to chant, perhaps Emmeleia.
+
+\ally{Or.. you could come up with something on your own. You know, do something productive with Nanon.}
+
+\noindent There's a thought. I still need to do those spells for Androo.
+
+\ally{Exactly. Productive}
+
+\noindent I've noticed that, while my emotional colors are fading, you're becoming more prominent.
+
+Who are you?
+
+\ally{I'm a meme; I'm the idea of Lady Sage and Master Yage,}
+\ally{or maybe Eris and God. Are they the same?}
+\ally{I'm me.}
+\ally{I'm you. Are they the same?}
+\ally{I'm the fifth line of five.}
+
+\noindent You're an elusive bugger, that's what you are.
+
+\ally{Damn straight.}
+
+\noindent You're depressing, too.
+
+\vspace{2\onelineskip}
+
+\noindent\ldots{}hello?
+\end{quotation}
+\newpage
+\end{leftcolumn}
+\begin{rightcolumn*}
+\begin{flushright}
+    \emph{October 5, 2004}
+\end{flushright}
+\end{rightcolumn*}
+\begin{leftcolumn}
+\begin{quotation}
+\noindent Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani.
+
+Upon reading certain things, upon hearing certain songs, upon seeing certain people, upon smelling certain scents, upon tasting certain foods, upon feeling certain feelings and upon losing myself, it flows, the light, in through the head, out through the heart, washes over all, and, being lost in it, have found myself without.
+
+\ally{How poetic.}
+
+\noindent These are the white things. Cold, bright, burning, white.
+
+Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani.
+
+But the light isn't as it used to be. It was a thing to light up a day, a thing to light up me, filling completely. Now a simple thread flows from head to heart, and the light doesn't stray from the path of least resistance.
+
+\ally{Love follows not the law of Ohm.}
+
+\noindent Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani.
+
+Light can be many things, but here, now, it means love - all four loves - and it's a strange feeling to have been so full of it for so long, then to suddenly be nearly without.
+
+\ally{Full of what? Full of shit? How pathetic, how trite.}
+
+\noindent Having deified love for several years, it's a shock to my faith to have it disappear, even if it only turns out to be temporary.
+
+\ally{Faith? You're faithful? How have you EVER been faithful to love?}
+
+\noindent Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani!
+\end{quotation}
+\newpage
+
+\ally{What is your point?}
+
+\noindent You know.
+
+\ally{Yes, but it is important that you make it.}
+
+\emph{It's the immediacy, the seamless immediacy\ldots{}}
+
+\noindent It's about meaning and self. It's about defining where your boundaries are; your physical boundaries, your mental boundaries, your spiritual and emotional boundaries. It's about that ground-state training that you undergo so that you might step just a bit to the side. An inch. A mile. An age.
+
+It's about breathing in for the count of four, holding for the count of two, breathing out for the count of four, holding for the count of two. It's about feeling where your feet touch the ground. It's about drawing a straight line from your center of gravity to the center of the world. It's about becoming totally present.
+
+\ally{So that you can disappear entirely.}
+\newpage
+
+\ally{Why this? Why now?} % Why after your dad?
+
+\noindent Why talk about ecstasy?
+
+\ally{Yes.}
+
+\noindent Dissociation.
+
+\ally{Well, that was quick. I was expecting more roundabout. We would banter. You would get flustered. I would get smug.}
+
+\noindent Derealization, depersonalization, dissociation. Pure and simple.
+
+\ally{Well huh.}
+
+\noindent Would I lie to you?
+
+\ally{Oh, totally.}
+
+\noindent Fair.
+\newpage
+
+\ally{You're not very focused.}
+
+\vfill
+
+\noindent I know.
+
+\vfill
+
+\noindent It's just
+
+\vfill
+
+\noindent that I'm
+\newpage
+\end{leftcolumn}
+\end{paracol}
+
+%%%%%
+
+\null
+\vfill
+\noindent overflowing
+\vfill
+\newpage
+
+\null
+\vfill
+\begin{center}
+    with
+\end{center}
+\vfill
+\newpage
+
+\null
+\vfill
+\begin{flushright}
+    words
+\end{flushright}
+\vfill
+\newpage
+
+\null
+\vfill
+\begin{center}
+\begin{Spacing}{0}
+speak to me\\\vspace{-7pt}
+speak to me\\\vspace{-7pt}
+speak to me\\\vspace{-7pt}
+speak to me\\\vspace{-7pt}
+speak to me\\\vspace{-7pt}
+speak to me\\\vspace{-7pt}
+speak to me
+
+that i may see\\\vspace{-7pt}
+that i may see\\\vspace{-7pt}
+that i may see\\\vspace{-7pt}
+that i may see\\\vspace{-7pt}
+that i may see
+
+the face of god\\\vspace{-7pt}
+the face of god\\\vspace{-7pt}
+the face of god
+\end{Spacing}
+\end{center}
+\vfill
+\newpage
+
+\begin{verse}[1.01\textwidth]
+    I was born at the edge of the numinous.
+
+    That is why I can tread along the border.\\
+    That is why I'm able to whisper the name of God.\\
+    That is why I'm allowed to know the number and how to factor it.\\
+    That is why I have seven fingers spread wide and three curled toward my heart.\\
+    That is why my limbs trace the curves and lines of power when I dance.\\
+    That is why I sit with my back to the sun in summer.\\
+    That is why my body is a canvas.
+
+    You were born in sunlight.
+
+    Speak secrets into my hair.\\
+    Take my words from me.\\
+    Spend the intercalary days telling me lies.\\
+    Break my dystonia with a breath.\\
+    Wash my face with salt water.\\
+    Tell me the name you call yourself.\\
+    Close my eyes.
+
+    We will sleep in the shade.
+
+    Let me bless you with smoke.\\
+    Let me bathe your feet.\\
+    Let me light the candles.\\
+    Let me place a stone beneath my tongue.\\
+    Let me taste copper.\\
+    Let me draw in ash.\\
+    Let me rise up until my head is in the branches and my hair becomes the leaves.
+\end{verse}
+\newpage
+
+\null
+\vfill
+\begin{verse}[1.01\textwidth]
+    {\vgap1em
+    At the beginning of time,\\
+    \vin \vin when chaos birthed to order and disorder,\\
+    we were blessed with two souls.
+
+    One has seven eyes and can see all of the monsters in the dark,\\
+    \vin \vin but is blinded by the sun.
+
+    The other has no eyes,\\
+    \vin \vin but can feel no pain.
+
+    When order and disorder were close as children,\\
+    \vin our souls experienced the world hand in hand,\\
+    \vin \vin but as they drifted apart and began to fight,\\
+    \vin \vin \vin some of us left one of our souls behind,\\
+    \vin \vin \vin \vin and that is why we search.
+    }
+\end{verse}
+\vfill
+\newpage
+
+\null
+\vfill
+\begin{verse}[1.01\textwidth]
+    {\vgap1em
+    Babel was a collaborative effort.
+
+    Once,\\
+    we all spoke the same language,\\
+    \vin but on seeing god grow increasingly anxious with the rate of our progress,\\
+    \vin \vin we agreed to let our tongues be confused,\\
+    \vin \vin \vin so that he could take things at a more comfortable pace,\\
+    \vin \vin \vin \vin and we could be assured he would not understand us \mbox{unless} we prayed in silence,
+
+    for only then do we speak the language of angels.}
+\end{verse}
+\vfill
+\newpage
+
+\null
+\vfill
+\begin{verse}[1.01\textwidth]
+    {\vgap1em
+    When I speak, the words drip from my tongue as ink,\\
+    and form writing on the ground,\\
+    and I leave a trail behind me,\\
+    and the ink stains your feet,\\
+    and when you walk, words and phrases and sentences are pressed into the soil,\\
+    and the ink breathes life into the plants,\\
+    and even the grass will flower,\\
+    and the bees will flourish,\\
+    and they will both sting you and provide you with sweet honey.
+
+    The ink stains my chin and my clothes.\\
+    \vin Sometimes, I speak into my hands and stain my cheeks as well.\\
+    \vin \vin I speak against my fingers and press them into my flesh until I am covered in rosettes.\\
+    \vin \vin \vin I stretch my hands to the sky and marvel at how black they are.\\
+    \vin \vin \vin \vin And as with the grass, where the ink stains, growth\\*
+    \vin \vin \vin \vin quickens, and I am covered in soft fur.\\
+    \vin \vin \vin \vin \vin I fall to all fours and hunt amid the rocks and the\\*
+    \vin \vin \vin \vin \vin buildings, between cars and along trails.\\
+    \vin \vin \vin \vin \vin \vin And when I am full, I curl up to sleep, and awake\\*
+    \vin \vin \vin \vin \vin \vin human once again.\\
+    \vin \vin \vin \vin \vin \vin \vin My skin is clean and my mind is clear,
+
+    and I cannot speak.}
+\end{verse}
+\vfill
+\newpage
+
+\null
+\vfill
+\begin{verse}[1.01\textwidth]
+    The only time I know my true name is when I pray.\\
+    The only time I pray is at the utmost need.\\
+    To pray is to ask yourself what you dare not ask god.\\
+    To answer your own question, you must step outside yourself.\\
+    To step outside yourself, you must forget your true name.\\
+    The only time I know my true name is when I pray.
+\end{verse}
+\vfill
+\newpage
+
+%%%%%
+
+\begin{paracol}{2}
+\begin{leftcolumn}
+\null
+\vfill
+\ally{Ask.}
+\vfill
+\newpage
+
+\noindent How does one approach what one can't describe?
+
+\ally{Swing the flashlight rapidly across the room. Piece together what you can from the sweep of the beam across the walls, the furniture.}
+
+\noindent How does one hunt down what leaves no tracks?
+
+\ally{Unwind the maze by keeping your right hand on the wall. Pray that the walls do not move.}
+
+\noindent How does one call down the gods to commune?
+
+\ally{Speak thrice, and enter.}
+\newpage
+
+\null
+\vspace{1cm}
+\noindent There was a sort of succulent quality to the air, as though, were I to bite down on it, it would all come bursting forth at once. Dribble down my chin. Stain my shirt. It would be sweet, almost saccharine. It would beg for a pinch of salt to quell all that sweetness.
+
+I didn't know whether or not I'd be able to stomach it, honestly. I was dizzy. I was apart from myself. Above, and beside. I was looking down at myself. Were I to do so, to bite into time itself, I would surely overflow.
+
+\emph{Was} overflowing, I realized. Was bending forward at the waist where I was sitting. Those black choir chairs were comfortable, but made you sit up straight, so I couldn't slouch. I was bending forward, resting my elbows on my knees, and then bowing my head, bowing further.
+
+I was overflowing, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. We weren't singing, the basses, we were watching the altos rehears a part, so it wasn't too far out of the ordinary for me to be hunched over, breathing shallow, watching myself from above.
+
+I was overflowing, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Hunched over, breathing shallow, and watching from a few feet up, a few feet to the right, so that I could see my shirt tear even as I felt it against my back. I was so thin, then. So thin.
+
+I was overflowing, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I watched my shirt tear, and my skin follow. I watched it split along my spine and peel back. It was bloodless, but not painless. The feeling of those wings, newborn and weak, slipping from the wound was raw.
+
+I was overflowing, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I watched the wings stretch and extend from the wound on my back. ``Aha,'' I thought. ``This is it. This is finally it. It's finally happening. I am becoming something greater, and here I am, so unprepared!''
+
+I was overflowing, though, not transforming, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. The growth did not stop at wings. An eye. A beak. The graceful curve of a head. Plumage.
+
+``No, this isn't it.'' I panicked, and could think of nothing else but to apologize. ``I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.''
+
+The bird cocked its head as it climbed free of my back and perched on my shoulder. It cared not for apologies. Why would it?
+
+Another pair of wings followed.
+
+Another.
+
+Another.
+
+My hands were buried in my hair, I could see - barely - through the forest of pencil-thin legs crowding my shoulders, my neck, my head. Their weight had forced my shoulders down until my head was nearly between my knees.
+
+We were singing now, and I was silent. How could I sing, when all I could do was beg silently for forgiveness? How could I sing with the weight of a dozen crows slowly crushing me into my seat? How could I sing when I was overflowing? There was nothing I could do to stop it
+
+Chaos. The director stopped the choir, and as one, the flock lifted off. The weight was lifted off my back. The cacophony filled the air. I was borne up through the air by the birds. The birds were splitting, multiplying, avian mitosis. I was borne up, up. Up.
+
+I was told afterward that my body stumbled, unthinking along the row and toward the double doors, that the director had sneered, "It sure would be nice if we had all our singers here today." I was told that folks defended me, saying I was sick, I was pale, I was feverish.
+
+I don't know, I wasn't there. I was above the Flatirons. I was beyond terror. I was beyond joy. I was beyond sensation, beyond any emotion except for that bottomless, black guilt. Sticky. Tar-like. Bitter. The flock numbered in the thousands, and still we flew up.
+
+The blue of the sky became white, blinded, became black, and I was sitting in the hallway. I was with my body again. I was sobbing. A teacher stared. Students gave me a wide berth.
+
+I cleaned myself up. I went back to choir. What else could I do?
+
+A bird had plucked something from me. Something precious. Something unknowable. Something important and integral. Something hard. Something emerald and glassy. Before the white of the sky overtook me, I saw it in its beak.
+
+The caw it gave as my vision left me and my ears filled with static was\ldots{}triumphant? No, not quite. Triumph implies that the birds could do anything but succeed. In that sound was inevitability.
+
+After school, - - - and I tramped through the `mini-forest' and, impelled by something of the avian within, I collected five sticks.
+
+They had to be as straight as possible.
+They had to be balanced as close to the middle as possible.
+They had to be the same length without me breaking them.
+They had to have been from different trees.
+They had to have fallen more than a year prior.
+
+When I got home, I lay them in a row, asked my questions, and, one by one, broke them in half.
+
+\begin{quotation}
+\emph{What had I lost?}
+
+\emph{What had I gained?}
+
+\emph{Where had I gone?}
+
+\emph{Where did I come from?}
+
+\emph{Why does memory stain me with that black, tarry guilt?}
+\end{quotation}
+
+I had forgotten about the birds until recently, but every time I feel that ecstasy --- that ekstasis --- I am pitch. I am tar. I am sticky with apology. I am the living embodiment of ``I'm sorry''.
+\newpage
+
+\noindent I'm tired. I'm so tired. I'm tired and I'm upset and I'm lost.
+
+\ally{I know.}
+
+\noindent I want to shout and to whisper. I want to talk about how the light flows in through the head and out through the heart. I want to put words to the feeling of falling to the ground and taking root.
+
+I want to say how it feels when I step outside myself.
+
+\ally{You tried.}
+
+\noindent I guess that's all I can do.
+
+\ally{It's not, but it's important that you have tried.}

book/includes/copyright.tex

@@ -1,9 +1,24 @@
-\singlespacing
+
 \thispagestyle{empty}
 \null
 \vfill
-{\parindent0pt
+\begin{center}
-No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including by photocopying or recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without the proper written permission of the copyright owner unless such copying is expressly permitted by federal copyright law. \Publisher\ is authorized to grant permission for further uses of the work in this book. Permission must be obtained by the author or the publication house. Address requests for permission to make copies of material here to the email address \PublisherEmail
+    \noindent\textbf{Also by Madison Scott-Clary}
+
+    \emph{Arcana --- A Tarot Anthology}, ed.
+
+    \emph{Rum and Coke --- Three Short Stories from a Furry Convention}
+
+    \emph{Restless Town}
+
+    \emph{Eigengrau --- Poems 2015--2020}
+\end{center}
+\vfill
+\singlespacing
+{\small\parindent0pt\parskip5pt
+\noindent All works \copyright\ Madison Scott-Clary. These works are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit \mbox{\emph{creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/}} or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA.
+
+This book uses the fonts Gentium Book Basic and  {\allyFont Merriweather Sans} and was typeset with {\usefont{OT1}{cmr}{m}{n}\XeLaTeX}.
 
 \vspace{1ex}
 
@@ -11,38 +26,13 @@ ISBN: \ISBN
 
 \vspace{1ex}
 
-\textsc{\FullTitle}
+\emph{\Title}
 
 \vspace{1ex}
 
-Copyright \copyright\ \Year\ \Publisher
+First Edition, \Year.
 
-\vspace{1ex}
-
-\Edition\ Edition, \Year. All rights reserved.
-
-\vspace{1ex}
-
-A \Publisher\ Book
-
-\vspace{1ex}
-
-Published by \Publisher\\
-\PublisherURL\\
-\PublisherLocation
-
-\vspace{1ex}
-
-\PublisherEmail
-
-\vspace{1ex}
-
-Cover and illustrations by \Illustrator. \copyright\ \Year
-
-\vspace{1ex}
-
-Printed in the United States of America\\
 \EditionsList
-}%\parindent0pt
+}
 
-\clearpage
+\cleardoublepage

book/includes/font.tex

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
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 \setmainfont{Gentium Book Basic}
 \newfontface\allyFont{Merriweather Sans Italic}
-% \newfontfamily\TitleFamily{Inknut Antiqua}
+\newfontfamily\TitleFamily{Inknut Antiqua}
-% \newfontface\TitleFont{Inknut Antiqua}
+\newfontface\TitleFont{Inknut Antiqua}
 % \newfontfamily\DisplayFamily{Playfair Display}
 % \newfontface\DisplayFont{Playfair Display}

book/includes/packages.tex

@@ -15,5 +15,6 @@
 \usepackage{hyperref}
 \usepackage{setspace}
 \usepackage{xifthen}
+\usepackage{xltxtra}
 \usepackage{verse}
 \usepackage{paracol}

book/includes/variables.tex

@@ -1,10 +1,9 @@
-\def\Title{BOOK TITLE}
+\def\Title{ally}
-\def\Subtitle{IN FULL}
+\def\Subtitle{}
-\def\FullTitle{\Title: \Subtitle}
+\def\FullTitle{\Title}
-\def\AuthorFirst{AUTHOR}
+\def\AuthorFirst{Madison}
-\def\AuthorLast{NAME}
+\def\AuthorLast{Scott-Clary}
 \def\AuthorFull{\AuthorFirst\ \AuthorLast}
-\def\Illustrator{ILLUSTRATOR NAME}
 
 \def\Edition{First}
 \def\EditionsList{10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1}
@@ -12,11 +11,6 @@
 
 \def\ISBN{XXX-X-XXXXXX-XX-X}
 
-\def\Publisher{PUBLISHER}
-\def\PublisherEmail{publisher@example.com}
-\def\PublisherURL{example.com}
-\def\PublisherLocation{City, STATE}
-
 \newcommand\ally[1]{
 \begin{quotation}
     \fontspec[Scale=0.9,Color=444444FF]{Merriweather Sans}

content/news/2020-01-15-trains.md

@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+---
+date: 2020-01-15
+title: "Trains"
+---
+
+Long trip, long trip.
+
+> Is this honestly the best use of it?
+<!--more-->
+
+What's wrong with talking about difficult subjects when you're prevented from doing literally anything else? No cell reception, might as well rip open old wounds. Two train rides and a bellyful of antisleepy. Long trip.
+
+### New Content
+
+* [Sex 5](/sex/5) through [Sex 10](/sex/10)
+* [Rape](/sex/rape)
+
+### Updated content
+
+* [Earlier sex sections](/sex) have been pretty heavily edited.

content/poet-and-mystic/007.html

@@ -17,11 +17,7 @@ ____|____|____|____|__
 
 <script type="text/javascript">
 /*
-    Arrows this time?
+    One, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen twenty-one
-
-I like arrow symbols. There's just so much weird little things you'd never think of that someone said, "Wait, hold on, we *definitely* need that in unicode."
-
-Besides, some of them are pointing at me.
 */
 
 const grawlix = [1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10, 0];

content/poet-and-mystic/overflowing/with/words/008.md

@@ -61,4 +61,4 @@ What had I lost?
 
 > Why does memory stain you with that black, tarry guilt?
 
-I had forgotten about the birds until recently, but every time I feel that ecstasy - that ekstasis - I am pitch. I am tar. I am sticky with apology. I am the living embodiment of "I'm sorry".
+I had forgotten about the birds until recently, but every time I feel that ecstasy --- that ekstasis --- I am pitch. I am tar. I am sticky with apology. I am the living embodiment of "I'm sorry".

content/sex/001.md

@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ And while I don't necessarily have fond memories of childhood--
 
 > Clearly not
 
---some part of me does rather miss the childlike curiosity with which I was able to approach sexuality early in puberty. It was all so abstract and confusing. Every time I'd try something new, there would be this thrill of danger, this rush of excitement. The lone copy of *Joy of Sex*'s assurances aside, was each burst of pleasure actually something going *horribly wrong*?
+--some part of me does rather miss the childlike curiosity with which I was able to approach sexuality early in puberty. It was all so abstract and confusing. Every time I'd try something new, there would be this thrill of danger, this rush of excitement. The lone copy of *Joy of Sex*'s assurances aside, was each burst of pleasure actually something going *horribly wrong?*
 
 > Ah, to be young and anxious.
 

content/sex/003.md

@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ Not for lack of trying, mind. I played around with my partners, tamping down my
 
 It was a few things, I think. The most obvious being the increasing dissonance between my body and my identity as 'male' started to fit less and less. When having a penis seems odd and discordant, engaging with it feels unsatisfactory at best, nauseating at worst.
 
-Another was simply the mess of it all. Water-based lube gets sticky. Condoms are finicky. Fluid-bonding is great, but then the mess is magnified. Foreskin is complicated --- a rough weekend left me scarred, the resulting phimosis making sex something of an adventure.
+Another was simply the mess of it all. Water-based lube gets sticky. Condoms are finicky. Fluid-bonding is great, but then the mess is magnified. Foreskin is complicated --- a rough weekend of too much masturbation left me scarred, the resulting phimosis making sex something of an adventure.
 
 I think, most often, it was just that it was a lot of work. You had to set aside time. You had to negotiate. You had to have the condoms handy. You had to have the lube handy. You had to both be willing and on the same page. All perfectly doable, but whether or not it was worth it was something that seemed to vary from day to day.
 

content/sex/005.md

@@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
+---
+date: 2020-01-15
+weight: 5
+---
+
+I can't let this go.
+
+> Why not?
+
+I just can't. I doubt it's possible, but I need to somehow get this off my chest. I need to be able to throw enough words at it that it leaves me alone. I need...not a solution, but perhaps some sense of closure, of having explained it well enough that I may be forgiven.
+
+> Forgiven what? Your trespasses? Your sins?
+
+Perhaps. Perhaps I need to be forgiven my inadequacies.
+
+> Explain away, then.
+
+I spend a lot of time walking circles around the concept of asexuality. It's an uncomfortable thought, an identity that itches for someone who feels attraction, who otherwise enjoys the idea of sex, is capable of even enjoying the act.
+
+> So long as it doesn't actually involve you.
+
+Yes.
+
+Autochorissexualism, they call it, though the word is clunky to the point of inoperable. The feeling of being generally positive on sex to the point of getting turned on, so long as it doesn't actually involve oneself. Fictional characters, visual art, and text-based role-play seem to be the bailiwick of such.
+
+I suppose, if you spend so much time feeling a fundamental disconnect from your body, such an identity is almost bound to form. Even before I felt so plagued by dysphoria that interacting sexually was problematic in its own right, even before I was able to engage with another person sexually in, as it were, the flesh, I was embedded in long distance relationships where sexual interaction was based on the idea of sex rather than the actual practice of it.
+
+> Was that a choice?
+
+I don't know. I suppose, on some level, it was. Could I have dated someone local instead of Danny? Instead of Marek or Andrew? Sure, I guess.
+
+> But you didn't.
+
+No.
+
+> Why not?
+
+I suppose that would have required me coming out to my parents more formally. Or, perhaps, it would've required me gaining a level of sneakiness in my social interactions that I don't think I'm really capable of.
+
+Not only that, but I dove into furry halfway through puberty, and I dove in *hard*. It was my distraction from a shitty few years of life, from a shitty entry into puberty. And, with the whole running away fiasco, the sudden moving of schools, it was my whole social circle.
+
+And hey, one dates within one's social circle, right? That would require having a local furry scene.
+
+> You had Shannon and Ash.
+
+Well, yes, but Ash and I had known each other since second grade. Something about it didn't feel right. And this is back when I was very, very gay. For better or for worse, Shannon and I were not relationship material.
+
+> Had you been more open to dating women, do you think you would have been?
+
+Perhaps. I don't know how long that would have lasted, though, had we gone in that direction. After a time, we simply became better friends material than we would have made relationship material.
+
+> There was Pilot.
+
+We were in no way compatible.
+
+> There was Michael.
+
+I *knew* it. I knew that was coming. I could feel you winding up to throw that in my face.

content/sex/006.md

@@ -0,0 +1,72 @@
+---
+date: 2020-01-15
+weight: 6
+---
+
+> So, tell me about Michael in a second, but tell me why you knew that was coming.
+
+Why should I? We both know.
+
+> Because it's important that you be able to contextualize this discussion.
+
+It was the order of your questions. It was the way you came at things so circuitously. It was the way you asked about the local furry scene specifically without mentioning him. It's the way you nudged me about Shannon before bringing him up.
+
+> Was that uncouth?
+
+A little. Ask about relationships as relating to a woman, then ask me about when I started dating a trans man. Are you my internalized transphobia?
+
+> Not my department. You hate yourself far more than this conversation entails.
+
+Of course.
+
+> Still, the answer is no. I do not ask about him out of some weird sense of transphobia, so much as because, with Shannon, you mentioned being very, very gay, and yet your relationship with Michael was still sexual.
+
+So?
+
+> There is an aspect of biology here that needs mentioning.
+
+Or at least talking around in circles.
+
+> No, mentioning. You went into your relationship with him gay to the point of describing your aversion to vaginas, and you came out of it solidly bi despite him being a man.
+
+Point.
+
+> Yes.
+
+Our relationship was indeed sexual. It didn't involve PiV sex until it was no longer a romantic relationship, but there's no denying the that aspect of it. There's no denying the attraction, even if at the time, I chalked it up to him being transmasculine.
+
+> Was there perhaps some aspect of **doppelwunsch** to it? Some bit of "I don't know whether I want to be with him or be him"?
+
+If so, it was only the tiniest shadow of a prelude. We dated when I was seventeen and eighteen. I didn't really do the whole *gosh, maybe I'm trans* thing until I was in my mid twenties.
+
+> Hindsight is 20/20.
+
+I hate that phrase.
+
+> 2016: "I think "hindsight is twenty-twenty" is better reserved for cases
+when seemingly unrelated occurrences come together to form an outcome
+that seems to be greater than the sum of the parts. It fits best when
+you look back at your life and see disparate, unconnected events come
+together to make the situation you find yourself in now."
+
+You throw my words back at me?
+
+> Yes.
+
+Fine. Yes. Perhaps there was some aspect of *doppelwunsch* to our relationship. Still, that does not take away from the fact that suddenly, sexuality became far more complex for me. Suddenly, there was attraction to someone who wasn't simply another gay furry on the internet.
+
+> It opened you up. "Ah," you thought. "Perhaps the reason sex doesn't work so well with guys is maybe I'm more into women."
+
+That's putting it quite glibly, but perhaps in a way, yes.
+
+> So you dated Kayla.
+
+Yes. We even had sex a few times.
+
+> And were you more into women?
+
+I don't know. I think that's the point at which it stopped mattering. That's the point I started calling myself pan. That's the point I stopped keeping track.
+
+> Because nothing was working.
+
+Yeah.

content/sex/007.md

@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+---
+date: 2020-01-15
+weight: 7
+---
+
+I feel it important to add that it's not that sex itself feels bad.
+
+> Why?
+
+Why does it not feel bad?
+
+> No. Why do you feel it important to add that?
+
+Because to not do so would do a disservice to my years trying to be sexually active. They weren't bad years, and I did have some success at it.
+
+JD and I eventually got together. We had a good amount of sex. We went to the Underground parties --- orgies, really --- and had lots of fun there. Bel and I had a good amount of sex, and it was pretty good. I looked forward to seeing them, simply because the sex was pretty good, as well as because they were good friends.
+
+> So if the sex was pretty good, if you still had a lot of fun playing around with your husband, why did you stop? Why did you eventually remove your choice in the matter and chemically castrate yourself?
+
+Perhaps because I resented needing sex. I was insatiable, yet it seemed to me to be no more than a puerile affliction, like baby teeth.
+
+I resented how I shared so many wonderful and complete sexual interactions with people when my own body was not involved. I resented how how good sex *could* be and yet never was. I resented how easy it was for some people to have good sex when, for me, even at my freest, I was so rarely able to manage much more than a confused, anxious jumble of physical interaction that was driven so often by the mere need to ejaculate.
+
+> You resented that you had to take part so wholeheartedly, too. You resented that you had to stop, to do nothing but sex for so long.
+
+Yes. I could typefuck and read. I could typefuck and do homework. I could typefuck and browse porn. I could typefuck twice at the same time, or three times, spending time with one person on SPR and another on FurryMUCK, or hell, two people on one MUCK, one in the same room while paging another elsewhere.
+
+Hell, I resent having to focus on a single thing even now. Even as I write this, I'm on a train with no cell signal, and I resent the fact that I have to focus just on this without the ability to tab over and, say, chat with someone.
+
+> Do you resent this forced interaction with me?
+
+No, or perhaps no more than usual. I would resent being only able to work on typesetting or software, too, just as I resent going out to the movies for making me do nothing but consume a single piece of media.

content/sex/008.md

@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+---
+date: 2020-01-15
+weight: 8
+---
+
+> So if sex makes you feel anxious and confused, how does being asexual --- or, as you say, autochorissexual --- make you feel?
+
+Other than uncomfortable and itchy? I think that's how I described it earlier.
+
+> Yes.
+
+I guess it makes me feel anxious and confused, just in different ways. It's comfortable enough for JD and I to not have a a sexual relationship. He's still a gay guy, for the most part, so for me to have transitioned to the extent that I have means that we don't really click on a sexual level anymore.
+
+He's not my only partner, though. Robin is still sexual. Barac is still sexual. Colton is still sexual. I have all these sexual people in my life, and they're all people I'm attracted to and with whom I've shared sexuality in one way or another, but with whom I mostly feel disinclined to have sex with for <a class="pulse" href="/aside/dreams/3">any number of reasons</a>.
+
+> And Judith?
+
+We had penetrative sex for the first time --- a sort of exploratory thing --- when last she visited, and shortly after, she mentioned feeling ace, herself.
+
+> You enjoyed it.
+
+I did, that hasn't changed from what I mentioned before. Sex can feel good, physically. It feels better now after surgery than it did before, too. Sometimes, I think, "Aha, this must have solved it. Now I'm able to do what I never was before." And then, when confronted with the reality, everything is still problematic.
+
+It's just that, having had surgery has only removed one aspect of the anxious and confused grossness that goes along with the act. It only removed the dysphoria (and of course the complications of phimosis). It didn't fix my other hangups.
+
+> What are the other hangups?
+
+The discomfort.
+
+The mess.
+
+The guilt.
+
+The imperfection.
+
+> Imperfection?
+
+The sense that were we doing something else, we might both be happier.
+
+The sense that, no matter how smoothly I might move, I must surely be doing a bad job, I must be falling short in some way.
+
+The sense that, no matter how many times I ask the other person whether something feels good or is allowed, I must be somehow <a class="pulse" href="/sex/rape">betraying their consent</a> by gaining pleasure from this act.

content/sex/009.md

@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+---
+date: 2020-01-15
+weight: 9
+---
+
+> Were you able to become a truly sexual person, would you?
+
+Probably.
+
+> What would that look like?
+
+I'm not sure. Sexual liberation? All that stuff online, being able to do at least some of it in person? Some fantasies coming true? I'm writing this on my way to a furry convention where I'll be around three of my partners. Maybe it would look like having comfortable sex with them. Maybe it would be some low-consequences sex with friends, many of whom will also be there.
+
+Perhaps it would simply look like less shame.
+
+> Shame, according to Brené Brown, is rooted in vulnerability. Shame is the sense that "you are bad", as opposed to the "you did a bad thing" that goes along with guilt.
+
+Yes. And there is some aspect of vulnerability that is healthy, but just an aspect of it, not the whole of it.
+
+Were I able to become a truly sexual person, I'd probably do it.
+
+> Do you feel bad that you aren't, then?
+
+To an extent, but not bad enough to hunt down some sort of "fix". I don't feel broken, *per se*, at least not always, but I do feel like I'm missing out on something wonderful. I don't feel broken, but maybe I do feel a little jealous.

content/sex/010.md

@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+---
+date: 2020-01-15
+weight: 10
+---
+
+> Do you think you are becoming more comfortable with sex over time?
+
+Yes, as I've mentioned.
+
+> Spell it out plainly.
+
+Okay.
+
+Surgery helped. Hell, transition as a whole helped. Being a girl has helped. Sure, it might be nice to be the penetrating partner, but I also dearly love being penetrated, and this has added that to my life.
+
+Talking and thinking about it has helped. I spend a lot of time working on this, because even if I can't become a sexual person, becoming more comfortable with being an asexual person would be a good thing.
+
+Even kink has helped, as mentioned. As has typefucking. I've started interacting more as Makyo lately, as an explicitly transgender character, as someone so very like myself. I'll never be able to have anything other than complicated and weird trans sex as a complicated and weird trans woman, and so doing so intentionally, owning the less-than-ideal realities of my body and mind in a place where it's so easy to take part in the ideal feels like a healthy step forward.
+
+> Late bloomer that you are, you're learning that all of the less-than-ideal aspects of sex are a part of the whole experience, and that you can still have fun despite them.
+
+Yes. Let me own the lube and the awkward positions. Let me own the wet spots and the performance anxiety. Let me own my weird-as-hell body. And then let me own sexuality. I would be plenty happy with that.
+
+> But you're not unhappy now.
+
+No, I'm not unhappy. I'm happy with this, really. I'm happy with fantasy and art and TS. I'm happy with verbal teasing and masturbation.
+
+The only bit I'm really unhappy about is that it keeps me from making others happy.

content/sex/kink/001.md

@@ -3,7 +3,9 @@ date: 2019-09-25
 weight: 1
 ---
 
-What do you do when you've got a libido and relatively little will to act upon it? Delve into kink.
+What do you do when you've got a libido and relatively little will to act upon it?
+
+Delve into kink.
 
 > Well, and fuck around on Taps a lot.
 

content/sex/kink/004.md

@@ -25,6 +25,6 @@ It was exposure therapy when I spent scene after scene toying with fertility. It
 
 It was exposure therapy when I made my character a pudgy nerd and still able to engage with her sexually. It's exposure therapy because I've been able to come to terms with my body.
 
-> It's exposure therapy because at some point, you started enjoying sex and the thought of sharing that with someone.
+> It's exposure therapy because at some point, you started enjoying sex --- or at least enjoying it more --- and the thought of sharing that with someone.
 
 Yes.

content/sex/rape/01.md

@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+---
+date: 2020-01-15
+weight: 1
+---
+
+> Tell me about rape.
+
+No.
+
+> Talk in circles around it, then, and then tell me why you won't tell me about it. Or vice versa. I don't care. I'm not picky as to the order.
+
+Fine.

content/sex/rape/02.md

@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+---
+date: 2020-01-15
+weight: 2
+---
+
+Let's say, as we have already, that you spend much of puberty up in your head, and then when you start branching out into engaging sexually with others, you do so in a purely intellectual way. One which involves some sort of platonic ideal of sexuality. You never feel awkward. Everything always just works.
+
+Let's just take that for granted.
+
+Let's also take for granted that this mechanism of interaction is one wherein getting out of a sexual interaction that is uncomfortable, or pressured, or hell, even nonconsensual is a matter of just...stopping. Come up with an excuse. Come up with some lie. Eschew the truth in favor of making the other person happy, as you would your father.
+
+> That's not possible. Being pressured into typefucking is just as easy as it is to be pressured into sex in the embodied world.
+
+I'll agree with that. Take it for granted, then that this is what you believe. You believe that consent is implicit in the act, because to revoke consent is as simple as signing off or pretending that your parents walked in on you.
+
+> Okay.
+
+Now take the type of person who takes all that for granted, and put them in a situation with someone who has an overbearing personality, who gets what they deserve, and who deserves you. Take that type of person and put them in a situation where sex is expected of them.
+
+What do you suppose happens?
+
+> The topic at hand.
+
+Yes.
+
+Now, what do you suppose happens to such a person who gets taken advantage of, who winds up in a situation they shouldn't be in, who gets raped, and then put them out into a world full of sexual people, where it is expected that one be sexual.

content/sex/rape/03.md

@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+---
+date: 2020-01-15
+weight: 3
+---
+
+> Do you think that you are asexual because you were raped?
+
+No.
+
+> That was quick.
+
+No, I can promise you that, if there is a simple cause for me being ace (and there emphatically isn't), it's my reliance on TS. I found sex confusing, baffling, and kind of gross long before I had my own little struggle with consent.
+
+Being ace, being autochorissexual, even if I didn't have the words for it, even if I didn't believe in such a thing, even if such a thing couldn't possibly apply to me, was the case from the very beginning of my embodied sexual interactions. It was the case from the very beginning. It was the case from when I lost my virginity, however slippery the concept is.
+
+> Ah yes, was it the first time you masturbated with someone? Was it the first time you had oral sex? Anal?
+
+Life's complicated for a gay boy.
+
+> So much easier for a trans girl.
+
+We've been over that.
+
+> Fair enough. Do you think that being raped prevented you from coming to terms with your asexuality?
+
+I think so, yes.
+
+> Less quick.
+
+It's unclear to me. It's something of a new thought I've had lately. Was part of what kept me struggling and striving to have a healthy sexual existence due to me trying to overcome this aspect of my past?
+
+Beyond that, was <a class="pulse" href="/self-harm">TIASAP</a> me accepting that I wasn't succeeding?
+
+Perhaps.
+
+> Perhaps. Perhaps you needed exposure to a certain level of knowledge surrounding identity before you could truly accept it. Perhaps you needed to circle around it like you're circling around the event at hand. Perhaps you needed to side-eye it, because looking at it directly would surely blind you. It was too bright. It was the wrong color, some impossible shade of blue. It made your head hurt and your gorge rise.
+
+Perhaps.

content/sex/rape/04.md

@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+---
+date: 2020-01-15
+weight: 4
+---
+
+> So why **are** we talking circles around it?
+
+Because, at some level, the experience itself is unimportant. I was young, I was dumb, he was an asshole.
+
+What *is* important is the ramifications. What is important is the fact that I have to live with the person I became when I was disabused of all of those silly, romantic notions of implied consent and this strange idea that I could just stop an act, even if it meant lying.
+
+> Lying always worked so well with your dad, did it?
+
+No, and now I was finding out that this was the case in relationships beyond just typefucking. It made me realize, on some level, how superficial my interactions up until this point had been. I had gone from being the type of person who believed she was living an earnest life with earnest people, enjoying deep relationships, falling in love.
+
+> Were you not?
+
+Perhaps I was on some level, but I was missing this key component: that my actions have consequences.
+
+Not that I'm blaming myself for what happened, of course. I was young, I was dumb, he was an asshole, after all. But non-action is still an action. Not saying no was still an action. Being unwilling to learn about the fact that my actions have consequences was an action.
+
+It called into question how passive I had been in the past. It called into question how little I had been saying no in the past. It called into question how little I had actually learned about how the world worked.
+
+> "Coming to terms with being a terrible person," you wrote.
+
+Yes, and I wrote that in the thick of this realization. At that point, I was coming to terms with all of these things, the passivity and the willful ignorance.
+
+I was coming to terms with how much I was hurting those around me, and just how much I had to learn.
+
+> And boy howdy.
+
+Yeah. I would continue to hurt those around me for years. I still do. I'm getting better, though. I'm willing to learn, now.
+
+> "I cannot possibly bow low enough, I cannot possibly apologize with enough sincerity to make up for the hurt I've caused you," you wrote.
+
+Yes. And I stand by it.
+
+I have much to learn, but I've come a long ways from who I used to be.
+
+The specifics of what happened aren't really important. What is important is the moment before, and the moment after.
+
+> The blackbird whistling, or just after.

content/sex/rape/_index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+---
+type: serial
+background: '#330000'
+color: '#dccccc'
+quote: '#cbbbbb'
+---
+
+<div class="cw">Rape</div>

static/map.dot

@@ -116,12 +116,26 @@ digraph Map {
     "Poly 6" [href="/poly/6"]
     "Poly 1" -> "Poly 2" -> "Poly 3" -> "Poly 4" -> "Poly 5" -> "Poly 6"
 
+        node[group="rape",style="filled",fillcolor="#330000",fontcolor="#dccccc"]
+        "Rape 1" [href="/sex/rape"]
+        "Rape 2" [href="/sex/rape/2"]
+        "Rape 3" [href="/sex/rape/3"]
+        "Rape 4" [href="/sex/rape/4"]
+        "Rape 1" -> "Rape 2" -> "Rape 3" -> "Rape 4"
+
     node[group="sex",style="filled",fillcolor="#eeeef8",fontcolor="#111111"]
     "Sex 1" [href="/sex"]
     "Sex 2" [href="/sex/2"]
     "Sex 3" [href="/sex/3"]
     "Sex 4" [href="/sex/4"]
-    "Sex 1" -> "Sex 2" -> "Sex 3" -> "Sex 4"
+    "Sex 5" [href="/sex/5"]
+    "Sex 6" [href="/sex/6"]
+    "Sex 7" [href="/sex/7"]
+    "Sex 8" [href="/sex/8"]
+    "Sex 9" [href="/sex/9"]
+    "Sex 10" [href="/sex/10"]
+    "Sex 1" -> "Sex 2" -> "Sex 3" -> "Sex 4" -> "Sex 5" -> "Sex 6" -> "Sex 7" ->
+    "Sex 8" -> "Sex 9" -> "Sex 10"
 
         node[group="kink",style="filled",fillcolor="#17111a",fontcolor="#ffffff"]
         "Kink 1" [href="/sex/kink"]
@@ -130,6 +144,9 @@ digraph Map {
         "Kink 4" [href="/sex/kink/4"]
         "Kink 1" -> "Kink 2" -> "Kink 3" -> "Kink 4"
 
+        node[group="aside",style="",fontcolor="#111111"]
+        "Dreams 3" [href="/aside/dreams/3"]
+
     node[group="software",style="filled",fillcolor="#eaf5ff",fontcolor="#05264c"]
     "Software 1" [href="https://github.com/makyo/ally/pull/4/commits/c7d73fc7a727d34728b353a2c428b0da71788bf0"]
     "Software 2" [href="https://github.com/makyo/ally/pull/4/commits/04b7300615386bccbb331caebcf396077f6fc9ea"]
@@ -447,6 +464,8 @@ digraph Map {
 
     // Sex
     "Sex 4" -> "Kink 1"
+    "Sex 8" -> "Rape 1"
+    "Sex 8" -> "Dreams 3"
 
     // Writing
     /*"Writing 2" -> "Koans 1"