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content/post/fiction/post-self/gallery-exhibition.md

@@ -21,6 +21,6 @@ The Simien Fang school of Art and Design is proud to invite you to the opening o
 
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-## [Play the game](/assets/posts/gallery-exhibition.html)
+## [Play the game](https://qoheleth.post-self.ink/gallery-exhibition)
 
 This entry takes the form of a Twine game. There are choices to be made, and random chance at play. Twine is a form of interactive fiction that you can play in your browser. It requires a modern browser with JavaScript enabled.

content/post/fiction/post-self/hues.md

@@ -0,0 +1,168 @@
+---
+categories:
+- Short Story
+series: Post-Self
+ratings: G
+date: 2024-03-04
+description: True Name confers with a past self.
+img: post-self.png
+title: Hues
+character: "True Name — 2350"
+type: post
+tags:
+- Science fiction
+- Uploading
+- Furry
+---
+
+> Spoilers for [*Mitzvot*](https://mitzvot.post-self.ink)
+
+-----
+
+I see the world in new hues.
+
+I see Ioan and May Then My Name sitting together on the bed, cross-legged and touching. I do not think they even realize that they are doing so, that they have set their hands next to the other's, that their pinky fingers overlap.
+
+I see Ioan with eir sun-lightened hair and sun-darkened skin and marvel the ways in which the thirds of me see this: one third has cataloged it as a unique pointer to a past of climate refugees that I will never know, one third judges the ways in which ey blends with eir surrounding, and one third... Well, down that path lays too many conflicts.
+
+I see May Then My Name trying to hide sleep-addled emotions beneath pillow-mussed fur. I see the way she remains at all times conscious of her body, its extents, its softened boundaries. I see the way some small sliver of her mind continually runs through a checklist of appearance she will never even admit to herself, a litany of reassurances that she is the right level of cute, the right level of innocent, the right level of earnest.
+
+I remember that checklist more clearly than she does, I think. I remember thoughts flickering to whiskers — bristled or no? — to ears — should I perk them? — to weight — a little slouch will show as rolls, but in a good way — and back again.
+
+And I see myself recorded in their eyes. I see the way Ioan is buffeted about by the competition between eir need to help and eir growing confusion over who I have become. I see a tempest swirl in May Then My Name\'s eyes.
+
+"Heading outside?" Ioan asks.
+
+I am struggling to keep myself present. My mind is a jagged mess of tangled wires and unfocused lenses. I nod. "Yes. I will need an hour or so of nothing but the morning and the grass."
+
+"Of course," ey says.
+
+May adds, "Take the space you need."
+
+I feel something akin to love press flush against something akin to shame. I hide it with humor. This is a new thing\... "Thank you, dear. If you cook breakfast, I will refrain from telling Ioan embarrassing stories."
+
+"Asshole." She laughs. "Where did this humor come from?"
+
+"Your guess is as good as mine, at this point."
+
+I see the world in new hues as I step outside, holding my coffee close against the chill of the morning. The deck is cold beneath my paws, and the sim feels fresh, new in a way that it is not to any of the three of me.
+
+I do not linger. I have a task.
+
+Instead, I step carefully and deliberately down the stairs from the balcony and into the cool and dew-heavy grass. This, too, is cold on my paws, and I remember a conversation with Ioan some weeks back about the joys of winter. I remember it as though around a corner: indistinct. I remember it as though overhearing it in a quiet bar: murmured.
+
+The remembered conversation is in place, settled alongside memories of me working on the tent with Deberre and memories of me working alongside Zacharias and Jonas.
+
+It is a dangerous memory, for how innocuous it is. It is too hot to touch directly just yet, for neither May Then My Name nor I anticipated just how many of her memories around Ioan are love-colored, just how many bear the new hues through which I see the world. There is so much love in that conversation, so much love in em saying, "Well, if you ever wore shoes..." That aposiopesis is an I-love-you directed at May Then My Name.
+
+I remember it directed at me.
+
+It is dangerous, and it will be dangerous work to grapple with it. All of these memories are in place; it is just the weight of conflicts that I am left with.
+
+The dew from the grass quickly soaks my feet, and I can tell my pads will be numb by the time my task is complete. As it is, the fur all the way up to the hems of my slacks is wet, and my slacks themselves halfway up my calves are already soaking through.
+
+But I have a task before me. My pace is slow, deliberate. My breath is bated, anxious. My mind is keenly focused on maintaining a distance from the bruised cloud of conflicting memories in order to make it through the coming conversation.
+
+I see the world in new hues. The pale green and tan of the grass makes me crave anise cookies. The delicate blue of the sky — so much more delicate than I remember! — makes me thirst for cool water. The dull green of the tent before me, shining with the same dew that marks me, makes my stomach ache. I have never seen the world like this before.
+
+My pace is slow and deliberate, but it is not sneaky. I make as much noise as is appropriate, and what is appropriate is the sound of footsteps. I know how to muffle those, how to set the sounds I make aside, both through a cone of silence and through the bushcraft I have picked up through someone else's hard-won knowledge. But right now, the morning needs footsteps.
+
+True Name needs footsteps.
+
+The nose that pokes out of the tent to greet me when I am a few paces away is my nose/not my nose. The face that follows is my face/not my face. The dark brown of the eyes, the black of the fur, the white of the mane, all mine/someone else's.
+
+I have never felt this split after a merge before. I have never felt this split before, *period*, not since I was Michelle and also Sasha, names that are not my own. I am still True Name as well, yes?
+
+Am I?
+
+This skunk before me looks out into the world with the same eyes I have, and yet they do not see the same hues. She bears the same exhaustion on her face from the same sleepless night I have had, and yet she is not tired for the same reasons.
+
+I wave a small camp chair into being before the fire pit she has/I have built, set my coffee aside, and begin the task of lighting the fire for us.
+
+She watches from the tent, silent.
+
+The crack of the tinder on my paws echoes both familiarity and unfamiliarity within me as I break it down. I have done this so often before — daily for years and decades — and yet one third of me has not started a fire more than a handful of times in all that time.
+
+I build my small pyre, and still the skunk in the tent watches, silent.
+
+Finally, once the fire licks up along the tinder with washed out tongues of flame, I pick up my cup of coffee and offer it to her. We both need it, but she deserves it more.
+
+She nods warily, eyes never leaving me as she steps from the tent to accept the mug, dreaming up a chair for herself across the fire from me, and together we build it up the rest of the way, at least enough for an hour's warmth.
+
+"You look well," she says at last. Her tone is tired above all else, but beneath that exhaustion lies something uncomfortable.
+
+I nod, marveling at the subtle intonations, marveling at the way my heart reaches ever outward along lines of interpersonal relationships. I marvel at how much those three words make that ache in my stomach twist into a sharper pain, an anxiety, a need. I need to address this. I *need* to address her discomfort, her exhaustion. I *need* to take her all up into my arms and let her warm herself against me, be the safe space for her to weep. I *need* to prove the love for her I cannot avoid in myself.
+
+I see the ways in which she would resent that if I did so now, but then, I see the world in new hues.
+
+So I just nod and instead say, "I am tired, but yes, I am well."
+
+She looks down to the fire, sips her coffee. "Good."
+
+"How are you feeling, dear?"
+
+"Tired."
+
+I shake my head. "How are you feeling about this? How are you feeling about yourself?"
+
+She looks up without lifting her snout, and that uncomfortable tension within her grows all the more evident. "About myself?"
+
+I nod.
+
+"I am feeling broken," she says, gaze once more dropping. "I am feeling cracked in two, with only the whims of reality keeping me in one piece. I am feeling the world falling out from under each of my footsteps. I am feeling broken."
+
+"I think–"
+
+"I look at you," she says, interrupting, "and I *know* that I am broken. The crack was there before today, but I look at you and I know that, no, I am not cracked like some mug on the shelf, I am broken."
+
+This time, I remain silent, settling into a part of me that is new. I am helpless before this change, helpless before the feeling of True Name stepping back, of End Waking disappearing into the woods, of May Then My Name leaning forward. I remain silent and watch my other self carefully, feeling that line of connection between us tug harder, demand an embrace.
+
+There was a time nearly two centuries ago when five/six people sat on the grass, when May Then My Name and In Dreams and Hammered Silver and End Of Endings sat before Sasha/Michelle and talked about the end of the Council of Eight, about True Name and Jonas taking over the world, about being a dead woman walking. That of True Name in me does not remember this from any previous merge, so it must have been just after the last time May Then My Name merged down.
+
+I remember watching Michelle/Sasha struggle to speak, to live, to exist. I remember her form shifting. I remember her having a bad day. I remember watching her and having to exercise every iota of restraint to not go in for a hug.
+
+I overlay that memory here, and the similarities shine through overbright.
+
+I hold myself back and say instead, "Is there a place in the world for broken you?"
+
+She winces away from the question, shoulders drawing in. I am not surprised when she shakes her head. I do not think either of us are.
+
+"And how does that feel, True Name?"
+
+She coughs. Or laughs. I cannot tell which. "Do not call me that."
+
+"What shall I call you?"
+
+"'Nobody'. Call me Nobody so that when you speak of me, you say that Nobody is tired quite like me."
+
+Heart aches. "Is that, then, how it feels, Nobody?"
+
+"I do not care how it feels." She straightens up and meets my gaze, half-smile touching her features, and I can see the energy it takes for this broken me to do so. "What I care about now is if it was worth it."
+
+"'It'?"
+
+"The merge." Her tone is earnest, kind, even as the words come urgently. "Is who you are now worth everything that was done to us? Is it worth 106 knives in the back? Is it worth May Then My Name destroying us? Is it worth the way she killed, however kindly, the last remaining True Name?"
+
+I sit back, startled.
+
+There is a war within me. Opposing forces strive for primacy. That of May Then My Name begins to cry. That of True Name picks up on the resentment stated by my up-tree and slots it into her own reality.
+
+I can see what she means. I can see the death of who I was in the face of who I became. I can see the love May Then My Name must have intended contrasted with the heartless way she accomplished this final nullification of True Name as she was.
+
+But I see the world in new hues. I see the world with the knowledge of a conversation on the balcony in the seconds and minutes after End Waking's entire life was dropped unceremoniously on top of my mind.
+
+*"I know a part of me was acting out of vengeance,"* she had said, and I know this to be true, but I know the truth in her stammering, *"I never wanted to hurt her."*
+
+I see the world in new hues and with new context.
+
+"Yes," I say at last. "Yes, it is worth it."
+
+The True Name across the fire from me screws up her face and buries it in her paws, and now, I truly am unable to hold back. I crawl around the fire, kneel before her, and wrap my arms around her shoulders to hold her to my front as she weeps. As we both weep.
+
+The wave of relief or sorrow or release or despair eases up and, eventually, she leans back. She leans back and looks searchingly at me, investigating every strand of fur on my tear-stained cheeks, and I do the same with hers. We sit for nearly a minute, noses all but touching. Then, without a word, she draws me into a hug and, once my arms tighten around her, she quits.
+
+My arms collapse against my front.
+
+I see the world in new hues as I soak in a brief wave of grief as this last vestige of that broken me disappears. I cry before the fire as I accept the merge easily, almost automatically.
+
+I see the world in new hues and, just for a second, just for a glimpse as she stared into my face in those last moments, so did she.

content/post/fiction/post-self/opportunity-paralysis.md

@@ -0,0 +1,385 @@
+---
+categories:
+- Short Story
+series: Post-Self
+ratings: G
+date: 2024-11-17
+description: After uploading, how do you change? How does your identity?
+img: post-self.png
+title: Opportunity Paralysis
+character: Rena Hatch — 2368
+type: post
+tags:
+- Science Fiction
+- Uploading
+- Gender
+---
+
+I thought it would be different. I thought it would be cleaner, maybe. Cleaner, or far more grimy, all exposed pipes and puddles of unexplained liquids pooling in dark corners while the brittle lighting of shitty fluorescents flickered. Give me the clean LEDs over that, the well-polished linoleum and stainless steel, doctors with surgical gowns and nurses with fibrous paper booties strapped over their oh-so-comfortable shoes.
+
+Saskatoon Central Upload Clinic was none of these. Where one might expect a hospital check-in desk, thick plexiglass separating the clientele from the assistants, there was a row of podiums, each bearing a tablet with a grip-bar beside it, a way to check in using the implants embedded on the middle joints of one's fingers. Where one might expect the cold, hard chairs, blessed with only the thinnest layer of padding, of a hospital waiting room, there were instead plush chairs and love seats upholstered in linen. Where one might expect cold and white bare walls, calm paintings and potted plants softened the cream-colored paint further, spider plants stringing trails behind water coolers.
+
+Check-in is simple: slide my fingers around the grip bar until the magnetic contacts pull at those NFC pads embedded in skin. Wait as patiently as I can while the tablet whispers a series of disclaimers against my cochleae through the tendrils of my exo. Shift my weight anxiously from side to side and give my assent to the questions with a nod and a tap of the thumb.
+
+Yes, I understand that uploading is irreversible.
+
+Yes, I understand that uploading is destructive.
+
+Yes, I understand that there's a risk. *There's a risk to staying behind, too,* I think, but carefully do not say.
+
+Yes, I understand that the financial payout to designated next of kin will be-- cancel. No, there is no next of kin. If you're not going to let me will it to a charity or foundation, I guess the government can have it.
+
+*Yes, I understand,* I indicate time and time again, perhaps two dozen times in total, then answer a short survey about who I am before I'm finally given a number and told to sit down.
+
+The wait wouldn't be unbearable if it weren't for the lingering weight of import straddling my shoulders, a petulant child tugging at my hair and whining about how this is the wrong thing to do, that there's gotta be some better way, this is irresponsible. Ten minutes with that weight and those whispered words would be bad enough, but then we hit twenty. Thirty. It wouldn't be so bad if--
+
+"Three twenty-seven? Ma'am?"
+
+I jump at the interruption, looking up to the tired yet kindly eyes of the nurse. "Yeah, sorry," I reply. My own voice echoes strangely in my head, muffled by my own mask, and I realize it's been days since I've said anything aloud.
+
+I follow them into the procedure room, where the scent of sterilizer and ozone lingers in the air, where the chair that reclines into a bench stands alone, where sets of tracks on either side of the chair lead to barely concealed doors in the wall. I follow their guidance in undressing. They don't give me a gown or anything, and standing in nothing but this awful body that shrivels at the touch of the cold clinic air is decidedly uncomfortable. I sit awkwardly on the chair/bed. The cover looks like fabric until it's touched, at which point the illusion is shattered when my fingers find it unpleasantly rubberized. Another reminder of my skin, of my very real, very ill-fitting body.
+
+The discussion with the doctor is quick and to the point.
+
+Yes, I understand this will take about half an hour.
+
+Yes, I understand I'll be sedated but not asleep.
+
+Yes, I understand that the point of no return is announced by a beep.
+
+Yes, I understand, I understand, I understand...
+
+They smile to me, just as tired as the nurse. "Hey," they say, bowing. "It'll be a jiffy. Seriously. Been a decade since our last failed upload."
+
+"How many successful ones have you had since then?"
+
+They shrug. "I do about seven or eight a day, there are five operating rooms, and we're open every day. Never was the best at math, but that's a lot of uploads."
+
+The chair reclines automatically into a bed, and a faint whirr sounds behind me as the cabinets slide out from the wall from behind their subtle doors, revealing banks of what I imagine must be various scanners, instruments, tools, and whatever else is needed for the largely automated procedure.
+
+There's a loud beep that fills the room, and the doctor says, "Last chance." Their voice is lazy, calm, hardly an imposition. It's the voice of someone unwilling to sway the listener, merely doing their job.
+
+I shake my head, and that heavy import resting on my shoulders finally starts to slip, to slide free and drop away from me. The whining fades, the whispered suggestions that I'm doing the wrong thing become inaudible.
+
+Here is a short list of things that are more unpleasant than the uploading procedure:
+
+-   I don't know, literal torture, maybe?
+
+It's not that it hurts. The first thing they do is give me one hell of an analgesic, leaving my mind dream-fogged, and then they clip something to my implant's contacts that I'm guessing all but turns off my ability to feel pain.
+
+It's that they leave the rest of me *on.* The smell is more intense than I'd care to admit. There's little I can see, but the sound is nauseating. I want to tell them to give me some fucking earplugs or something, but whatever's clipped to my contacts has inhibited motor control as well.
+
+The worst, though, is the way my vision jitters and blurs through all of the work they do on my head.
+
+And then, without warning, it's over.
+
+I'm sure there's some sort of discontinuity, that some amount of time passes between when the procedure completes and when I find myself here, fully formed and conscious, in the orientation room. Or perhaps it really is instantaneous. A part of me wonders if there might be some form of the procedure continuing back in the surgical room, some final scan of my dy­-- no, my *body's* dying nervous system, a place I no longer inhabit.
+
+Relief. The success streak of the clinic will not be broken by me.
+
+I wake on the floor of a nine-by-nine cube of what appears to be cool, gray stone blocks one meter on a side. I'm pleased to note the utter reality of the space. The stone is just that: stone. It isn't a rendering of stone, not a representation of stone, just...stone.
+
+The light seems to come from nowhere, leaving only blurry and indistinct shadows around me as I push myself up to sitting, doing my best to ignore my nude body, less than ideal in so many ways. I've gotten quite good at that over the years.
+
+"Greetings," says a soft voice behind me. I whirl around to see a short person with curly black hair, voice feminine and lilting. She's facing the other way, arms crossed before her. "I am facing the wall, as many here arrive unclothed. I am a construct --- a pretty face for a conversation tree --- and, while I will do my best to answer your questions, anything more difficult will wait until you can talk to a real person."
+
+"O-oh. Uh," I stammer. I scramble quickly to my feet and cover my body with hands and arms. That she's facing away certainly helps, but still. "How do I get clothes?"
+
+"I will walk you through the process of making those. It is part of a short tutorial series that will allow you to step into the System proper. Please close your eyes, think of your favorite outfit, and breathe in. As you breathe out, say, "I want to be wearing my favorite outfit," and smile."
+
+"Smile?"
+
+"Yes," she says. "We have found that this helps the newly arrived more smoothly project the intent to create something."
+
+Frowning, I nod and close my eyes, imagining the frowsy cotton skirt and linen blouse that had always been my favorite. Earth tones. No patterns. Muted. A way for me to stay hidden and comfortable both. A way to be overlooked. I breathe in, dreaming of that skirt and blouse, and speak "I want to be wearing my favorite outfit" as a sigh on my exhale.
+
+There isn't any change, at least not any immediately perceptible one. It's not like the clothes flow down over my shoulders like some sort of pleasant animation as I'd expect from a sim back on the 'net. When I look down, I'm just...clothed.
+
+I'm once again taken aback by the sheer reality of the place. The linen of my blouse is just as I remember it, that well-beaten fabric almost plush between my fingers. The cotton of my skirt sways just as I expect as I turn to inspect it. The only difference seems to be that the colors are a little fresher than remembered, the hem of the blouse a little lower.
+
+"I hear the swishing of fabric. May I turn around now, or do you need additional time?"
+
+"Oh, uh, you can turn around," I say.
+
+Nodding, the woman turns, smiles, and bows deeply to me. "Welcome to Lagrange, Rena Hatch. You are in the orientation sim AetherBox#5287. Should you care about such, you are upload 21,529,358,059, but will ever be a unique and cherished soul aboard *et cetera, et cetera.*" She laughs. "The next step of the tutorial is to fork for the first time."
+
+"I...what?"
+
+"Forking is the process of creating a copy of yourself. This copy is a wholly independent person and is free to either live out their own life completely separate from your own, or to quit. Should they do the latter, you will have the option to merge some or all of their memories with your own."
+
+"Why would I want to do that?"
+
+She shrugs, stepping back to the wall to lean casually against it. "Oh, plenty of reasons. You might have an obligation while in the middle of pursuing a hobby, or overlapping invitations to events, or just for shits and giggles."
+
+The casual demeanor and profanity catch me somewhat off-guard. She isn't what I expect from a construct. I find myself liking her immensely.
+
+"Oh, well. Sure, how do I do that?"
+
+"Same as with your clothes. Close your eyes, hold in your mind the desire to fork, breathe in, breathe out, smile, say the words." A lopsided smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. "You do not have to do all of that, mind. You can just do your best to project the intent to fork; you seem like a pretty savvy girl."
+
+"You're one hell of a guide."
+
+"Well, according to your file, the answers you gave on your survey, you are one hell of a woman."
+
+I laugh. "What's your name?"
+
+She smirks. "Fork, and I will tell you."
+
+Snrk. Well, might as well. I do my best to keep the eye-closing and mumbling-to-myself to a minimum, instead taking a deep breath in and then...
+
+"Well done, Rena," the guide says, grinning.
+
+Beside me stands another version of myself. We both let out a startled laugh and take a half step away from each other. I work up the courage to lean in closer to my new instance and, after a moment, she does the same. We take a few moments to inspect each other's faces. I'm startled to see just how much the acne scars that pock my face crinkle my cheeks when I smile.
+
+"Well I'll be damned."
+
+"Neat, is it not?"
+
+Both of me nod. My double --- it flashes into my head that she's named Rena Hatch#2a883de3, though how that comes to me, I haven't the faintest idea --- says, "So I can just go on living as I'd like?"
+
+"Well, sure, but for the purposes of this exercise, I would like you to go ahead and quit. Same thing, desire to quit, yadda yadda."
+
+"Isn't that kind of like dying?"
+
+"Not really, no. It is a merging. Many call it 'merging down' rather than 'quitting' for that reason. Our answer to the teleporter paradox is..." She gives a Talmudic shrug.
+
+Both of me laugh and, after a moment, where once Rena#2a883de3 stood, she is no longer. There's no sudden inrush of air, she simply isn't there anymore.
+
+There's a sensation of *almost* remembering something, like a word that's right on the tip of my tongue, ready to be said or dismissed as not worth the effort.
+
+I decide to remember it and there, suddenly, is the memory of popping into being, of suddenly seeing this guide from another point of view, suddenly seeing another version of myself --- me, the one who remained --- suddenly inspecting my own face, and then...well, then no more memories from that point of view.
+
+"Weird."
+
+The guide laughs. Weird to include that on a construct. "Again, you do not need to fork, or you can fork hundreds of times over. It is also used to change one's appearance --- simply fork while holding the desired change in your mind. Should you like to be shorter, to have thicker hair, well..." Another shrug.
+
+*This* leaves me pondering. I barely listen through the remainder of the tutorial --- checking the time, checking the feeds, checking my current reputation balance, looking up information in the perisystem architecture --- as my mind circles around that ability.
+
+I mean, of course there's the ability to change on the System. Right? Like, that was part of me uploading. Even if it required filling out forms in triplicate, there had to be a way to live the life I wanted up here, easier and more fulfilling.
+
+I just hadn't imagined it would be dropped in my lap by an automated guide.
+
+The sound of my name snaps me back to reality. "Uh, yes?"
+
+"I said 'welcome once more to Lagrange, Rena Hatch.' You have been provided with a starter boost of reputation. Feel free to look up housing on the reputation market, though you have been provided a room."
+
+"How do I get to it?"
+
+"Why, that is the final step in the tutorial, my dear. Project an intent to visit 'home'. This will work for any sim name you are provided, so long as it is either public or you have been invited by the sim owner." Another smile tickles at the corner of the guide's mouth. "For instance, if you would like a lovely cup of coffee, may I recommend The Alley Cat? You can find it at Old Town Square#58289a40."
+
+"Oh, well...alright. Thank you, I guess."
+
+"My pleasure."
+
+"Weren't you going to tell me your name?"
+
+The construct bows. "You may call me what you wish, but I am patterned off one of my creators, Then I Must In All Ways Be Earnest of the Ode clade." I must look nonplussed, as the construct laughs, waving a hand dismissively. "You will learn, my dear. Please enjoy, and do not hesitate to ask for help on the new upload assistance feed."
+
+I hesitate, bow back, and step out of the orientation sim with a wish.
+
+-----
+
+Those early days are heady for me. I do indeed get a very good coffee at The Alley Cat, though not without a moment of embarrassment as I have to ask the constructs working behind the bar how to pay.
+
+"No need," they say, sounding far less personal than the guide I'd met, more automated. "Reputation cost deducted automatically. No need."
+
+Ah well. Like I said, pretty damn good coffee.
+
+I spend a few days just poking around Old Town Square and its environs. At night, I step home to my little apartment, sleep for a while, browse the feeds, maybe take a shower. Then in the morning, I'm back to the public sim, poking through the various shops --- I spend the most time in the one specializing in impossible shapes --- or going for a hike up to the natural park environment just beyond the pedestrian mall.
+
+I eat, I sleep, I explore, and I fork. I fork like mad.
+
+There is a cost to forking --- after all, that new me takes up space on the System's hardware, too --- but only if you let the two instances linger for more than five minutes. It makes sense: if forking is the easiest way to work in these huge changes, then that gives you a buffer to do so.
+
+So I fork, holding in mind a change, and then my new instance and I discuss how it works out, and if it's good, the old instance quits and the new instance becomes the only me. I learn early on to make small changes, as trying to hold too much in my head at once just leads to a confused jumble of an appearance. I fork my hair smoother, less dry. I fork my face rounder and softer. I fork my breasts rounder and my hips curvier. I fork myself shorter.
+
+In the end, I guess I kind of complete the transition I'd started back phys-side.
+
+It's thrilling and terrifying, leaving behind that old version of myself. What happens if I fuck up and don't like who I become? What if the wrong me quits? Would I die?
+
+The feeds help me out immensely, here. With nearly two trillion instances, I'm hardly the first trans girl to upload to get away from a less-than-ideal life. I'm hardly the first one who'd been struck with a case of the genders that uploads to hunt for a cure.
+
+Here's what I learn:
+
+-   Don't fucking worry.
+
+Sure enough, I can't quit without another fork already in existence. It's like pressing against a membrane: maybe I could push through, but it's like Lagrange doesn't want me to. Also, I find that if I focus hard enough, I can fork back into the version of myself who originally uploaded. The memory is still there.
+
+So I keep on forking and forking and forking until I...well, I guess I wind up looking a little bit like the guide who introduced me here. Sure, I've got longer hair and I'm not quite as stocky as she was, but I pass.
+
+I don't just pass, I *am* that girl. Not quite the same one I dreamed so long ago, but I just plain am that girl.
+
+Don't fucking worry, indeed.
+
+It's my third day there when I start to get pretty actively lonely, and instead of digging into the sims and shops and yet more restaurants, I start hunting for people.
+
+Old Town Square is surprisingly chill, in terms of crowds. Sure, there's little knots of people that wander down the brick-paved pedestrian mall, or folks out in ones and twos enjoying the sun and their own cups of coffee, but it's hardly as packed as I would have assumed for a system containing so many uploads and all their forks.
+
+The amount of sims listed on the perisystem architecture about blows my head off when I check. There have to be millions, maybe billions of sims I could go looking into.
+
+Which makes sense, I suppose. With the reputation I have, I could probably get started on a sim; it's not that expensive.
+
+I haven't the faintest how to do so, nor the faintest where to start, so I do the first thing that comes to mind and ask someone at The Alley Cat where they'd go to start seeing more of the world. The person I ask shrugs and gestures behind them toward a door set in the wall. I'd assumed it led out to a patio out back or something, a sign above it reads "Infinite Café#06f4e37a --- Thanks For Stopping By!"
+
+Nothing for it. I step through the door.
+
+And immediately fall to my knees.
+
+The street I walk out onto is far more packed than Old Town Square, yes, but it also seems to go on pretty much forever. The further down the street I look, the more it seems to rise until, sure enough, it rises right up into the sky and continues around in a loop until back where I am. So large is the diameter of this loop that the street above me looks like a shimmering thread draped lazily across the dazzling blue sky.
+
+"What the fuck..."
+
+There's a laugh beside me, and I look up to someone towering above me, offering a hand to help me stand. They're tall --- taller even than I was back phys-side --- with long hair that sits between frizzy and curly, and a rather chic looking tee to go with a pair of what look to be scrub pants. Messenger bag. Glasses. They're delightfully gender. Visibly and effortlessly transfeminine. "Come, stand. It is a lot, is it not?"
+
+"Uh...yeah," I say, wobbling up to my feet with their assistance. Looking around shows me people. People and people and people. Across the street: another café, stuffed to the brim with people. Down the street: yet another coffee shop, a furry of some sort staring longingly at a display of pastries within. "What the hell is this place?"
+
+"Infinite Café." They chuckle, not unkindly. "Every café sim on Lagrange is invited to have a back door that opens onto this street. You could walk for a month here and still not see half of the cafés on offer."
+
+"Jesus."
+
+"There are...ah, looks like fifty-eight cafés with Jesus in their name, yes."
+
+I snort.
+
+"Come, walk with me," they say.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Fuck if I know. I am starting to feel awkward standing in front of this place waiting for you."
+
+I fall into step beside them as we start to make our way down the street. "Wait, hold on. Waiting for me?"
+
+"Yes. In All Ways said I ought to keep an eye out for you."
+
+"In All-- wait, the construct? The orientation guide?"
+
+"That was In All Ways's construct, yes. *She* is still a real person. She keeps vague tabs on uploads that pass through her orientation settings."
+
+"And she kept tabs on me?"
+
+"Millions pass before her constructs' eyes, she just keeps an eye out for a few particular things. Friendly faces, interesting stories, that sort of stuff." They shrug, smiling. The smile is kind enough and earnest enough to take the wind out of my suspicion's sails. "You seemed interesting enough to her, apparently, so she sent you my way. You seem nice to me, too. You can call me My."
+
+"My...like me, my, mine?" I say, sounding stupid even to myself.
+
+They laugh. "Just like that, yes. Hold My Name Beneath Your Tongue And Know of the Ode clade. Just 'My' is fine. She/her."
+
+"That's the second time I've heard 'Ode clade', and I still don't get it."
+
+"A clade is just a group of people forked from the same upload. I am quite far diverged from my root instance. Certainly further than In All Ways is. You look a little like her, you know that?"
+
+Caught. I panic.
+
+She rests a hand gently on my elbow and tuts. "Hey, hush. It is okay. You take inspiration where you can, yes?" she says. "Besides, I am not going to complain. She is pretty."
+
+"Thanks," I stammer, unsure of how to proceed. "You are too, I guess."
+
+"'You guess'?" She smirks. "No, no, I get what you mean. In All Ways said I should be on the lookout for a trans girl, about our age, real frumpcore vibe. I got pretty much that, did I not? Besides, we usually share an aesthetic, I am just dressed down today."
+
+"What, the skirts and all?"
+
+She nods, tilts her head, and, with a quiet rustle, her clothes shift from what she had been wearing to a navy blue tiered skirt and almost-matching splotchy blue blouse. "Of course."
+
+I grin, making a show of looking her up and down. "Definitely pretty, then," I say. I ought to kick myself for flirting, but I'll take what I can get.
+
+She gives a hint of a curtsey. "So, Rena, yes? She/her, yes? Tell me who you are. Tell me why you are here. Tell me what you dream of."
+
+It takes me a moment to piece together what exactly I'm being asked. "I'm a nobody," I say eventually, shrugging. "Parents are nobodies, grandparents were nobodies. I had friends, but they were all on the net and planning to upload someday. I was just the first." I hesitate for a moment, then add more quietly, "And I guess the whole being a girl thing."
+
+"And what do you dream of?"
+
+"God, I have no fucking clue."
+
+"Cheers to that. Hey, look. Jesus Croissant." She laughs. "Want to check it out?"
+
+Jesus Croissant is sterile, blank, modern. Here, at last, I see the too-flat planes, the too-simple colors, the suspiciously repeating patterns of flecks on the Formica counters. It makes me realize just how high quality a sim Old Town Square is. At least the coffee's okay, though croissants are weirdly absent from their menu.
+
+For the rest of the day, we continue on down the road, hunting for other Jesus-themed coffees and snacks. My teaches me how to play with my sensorium, to turn up and down my sense of smell, my sense of fullness and hunger, even, when a passer-by bumps into me, the collision algorithms that govern how close to me others can get to me before bouncing off.
+
+"It is a good place, Lagrange," she says. "People build all of this fantastically weird stuff, they build all of these fantastically weird versions of themselves, and they have their fun. They really do! But once they are here and no longer scraping by or living comfortably in their workaday jobs, they settle into their niches of giants or robots or furries or impossibly muscular people." She peeks at me sidelong, an appraising glance. "Or trans girls, yes?"
+
+While there's an invitation to respond, I decide against it, instead focusing on picking out each of the types she had mentioned in the crowd around us. There, a giant robot, standing nearly three meters tall. There, a surfeit of skunks, chatting animatedly. There, a woman who could absolutely, no doubt, break me in half.
+
+We continue on.
+
+We don't find the next Jesusy coffee shop, but we do agree to meet tomorrow to try again.
+
+-----
+
+I continue to meet with My --- or at least a fork of her --- daily for the next week or two.
+
+She's old, it turns out. Nearly three centuries. One of the first uploads, back in 2117, when the System had yet to blossom to its full potential. She'd been up here, riding along in the hardware that had been floating up by the moon since before my grandparents had been born. Since before my grandparents' grandparents had moved north to Saskatchewan.
+
+Old and wide-spread, too. The Ode clade has at least a hundred instances --- "*nominally* one hundred, do not ask me the total; it is probably well into the thousands" she says --- scattered about on Lagrange.
+
+The more I talk with her, the more worldly she seems, and the more of a hick I feel. Here's this trans gal --- a cis woman who had uploaded, a fork who had lived as a cis guy for decades before transitioning back the long way around --- out here living her best life like there's just nothing to it, getting coffee with me every day, taking me out to ridiculous restaurants every evening --- "I am just a fork," she says, "so you need not worry about keeping me from anything" --- and having increasingly deep conversations about the vagaries of life.
+
+She's a weird bird, but I can forgive much from someone more than ten times as old as me.
+
+And this whole time, even past my one-week-iversary of uploading, I keep forking and changing, forking and refining, forking and tuning. My hair could be this long, right? Or...well, no. Maybe it could be a touch shorter. And my eyelashes could be a bit longer. And the hairs that make up my unibrow could be thinner --- not gone, no, just enough to shape an impression of a face. And my cheeks could be maybe just a little rosier. Which maybe I could do by keeping them as they are but toning my skin a little lighter, perhaps?
+
+It's infuriating. It's *more* than infuriating. It's crazymaking, forking and changing, forking and changing, hunting for ever finer lines of exploration, going down blind alleys of gender, making U-turns in front of piles of identity that make me wince and squirm.
+
+I puzzle over this dysphoria, so different from back phys-side. So different from the reason I uploaded in the first place.
+
+My doesn't need to say anything, she just keeps on talking to me, keeps on spending time with me. She just keeps on being around me as someone who is happier, more content with her life. She just exists at me as someone who lives in her body entirely while I, itching, squirming, do not.
+
+She never calls me on it, not once, but when I finally break down in front of her and start crying about it, *'I know'* is painted across her face in plain-to-see lines.
+
+"I just don't even know what I'm doing. I feel like I'm refining myself into something unrecognizable," I ramble in a quiet corner of one of those Jesusy coffee shops. None, so far, have been Christian. All have been bizarre. "I'm turning into someone I don't know."
+
+"Why?" she asks. "I mean, I know *how* you are doing it. I know the base reasons. You are trying to become maybe a cisfemme woman, yes? You are trying to be the you that you always saw yourself as, yes?"
+
+"Well, yeah," I say, turning my untouched latte around in a circle on the dinged-up tabletop. "I told myself I'd come up here and finish my transition."
+
+"'Finish'?"
+
+I squint up at her, fearing a trap. "Ye-e-es..."
+
+She holds up a hand disarmingly. "I am not calling you out, my dear. Everyone approaches this differently. What I mean to ask is what 'finished' looks like for you."
+
+"I don't know," I say as I subside back into my seat, sounding miserable even to myself.
+
+"You have all the time in the world, Rena," My says. "And that world is going nowhere fast."
+
+I nod sullenly.
+
+"Well, hey. How about you show me what you looked like before."
+
+"Here?"
+
+She shrugs. There really isn't anyone around but us and the constructs behind the bar.
+
+I shrug, too, and fork into that version of me I remember from so long ago --- had it really been a week and a half?
+
+My raises an eyebrow.
+
+"What?"
+
+"Look."
+
+I glance over at that fork of me, then look closer. Really, truly look. What I'd taken as too tall comes off as merely tall-ish, now that she's not me. That too-high hairline is all but unnoticeable. That rectangular frame I'd bitched about plenty is...fine. Like, it's fine! She's fine!
+
+*I was fine.*
+
+My pushes her chair back to go stand by this new version of the old me, and similarities and differences crowd into my mind. There, two trans girls, just standing in a coffee shop, looking for all the world like they're on a date. Maybe they don't pass, not to my discerning eye, but they look fine. They look fine.
+
+Here are all the unassailable, irrefutable facts about them:
+
+-   They look fine.
+
+"Fuck," I say.
+
+My laughs.
+
+"What do I do?" I groan, slouching back in my chair and looking up to the two before me.
+
+"Whatever you would like," My says. "You have the time, yes? And I sure as shit do not know what you need out of life. All I can do is keep taking you out for coffee while you figure it out, yes?"
+
+I laugh. "Yeah, but which me?"
+
+She casts an appraising look at me, then at my new instance standing beside her, visibly and effortlessly trans. "One of you," she says eventually. "But only one. The other can do whatever she wants --- she can quit or go on exploring her own life or whatever; she can change and individuate, become someone new, change her name to something ridiculous as we have --- but only one of you gets to go on the next date."
+
+Me and this new Rena, this new old Rena, look at each other, grin, and nod.
+
+"Deal," we say in unison.
+

content/post/fiction/post-self/prophecies.md

@@ -0,0 +1,292 @@
+---
+categories:
+- Short Story
+series: Post-Self
+ratings: G
+date: 2024-02-05
+title: Prophecies
+cw: Discussion of suicide
+type: post
+tags:
+- Death
+- Science fiction
+- Uploading
+img: post-self.png
+description: What Right Have I struggles to mourn 23 billion lost souls.
+---
+
+To step into The Bean Cycle was to be immediately assailed by sound. There was, as to be expected, the clink of glasses and muted howl of steam wands bringing milk up to temperature, but mixed in was the clatter and clicking of work being done on bicycles. Wheels were spun, chain was dragged through derailleurs, tires were changed. Milk was steamed, espresso was made, names were hollered out.
+
+It was not the type of din that Slow Hours expected for the one she and If I Dream were looking for. It was too uneven, this wall of sound. Too unpredictable. The steam wands were too piercing and the occasional clang of a wrench or raucous laughter over some story of a crash too jarring.
+
+She looked to If I Dream, who merely shrugged.
+
+Scanning the cafe-*cum*-bike-repair-shop revealed little. It was certainly well populated enough, with every table in use and few enough empty chairs. In the corner by the window, a crowd of synthetic creatures of some sort had gathered, looking vaguely feline but with glassy faceplates showing LED-light eyes in sets of fixed expressions. While they were all far shorter than Slow Hours — who one would be hard pressed to describe as tall — the couch that they were sitting on looked to be barely able to hold their weight.
+
+Even if it was not the type of place for the target of their search, it was still incredibly endearing, and she made a note to herself to return some day.
+
+"Afternoon, friends," the barista said, grinning to them. They were tall and wiry, red hair and beard shining in the bright halogen lights over the bar. "Two mochas? Extra whipped cream?"
+
+Caught off-guard by having her order guessed for her, Slow Hours froze, brow furrowed.
+
+If I Dream elbowed her in the side, murmuring, "I have canvased this place before. Do not worry about it." More loudly, she said, "Yes, though please make it three. Thank you, Hasher."
+
+Still frowning, Slow Hours allowed herself to be guided down the counter to wait for their drinks to be picked up. She set up a cone of silence over her and her cocladist, more for the relative quiet that it offered than for privacy.
+
+"Are you sure this is the place?" she asked.
+
+If I Dream nodded. "Yes, quite sure. Hasher was the one who tipped me off, and I...have seen her outside."
+
+"You are already watching her, then?"
+
+The panther smiled faintly, gave an even fainter shrug. "I am nothing if not myself."
+
+"Then why did you not just go speak to her yourself?" Slow Hours asked. "Or bring me straight to her?"
+
+If I Dream rolled her eyes. "My dear, I *just* said that I am nothing if not myself. That is not my role in this. That is yours. This is the story we are telling, yes? We are stepping into a cafe and ordering a coffee. We are seeing what this is like, this place where she has been parked the last week. We are speaking with Hasher."
+
+Sighing, she nodded and leaned against the counter, poking at the anodized sheet of aluminum that covered it. Thankfully, it seemed to be coated with some thin sheen of resin to keep the texture reasonable and noise down. "Well, alright. You are the sneaky ones."
+
+"Do you not also live in stories? I thought that was part of your whole shtick."
+
+She snorted. "Well, okay, good point. I suppose I am still a little rattled, is all."
+
+"'Rattled'?" If I Dream laughed. Like everything else that she did, it was nearly silent, more a quiet huffing of breath through her nose than anything. "*The* Slow Hours of the Ode clade is rattled?"
+
+"Yes, yes," she said, waving away the comment with a grin. "I really do see your point about the story, I am just finding it hard to slow down, perhaps. When you said that you had heard something, I was ready to race to find her, to have to jump through all the hoops of a fetch quest, so to hear that you already know precisely where she is, that you are already watching her, makes waiting for a coffee like this feel like a waste of time."
+
+"It will be worth it, I promise."
+
+"The coffee?"
+
+The panther laughed once more. "Well, I was going to say the story, but the coffee *is* quite good here, so, yes."
+
+It was only another minute or two of waiting before Hasher waved to get their attention, gesturing to three paper cups sitting on the bar, ready for them. Slow Hours dropped the cone of silence and winced at the sudden barrage of sounds that followed. She turned her hearing down a few ticks. "Thank you," she said, bowing. "By the way, we were hoping to meet up with a cocladist of ours. She is a skunk, a furry, built rather like myself." She gestured down at herself — human, instead, with pale skin and curly black hair tied up in a messy bun, but stocky and short. "Black fur, white stripe, a little jumpy. Have you seen her around?"
+
+Wiping their hands on a towel hooked into the strings of their apron, Hasher nodded, tilting their head over toward the couch full of robots. "The one who was sleeping there the last few days, I'm guessing?"
+
+"Sleeping?" Slow Hours asked, frowning.
+
+"Yeah. She would just kind of curl up at one end for a few hours and nap. No biggie, of course, and we all liked her. She only ever slept while things were slow, and she'd always move when asked." They broke out into a grin again, shrugging. "Or when it got too loud. Or when it got too quiet. Or just every now and then for no reason we could figure out — very stimmy type — but she was always very polite about it."
+
+"Yes, that would be her," she said, smiling. "Well, thank you very much. Did she leave recently?"
+
+They nodded towards the back door of the shop as they started to make their way back to the line of customers waiting for drinks. "Out back, out to Infinite Café, probably half an hour ago. Just peek in if you need anything!"
+
+The two Odists bowed their thanks and carefully picked their way further over to the cafe side of the building, winding their way between tables until they reached the brick wall. There in the middle was a green, wooden door set into an arch, and above the arch "INFINITE CAFÉ" shone in tooth-achingly pink neon.
+
+The sim in which The Bean Cycle existed had a weather pattern tuned after somewhere in the northern hemisphere, so they had entered the shop sometime in early March — a scant three weeks after Lagrange had come back online after the Century Attack — where the air still had a bite to it and salt still stained the sidewalks out front from where the ice had been melted in the days prior. They had arrived late in the afternoon, the sun setting down along the street casting long shadows behind them.
+
+When they stepped out into Infinite Café, though, it was the same bright, midsummer's noon as it always was there. The light came from everywhere and nowhere, and their shadows sat just beneath their feet. It was the perfect temperature — no matter who you were, no matter your preferences, it was always perfect — and it was as packed as ever.
+
+If one percent of the population of Infinite Café was missing, Slow Hours could not tell, and for that she was grateful.
+
+The sim was dead simple: it consisted of one, long road set into a thin torus. A truly enormous torus: when she looked up, she saw a bright thread directly above them where the road had curved up into an arch hanging in the heavens, and yet the road seemed perfectly flat as far as she could see.
+
+Lining either side of the street were entrances to cafes. Cafes, coffee shops, doors leading out into libraries with coffee carts, alleyways leading out into sims where coffee was hawked from handcarts, dusty steps leading up into marketplaces where vendors boiled their coffee in their cezves in great vats of sand set over wood fires. Anywhere that served coffee to cladists that wanted was free to create an exit that led out into Infinite Café, and over the two centuries of its existence, it had grown from a labyrinthine maze of buildings to the ring-road that it was today.
+
+She had no clue how it worked, if it really was that big, but the sheer size of the System had been driven home quite effectively over the last few weeks — 23 *billion* dead! The number remained surreal — so she was hopeful that there were no tricks involved, no attempts to make it look bigger than it was.
+
+She was hopeful that all of these people here on this relatively crowded street were real, not constructs or illusions. She hoped they found coffee and friends and loved ones and long-lost selves.
+
+A gentle touch to her shoulder brought her back to the present. She looked over to If I Dream, then followed her gaze to the center of the thoroughfare.
+
+There, in the middle of the path, stood a skunk. She looked much like others in her clade, with white-striped black fur, tapered snout, cookie ears poking out from an unruly mane, and where she differed, it mostly came down to clothing. She wore a linen tunic in dandelion yellow, cinched around the waist with a leather belt, and a pair of loose, woolen trousers in a dusty brown. Her mane was tied back with a kerchief of some sort, a pastel triangle fully visible to them as she stood stock still and stared straight up to the arch above.
+
+Slow Hours felt concern tugging at her cheeks, while a glance at If I Dream showed only curiosity.
+
+"Shall we?" she asked.
+
+If I Dream nodded.
+
+Letting a crowd of joggers pass, the pair made their way up to the skunk so that Slow Hours could gently touch her elbow.
+
+The reaction was far more extreme than expected as the skunk let out a shriek and skipped three or so meters away from them, nearly colliding with a couple walking hand in hand. She whirled, tail bristled out behind her and ears splayed to the sides. Her eyes were wide and breath coming in quick gasps.
+
+Both Slow Hours and If I Dream took a pace back, startled.
+
+In the span of a few short seconds, the skunk seemed to get her bearings and comprehend just who was standing in front of her. She visibly worked on mastering her breathing as she stood up straighter, brushing her paws anxiously down over her shirt. "Ah...I, ah...Slow Hours?"
+
+She bowed slowly, deliberately, so as not to startle the skunk any further, and nodded. "Yes, and And If I Dream, Is That Not So." She held out the extra mocha. "We got you a coffee, What Right Have I. Would you like to join us?"
+
+What Right Have I looked between the two anxiously, clutching at the hem of her tunic. "I...ah, do you...I mean, is there an occasion? Is there a place? I was...I mean, I had been in The Bean Cycle but the couch...oh, I am talking myself in circles..."
+
+With that, she began to pace in an abbreviated line before them, alternating between scrubbing her paws together and straightening her already quite straight shirt.
+
+Slow Hours looked to If I Dream for help, and the panther stepped forward silently and wrapped her arms around the skunk from behind.
+
+At first, she thought this would be a prelude to them stepping from the sim together, or perhaps some affectionate bear hug, though this did not fit what she knew of their faint acquaintanceship.
+
+Instead, though, If I Dream simply squeezed around the skunk and stood still. There was a squeak and a tense-looking squirm from What Right Have I at first, but in surprisingly short order, her breathing fell under her control and she slouched against her cocladist, looking as close to relaxed as Slow Hours had ever seen her.
+
+*"What is this about?"* she asked If I Dream via sensorium message.
+
+*"A hunch,"* the panther sent back. *"Apparently a correct one, for which I am glad. Sometimes compression helps, yes?"*
+
+*"If you say so."*
+
+"Are you alright, my dear?" If I Dream murmured loud enough for Slow Hours to hear as well. 
+
+"Y-yes. *Tizkeh l'mitzvos.*"
+
+"Will you join us for coffee? It is not a demand, to be clear. Just an offer."
+
+What Right Have I nodded slowly. "Is the...ah, is the couch free in The Bean Cycle?"
+
+If I Dream hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "The creatures have left. There is a person sitting on one corner, but if you are comfortable, the rest is free."
+
+"If we...I mean, if I may set up a cone of silence, that will be fine, yes."
+
+Slow Hours watched as the panther gently released her grip on the skunk, the two monochromatic animals — one in baggy, colorful linen and wool, and the other in black form-fitting shirt and leggings — separating cautiously, as though to move faster might once more send What Right Have I into manic pacing.
+
+"Shall we?" Slow Hours asked, smiling reassuringly to her cocladists.
+
+The couch was indeed free, though there was no other instance of If I Dream visible. Slow Hours put this out of mind as best she could; the first stanza was well known for just how easily they slid about unseen, unbeknownst to others as they simply watched, observed.
+
+They sat in the crook of the couch, L-shaped as it was. What Right Have I requested one of the corner vertices of their little triangle so that she could get up and pace should she need, nudging the low table that sat before her aside to help assist in this endeavor, before setting up the cone of silence and nudging it to obscure them as occupants. The din of the coffee shop fell to a low murmur. 
+
+The three of them set their coffee cups on small coasters set in the air just within reach, and waited in silence.
+
+"What Right Have I," Slow Hours began gently once the silence seemed to open up. "From Whence messaged the first stanza a few days ago to see if any of them knew where you were."
+
+"She messaged Speaking, in particular," If I Dream added quietly. "She is the instance hunter of our stanza, yes? But she is feeling perhaps a little burnt by recent events and requested some space, for which I am glad. She deserves that."
+
+"I know," the skunk said. "She has messaged me several times. I have...ah, I mean, I always endeavor to let her know when I am okay. And I am! I promise."
+
+Slow Hours laughed, holding up her hands. "I believe you, my dear. This is a meeting between friends, not an interrogation. We wanted to see whether you are okay, yes, but it has also been some time, yes? And I have been checking in with much of the clade in the last few weeks. There are several of me out and about on meetings such as these."
+
+She nodded. "She told me she just wanted...ah, she requested "a bit more proof than gentle rebuffs." I told her that I am okay. I told her that I was walking and meditating."
+
+"Is that what you have been doing during the day?"
+
+"I..." She trailed off, scrubbing her paws against her thighs. "Some, perhaps. A little. We are still in *Shloshim,* but I cannot...ah, I am not focused."
+
+"You will have to forgive me for being a bit blunt," Slow Hours said gently. "But are you overflowing?"
+
+What Right Have I's expression dropped, the skunk quickly going from attentive to panicked to miserable.
+
+If I Dream held out her paw, an offer for reassurance. "I do not know what your overflow looks like, What Right Have I. I trust that it is not pleasant, though. It rarely is, yes?"
+
+"It is sometimes," she admitted, shaking her head at the offer of touch. "It is...ah, it comes in two flavors. It shows itself as religious ecstasy sometimes, of a sense of spirit, a feeling of *HaShem* existing in the world, in the System. Those who reach out to RJ, who reach out to our friend, they are reaching out to *HaShem!* Ey may be our personal *HaShem,* yes? But ey is an abstract manifestation of the world!" Despite the sudden animation in her words, the sudden fluency in her otherwise stuttering speech, her expression remained dire, anxious.
+
+Slow Hours smiled faintly, taking a moment to think back. The skunk's choice of words triggered a memory of a report written for the clade decades back. "Codrin said that, yes? Or rather reported that Answers Will Not Help said that. "Our own personal *HaShem.*" She said that she could not feel em on Artemis, yes?"
+
+What Right Have I nodded, subsiding back into the couch. "Yes. I...ah, I mean, I would not have joined them for that reason, never mind the other difficulties faced."
+
+Both Slow Hours and If I Dream nodded. No Odist had joined Artemis for its ongoing voyage.
+
+"But ey is still *b'tzelem Elohim,* yes? Ey is still in the image of Adonai, yes? Ey is still human, even if ey is our world. Our world is *b'tzelem Elohim,* and we, *b'tzelem Elohim,* reside within em." She smiled weakly. "Rav From Whence does not like it when I say these things, but that is what I feel when I am overflowing."
+
+"And that is what you are feeling now?" Slow Hours asked.
+
+"No," she said, once more sounding miserable. "If I do not feel ecstasy, I feel anguish. I feel...mm, I feel nullity. I feel nothing. I feel RJ and I think, "Ah my friend, my friend." I do not see in em the divine. I do not feel *b'tzelem Elohim,* I feel stupid. I feel...ah, I feel broken. I have been staying here, sleeping where I may be seen because I am afraid...ah, because I am so, *so* afraid that I will disappear, that I will crash and that no one will notice me. I fear that I will be forgotten and that...ohhh, I am talking in circles. I am thinking in circles, I am sorry."
+
+"It is okay," Slow Hours said gently. "Do you think you are overflowing because of the Century Attack?"
+
+The skunk whimpered and pushed herself quickly to her feet, pacing once more and shaking her paws out as though to dry them off, then straightening her already straight skunkerchief. "I have been dreaming," she mumbled, then jerked her head to the side with a quiet squeak. She continued more clearly. "I have been dreaming, here on the couch, out there in Infinite Café when...ah, when I fall asleep out there."
+
+Slow Hours tilted her head, sitting up straighter.
+
+What Right Have I smiled faintly. "I have...ah, I am not the oracle that you are, my dear. I am no prophet."
+
+She smiled, shaking her head. "Neither am I. I would still like to hear your dream, though."
+
+The skunk nodded, paused to gather her thoughts, then spoke slowly. "I am disembodied, yes? I am floating and I see a figure, and they begin to weep, and they dissolve into a cloud of black specks, and these specks float away on a breeze, and each one enters the heart of a cladist, and they cry out in agony and dissolve into clouds of their own, and so it ramifies until all are dust. I see you, yes, and I see If I Dream, and I see Should We Forget and I see No Longer Myself."
+
+If I Dream jerked back as though slapped, a sudden move that was nevertheless silent. "Do not–" she said, then shook her head.
+
+"I am sorry, If I Dream," What Right Have I said, bowing low and forcing herself to sit once more. "I...ah, my dreaming mind remembered names of those lost, perhaps, and extrapolated."
+
+The panther nodded, scrubbed a paw over her face, and sighed. "It is okay, my dear. I am still feeling raw."
+
+It was What Right Have I's turn to offer a paw. If I Dream accepted gratefully, giving a brief squeeze. When this lead to another squeaky tic from the skunk, she let go.
+
+"Ah...sorry," the skunk stammered. "I have...I mean, that is to say...ah, I am talking in circles. I am sorry."
+
+"It is okay," Slow Hours said gently. "Do you need some time?"
+
+She nodded, bowing her head for a moment before retrieving her mocha for a tentative sip. Apparently finding the temperature tolerable, she followed this with a longer drink.
+
+Both Slow Hours and If I Dream followed suit, simply taking in the ambiance of the shop.
+
+"Have you had dreams, Slow Hours?" If I Dream asked, breaking the silence with her quiet murmur.
+
+She startled to awareness, smiling sheepishly. "Since the attack? No, nothing memorable, though I have not been sleeping well. I do not imagine many are."
+
+"And before?"
+
+What Right Have I perked up, setting her coffee aside and scrubbing her paws together, kneading pads against pads. "Do your prophecies only come in dreams?"
+
+Slow Hours laughed. "My little predictions are not prophecies. They are just that: guesses based on the trajectories of the stories one tells. I may predict that, when we leave today, What Right Have I will linger a while yet because there is something she has yet to tell us– no, it will come in time, you do not need to until you are ready. But that is based on the trajectory of the story I have heard so far." She hesitated a moment, thinking. "But yes, I have had dreams that may well have been prophecies, but only ever in hindsight."
+
+"Tell us...ah, I mean, will you tell us some of what you dreamed?"
+
+"Yes. It has happened four times. Only those four, though." She held up her hand with as many fingers raised as she explained. "Perhaps Lagrange got hit by a stray cosmic ray or some other fancy particle and it flipped a bit inside the portion that contained me, and I was given some premonition. Smacked upside the head by Apollo, yes? Or, in your terms, visited by the angel of the Lord who gave me a honeyed scroll to eat."
+
+She tapped one finger. "The first was about Qoheleth and his little...adventure. Some two decades before, I had the same dream five nights in a row, of him standing in his robes, arms raised to the heavens, and then crumbling down into sand. At the time, I did not even realize that it was him. I had not seen him in more than a century, and when I had, he was dressed like a natty old college professor."
+
+The next finger, tapped. "The second was about Michelle's death, and I will not repeat it."
+
+She tapped her ring finger. "The third happened in the midst of a play — one of my yearly performances — and in the scene, I was to fall to my knees and cry out, "The knife! At her neck, the knife!" But instead, I passed out and apparently mumbled words not in the script which tallied exactly with Sasha's experience."
+
+There was a moment of silence as she considered the fourth and how best to describe it, not least because of the easy comparison to What Right Have I's dream as explained. Finally, she tapped her pinkie "The fourth was a dream of a core part of me being removed through the back of my neck, a disappearing from the world and becoming a ghost in the next. There was more that I do not understand, visions of a field, a park, but I had that dream every night on the five nights leading up to New Year's."
+
+What Right Have I listened attentively to Slow Hours's description of her prophecies, or at least prophetic dreams. As she spoke, her cocladist's expression darkened, until by the end, she was scowling. "I am no Daniel," the skunk said once she had finished. "I will not scry your *mene, mene, tekel, parsin.* But if you had foreknowledge of Michelle's suicide or the Century Attack, why did you not say anything? Who might we be if Michelle still lived? Might Lagrange be unharmed if we but knew this?" 
+
+By the end, she was nearly growling, so many of her verbal tics melting away as that emotion rose.
+
+If I Dream lifted her snout from where her gaze had drifted. "Did she know, my dear? Or did she only have a recurring anxious nightmare? Do we not all have a hundred recurring anxious nightmares a year?"
+
+The skunk glowered. "And? If that is–" A tic briefly interrupted her, a jerk of the head to the side, and this time she really did growl, though it appeared to be more at herself than anything. "If that is so, then why were these  not known?"
+
+Slow Hours straightened up. "I apologize if that came off as in any way glib, What Right Have I, or as though I could have done anything about them. I did try to get in touch with Michelle after those nights of dreams, but she only smiled and reassured me that she would "live on". It was not until after she quit that those words had any import." 
+
+What Right Have I's shoulders sagged, though she was clearly still gritting her teeth.
+
+She sighed, continuing, "And perhaps it is as If I Dream says. They were anxious nightmares. However, they still bore the acrid tang of ill omens to me. There was a scent of premonition, and so I have slotted them neatly into that category, even if they *were* only caused by anxiety."
+
+There followed a long moment while the skunk processed this. She seemed to be running down a mental checklist, as her rapid breathing shifted almost immediately into something deeper and more even, her posture straightened from a wary hunch as though ready to bolt, and her expression settled into a rather stiff half-smile. All spoke of various bits of therapy Slow Hours remembered from centuries back.
+
+"Alright. Okay." What Right Have I slowed her breathing further and turned her paws facing up, another skill from therapy. "Okay. You are the both of you correct. I live in my head and in the Tanakh and with a thought of prophecies. For you to call them such, it, ah...it...okay. It makes them not what I was thinking. You are not Ezekiel. You are not Jeremiah."
+
+Slow Hours smiled, gave a hint of a bow from where she sat. "I am not, no. I am a script manager and nerd whose imagination gets away from her sometimes, yes? Even in sleep, yes?"
+
+The skunk's smile grew more earnest as she nodded. "Again, I am sorry. I...ah, I do not know. I am unwell, perhaps. I am overflowing and making connections that do not exist."
+
+"Do you suppose you have had more than four, if you include those that did not come true?" If I Dream asked curiously. "They do still sound fascinating, if only as a curiosity."
+
+"If I have, including the scent of premonition, then I do not remember them. It was that scent, though, that led me to reach out to Michelle. I am embarrassed to say that that was the only one I acted on, though, given that all four of those revolve around death."
+
+What Right Have I furrowed her brow, paws shifting to clench tightly around the hem of her tunic. "I remember a story...ah, a snippet from the *History* where May Then My Name says that Michelle thought of herself as a dead woman walking, yes."
+
+She nodded. "May Then My Name went on to say that Michelle thought that perhaps even the dead can know joy, yes."
+
+"Did she, in the end?" If I Dream asked, frowning. "Know joy, that is? When she asked us all to merge with her, to share with her all that we had become, what did she feel? When, for an instant, she became ten thousand years old, did she choose to quit because she found peace?"
+
+"I think that she did, yes." Slow Hours spoke carefully, keeping an eye on What Right Have I for further tics or other signs of distress. "Or, rather, I must believe that she did. There is too much despair if I imagine her as buried under the weight of all of our own despairs and neuroses. If it is a comfortable fiction, so be it. I will live in that comfortable fiction."
+
+If I Dream nodded slowly. "Far be it from me to dispel what curtains keep despair from leading you after her."
+
+She laughed and shook her head. "There is no suicide in me, thankfully."
+
+"When I received her sensorium message, I nearly refused to attend out of protest. I think many of us saw the writing on the walls when we heard that uncertain steeliness in her voice."
+
+What Right Have I winced, squirming tensely in her seat, right at the edge of the couch cushion. "It...ah...I mean, I struggled. I was there– we all were there! But I struggled."
+
+The panther smiled faintly to her. "We all did, yes. Part of me felt that if any one of us did not go, then she would not quit. Another part was terrified I would be one of many who did not come, and that she would die feeling abandoned by her own family. If she was going to quit, and she wished to do so in the company of her clade...And now..."
+
+She trailed off and let her gaze wander down to the drink she still held in her paws. Blinking rapidly, the muscles on her cheeks and snout briefly became more prominent, as though she was doing her best to keep her expression placid, to not snarl or voice her despair, much as it had been throughout, though the tears leaving tracks in her cheekfur were impossible to hide.
+
+Alarmed at the sudden shift in demeanor, Slow Hours scooted a few inches closer to If I Dream, offering her hand just as the panther had done for What Right Have I before. 
+
+She accepted with a grateful — if still wan — smile.
+
+Slow Hours returned that smile, saying quietly, "That was the dream I had, you know. The premonition. An upwelling of joy and then an overflowing. She looked up to the sun, and the sun was RJ, and then they were one and the same, and it was all joy."
+
+At this, What Right Have I burst into tears. She did not cry prettily, but very few people did. It was a brief cry, however, and soon after she scooted back to the furthest limit of the cone of silence and drew her legs up onto the couch with her, growling as she did, "Slow Hours, you are the fucking worst."
+
+"I am the worst, yes," she said, voice still quiet and calm. "But that is why I am choosing to believe that the premonition was true and why I am choosing to believe that she did find joy, or peace, or at least nothingness and freedom."
+
+"They both deserve to be together. I hope that that is what No Longer Myself has obtained. What all of those lost have," If I Dream sighed.
+
+"I think...ah, I hope your dreams were true, in the end," What Right Have I said after a long silence between the three of them, after each had fallen merely to sniffles. "I hope that they *were* prophecies, whether or not you knew. If only for that one, I hope that they were true."

content/post/fiction/post-self/reading.md

@@ -0,0 +1,62 @@
+---
+categories:
+- Flash Fiction
+ratings: G
+series: Post-Self
+date: 2023-10-20
+img: post-self.png
+description: Rye prepares for a reading.
+title: Reading
+type: post
+tags:
+- Science fiction
+- Uploading
+---
+
+All readings are the same. They all begin the same way, with stepping off to some sim, known or unknown, where she would arrive a good hour early. There, she would wait or walk or drink her coffee or tea. Would it be a bookshop this time? Would it be a library? Would she run her fingerpads along the spines of books, counting known and unknown titles?
+
+Perhaps it was a cafe, and she would get herself a little pastry, some crumbly thing to eat while wandering lazily outside or inspecting the various pieces of art lining the walls within.
+
+She would get there an hour early and simply inhabit the space.
+
+As time drew closer, as her contact would come out to meet her, she would feel the excitement begin to prickle at the back of her neck, and she would have to restrain herself from letting her hackles raise or her tail bristle out. Some long-forgotten and perhaps-imagined reaction to danger tickling both human and skunk parts of her mind. She would feel her scalp tingle and her tail threaten to hike, and she would sit in that sensation. She would bathe in it. She would relish every shift of every strand of fur, and as she sat, legs crossed and coffee or water cradled in her lap, listening to her contact chatter, she would delight in the nervous anticipation of the reading to come.
+
+"Will you be reading from a physical copy or an exo?"
+
+"Oh, an exo," she said, smiling. "As much love as I hold for the physical tools of the trade, I hold yet more for all of the tools at our disposal. Especially when they let me be more dramatic."
+
+They laughed. "Right, you were an actor before, yeah?"
+
+She nodded. "Of a sort, yes."
+
+"And how long will your reading be?"
+
+"I have a variety of segments prepared, from five minutes to an hour."
+
+They blinked. "An hour? Holy shit."
+
+She shrugged gracefully, smile still lingering on her muzzle. "Perhaps another artifact of being an actor. I could talk the ears off a fox."
+
+Laughter.
+
+"Shall we aim for somewhere in the middle? Twenty minutes, perhaps?"
+
+"That'll work, yeah. You're the only slot, tonight, but that'll still give you at least forty minutes for Q&A." They smirked, adding, "Which I imagine you'll need. I read your book, by the way."
+
+It was her turn to laugh, musical and joyous. "I am pleased to hear! I trust that you have questions of your own?"
+
+"Oh, *plenty.*"
+
+"Delightful," she said, clapping her paws together. "I shall look forward to them, then."
+
+This conversation echoed a hundred times, a thousand, in her memories. This conversation and so many others like it set the stage. This conversation and so many others like it became one of the steps in that liminal space between the waking world and the dream of her stories.
+
+She would step away from home or from a meeting or from a cocladist's and at that moment, at the precise instant she ceased being *there* and started being *here,* she was in a place between. She was in a time between times and a world between worlds.
+
+She dwelt, then, in the world of the Ode. She knew where it was from, her name. Not just the Ode itself, but the place the line itself referenced. She had talked to the poet in her own way — perhaps it was closer to prayer, but she bothered not with distinctions such as these — and she knew the scene ey had been painting. She knew that ey had sat at the edge of the natural area some few blocks away from their high school, sat on the fencepost and looked out east, out beyond the natural area and wind farm to where the coarse shortgrass prairie dissolved into rectilinear fields. Tan, perhaps, or brown or gray, they would all shine the same beneath the moon, beneath the stars. They were all dear to em. They were all dear to *her.*
+
+So as soon as she would step away from home and before she would step up to the lectern, she would dwell there at the edge of the natural space. There is where she would feel her hackles threaten to rise and her tail threaten to bristle. She would look at the art and see nothing. She would drink her coffee or tea or eat her pastry and it would have a flavor she did not experience. She would have her conversations on autopilot, and her earnest smile would be no less earnest for her absence from the space. She would do all of these things and overlaid atop her vision would be fields silvered by starlight. She would do all of these things and her tongue would be coated with the taste of sweet night air, of dust and pollen and petrichor. She would strain to hear her contact through the soft noises of wind and crickets.
+
+And then, with all the suddenness of dawn, a chorus of birdsong crashing through her mind, the moment would come. Her contact would stand before the gathered crowd and introduce her —  her! Dear The Wheat And Rye Under The Stars! She was published! She was an author! The realization would never not startle her — and she would brush out her tail one last time, run her fingers through her mane, and step out of the liminal space of the Ode and into the dream of her story. The nervous excitement would wash away and she would be *here.* She would be *now.*
+
+And then she would read.

content/post/fiction/post-self/regret-of-potential.md

@@ -0,0 +1,76 @@
+---
+title: Regret of Potential
+type: post
+categories:
+- Flash Fiction
+series: Post-Self
+ratings: G
+description: Two people discuss regrets.
+date: 2023-10-07
+img: post-self.png
+tags:
+- Science fiction
+- Uploading
+---
+
+We sat for a while in silence, sipping at our drinks in the sun-dappled corner seat of the coffee shop, me with my exquisite pour-over and ver with ver tea that ve promised me was delightful.
+
+"And is there anything you regret?"
+
+I startled back to awareness, eyes glancing over ver way, the bemused grin that ve gave me over the rim of ver tea. "Uh...I missed something again, didn't I?"
+
+Ve laughed, nodding. "I have asked you this question twice in the last ten minutes, and each time you get distracted by the street outside. Perhaps I should ask what has captured your attention instead."
+
+I shook my head. "That's easy, I can tell you that in a sentence. It's not busy."
+
+"'Not busy'?"
+
+I nodded. "It's not busy. I mean, there's people out there, sure. Quite a few, actually."
+
+"Some of them may be constructs to give a sense of a bustling small town," ve said. "But certainly not all of them."
+
+"Right, I remember learning about that when reading up on this place." I nodded out to the street, the park beyond, the couples and triads and happily single instances relaxing in the grass. "But there's not, like...a kajillion people out there. It's not packed."
+
+"I see. Yes, there may be some two trillion instances here, but they are not all in one place. They are not all in the same sim."
+
+"So where are they?"
+
+Ve shrugged. "There are, ah..." Ve tilted ver head, then said, "There are a few hundred billion sims, my dear. Not everyone is crammed into a few small ones."
+
+"And I've still seen crowded ones. The big cities, the weird nexuses, the central library."
+
+Ve nods.
+
+"Anyway, that's what I was thinking about."
+
+"Does that have anything to do with your regrets?"
+
+I laughed. "I don't know, maybe. I guess a part of me regrets not being born earlier so that I could see this place as full of unexplored potential with just a few tens of thousands of people on it."
+
+"They were heady days, to be sure. It felt like we had been plopped down in the middle of a blank canvas. An infinitely large blank canvas. We were the paints, and we smeared ourselves out with reckless abandon, painting lives and spaces."
+
+"You're weird, you know that?"
+
+Ve snorted. "Guilty."
+
+"I wish I'd gotten to see that, though," I said, dragging us back on topic. "I wonder what I would have created? Would I have gotten into food? Sims? Traditional art? I was kind of a blank canvas when I uploaded a few years back. I feel like I could have gone anywhere when I got here."
+
+"Did you spend a while in hedonism?" ve asked. "Most do, when first they upload. Some months or a year sampling every pleasure known to posthumanity."
+
+"God, yeah. I can't count the times I ate myself sick."
+
+Ve laughed.
+
+"I guess I don't regret it so much that I want to go back to before all of this variety."
+
+"It was not lacking, but I do see what you mean."
+
+"I guess I regret not experiencing that potential. I regret that I'll never see anything like that again."
+
+Ve settled back and sipped at ver tea, a thoughtful expression on vis face that I couldn't even begin to pick apart.
+
+Finally, ve said, "Perhaps we must make our own potential. Replace regret with determination."
+
+"I don't know if it's that easy."
+
+"Few things are, my dear."

content/post/fiction/sawtooth/youre-gone.md

@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ Hard as that may be.
 
 -----
 
-### [**Play the game**](/assets/posts/youre-gone) (or [read the script](/assets/posts/youre-gone/script))
+### [**Play the game**](https://restless-town.makyo.ink/youre-gone) (or [read the script](/assets/posts/youre-gone/script))
 
 *You're Gone* is a story as told through instant messages. It's playable in all modern browsers.
 

content/publications/_index.html

@@ -19,6 +19,15 @@ permalink: /publications/
                 </div>
             </li>
             -->
+            <li>
+                <div class="post-card light-purple">
+                    <a href="https://idumea.post-self.ink" class="post-card-image">
+                    </a>
+                    <div class="post-card-body">
+                        <a href="https://idumea.post-self.ink" class="post-card-link"><h3 class="post-card-title">Idumea</h3></a>
+                    </div>
+                </div>
+            </li>
             <li>
                 <div class="post-card light-purple">
                     <a href="https://motes-played.post-self.ink" class="post-card-image">

layouts/index.html

@@ -5,7 +5,6 @@
             <ul>
                 <li class="carousel-entry home"><a href="#home">Home</a></li>
                 <li class="carousel-entry publications"><a href="#publications">Publications</a></li>
-                <li class="carousel-entry projects"><a href="#projects">Projects</a></li>
                 <li class="carousel-entry recent"><a href="#recent">Recent posts</a></li>
                 <li class="carousel-entry more"><a href="#more">More...</a></li>
             </ul>
@@ -38,6 +37,15 @@
                             </div>
                         </li>
                         -->
+                    <li>
+                        <div class="post-card light-purple">
+                            <a href="https://idumea.post-self.ink" class="post-card-image">
+                            </a>
+                            <div class="post-card-body">
+                                <a href="https://idumea.post-self.ink" class="post-card-link"><h3 class="post-card-title">Idumea</h3></a>
+                            </div>
+                        </div>
+                    </li>
                     <li>
                         <div class="post-card light-purple">
                             <a href="https://motes-played.post-self.ink" class="post-card-image">
@@ -192,22 +200,6 @@
                         <li><a href="https://thenewstack.io/coming-out-in-tech/">The New Stack</a> - <em>Coming Out In Tech</em></li>
                     </ul>
                 </section>
-                <section class="carousel-item projects">
-                    <h2>Projects</h2>
-                    <div class="large">
-                        <p>Along with standalone works and story collections, Madison has worked on several writing projects, often with others</p>
-                        <ul>
-                            <li><a target="_blank" href="https://ally.id">ally</a> - an ergodic, semiautobiographical project in the form of a conversation</li>
-                            <li><a target="_blank" href="https://post-self.ink">Post-Self</a> - a collaborative fiction project designed to explore the implications of a universe where the sense of self can be blurred, split, or demolished through replication</li>
-                            <li><a target="_blank" href="https://adjectivespecies.com">[adjective][species]</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://lovesexfur.com">Love ◦ Sex ◦ Fur</a> - [a][s] is a metafurry resource aiming to take a look at the furry world from the inside out; LSF is a sub-project exploring the same in a more adult setting</li>
-                        </ul>
-                    </div>
-                    <div class="small">
-                        <a target="_blank" href="https://ally.id"><img alt="ally" src="/assets/img/projects/ally.png" /></a>
-                        <a target="_blank" href="https://post-self.github.io"><img alt="Post-Self" src="/assets/img/projects/post-self.png" /></a>
-                        <a target="_blank" href="https://adjectivespecies.com"><img alt="[a][s]" src="/assets/img/projects/adjspecies.png" /></a>
-                    </div>
-                </section>
                 <section class="carousel-item recent">
                     <h2>Recent</h2>
                     <ol class="post-card-box clearfix">
@@ -258,7 +250,7 @@
                         <p>Several of Madison's projects take part in shared universes or in series.</p>
                         <ul>
                             <li><a href="/series/sawtooth">Sawtooth</a></li>
-                            <li><a href="/series/post-self">Post-Self</a></li>
+                            <li><a href="https://post-self.ink">Post-Self</a></li>
                             <li><a href="/series/rum-and-coke">Run and Coke</a></li>
                         </ul>
                     </div>