diff --git a/content/extras/_index.md b/content/extras/_index.md index ae1c82b..46ebe24 100644 --- a/content/extras/_index.md +++ b/content/extras/_index.md @@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ layout: single * ["Assignment"](assignment): Ioan Bălan — 2273 * ["Meeting of One"](meeting-of-one): Ioan Bălan — 2309 * ["How to Upload Your Consciousness to Physical Infrastructure Using Docker Compose"](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-upload-your-consciousness-to-physical-infrastructure-using-docker-compose) (Non-canonical but heavily influenced 'tutorial' written for April Fool's Day 2022) +* [In-Character asks](ic-asks) — Questions asked of various Post-Self characters, answered by the characters themselves. Authors include [@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo), [@hamratza](https://cohost.org/hamratza), and [@KDARC](https://cohost.org/KDARC). ## Soundtracks diff --git a/content/extras/ic-asks/001.md b/content/extras/ic-asks/001.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b001bdc --- /dev/null +++ b/content/extras/ic-asks/001.md @@ -0,0 +1,16 @@ + +> You mentioned on the server how Michelle "had her own gender-play" in the form of a breast reduction. What does this tell us about her particular gender experience phys-side? How does it relate to her orientation or her string of unsuccessful relationships? How are these things reflected or subverted in the Odists? + + +Hold My Name Beneath Your Tongue And Know +: ([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo)) + + Michelle had a long string of unfruitful, short, abusive, and otherwise quite boring relationships back phys-side. She (for I do not call myself her anymore; she was her own person, just as I am) struggled with that, and that was actually the origin of her picking a skunk as her fursona. She said that she liked the aposematic stripes. "Stay away," they said. "I am not for you to bother." + + Similarly, at one point she started to question just how much of her body was involved in how she was treated by her partners. She liked it okay, to be clear. She was chubby. She was short. She was cute! I remember her thinking that. There were times that she wished she was skinnier, yes, but most of the time? She felt okay. + + Still, when she did worry about her body, it was particularly in how it played into her interactions with romance. She liked being cute, and wanted to be seen as cute, but did not particularly like the way that that played out for her. After a bit, she sought out a reduction. It was not expensive, nor was it difficult to achieve: a consult, a counseling session, and then a surgery, all in the span of a month. + + The end result was not quite what she expected. It was not just that she was relieved of back pain — though she was — nor that she was treated differently with regards to her body — though that was also true — but that she was *happier.* She did not experience gender dysphoria, in other words, but after this change, she experienced gender euphoria. It was then that she cut her hair shorter and changed the way that she dressed. It was then that she decided to stick with skunk, owning it as a view of herself rather than simply as a response to some dick in a furry sim that she then met in person. + + All of us in her clade have carried over that euphoria in some form or another. Perhaps it is in the ways in which they look. Perhaps it is in the pronouns that they use (several use ey/em pronouns as another little tribute). We are all queer, in our own ways, and for some of us more than others, that queerness surrounds gender. I am a nonbinary trans woman. E.W. is a man. Dear's answer to the question of "What is your gender?" is "You are asking the wrong question." diff --git a/content/extras/ic-asks/002.md b/content/extras/ic-asks/002.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eaeaf48 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/extras/ic-asks/002.md @@ -0,0 +1,10 @@ +> Do you think it is possible to know others better than one knows themself? Is truly knowing anybody to that level even possible? + +Hold My Name Beneath Your Tongue And Know +: ([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo)) + + Given the circuitous path I have taken with my own identity and how long it took me to figure out just why that fit so well, and given the rolling of eyes that I received when I told my down-tree instance But The Dead Know Nothing, I think I ought to say that it is most certainly possible for others to know one better than one knows oneself, even if only on the level of a microcosm. + + "I think I am transgender," I said, and she laughed in my face. She laughed! + + "Oh, honey," she said. "I am quite pleased that you have caught up at last." diff --git a/content/extras/ic-asks/003.md b/content/extras/ic-asks/003.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a32dffc --- /dev/null +++ b/content/extras/ic-asks/003.md @@ -0,0 +1,15 @@ +--- +--- + +> E.W.: Would you tell us a story about the wilderness? + +E.W. +: ([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo)) + + I remember teaching myself to hunt, promising myself that I would start small with snares and then work up from there, thinking that I would not let myself eat until I could eat food that I had caught myself. + + Eating itself is optional, sys-side. One can simply turn off that ability, just as one can (and most do) turn off the need to urinate, defecate, get the hiccups, and so on. + + The mind, however, remembers hunger. It remembers it so viscerally that, should you neglect to modify that out of your sensorium, you will feel it just as intense as you did back phys-side. It remembers the feeling of satiation that comes with eating. It remembers the feeling of being too full, of being sick to your stomach. It is a part of life, and even being infolife, we remember that from before we were such. + + So I remember getting so hungry and weak by the third day that I pinged Serene, my cocladist who had built me my little wilderness, to see if she could help. She laughed and ruffled my fur and called me a dumbass, saying that she had not included fauna because I had not requested it, so of course I did not catch anything. She brought me a hamburger and I ate it so fast I got sick. diff --git a/content/extras/ic-asks/004.md b/content/extras/ic-asks/004.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3dc013c --- /dev/null +++ b/content/extras/ic-asks/004.md @@ -0,0 +1,10 @@ + + +> Who's the best in the clade at scrabble? + +Dear The Wheat And Rye Under The Stars +: ([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo)) + + I believe that would be me. As Praiseworthy shifted her attentions to arts administration and her own projects, I was forked to focus on writing and the art inherent in language. + + That said, Where It Watches The Slow Hours Progress from the fifth stanza, who acts as script manager for a theatre company, has given me a run for my money several times, so perhaps we are on par. diff --git a/content/extras/ic-asks/005.md b/content/extras/ic-asks/005.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9e333ef --- /dev/null +++ b/content/extras/ic-asks/005.md @@ -0,0 +1,9 @@ +--- +--- + +> Bit of an odd question, is it possible for an down-tree or root member of a clade to merge with an up-tree cocladist? Essentially, willingly subsuming themselves into an up-tree member of their clade? + +Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled +: ([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo)) + + *Yes. Sort of. We call this 'bubbling up', which is when an individuated fork merges down and then the down-tree instance assumes their identity. The issue, however, is that when merging, the down-tree instance has the ability to selectively merge memories, while they cannot release their own memories, **except** in the instance where there are conflicting memories, wherein one can choose the up-tree instance's memories — this usually means a reinforcement to the point where the down-tree instance's memories in those cases feel more like a whimsical imagining rather than quite real.* diff --git a/content/extras/ic-asks/006.md b/content/extras/ic-asks/006.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2a85716 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/extras/ic-asks/006.md @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +--- +--- + +> alright Dear, what are your thoughts about the impermanence of self, meaning as even as we are ourselves we are changing and mutating away from what we are in the moment every minute of every day? + +Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled +: ([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo)) + + *I have found myself confronted with this as part of my very existence. I dance my dance of instance art and, in the process, it is that very individuation that becomes the core mechanic of the art. The word 'mechanic' is less than ideal, but it is what we have to lean on: yes, it is impressive when one forks smoothly or can lean creatively on the mutation algorithms, but the truly artistic aspect is putting a fine point on the ways in which we change on an hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute, second-by-second basis.* + + *Back in systime 59 (2183 by the old calendar), one of my first true exhibitions was a gala of sorts. I rented out a large ballroom and invited 50 individuals to join me in their finest for an evening of dances and delights. However, they were not to dance with each other, they were to dance with me. I forked 50 times over leaving fifty fennecs (well, 51, as one of me was left as the emcee for the evening) and we began dancing to all sorts of lovely music from throughout the centuries.* + + *However, one by one, my instances began to quit. It was no quiet affair. They quit with looks of agony, with yelps of fear, with wide eyes and trembling paws. The more instances that quit, the more anxious the remaining instances became. One by one, their number dwindled, until there was only one remaining, sobbing and pleading to remain, to not be annihilated. And then it, too, quit with a shriek.* + + *It was, of course, an act. Quitting does not feel like anything. There is no pain, no fear, certainly no anxiety in an instance artist such as myself. However, it did put a fine point on the absurdity of our condition, that these instances were no longer me, that that they changed with every step of their ballroom dance.* + + *That final instance was dancing with a member of my own clade: Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself. I went into the exhibition with little plan as to who would be the final dancer. It had little to do with their skill (though our dear Pointillist was a fine dancer in her own right), and more to do with how they were reacting to this play of self. Would I lean into someone who shared in the foxes' terror? Would I lean into someone who expressed joy at the dance that I had set up? In the end, I leaned into an actor — A Finger Pointing runs a theatre company, made up mostly of members of her own stanza — who adopted an almost villainous aspect. She danced with a serene smile, even as that final dancer dissolved into tears, ending the song with a flourish of a bow even as it cried out in agony.* + + *Another reason that I chose her is that she correctly divined that I would not be merging the experiences of my up-tree instances back into myself as the emcee. It was not something that any of the guests needed to know. It was a private joke between all 51 of me. It was a way for me to be the audience as well. After all, did the other dancers not have access to my internal thoughts? Why, then, should I be any different?* + + *She, however, saw right through me, because of course she did. She is an inveterate actor! She is the manager of a troupe of actors! She picked her part and played it, and turned it into a show even for little old Dear.* + + *In our discussion afterward, we lingered long on this selfdom-as-play. "Sometimes I send a fork to a party I would really rather participate in myself, and when she returns with all those lovely experiences freshly welling up in her I think they belong to her," she said. "It is less about willful individuation and more about.. how every fork is an individual."* + + *To prove her point, she forked and then, on a whim, pulled this new fork over until she stumbled and slumped against her, laughing. She explained, "Here she is caught completely off her guard because I did not intend to surprise her until just now. She is different from me!"* + + *It is all very Heraclitus, is it not? He was the one who said that no man crosses the same river twice, because the river has changed minute-to-minute, second-to-second, as does the man. It was Weinberger who said that no one ever reads the same poem twice, because by reading the poem, the reader is changed: "Every reading of every poem, regardless of language, is an act of translation: translation into the reader's intellectual and emotional life. As no individual reader remains the same, each reading becomes a different — not merely another — reading."* + + *These are the things I think about when I think about the impermanence of the self, which is always.* + diff --git a/content/extras/ic-asks/007.md b/content/extras/ic-asks/007.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..57f4f72 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/extras/ic-asks/007.md @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ +--- +--- + + +> To those Odists engaged in the performing arts: +> +> Not counting instance artistry (Sorry Dear), do you ever opt for effects that would have been impossible phys-side? —Found in the Hearts of Many + +Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself +: ([@hamratza](https://cohost.org/hamratza)) + + Dear and Heat And Warmth are both inspirations for Time Rushes and Motes and I. An integral part of our more spectacular productions involves construct, instance, and sim design. Of course, not everything is so *modern;* most of our work is done analogue, although I do tend to go ham on the theatres themselves. + + In those hazy days when reputation had much greater significance, we depended upon these particular shows to promote Voces Sensuum across the greater System. I am relieved that the Exchange has deflated so much as it has; we are less bound to the whims of popularity and can focus exclusively on our own creative endeavors. + + We do still indulge in spectacle from time to time, however. Our audience is about as impressed by such things as we are, and roping in *artists* rather than *designers* allows us to lean into that in a way that better suits all our tastes. + + Take *Spiro kaj Simpleco,* for instance. This was an example of immersive theatre, a collaboration with Serene and Rainbow's End to produce an interactive set using a sim cast entirely in impressionist textures, audience and all. + + The audience was asked to indulge in an autumn afternoon with the cast, with little dramas scattered about and a few planned to jostle those who came near out of an awkward silence. The filter Rainbow's End created cast the warmth of the Sun and fog of breath across blurred and broken faces in buttery yellow and wispy white, leaving the audience guessing as to who was who. + + This had the effect of rendering otherwise trivial conflicts impossible to follow. The scenes *themselves* were impressionistic. Each conflict was, on its own, meaningless; bantering partners and nagging down-trees and overbearing friends. What the audience was meant to find in this work was the peace that fell over every silent moment, the landscape that as often blended with bickering blobs as not. + + Perhaps the production could have been replicated phys-side, especially when considering the proliferation of exocortices during the 23rd century. For a truly impossible feat, you may have better luck asking a Sevgili. diff --git a/content/extras/ic-asks/008.md b/content/extras/ic-asks/008.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..333b5cc --- /dev/null +++ b/content/extras/ic-asks/008.md @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ +--- +--- + + +> To any Odist that would like to answer: What is the worst meal you have ever had in your entire life? + +Which Offers Heat And Warmth In Fire +: ([@hamratza](https://cohost.org/hamratza)) + + I think there is food that is just poorly-made and food that is ill-advised. It is easy enough to think of a dozen bland, burnt, and bungled meals. But I think it is much more interesting to talk about those meals that were cooked to perfection and managed to land staunchly in the domain of nauseating. + + The worst food I ever ate was a miserable chili with exactly the right amount of lime and with beans still whole and a toothsome mire of beef and plenty of spice. The problem was that it was all sideways. There was just a little bit too much salt, not enough paprika, and it was too runny for the oily-fresh tortilla chips it was served with. All these little incongruencies made for an unpleasant lunch that was just short of unpalatable. If it were any worse, I would have dreamt up my own entrée instead out of protest. + + Codrin and ████ cooked me all sorts of delicious things before the launches; that is why so much of what I have published on the Reputation Exchange is just Balkan cuisine and baked treats. But ████ was always into haute cuisine in particular, and this occasionally resulted in some rather interesting experiments. + + But the worst meal I ever had must have been the private dinner shared between Rye and Serene and Dear and Codrin and ████ and I on the weekend before Launch Day. There was this menagerie of flavors throughout the evening, beginning with an enticing ratatouille that did a wonderful job of making me hungrier than I began. + + The conversation at the table was lively. We all were laughing and gossipping and teasing one another as we do, and I really liked that. I liked that, if this was to be our last meal shared just as a family, it was one when we were at our best. Rye told us about her latest correspondence with No Longer Myself, about a particularly heartbreaking experience she inherited from If I Dream. Rye weaved her musings about character development and Dear made a quip by asking her whether that was destined for her latest novel or not. Codrin, on the other hand, was upset. Ey did not like what ey learned about the first stanza from that story. + + So more food arrived to make up for the lull in conversation. We got an onion soup with a cheesy garlic bread served swimming so that it disintegrated and added a little weight to the stock. It was rich and dark and sat in my stomach like a rock, but it was mostly broth and so the sensation washed away with just a sip of wine. + + Dear tried to console Codrin by pointing out that what Rye told us was a story about why No Longer Myself was forked, that it was a hopeful story about reclaiming an identity appropriated by the inevitable politics of the clade. Ey did not seem convinced, but ey did manage a smile when Serene blurted, "Leave it to Dear to solve an interpersonal conflict with art!" + + We had our main course, then, of course, and what came was a generous fillet of salmon served on a cedar plank with tomato salad. After that runny affair, it was just what my belly needed. It was hearty and toothsome and comparatively light. I feared I might not make it to dessert with how wholesome the dish was, but the wetness of the salad had the effect of washing away that sense of fullness before it became sore. + + One of the topics that came up between our mouthfuls was how Dear was calling it its "death day". Codrin brought it up, and Dear shot em a sharp look. Ey raised eir hands and apologized, but I spoke up to ask why Dear's idea bothered Dear. ████ explained that they three had agreed not to discuss that at the table tonight, to which Codrin protested. "I thought it might lighten the mood," ey said, and Rye agreed. The final course interrupted us before Dear could answer, naturally. + + Dessert was a plain and simple flan. Its texture was luxurious, the salty-sweetness a delightful answer to the savoriness lingering on our palates and coating the dish. The serving size might leave something to be desired if not for the fact that we just spent the last two hours eating. I think all of us welcomed how quaint it was. + + Dear sat in silence for a while after finishing its dessert, fiddling with its wine glass. Then something crossed its mind and it asked us to keep its next words in confidence, especially Codrin and ████. We all nodded, and it finally told us. It told us the obvious, of course, that they three would not be leaving any forks behind; that none of them will remain on the L5 System. + + Then it said, "We will die, here." It talked about how they would each be mourned and how they would only speak from beyond the heavens like spirits. Codrin looked uncomfortable. Ey murmured, "For a while," to which Dear only answered, "Yes. For a while." + + The food was delicious. The meal was rendered joyless. There was something wrong that evening, and I did not pin it down until I read the History a few years later. diff --git a/content/extras/ic-asks/009.md b/content/extras/ic-asks/009.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2a1e69a --- /dev/null +++ b/content/extras/ic-asks/009.md @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ +--- +--- + +> Open letter to the Odists - Would you tell us about your favorite public sim? + +I Must Set No Stones Between Me And My Actions +: ([@KDARC](https://cohost.org/KDARC)) + + There is a sim that I love to visit when I remember, which is sometimes only a few days, and the standing record is a decade. It is a small village by a sea, and I am told it is based upon the shores of the Mediterranean. Along the beach, a massive wall runs for quite some distance. + + Besides fantastic food and a generally calm vibe, there are two reasons to visit. + + Every day, people head out onto the beach, and draw in the sand. Everyone is free to draw as they please, but the best days are when a large design takes hold early in the morning and everyone contributes. Each night, the tide rolls in slowly, and wipes clean the beach. No pictures or permanent records are allowed, save the ones in your head, since memories never really leave us. + + Meanwhile, on the walls and roads and roofs and floors of the village, a mosaic now approaching 180 years old spreads. When you enter the sim, you are given a single tile, in a choice of colors. So long as it is touching another tile, or a seam or edge where tiles touch, you can place a tile wherever you please. In the beginning, folks were limited to one tile a day, but at some point there must have been an issue, for now it is every 6 weeks. Some sections have been meticulously planned, while others are, to paraphrase a friend, “throwing tiles at the wall to see what sticks.” Once a tile is placed, it is there for good. If you misalign it, there is no fixing it, so choose wisely. + + Something about the ephemerality of the sand and the permanence of the tile speaks to me, and both the food and company are a delight. I have been dipping in and out for about 70 years now, and it is always a pleasure to see old faces, and new ones come to draw in the sand, or maybe place their first tile, or simply looking for a place to relax and sip some wine. I cannot recommend it enough! diff --git a/content/extras/ic-asks/010.md b/content/extras/ic-asks/010.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7a0510a --- /dev/null +++ b/content/extras/ic-asks/010.md @@ -0,0 +1,16 @@ +--- +--- + + +> Serene, +> +> If you can pick a favorite, which landscape that you have designed is yours? + +Serene; Sustained And Sustaining +: ([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo)) + + I created a swamp some time ago. It is quite boggy and wet, with open water, banyan trees, and patches of what look like solid ground, but which are actually patches of water grasses that cannot support the weight of a person. Winding throughout it is a rotting wooden bridge-path that ducks between the trees and leads from patch to patch of those grasses, all but inviting you to step off and sink down to your waist in brackish and algae-slimed water. + + It was quite poorly received — too many bugs, too poor a smell, too hot and muggy — and for that, I am deeply in love with it. This reception means that I am wildly successful in what I set out to do. I, haver of fur, am mostly immune to the bugs, and I can turn down my sensorium to deal with the scent, but I love walking between the trees, squatting on the rickety path and poking through the grasses, watching the gar and caimans float idly by. + + What can I say? I am a sucker for so imperfect a land. diff --git a/content/extras/ic-asks/011.md b/content/extras/ic-asks/011.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0926195 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/extras/ic-asks/011.md @@ -0,0 +1,12 @@ +--- +--- + +> What's an Odist and what's a sim? + +Serene; Sustained And Sustaining +: ([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo)) + + An Odist is a member of the Ode clade. We are (nominally) 100 individuals descended from a single uploaded consciousness named Michelle Hadje. As Michelle is no longer extant, this had led to us being ten disconnected subclades. Each of us is named from a line in a poem Many of us are human, many of us are anthropomorphic skunks — Michelle was a furry, back on Earth — and two of us are fennec foxes, for better or worse. + + Sims are the locations in which we live. I happen to be a sim designer, with a specialization in natural settings rather than buildings. + diff --git a/content/extras/ic-asks/012.md b/content/extras/ic-asks/012.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3243d5e --- /dev/null +++ b/content/extras/ic-asks/012.md @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +--- +--- + +> What's the weirdest or most unexpected species an Odist ended up settling as? + +Serene; Sustained And Sustaining +: ([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo)) + + I spent six months as an oak standing beside a river. My roots ran deep and I drank of fresh, cool water. My boughs reached high and I felt that striving for the sun. My wood was strong, my bark was thick, my heart was alive and green with sap. + + It was also incredibly fucking boring. diff --git a/content/extras/ic-asks/013.md b/content/extras/ic-asks/013.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f646d0d --- /dev/null +++ b/content/extras/ic-asks/013.md @@ -0,0 +1,15 @@ +--- +--- + +> do you think it would be possible to form someone new in a clade by a bunch of dispersionistas forking and letting one of them selves merge down? +> +> Like say we did it with 8 cocladists instead of 3? +> +> Also unrelated what brushes do you recommend for skunk tails + +Sasha +: ([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo)) + + I believe so, but I must warn you that it will take a lot of effort, lest you wind up in pieces of eight. If I am of three minds, being of eight, having eight times two hundred years of memory...I do not think that I would survive. + + And you want a comb, not a brush. A brush with our coarser fur will risk causing mats. Get a metal-toothed straight comb and start at the tips of the fur and then work your way in towards the tail itself so that you do not make any tangles in the fur worse! diff --git a/content/extras/ic-asks/014.md b/content/extras/ic-asks/014.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4a79ccc --- /dev/null +++ b/content/extras/ic-asks/014.md @@ -0,0 +1,13 @@ +--- +--- + +> To the Ode clade - What is the most beautiful thing you ever saw? + +May Then My Name Die With Me +: ([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo)) + + There is a moment at the very beginning of every relationship when their eyes light up on seeing me, and I can sense the gears finally mesh within their minds and they think, "Holy shit, I think I am in love." + + I am not immune to this, to be clear. I will be getting closer to someone and they will be doing the most innocuous thing — with Ioan, it was em changing the ink in one of eir fountain pens, leaning down with eir eyes almost level with the desk, the tip of eir tongue peeking out from between eir teeth — and I will think, "Oh gosh...I love them, do I not? I really do." + + I am sure that we all have our own answers, but for me, it is that moment. That is the most beautiful thing that I have seen. diff --git a/content/extras/ic-asks/015.md b/content/extras/ic-asks/015.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4470f7c --- /dev/null +++ b/content/extras/ic-asks/015.md @@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ +--- +--- + +> Do any in the Ode clade enjoy people-watching? With the freedom of form offered by the System, I imagine it becomes an even more interesting hobby than it can be phys-side. + +If I Dream Am I No Longer Myself +: ([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo)) + + My whole stanza, based off of the first line, focuses specifically on people watching. I, and many others, would honestly call it spying. They have been contracted by several individuals to spy on various people of note on the System. On Lagrange, Loss For Images and Even While Awake watched Ioan Bălan and May Then My Name Die With Me for nearly a quarter of a century, forking microscopic instances of themselves and secreting them around the house. + + My initial purpose was, in fact, to step away from this. My direct up-tree instance, If I Dream, forked when she began to have doubts about this supposed calling. While she never did work up the courage to disengage with this way of life (or perhaps she did, I have lost contact), I stepped away from the stanza to reconnect with the fourth stanza. They began by following creatives across the System before fucking off to do their own thing. I found that they did, indeed, largely just fuck off to do their own thing, and wanted little to do with me. + + So that is what I have done, these last however many decades — is it nearly a century, now? I have sat in town squares and sipped my coffee as I watch the passers-by. I have sat in bars and drank countless terrible drinks, cheek resting on my fist as I stare into the mirror behind the bartender and observe my fellow patrons. I have gone to dinner, requested a corner table, and gazed out over the sea of diners. + + I always do so alone. + + I always wear a different shape. + + I never speak. + + I like it better this way, this observing. There is no goal, I just...see. I just watch. Posthumanity is wonderful and disgusting and funny and sad and kinky and uptight and I love each and every last person I have laid my eyes upon. diff --git a/content/extras/ic-asks/016.md b/content/extras/ic-asks/016.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..db54702 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/extras/ic-asks/016.md @@ -0,0 +1,14 @@ +--- +--- + +> So many of your clade are specialists - you reap the fruits of centuries of labor, each, in your field of choice. Do you know how one might cope with the opposite scenario? How does one handle knowing just a bit of everything and not enough of anything? + +If I Dream Am I No Longer Myself +: ([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo)) + + I think I have mentioned before that my down-tree instance forked when she started to grow wary of the direction her stanza was heading. Since then, I have indulged in people watching. I am pretty good at forking into different forms but other than that? I do not know. I am a very boring person. I do not know enough to get back into the spying game. I do not know enough to get into instance artistry. I like food, but I am a truly terrible cook. + + A lot of what looks like specialization is merely a hyperfixation expression of our neurodivergence. I stepped away from this observing hyperfixation and am now rudderless on the System. I am not unhappy, I suppose, but neither am I happy. What has my life amounted to? What do I have to show for the space I take up on Lagrange? I do not know. + + In the end, I have had to do my best to come to terms with being middling. I do not always succeed. Some days, it is all I can do to take joy in a really tasty sandwich, and some days I do not even manage that. Finding joy where one can is about all one has on the System. + diff --git a/content/extras/ic-asks/017.md b/content/extras/ic-asks/017.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f0debba --- /dev/null +++ b/content/extras/ic-asks/017.md @@ -0,0 +1,9 @@ +--- +--- + +> To the Ode clade: What is your favorite cheesy, overwrought, low-budget, or otherwuse terribke-but-fun movie? + +For They, Knowing Not, Provide Life In Death +: ([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo)) + + This is perhaps cheating, as I do not think this is in any way a subversive opinion, but "Pacific Rim". It was quite high budget, but it was also overwrought, terrible, and incredibly stupid. Oldie, as they say, but goldie. diff --git a/content/extras/ic-asks/018.md b/content/extras/ic-asks/018.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..335bd36 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/extras/ic-asks/018.md @@ -0,0 +1,9 @@ +--- +--- + +> Any Odist who feels like speaking up: what is your favorite episode of MST3K? + +For They, Knowing Not, Provide Life In Death +: ([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo)) + + Slab Bulkhead! Fist Rockbone! Punch Rockgroin! Stump Beefknob! Brick Hardmeat! Big McLargeHuge! diff --git a/content/extras/ic-asks/019.md b/content/extras/ic-asks/019.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3cdf85f --- /dev/null +++ b/content/extras/ic-asks/019.md @@ -0,0 +1,18 @@ +--- +--- + +> To Dear and May Then My Name: Have you ever thought about a Bizarro Universe scenario where you trade places with Codrin and Ioan, respectively? I find myself struggling to imagine it. + +Dear +: ([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo)) + + *There are, perhaps, two readings of this. If you mean Codrin and myself switching places, and you are wondering what it would be like for me to date an Odist as a non-Odist, I think I would find myself maddening, and I would have dropped myself years ago. It is perhaps uncomfortable to admit, but there is no small amount of self-loathing in me. I have spent my time in a relationship with another Odist — my close cross-tree instance Serene — and...well. I love her dearly, but she puts rather a fine point on all of the things that I loathe in myself, sometimes.* + + *If, however, you mean me switching places with May Then My Name and being in a relationship with Ioan, then, my dear, you have no idea how eager I would be to corrupt that poor, innocent soul, especially as ey is now. The Ioan who became Codrin was of a very specific type, but this Ioan? The one that May Then My Name has tainted? Oh, how delicious that would be!* + +May Then My Name +: ([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo)) + + Similar to Dear, I shall answer each in turn. If you mean me switching places with Ioan as ey is now, then I do not think much would change. I have absolutely ruined em for a life alone, and I think that ey would feel quite out of sorts if I were not around, just as I feel quite out of sorts when ey is not around. That said, I cannot ignore what happens when I overflow. Ey does not like it when I dissolve into tears and ask em to leave me alone for days at a time. It is a thing I dislike about myself, but am hopeless before. I think that it would hurt me far more to experience it from the other side. I think that I would...well. I think we would risk a feedback loop of tears, and there would be days afterwards when we would struggle. + + If you mean me switching with Dear...well, I like Codrin plenty. I think ey is lovely in many of the same ways that Ioan is. That said, I do not think that ey is necessarily my type, especially as ey is now, having been ruined by Dear. Could I love em? Of course! I *do* love em. But could we be in a relationship? I do not think so. diff --git a/content/extras/ic-asks/020.md b/content/extras/ic-asks/020.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0d47f5f --- /dev/null +++ b/content/extras/ic-asks/020.md @@ -0,0 +1,77 @@ +--- +--- + +> To any and all odists, if you had to pick a line or phrase from another work of art as a name, what would you pick? +> +> Sincerely, +> The Way Out Is Through + +Hold My Name Beneath Your Tongue And Know +: ([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo)) + + If You Get Her Flowers, She Will Cry + + (Jen Durbent's "10 simple rules for dating a trans girl") + +Which Gives Heat And Warmth In Fire +: ([@hamratza](https://cohost.org/hamratza)) + + Ray Of Light And + + (Halley Labs) + +Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself +: ([@hamratza](https://cohost.org/hamratza)) + + Dance Unblushing + + (Halley Labs) + +Beholden To The Heat Of The Lamps +: ([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo)) + + If You Got A Bone To Pick With Time, We Got A Score To Settle Too + + (Bent Knee's "Bone Rage") + +Where It Watches The Slow Hours Progress +: ([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo)) + + Senmova Kaj Ĉiam Ŝanĝiĝema + + (Madison Scott-Clary's "Numeno") + +From Whence Do I Call Out +: ([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo)) + + Eden Is Our Creation Right + + (Jen Durbent's "xenoglossia (2018 rev)") + +May One Day Death Itself Not Die +: ([@BinaryVixin899](https://cohost.org/BinaryVixen899)) + + That Which Dies Shall Still Know Life In Death + + (Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation) + +Is To Pray For The End Of Memory +: ([@BinaryVixin899](https://cohost.org/BinaryVixen899)) + + It Shall Walk The World In The Bliss Of Not-Knowing + + (Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation) + +Perhaps This, Too, Is Meaningless +: ([@BinaryVixin899](https://cohost.org/BinaryVixen899)) + + Its Dark Flame Shall Acquire Every Part Of You That Remains + + (Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation) + +Should We Forget The Lives We Lead +: ([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo)) + + Would God I Had Died For Thee + + (2 Samuel 18:33, KJV) diff --git a/content/extras/ic-asks/021.md b/content/extras/ic-asks/021.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..21f05e4 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/extras/ic-asks/021.md @@ -0,0 +1,45 @@ +--- +--- + +> What do you think about phys-siders? You have the endless expande of centuries laid out before you, when they so often have but a handful of decades. It all seems so terribly tragic. + +And The Only Constant Is Change +: ([@hamratza](https://cohost.org/hamratza)) + + It *is* all so terribly tragic. + + When Douglass joined us, he hoped to meet his ancestor here at last. He rather idolizes her, something that only amplified the tragedy of his arriving when he did. But he has all of us, her up-trees — direct or indirect — to tell him ninety-nine stories about ninety-nine Michelles Hadje, and the promise of many more to be told by our unspoken forks. + + In death, I mean to say, the memory of who she was is quite literally preserved in us. And, with our perfect recollection, we each hold a piece of the story about what she became on the System. In this, we are bathed in fortune. + + But there are *plenty* who look to the System with fear. They raise objections as to the continunity of self, a natural observation from those whose closest brush with oblivion is most often sleep. We dispersionistas take for granted the significance of quitting, even when preserving another self. + + Motes and Heat And Warmth falling over one another a dozen times, wrestling with each other in an ephemeral game of leapfrog, must surely horrify those phys-side who warn of transporter paradoxes as each tail-end instance yields to the next and quits. How macabre the squeals of laughter must be to their ears, how unsettling the smiles on their faces as they settle in the grass with glee, overjoyed at the serial murders they both have just committed. + + And then there is time. It is easy for us to forget about phys-side on account of all the System has to offer us. Easier, still, for the only faded memories we can have are of the world before, and many are so miserable. Some of us came here seeking to help reclaim the Earth, and nearly as many eventually succumb to escapism. + + There are the families we left behind, and if we are not careful, they are gone before we know it. Those flicker-lives yet bound to Earth are still our kin, as Ioan was painfully reminded when ey at last looked into what became of Rareș in eir absence. Many who came here before the 2170s look to the prospect of immortality with *relief.* Many of those who came after, pointedly, *did not.* + + Why did Rareș not join his sibling when the years began to take their toll? What life did he live so worthy of death? Did he set a headstone for Ioan when ey uploaded to fund his education? Did he mourn when his sibling did not write him as frequently as he would have liked? + + It is all so terribly tragic, but I do *not* pity them. + +Dear The Wheat And Rye Under The Stars +: ([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo)) + +{{% verse %}} + Of course it is strange to inhabit the Earth no longer, +To follow no longer the customs so newly acquired, +To invest no longer with future humanity +Such promising things as roses, +... +And being dead is full of the labor of catching up, +As one gradually acquired a sense of eternity.— +But the living always make the mistake of too sharp a distinction. +... +In the end, they need us no longer, those taken in youth. +One gradually weans oneself from the earthly... +... But we, +Who need such great mysteries, for whom out of grief +So often comes blessed improvement—: could we be without them? +{{% /verse %}} diff --git a/content/extras/ic-asks/022.md b/content/extras/ic-asks/022.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..798533c --- /dev/null +++ b/content/extras/ic-asks/022.md @@ -0,0 +1,75 @@ +--- +--- + +> Would any of the Ode clade like to share a favorite work of poetry, excluding the Ode itself? + +#### I Remember The Rattle Of Dry Grass: + +I read this snippet of Neruda at a party for New Year's, 2399. + +{{% verse %}} +Let us unleash all our bottled up happiness +and seek out some lost sweetheart +who accepts a festive nibble. +It is today. Today has arrived. Let us walk on the rug +Of the inquiring millennium. The heart, the almond +of the mounting epoch, the definitive grape +will go on depositing themselves in us, +and truth — so long awaited — will arrive. +{{% /verse %}} + +#### Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled: + +This poem by Dickinson, as well as being a fond memory from the past, expresses my views on memory well. + +{{% verse %}} +There is a pain — so utter — +It swallows substance up — +Then covers the Abyss with Trance — +So Memory can step +Around — across — upon it — +As one within a Swoon — +Goes safely — where an open eye — +Would drop Him — Bone by Bone. +{{% /verse %}} + +#### Dear The Wheat And Rye Under The Stars: + +This is a newish translation by Eileen Cheng-Yin Chao of a poem by Xin Qiji. + +
少年不識愁滋味In youth I knew nothing of the taste of sorrow
愛上層樓。I liked to climb high towers
愛上層樓。I liked to climb high towers
為賦新詞強說愁。To conjure up a bit of sorrow to make new verse.
而今識盡愁滋味Now I know only too well the taste of sorrow.
欲說還休。I begin to speak yet pause
欲說還休。I begin to speak yet pause
卻道天涼好個秋。And say instead, “My, what a cool and lovely autumn.”
+How lovely a depiction of growth! + +#### May Then My Name Die With Me: + +I found this ancient poem by a furry named Dwale titled Poem for a Deceased Lover. I was prowling through some furry literature at the time to send to a cousin of ours, Douglas Hadje, without telling him the source. + +{{% verse %}} +Seven days had passed when I heard you died, +A message in the warm morning hours. Dawn +Rose, and no one said how I should go on, +Or wade this mire without my only guide. + +Flown to space by what callous earth destroyed, +I chase the long-flying radio waves. +Far away from grief and a potter's grave, +I sift to find again your breathing voice. + +Teacher, my every thought was yours to thresh, +So now what sure course would you recommend? +Your kind words turned to shrapnel in the end, +Pieces of you left here in my heart's flesh. + +Lover, did you mean to leave this deep wound? +I would sell my world to kiss you farewell. +Eleven years facing perpetual Hell, +And all I can say is, "Too soon, too soon." +{{% /verse %}} + +I sent him the second stanza, and this was his reply: + +> Does this have to do with the launch? It certainly feels like! It feels like how even now my mind is chasing those radio waves that are coming from the LVs, now so far out of reach for any one of us that we can barely comprehend. But still, we keep on searching for those voices that come back to us ever slower. Did someone on the LVs leave you behind? Someone you love? Family? One of your forks? Basically, someone whose voice you keep on searching for. Or maybe they were one of the eight irretrievably lost personalities? +> +> “Far away from grief and a potter’s grave” makes a lot of sense to me as someone who left Earth behind. I don’t know what it was like when you uploaded, but I can see it as a way to dream of some place better. + +(All by [@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo)) diff --git a/content/extras/ic-asks/023.md b/content/extras/ic-asks/023.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bf16cd0 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/extras/ic-asks/023.md @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ +--- +--- + +> Tips on intra-clade dating? + +Beholden To The Heat Of The Lamps +: ([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo)) + + Some time after I was forked, back in systime 3 (2127), I entered into a relationship with my down-tree instance, Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself. You must understand, however, that until perhaps systime 230 (2354), intraclade relationships were seen as taboo, at least on Lagrange — I know that attitudes on Pollux had loosened quite a bit. It was seen as subversive and distasteful, a sort of moral masturbation. + + And yet, we loved each other. We were different people, were we not? From the moment I was forked and began to focus on my work as an audio tech, I was a different person. My values began to shift. My appearance began to shift. The way I spoke began to shift. I am not Pointillist. She is not Beholden. We are separate individuals, and we are in love. + + Of course, we drifted closer together and further apart over the years, but we settled into a comfortable sort of domesticity and playfulness, and it was not until such taboo began to lift, being seen as artificial and particularly meaningless for older clades, that our relationship became more open, first among friends, and then out on the street, in the bars after a performance. + + As for tips, I think my biggest would be that, yes, you share a common past, but do not assume that this means you know what the other is thinking. You may share values, memories, a general approach to life, but you do not read minds. + +Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself +: ([@hamratza](https://cohost.org/hamratza)) + + We stumbled into intimacy one evening when the bleary neon haze of a night out turned to giddy exploration. "How lewd~," she said at least a dozen times (Beholden was *very* much zooted by this point). All that bratty pomp and wily poise turned to heady laughter and *mortifying* sounds of joy. She was positively *adorable.* She still is, of course, except that she has hardened over the years and is now quite the bully if I do not feed her something nice before taking her out dancing. + + Aromancy complicates my feelings about her — and my answer to this question — but there has always been this comradery between us about taboos. We both are irreverently indulgent in this respect, and have found a kind of reclamation in private profanity. When at last the tides had turned away from scorn, it was a privilege to kiss her paw in public; to give that one disdainful pair of eyes a wink, and to know in that moment we held more power over the bearer of that withering gaze than they held over us. + + I hope that you and whoever you are thinking about in this moment have had the chance to open up in these recent decades. But there is more to this question than the intrinsic queerness of transgressive relationships such as ours. You also ask about the unique implications of loving a reflection of oneself. Cross-tree relationships may seem a little easier in this regard, but I have seen my share of those amidst my cocladists. Take Codrin's musings about Dear and Serene on Pollux or, more distantly, Heat And Warmth and Hold My Name, who I have seen my fair share of first-hand. Both of these pairs are particularly boisterous, especially as compared to Beholden and I, and rather often stumble into ephemeral disagreements. + + Even as they do, however, there is an implicit understanding of nuance that is much harder to craft in conventional relationships. Dear and Serene solve their disputes with the grace of deeply-rooted trust, and Heat And Warmth and Hold My Name speak to each other with a kind of careful articulation that rather reminds me of the couple of times True Name has seen fit to admonish me over the centuries. We all are Odists, after all; it is difficult to say precisely what this feeling is, but the essence of it is that we do not have to work as hard to explain ourselves to one another. We all get it; so all that is left is to do is to *perform* getting it. + + Even if you already understand, sometimes what you need is just to feel heard. diff --git a/content/extras/ic-asks/024.md b/content/extras/ic-asks/024.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..381bd36 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/extras/ic-asks/024.md @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ +--- +--- + +> For whichever Odists this best suits: Sometimes, I will lead somebody around, down a given path of inquiry or to certain conclusions. To encourage them to ask "the right questions." It ends up feeling like an elaborate game, particularly if they grow wise and lean into their part. Do you think manipulation of this sort is wrong, even when the purpose is benign or simply for play? For that matter, do you have any general thoughts on People and how they interact? + +The Only Time I Know My True Name Is When I Dream +: The Artemesians have a word for this: *tuvårouni;* “push-play”, they called it, a tension in all our dealings with others that enables us to overcome the inertia of comfort. If communication is the means by which ideas are expressed and transformed, then manipulation is how we engage in this push-play; if we all felt the same to begin with, after all, then why have words at all? Communication is manipulation, so this playfully benign qualifier describes *teasing,* not harm. + +May Then My Name Die With Me +: You are not wrong that communication contains at its heart manipulation. However it is more than just manipulation. It is more of a give-and-take than a push-and pull. This is the way in which people work: we make our arguments, yes, but we love, we dance, we offer and receive freely. You mention the framing of this question with its playful qualifier. That is a sort of boundary around the topic. Boundaries such as these must be kept. One must keep this push-play above board and open to disconsent. Consent is to be informed, as I have said before. + +True Name +: Yes; consent, after all, is ideally unambiguous and overt. But it is also true that consent can grow more playful, more implicit, more sly. This, I think, is an example of that *tuvårouni,* where one becomes more open to unanticipated, unplanned kinds of play. Play, perhaps, as in the insinuation that Ioan might grow some dandelions, yes? + +May Then My Name +: I…well, you are not wrong, there. It became a part of our relationship as we grew closer together. I am not sure that I would do the same thing, now, as the person that I have become; I would feel…well, manipulative. I do not think that would feel good at all. + +True Name +: But you do not feel bad now. Do those dandelions not remain in eir lawn? I have seen you come in with a dandelion behind your ear. Do you both not cherish them? Do you suppose Ioan resents that you convinced em to grow some dandelions? + +May Then My Name +: I will concede that point. You are correct. The dandelions remain and have not been uprooted. We both love them. That said, this growing of dandelions was intentional. I must have gotten that from somewhere, right? After all, I was pointed to em by you, and for the very explicit purpose of shaping the *History.* + +True Name +: It was not solely for that purpose; I did point you somewhere that I thought was best for all of us, true. But that somewhere was towards someone who could lift you up after your previous relationship; who could understand and so fairly present the story of our clade to others; who could capture the history of the System with only the best of intentions. I held all of these in balance when I wrote you that letter, May Then My Name. + +May Then My Name +: Do you feel that way still, now that you are getting coffee with em once a month? + +True Name +: …There is the sense that ey does not wholly trust me, and I am sore for that. I am sure that is in part because your relationship with em was all but arranged, for better or for worse. There is a cynicism in this kind of dual-intent. I stand by every word of that letter, but there was clearly harm in coupling what was sincere with what had utility to preserving the continuity of the System, and for that I do apologize. + +May Then My Name +: There was harm, yes, and I am not upset at where we have wound up and how. Both of these can be true at once. Both are true, my dear. And I must admit, it can be kind of *fun.* + +(May Then My Name by [@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo) and True Name by [@hamratza](https://cohost.org/hamratza)) diff --git a/content/extras/ic-asks/_index.md b/content/extras/ic-asks/_index.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ded7ef5 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/extras/ic-asks/_index.md @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +--- +title: In-Character asks +type: chapter +---