Fever Dreams, stories

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-</main>
+<div class="hero">
 <main class="carousel">
    <nav>
        <ul>
            <li class="carousel-entry home"><a href="#home">Home</a></li>
            <li class="carousel-entry cycle"><a href="#cycle">The Post-Self Cycle</a></li>
            <li class="carousel-entry clade"><a href="#clade">Clade</a></li>
            <li class="carousel-entry ttrpg"><a href="#ttrpg">The Post-Self TTRPG</a></li>
            <li class="carousel-entry about"><a href="#about">About</a></li>
        </ul>
    </nav>
    <section class="carousel-item home">
        <div class="hero">
    <ul>
        <li>Given the chance to live forever in a world not built for death, what do you do?</li>
        <li>Given the inability to forget—all your joys and sorrows, all your foundational memories and traumas—how do you cope?</li>
        <li>Given the ability to create a full copy of yourself—down to every single one of those memories—to do as they will, to individuate and live out their own forever lives, or merge back down and meld their memories with your own, what paths do you take?</li>
    </ul>
-        </div>
+</div>
-        <p>The Post-Self universe is an open setting for exploring the ramifications of being able to create copies of oneself, of what it means to undergo individuation, of what it means to let memories build up and up and up within oneself. With four novels, two novellas, and an anthology of short stories, there's story to explore spanning nearly three centuries of history.</p>
+<p>The Post-Self universe is an open setting for exploring the ramifications of being able to create copies of oneself, of what it means to undergo individuation, of what it means to let memories build up and up and up within oneself. With four novels, two novellas, and an anthology of short stories, there's story to explore spanning nearly three centuries of history.</p>
-        <!--
+<!--
-        Alternately: "If I had a nickel for every time I accidentally wrote something with heavy plural undertones that I hadn't intended but nonetheless made me doubt my identity, I'd have two nickels! Which isn't a lot, but it is weird that it happened twice."
+Alternately: "If I had a nickel for every time I accidentally wrote something with heavy plural undertones that I hadn't intended but nonetheless made me doubt my identity, I'd have two nickels! Which isn't a lot, but it is weird that it happened twice."
-        -->
+-->
-        <h2 id="home">Updates</h2>
+<h2 id="home">Updates</h2>
-        <div id="feed"></div>
+<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 75vh" src="https://cohost.org/post-self"></iframe>
    </section>
    <section class="carousel-item cycle">
        <h2 id="cycle">The Post-Self Cycle</h2>
        <p><a href="/cycle"><img src="/img/covers.png" alt="The book covers"></a></p>
        <blockquote>
            <p>And thus grew a new world, a world that was not built for death&hellip;</p>
        </blockquote>
        <p>From the very beginning of the consensual dream of the System, the members of the Ode clade, all forks from the same core personality, have dealt with fear each in their own way. Do they search for greater ways to control their lives? Do they hunt for yet deeper emotional connection? Do they hone their art to the finest point?</p>
        <p>From roots in political turmoil to the building of a new society, the story is there to be found, and the Bălan clade is there to tell it.</p>
        <!--
        Alternately: "Gender-weird meta-furry almost-plural sci-fi."
        -->
    </section>
    <section class="carousel-item clade">
        <h2 id="clade">Clade</h2>
        <p><a href="https://clade.post-self.ink"><img src="/img/clade.png" alt="The book cover"></a></p>
        <blockquote>
            <p><strong>Clade</strong> <em>(n)</em> – /klɛ:id/ – <em>post-self theory</em><br>
            A group of individuals patterned off a single root consciousness, formed through branching expansion of the forking of its constituent members.<br>
            <em>See also: cladistics, cocladist, up-/down-/cross-tree instance, forking, post-self theory.</em><br>
        — The System Central Library Encyclopedia</p>
        </blockquote>
        <p>To split oneself among however many individuals, to let the mind drift and diverge, to feel the world from points of view not your own, and then let those memories crash down into you…well, it inspires a feeling best described as ‘heady’, to say the least.</p>
        <p>Ten stories by ten authors, all set in the Post-Self universe. An extra funded by the <em>Mitzvot</em> Kickstarter backers.</p>
    </section>
    <section class="carousel-item ttrpg">
        <h2 id="ttrpg">The Post-Self TTRPG</h2>
        <p><a href="/extras/ttrpg"><img src="/img/ttrpg.png" alt="The book cover"></a></p>
        <p>A tabletop role-playing game powered by The Apocalypse, an extra funded by the <em>Mitzvot</em> Kickstarter backers.</p>
        <p><em>Coming soon!</em></p>
    </section>
    <section class="carousel-item about">
        <h2 id="about">About</h2>
        <p>The Post-Self universe is an open setting for exploring the ramifications of being able to create copies of oneself, of what it means to undergo individuation, of what it means to let memories build up and up and up within oneself. All of the information on working with the universe is contained within this appendix, an extra funded by the <em>Mitzvot</em> Kickstarter backers.</p>
        <ul>
            <li><a href="/extras">Extras</a> — Additional stories, resources, and visual art</li>
            <li><a href="/about/timeline">Timeline</a> — A basic timeline of events covered in the books</li>
            <li><a href="/about/characters">Dramatic Personae</a> — A list of characters in the books and where they came from</li>
            <li><a href="/about/universe">The Universe</a> — The mechanics of the setting</li>
            <li><a href="/about/glossary">Glossary</a> — Some common words and terms</li>
            <li><a href="/about/questions">Questions and Answers</a> — Questions that have arisen and some answers to go with them</li>
        </ul>
        <p>As an open setting, everything is free to use for your own purposes under a Creative-Commons 4.0 Attribution license. These stories wouldn&rsquo;t be what they are without the contributions of others.</p>
    </section>
    <script src="/carousel.js"></script>
    <script src="/rss.js"></script>
--- a/content/about/_index.md
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@ -22,6 +22,7 @@ The Post-Self universe is an open setting for exploring the ramifications of bei
 * [Timeline](timeline)
 * [Dramatis Personae](characters)
 * [The Universe](universe)
 * [Writing in the Post-Self Setting](writing)
 * [Glossary](glossary)
 * [Questions and Answers](questions)
--- a/content/about/glossary.md
+++ b/content/about/glossary.md
@ -20,14 +20,17 @@ Clade
 Cocladist
 :   Used to refer to another member of the same clade. Up-, down-, and cross-tree are used to refer to the relation between the two cocladists: an up-tree instances is one that is descended from the individual, a down-tree instance is one from whom the individual is descended, and a cross-tree instance is one who shares the same down-tree instance but who isn't a descendent or an ancestor.
 Collective
 :   A group of individuals who emulate the idea of clades phys-side, doing their best to maintain a tree-like hierarchy, share common names, and so on. Many also resent the System and refuse to upload.
 Cone of silence
 :   A mechanic on the System that prevents others from hearing what those within the cone are saying. As of 2349, it is also possible to opaque or blur the contents of the cone from the outside, and to prevent the transmission of sensorium messages.
 Conflict
 :   During the process of merging, memories and ideas between the up- and down-tree instances will differ, if only by physical point of view. The more these instances diverge, the more these differences will cause conflicts, whether in how they remember things or how they think about things. During merging, this takes effort to rectify internally.
-Collective
+Contraproprioceptive Virus (CPV)
-:   A group of individuals who emulate the idea of clades phys-side, doing their best to maintain a tree-like hierarchy, share common names, and so on. Many also resent the System and refuse to upload.
+:   A virus, usually used to assassinate an instance, which disrupts the instance's sense of proprioception to the point where they either crash or quit out of pain. Usually attached to a symbolic object such as a knife or syringe, the virus must be tailored to the recipient, and the object must pierce their skin; the System works based on the collected assumptions of its inhabitants, so something that causes one to break apart must first break the integrity of the target.
 Dispersionista
 :   An individual who enjoys individuation on the System. They will fork and allow their forks to diverge from themselves without any goal of letting them merge back down.
--- a/content/about/universe.md
+++ b/content/about/universe.md
@ -30,6 +30,10 @@ While the climate has continued to suffer, with temperatures slowing to a linear
 Earth is described as a 'shithole'. Global warming has proceeded to the pace where much of the population below a certain latitude lives below-ground, though many have simply moved towards the poles. Air quality is...not great, and many spend as much time as possible on the 'net in sims, with children getting implants at around 5 years old, though the minimum upload age remains 18.
 ### Late 2300s
 Thanks to the sudden influx of information from Artemis, efforts to control the ongoing climate disaster gain traction and thus success, leading to the increasing global temperatures stalling and massive success with the ocean deacidification projects in the mid 2700s. This in turn leads to a slight slowing in the rate of new uploads.
 ## The System
 Created in the early 2100s, the System (a vague name to keep the original project secret, though one which stuck around) allows for uploaded consciousnesses to live functionally immortal lives.
@ -122,6 +126,6 @@ As with any social system, conflict happens. People don't like each other. They
 <figcaption style="font-size: 60%; opacity: 0.8;">“Fucking stop! You cannot–”</figcaption>
 </figure>
-The one exception to being killed on the System is through a subtle virus which will crash one's instance. This virus must be tailored to the individual it's meant for and is not trivial to produce, so instances of such death are rare. It's most commonly associated with symbolic objects such as syringes or knives rather than poison; as always, having the symbol be recognized as one that can cause damage is often part of the process.
+The one exception to being killed on the System is through a subtle virus known as a contraproprioceptive virus (or CPV) which will crash one's instance. This virus must be tailored to the individual it's meant for and is not trivial to produce, so instances of such death are rare. It's most commonly associated with symbolic objects such as syringes or knives rather than poison; as always, having the symbol be recognized as one that can cause damage is often part of the process.
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 ---
 title: Writing in the Post-Self Universe
 ---
 So you've gone and read [the Post-Self cycle](/cycle) stories, checked out [*Clade*](https://clade.post-self.ink), read up on the [setting](/about/universe) and [timeline](/about/timeline), maybe even taken a peek at some of the [extras](/extras). Are you interested in creating canon material for the Post-Self universe? Wonderful! The setting is open to allow for exploration of topics that are important to all. Here are some guidelines for creating works to be incorporated into the canon.
 The Lost
 :  
    During 2112, hundreds of individuals wound up trapped within the implants they used to interact with the immersive portions of the Internet, thanks to a virus triggered by elements of the Western Federation. These individuals, known as *the lost*, were left changed once they were pulled back to reality.
    * *Each subjective experience is unique* — While RJ and Michelle's experiences were detailed in *Qoheleth*, the experience of each of the lost was unique while embedded. There are some shared features, such as a dreamlike quality to their time spent in there and a sense of it being an eternity within that dream, as well as complete solitude. Beyond that, what they actually see, hear, touch, and so on within that experience is unique
    * *There are permanent effects* — All of the lost were left changed by what they experienced while trapped. As stated, all of their experiences are unique, but there are some shared features:
        * Language: due to the strange way in which language works within our dreams, each of the lost experiences a unique relationship with language after being pulled back. RJ, for instance, is left with a helpless compulsion to speak lines of poetry, while Michelle and the Odists were left with an allergy to using contractions and a somewhat topsy-turvy engagement with grammar.
        * Between dreaming and waking: the boundary between the conscious and subconscious within the lost is thinner, with the logic of dreams tending to linger with them. They may feel confusion in engaging with the waking world, a desire to return to the dream experience, or even difficulty interacting with a world bound by rules that dreams ignore.
    * *All of those who didn't die uploaded* — Of those who were lost, many committed suicide within the years between 2112. Of those who did not, all uploaded within the first years of the System's creation.
 The System
 :   
    Most of the stories within the setting take place in the world of uploaded consciousnesses known colloquially as 'the System'.
    * *The key mechanics* — The key mechanics of the System (forking and merging, exocortices, the perisystem architecture, sensoria, cones of silence, the relative perfection of memory, etc) are known by all of the inhabitants via their introductory orientation when they are first uploaded. The same is not necessarily true phys-side, where many hold grand (and sometimes dangerous) views of what life must be like on the System.
    * *True anarchy* — The society aboard Lagrange, Castor, and Pollux borders on a true anarchy. While there are some efforts to steer the general track of the society, they tend toward maintaining that anarchy rather than enforcing any core rule. Even the two specified organizations who poke at this, The Council of Eight in the System's early days and The Guiding Council on the Pollux launch vehicle, in theory act only as advisory bodies.
    * *A collection of varied societies* — Homogeneity is impossible in a System full of, by 2400, more than two trillion people. After all, should one build up a shared set of ideals, one might as well congregate with like-minded people. A set of linked Jesuit sims? Climate activist groups? Furry nightclubs? The answer is yes.
    * *A species divided* — Life phys-side back on Earth continues much as it has. While climate change continues to wreak havoc, people still live out their lives reading, writing, loving, hating, cooking shitting breakfasts for each other. Death remains a constant, life remains something to cling to. Many upload, of course, perhaps leaning on the subsidies offered by governments, but many do not.
 The Launch
 :   
    In 2325, two separate, smaller copies of the System were launched, sent in either direction across the orbital plane. Castor and Pollux quickly made their way away from Earth while the L<sub>5</sub> System — now called Lagrange — remained behind.
    * *Three Systems* — One consequence of having these three Systems moving forward is that they quickly began to diverge. This was not just accounted for but, for many, an explicit goal. After two decades, Pollux began to loosen some of its social strictures and gained a leading body in the Guiding Council while Castor maintained much of the status quo until the arrival of the Artemisians.
    * *Transmission delay* — With the high speed of the two LVs (nearly 1400kp/s), the transmission delay between Castor and Pollux and Lagrange quickly grows so that, by 2400, a message sent from Castor would arrive at Lagrange nearly four months later.
 Artemis
 :  
    First contact happened in 2346 when a new vehicle containing uploaded consciousnesses contacted Castor, one of the two launch vehicles sent out in 2325. Dubbed Artemis, several of the Artemisians wound up joining Castor on its journey, while several from Castor joined the Artemisians.
    * *Four new races, one new System* — Four separate uploaded races live aboard Artemis, each picked up as the vehicle passed by a planetary system with an uploaded population. After convergence, humanity joined as fifthrace as many on Castor uploaded to Artemis.
    * *Convergence* — When Artemis made contact, there was an exchange of emissaries between the two Systems. The result of these meetings was the joining of the five races, known as convergence. Artemisians were allowed to upload to Castor to remain in a restricted zone of the System, also known as Convergence. Anyone who wished to join from the rest of Castor was allowed as well. Similarly, anyone from Castor was allowed to join the Artemisians aboard their craft in turn.
    * *Skew* — Rather than having forking as an available mechanic, those who live on Artemis may individually skew their engagement with time. That is, one may skew positive so that they exist within the system at a faster rate than common time.
    * *The Council of Ten*  — Two representatives per race aboard Artemis were selected to act as part of a mediating and guiding body. While often described as purely a group to provide assistance and mediation, it's suggested that they also gently govern the races aboard without explicitly acknowledging such.
 ## The world is built for this
 Queerness
 :   The Post-Self setting is aggressively and explicitly queer. This is a place to explore identity through romance — monogamous and polyamorous — gender, species, plurality, anything. If it can be queered, please queer it! The System makes an attractive target for queer identities, after all. Does a trans character transition further sys-side, or do they revel in that identity? Perhaps a plural character experiments with forking out singular identities, perhaps not. The society is far, far more accepting of such than today's, even phys-side.
 Neurodivergence
 :   As neurodivergence follows one along after uploading, this is an area ripe for exploration, whether that means finding ways to fork it away or finding ways to revel in it as an integral part of oneself.
 Climate crisis
 :   One big draw to the System is getting away from the worsening climate back on Earth. Even after it starts to level out (and even improve) after about 2350, the System offers greener grass. There are many stories to be told there.
 The bittersweet
 :   Uploading is one-way and destructive. There is a loss behind every upload. The System itself is built on the backs of the lost. Climate grief remains a real issue. Finding ways to deal with grief and yet find the sweet in one's new life is part and parcel of the setting.
 ## Reconsider before writing this
 Violence
 :   While there is some violence in the System, and obviously things remain somewhat difficult back phys-side, the core of the conflict should not boil down to or result in wanton violence. The goal is not to write of wars — political, ideological, religious, or turf — nor of punchy shooty explosiony action as the guiding plot-point. There are plenty fine settings for this; Post-Self simply is not one of them.
 Bigotry
 :   There are some taboos that remain, such as the one surrounding intraclade relationships (until about 2355), but there is little need to overcome adversity over identity sys-side. Explore these identities, yes. Explore the lingering effects of bigotry experienced phys-side, but there are stories of personal fulfillment to be had without necessarily focusing on these particular struggles. Actual transphobia, homophobia, racism, etc. on behalf of the authors are unwelcome and will be denounced.
 Other characters
 :   Don't use other characters — even open clades such as the Ode clade — without asking. While many will say yes, this will have the added benefit of you being able to write more closely to the author's vision, as they will often have paracanon to share. Additionally, in some cases, these characters feature in the noemata of several individuals' headmates or personalities, and it's worth avoiding trampling on identities!
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-## Extra Writing
+## Writing
-Title |   | Author  
+["Assignment": <small>Ioan Bălan — 2273</small>](assignment)
---|:---:|---:
+:   *Madison Scott-Clary*
-["Assignment"](stories/assignment) | Ioan Bălan — 2273 | *by Madison Scott-Clary*
+
-["Meeting of One"](stories/meeting-of-one) | Ioan Bălan — 2309 | *by Madison Scott-Clary*
+    Ioan Bălan, tasked with investigating a flash-cult, tries to figure out what the heck just happened.
-["Fever Dreams"](stories/fever-dreams) | Hieromech — 2399 | *by Ember "Hieromech" Cloke*
+
    *CWs:* brief violence.
 ["Meeting of One": <small>Ioan Bălan — 2309</small>](meeting-of-one)
 :   *Madison Scott-Clary*
    Quakers? In space? It's more likely than you think.
    *CWs:* none.
 ["Fever Dreams": <small>Hieromech — 2399</small>](stories/fever-dreams) 
 :   *Ember "Hieromech" Cloke*
    A poem written twelve hours before uploading.
    *CWs:* references to some of the grosser aspects of having a body.
 ["Dreams for Breakfast": <small>In All Ways — 2183</small>](dreams-for-breakfast)
 :   *Alexandria Christina Leal*
    An unsettling dream, a conversation over breakfast.
    *CWs:* none.
    *Spoilers:* references to material in *Qoheleth*.
 [In-Character asks](ic-asks)
 :   *Authors include [@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo), [@hamratza](https://cohost.org/hamratza), and [@CERESUltra](https://cohost.org/CERESUltra).*
    Questions asked of various Post-Self characters, answered by the characters themselves. 
 ### Other, sillier things
-* ["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)
+["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) 
-* [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 [@CERESUltra](https://cohost.org/CERESUltra).
+:   *Madison Scott-Clary*
    Non-canonical but heavily influenced 'tutorial' written for April Fool's Day 2022 
 ## Materials
 [Nanon](nanon)
 :   The constructed language spoken by the Artemisians.
 ## Soundtracks
--- a/content/extras/dreams-for-breakfast.md
+++ b/content/extras/dreams-for-breakfast.md
@ -0,0 +1,90 @@
 ---
 title: Dreams For Breakfast
 author: Alexandria Christina Leal
 character: In All Ways — 2383
 type: story
 ---
 "Bad dream again?"
 "How could you tell?" In All Ways mumbled, half sarcastically and half out of genuine curiosity, as she sat down at the breakfast table. She was aware of the bags beneath her eyes, the bloodshot veins.
 Eliah paused, setting his fork down. He finished chewing (thank goodness), and sat there, staring off and thinking.
 "Your hair. It looks different. More frazzled. More outta order," he finally said as he stood up and walked to the kitchen.
 "Bullshit," she replied. "Absolute fucking bullshit."
 "Nothing but the truth," he said. She felt his lips against her cheek as he placed a mouthwatering plate of grits and eggs in front of her.
 She grumbled, but did not challenge him on the issue.
 The two sat in silence as they ate, enjoying the pleasure of a small routine moment with one another. She loved it when life was like this.
 "What was it about?"
 "Mmm?" She knew what he meant.
 "The dream."
 She sighed. "An... old friend."
 He nodded, then swallowed a mouthful of bacon.
 "Please do not choke. Zia would never let me hear the end of it. "
 Eliah snorted. "It's not like it could kill me."
 She rolled her eyes as he heaped more pepper onto another handful of bacon. They sat in silence for a few moments more. Having finished eating, In All Ways stared at the blue and white tablecloth, counted the whorls in the bit of wood it did not cover, and conducted a cartographic survey of her hands before her mind inevitably returned to that which she had been avoiding.
 "In the dream..." 
 Eliah's earth coloured eyes were instantly in her direction. He was using his utensils slower. A perfect midway point of "If you change your mind after the words leave your mouth, we can just keep on keeping on."
 Sometimes, he was infuriatingly charismatic.
 "I talked to a friend who..." She fumbled around the words, her voice fell to a whisper. "I had a dream that ey..."
 She closed her eyes, took a few moments to breathe in and out. When she opened them again, Eliah gave a gentle nod in her direction. She smiled ever so slightly, could feel some of the stress drain out of her.
 This was here, and she was here, and that, that had been then.
 "In the dream, ey, had forked. Long, long ago. And I was speaking to one of eir forks." She was glad she had set down the silverware, she did not think she could have held onto it right now, even with having centered herself. "I... have not spoken to em in... a long while. And ey never forked. And yet..."
 She thought back to it, to the moment in the dream where the changes had really hit her. "At first I was just so glad to see em again. But then, as the dream continued, it was like I was speaking to another person. It was if hundreds of years of individuation, hundreds of years of growth and change, and it all fit it all made sense- And that was when I started to realize that I had separate feelings for this person which ey had become. That ey was a different person meant that our relationship was inherently, irrevocably different." She stopped. The words escaped her. The stake finally slid into her chest. She slouched back in her chair, deflated.
 Eliah looked on with compassion and concern.
 "And it was terrifying. Absolutely, utterly terrifying. In an instant, I realized that I was not talking to the person whose company I had missed all of these years. That our final conversation happened centuries ago."
 He sat there thoughtfully for a few moments, holding the fork aloft. Thinking. Then it hit him all at once. She could see it in his face.
 She smiled sadly and nodded.
 "You weren't speaking to eir fork. You were speaking to em."
 Other times, he was just infuriating.
 "No. It does not matter who I was speaking to. After all that time? Ey would not be the same person. After all, I am not the same person I was then."
 He nodded, and then there was silence. After a few moments she realized he was staring at her expectantly.
 "That's what I said." He tilted his hat in her direction.
 "No, it was not. You got the answer wrong, and not in a semantic way. Period. Flat out. End of story," she shot back.
 Finally, Eliah held up his hands and said, "All right, I get it. The skunk stops here.” He gestured vaguely to the place her tail would have occupied had she been a skunk that day. “I got it wrong. You got it right. End of story."
 It took her a few moments to get the reference and understand his gesture. She groaned.
 "Eliah, you are so full of shit."
 "Nothing but the truth," he said, shoveling another piece of bacon into his mouth, and then added, "For what it's worth, I bet ey would be proud of who you are. I sure am."
 She bit her lip, thought about it, stared down at her breakfast.
 "Thank you, Eliah. Truth be told, I do not know what ey would think of me now. But I know that I am proud of who I am now. And that… that also matters."
--- a/content/extras/ic-asks.md
+++ b/content/extras/ic-asks.md
@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ summary {
 On cohost, readers are encouraged to [submit questions](https://cohost.org/post-self/ask) to the various characters within the Post-Self setting, whether to the Odists, or to the wide variety of characters across all five books. These questions are answered by the characters themselves, with the authors of the answers provided along with them. These are collected here in one spot for easy reading, and this will be updated as questions are answered.
-*Last update: August 30, 2023*
+*Last update: September 12, 2023*
 -----
@ -362,6 +362,8 @@ Perhaps I no longer speak well for the rest of my clade when it comes to matters
 My name is To Deny The End Is To Deny All Beginnings, and I am so very, *very* trans.
 Now if you'll excuse me, I have another date with a badger.
 *([@CERESUltra](https://cohost.org/CERESUltra))*
 </details>
 -----
@ -416,7 +418,7 @@ I am there at least once a week, and I will buy you the worst beer you have ever
 Or a watered down soda. I get that not everyone drinks, even in the sim.
-*([@KDARC](https://cohost.org/KDARC))*
+*([@CERESUltra](https://cohost.org/CERESUltra))*
 </details>
 -----
@ -452,7 +454,7 @@ Meanwhile, on the walls and roads and roofs and floors of the village, a mosaic
 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!
-*([@KDARC](https://cohost.org/KDARC))*
+*([@CERESUltra](https://cohost.org/CERESUltra))*
 </details>
 -----
@ -609,6 +611,29 @@ Perhaps the production could have been replicated phys-side, especially when con
 -----
 > To any in the Ode clade who would like to answer:  
 > Have you ever lost faith in or energy for what you do, or felt like you lost your sense of purpose and direction?  
 > How did you handle this? Did you strike out on your own in a new direction entirely, or think things over and find a way to come back to it with renewed vigor? Or, perhaps, find inspiration in another person or place?
 <details><summary>Among Those Who Create Are Those Who Forge</summary>
 When I was first forked, I started out poking around the System to find out what people were doing with art. After all, we were in a new place, yes? A place with so many new possibilities, yes? I got incredibly interested in finding ways that people were creating sims, impossible paint colors, new flavors in their cooking, all of that wonderful stuff. Forking was too expensive yet for instance artistry to have taken off, but I was not at all surprised when it did.
 This, however, did not last. The more I looked at art, the more I started to see all of the ways that our pain lingered. Not just the weeping of the broken-hearted or the joy of this new life, but the resentment towards the power structures that people had escaped, the fear over minority identities being uncovered, the remembrances of lives lost.
 This rather spoiled art for me for a while. I could not look at it without getting all wrapped up in overwhelming emotions. I stopped seeking out new artists lest I find new pains to endure, and I (and my three up-tree instances at the time) fell into a funk. We spent a lot of time drinking, a lot of time sleeping. We would walk sims with our heads down, looking only at our feet. We would take lovers and tell them nothing.
 I tried a few times to get back into the swing of things, but every time, it just made me depressed.
 What I eventually settled on was a change of focus. I took all of that pain that I had discovered and transferred *that* into action. We talked and talked and talked, and then we started to act. We became the pests of the Ode clade, the leftists that pushed for ever more change. We met up with Os Riãos, and End Of Days, Seek An End, and New Beginnings still work quite heavily with Boiling Maw and Hydra from that clade on climate activism (as a side note, I believe that is how Rainbow's End fell in briefly with *Voces Sensuum,* the fifth stanza's theatre company).
 We never did get back to art, unless it was the art of activism and change. There was no going back. We *could not* go back. We were no longer depressed, but we used our interest to renew our vigor along tangential lines.
 ([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo))
 </details>
 -----
 > Who's the best in the clade at scrabble?
 <details><summary>Dear The Wheat And Rye Under The Stars</summary>
@ -836,6 +861,82 @@ And you want a comb, not a brush. A brush with our coarser fur will risk causing
 *([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo))*
 </details>
 -----
 > To the Ode clade:
 >
 > Tell me about your favorite or least favorite flower... not including dandelions (sorry!).
 <details><summary>Beholden To The Heat Of The Lamps</summary>
 Nasturtiums. I cannot tell you why without being overcome with tears, so I will simply include the letter.
 <blockquote style="quotes: none; font-style: normal">
 Beholden To The Heat Of The Lamps,
 It has been seven days. One week, I promised myself. I would wait one week while I watched the System limp back to life. I would wait a week and see what all was being done, what *could* be done to save the lost.
 It has been seven days of increasing surety that those who have perished in this event are gone for good. And if they indeed are gone for good then that means my beloved is gone with them.
 Do you remember when we came into being? It was the night of that awful monologue, that little joke of a scene where I was set to read some truly embarrassing lines. "We all play our parts. Some are towel boys and some lewd doctors..." I could remember the rest, but I do not want to. That line sticking in my craw is enough. I was a skunk that night because I did not want my face associated with those words.
 It was awful. It was delightful.
 I declared that it was necessary for me to get a drink, that I needed to wash the taste of those words off of my tongue and replace my grimaces with giggles. We went to that cute bar with outdoor tables and fairy lights strung above. Strange drinks and edamame. You and Boss fell into earnest conversation about this and that as you so often do. There was love in your eyes as always, even back when such was too taboo to show in public. Another benefit of a skunk face: hide that love from nosy passers-by. Our human face always was too expressive.
 It is too expressive now. It is full of tears and grief. It is full of despair. I cannot muster the energy required to be angry. I cannot pull up a smile from nothing. She is gone and she is never coming back. Yes, she merged back down, but she last did so some months ago, back at the beginning of winter. Yes, A Finger Pointing could fork once more into A Finger Curled, but that would not be her. She would be missing our sweet nothings and earnest conversations from the last few months. She would have decades of time — is it more than two centuries already? — of her life with you, so many memories of the past to talk about of which I would have no idea about. She merged down, yes? And I never did.
 It is full of grief. It is full of despair.
 It was at that bar in the midst of our earnest discussion of taboos and friends. You assured me there was a shift in the air, that True Name, so staunch a name within the clade, cared little about our relationship, but that she still encouraged our secrecy so as not to rock the boat for all of us, thanks to Jonas, but that perhaps soon, soon we would be able to hold hands in public, give each other little kisses and let those outside our stanza bear witness to what started as self love and blossomed into romance.
 I acknowledge, of course, her relative aromancy, but for me it was romance, and for her it was still love.
 We talked of just how it was that she alternated between human and skunk every time she forked. An affectation, yes, but a fondness for the past that I always admired in her
 We talked of the past, of the open mic nights we hosted in The Crown Pub for a while, AwDae and I reciting monologues and dialogues. Erina's *awful* song. And then there were only three performing the next week, only one the week after that, and then the open mic nights stopped.
 We talked of the soreness of this, of our hidden domesticity, and she said, as though on a whim, "And here I am beginning to wonder if I have made the right path for myself. Maybe, with a little mindfulness, I can still correct my course. But I admit that I have been considering stepping away from the clade. Perhaps one of our stanza would take my place, fork a new Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself." She said, "I would like to know that you would come with me if I did do. I have not felt so domestic with anyone but you."
 Of course I would! Of course I would. How could I not? How could I send her out in the world to live some quiet life away from administering to a troupe of actors and technicians, and leave her to do so alone? She would have her fun and her flings, but she would not have what she had had for dozens and dozens of years.
 So she forked into A Finger Curled and you forked into Beholden To The Music Of The Spheres.
 That was us. A Finger Curled and her lover. Beckoning and Beholden. A different version of each of you that lived their quiet life in a cottage. A week and a day ago, we snagged a middling bottle of champagne and set up lawn chairs in the garden. A week and a day ago, Debarre stopped by to drop off a firework — he only ever needed one to impress — so that we could have our own little show. We each gave him a hug and he told us small stories of nothing we cared about, of the fledgling attempt at a Lagrange Council.
 We never did get to see the firework. It sits still on the paving stone where Beckoning placed it, ready to light on a midnight that never came for her.
 After all, it was not a week and a day ago, was it? It was one year, one month, eighteen days ago. Subjectively so little time, objectively a year and change without her. Lagrange crashed — was bombed, I am hearing, a contraproprioceptive device that ramified through the perisystem architecture in waves of death — and we were all lost. We of the lost were now *twice* lost.
 Phys-side got the System up and limping a few times, I have heard, before it was at least up and stable enough.
 Stable enough!
 Stability was *us.* Stability was *our lives.* Stability was us in our quiet cottage. Stability was us heading to clubs and dancing until we wanted to pass out — until we did, on more than one occasion, slumped against each other and panting in some corner booth. Stability was the four of us — you and Boss, me and Beckoning — meeting up for dinner every few years and sharing our laughter.
 Stability was her garden. Stability was the years she grew *so much zucchini.* Stability was loaf after loaf of zucchini bread, meal after meal of zucchini noodles, the grates of the grill getting weary of grilled zucchini.
 Stability was the bright border of snapdragons and nasturtiums that bordered the walk. Stability was the few years she got obsessed with marigolds. Stability was the three dandelions she always permitted in the yard — moderation! Imagine. Stability was her green thumb to my brown, it was Motes visiting and calling us 'her weird gay aunts', little skunklet digging her paws into good clean earth beside her while I watched from the stoop with a gin and tonic with too much lime.
 This is not stability. For me, this will *never* be stability. She is twice lost, and from this she will never come back. Do not delude yourself, 23 billion of us are lost and will *never come back.* 23 billion souls forgotten by the dreamer who dreams us all.
 Today, I have picked the last of the nasturtiums — for despite the seasons, some of her flowers grow year round — and made myself one last grand salad. Bitter greens and those spicy-sweet flowers dotting it like colorful yellow-orange-red-purple confetti. Balsamic vinaigrette. A planked fillet of salmon. Crusty bread. The small things that I know how to cook.
 Seven days have passed and I cannot live without her.
 I have finished my meal, and poured myself a drink, and I will finish this letter, and I will go sit outside on my lawn chair and light the firework and see the night blossom into beautiful colors, and I will quit.
 In some few minutes, you will have more than 200 years of memories to keep and to hold, or to view, cherish, and let go. I do not care; I will not be there to care. Perhaps you will remember our happy years, and you will stop incorporating those memories when you get to eight days ago. All you would remember is my grief. All you would remember is my despair. If you choose to forget those, you will know that this is how AwDae chooses to forget those who have been lost: crying over these plants stripped of their flowers even as fireworks blossom above.
 Live on, my dear. You have your Pointillist. Live on.
 All my love,
 Beholden To The Music Of The Spheres
 </blockquote>
 *([@makyo](https://cohost.org/makyo))*
 </details>
 ## On the Clade
 > What's the weirdest or most unexpected species an Odist ended up settling as?
--- a/content/extras/muck.md
+++ b/content/extras/muck.md
@ -0,0 +1,192 @@
 ---
 title: The Post-Self MUCK
 ---
 The Post-Self MUCK is an avenue for exploring the setting through roleplay. You can join us as a cladist on the Lagrange System in the year 2403 etc etc skunks write more here plox
 ## Where Am I?
 This is the System, and you are a cladist, defined by your ability to fork into several duplicates of yourself on a whim, to merge or individuate as you will, and to live at ease in this consensual dream.
 This MUCK is a roleplaying community meant to bring together those various readers of [Post-Self.ink](https://post-self.ink) who are interested in telling stories set in this world.
 For those familiar with the setting, it is important to take note of the particular time and place in which we write: It is Systime 279, several years after the Century Attack that resulted in the irrevocable loss of approximately 1% of all instances on the Lagrange System.
 ## The First Minutes
 Let us begin with an FAQ:
 ### How do I get out of here?
 You can view various `sims` and `links` using their respective commands. Simply entering the name of one of them will send you to its destination.
 If you just want out, your best bet is to write `square`.
 ### How do I talk?
 The simple answer is `say <words>`. Sometimes what you want is to `pose <action>`. You can write `" <words>` instead of `say`, and `; <action>` instead of `pose`.
 If you want your message not to begin with your name, you can use `@emit <narration>` or `\ <narration>` instead.
 There is also `ooc <words>`, which will accept the format `ooc ; <action>`.
 Lastly, you may have noticed the **[Public]** channel. You can participate by writing `pub <words>` or `pub ; <action>`.
 ### What should I do now?
 You already know enough to jump in and roleplay! But the MUCK environment has so much more to offer.
 You could, for instance, decide to write an `@desc me = <paragraph>` that people can see by at `look`ing at you. Use `%r` in place of newlines if you want multiple paragraphs.
 ## The First Hour
 We should talk about getting around and communicating with others remotely.
 ### Join / Call
 When you want to teleport to someone in particular, you can request to `join <player>` them. Alternatively, if you want to bring them to you, you can `call <player>` them.
 If you receive such a request, you answer it with the same commands; the notification will generate the command for you, which you can paste into your input if you prefer.
 ### Page
 You can read more detailed documentation for this command by writing `help page`, but the simplest case is `page <player> = <message>`. This lets you send a private message to someone. You can also `page <player> = ; <action>` to perform a page-pose.
 ### Exits
 Exits are like doors. You can go through one by entering its name as a command. If there is an underlined part of the name, that is probably an abbreviation that will also work.
 There should always be an exit called **<u>B</u>ack** that takes you closer to the central area in a given sim. **<u>O</u>ut** should likewise take you closer to the figurative street.
 ## The First Day
 Now we are getting into the thick of settling in!
 ### Creating A Home
 You should read `help @dig` for more details, but it is enough to write `@dig/teleport <name>` followed by `@link me = here`. This will create a new room and make it your `home`.
 You can set an `@desc here = <paragraph>` for the room just like you set for yourself.
 ### Lost And Found
 If you ever lose track of your things, you can use `@find` or `@search` to retrieve their DBRefs, which will work in commands no matter where you are in the System.
 This is especially handy to `@teleport me = <DBRef>` to a room you own, or to `@tel <DBRef> = me` something you own into your `inventory`.
 ### Inventory Items
 You can `@create <name>` a new object, which will appear in your inventory. You can `@desc` it, `@link <name> = me` it to yourself so it returns to you when sent home, `drop <name>` or `take <name>` it, `@lock <name> = me` it so only you can move it, and `@set <name> = <path>:<data>` its attributes.
 Such an object is not particularly useful on its own, but there are clever things you can do with them if you are willing to get acquainted with softcode.
 ## The First Week
 Finally, we should talk about building.
 ### Connecting Rooms
 If you own two rooms and you want to connect them, you will need to `@open <directions> = <destination>, <returning directions>` a new exit.
 For example, you might write,
    @open %xuE%xnast; east; e = #1234, %xuW%xnest; west; w
 This creates an exit where you stand called **<u>E</u>ast** that takes you to DBRef #1234, and a reciprocal exit called **<u>W</u>est** that returns to where you stand.
 ### Thinking About ANSI
 Those percent signs were probably a little scary. You can read more about them with `help ansi substitution`. You can experiment with them using the `think <command>`, which will simply spit whatever you write back at you after evaluating any substitutions.
 It is important to note that each client will show ANSI differently, if it supports it at all. Treat this as pretty garnish, and avoid colors entirely. The ones you are likely to use are `%xu` for underlining, `%xh` for bold, and `%xn`, which resets any styling.
 You may be pleased to learn that these all work virtually anywhere, including when you speak!
 ## Forks
 This is the System! Of **course** you can fork! Here is how that works:
 ### The Fork Command
 Simply `fork [tag]` to produce a duplicate of yourself. If you do not include a tag, one will be randomly-generated instead.
 This fork inherits nearly everything about you, in- and out-of-character. There are some technical limitations, however.
 For one, a fork-of-a-fork can be made, but it will technically end up as your direct up-tree. This should not matter mechanically; it just makes things easier under the hood. Roleplay can do the rest.
 The other catch is to do with individuation, which requires a different approach to controlling your fork. It is better to create another character if you intend to have a fork take on a new name. Your memories can be copied over by a `Wizard`.
 ### Wrangling Forks
 To control a fork, you can write `> <tag> = <command>`. It will automatically set your default fork, which can be controlled by writing just `> <command>`. A fork can `quit`, which will automatically send a `merge` request to you.
 ### Memories
 You can save a new memory by writing `memo [paragraph]`. If you do not include any text after the command, it will list all of your memories instead.
 Memory merges **are** currently saved, but the command to address them has not yet been implemented. In the future, there will also be a `recall <filter>` command, which will let you search your memories for specific words.
 ## Softcode
 Softcode is where things start to get real interesting, but to be perfectly honest, if you are not prepared to grind your nose against it for several hours, it is probably not the feature for you. You can ask for help from a `Wizard` if you need, of course, but it will take time for you to get comfortable using it. Be patient with yourself; this stuff is hard.
 You can find an API containing most of the functions you can use on [the TinyMUX wiki](https://wiki.tinymux.org/index.php/Softcode_functions). You can also use `help <function()>` in the case of those many pages that were never copied onto the website.
 Softcode is braided into plaintext to produce dynamic output. For instance, you could make your hair a different color every time someone looks at it, or create a watch that actually shows the time. You could make clothes that alter your description when put on, or a door that leads to a different destination based on the time of day. Softcode is flexible, but it is also kind of a pain to use.
 Here is an example of how to use softcode:
    think Two plus two equals [\spellnum( \add(2, 2) )]!
 This will output:
 > Two plus two equals four!
 The only unique function this MUCK has so far is `systime()`, which simply outputs the in-character time like so: `279+270.43`.
 These manuals have been given the `Visual` flag so that you can study how they work, if you need more examples. You can look into their inner workings with `examine <target>`.
 ## Pronouns
 TinyMUX's built-in substitutions for pronouns are not great, so we have implemented our own.
 ### Setting Up Pronouns
 You can write `pronouns` to see a list of all presets we have already. If what you are looking for is not there, feel free to ask a `Wizard` for help.
 You may note that there are `Singular` and `Plural` options as well; these are important for setting up the grammar used when referring to you.
 To select a preset, write `pronouns <preset>` and verify that the test string displays correctly.
 **Using Pronouns**
 Virtually any text can include substitutions, and the functions are named so that they should be fairly readable. For example, if you have pronouns set to feminine:
    [they(%#, 1)] [has(%#)] [they(%#)] / [them(%#)] pronouns.
 will produce the output:
 > she has she / her pronouns.
 You can read about `%#` in `help substitutions`. Also, take note of the extra parameter in that first substitution, `[they(%#%xh, 1)]`. This is how you capitalize a substituted word.
 ### Pronoun Functions
 These are the commands for inserting pronouns in your text using softcode.
 `they()`, `them()`, `their()`, `theirs()`, `themself()`
 ### Conjugation Functions
 These are the commands for properly conjugating verbs using softcode.
 * ss()	 : `[they(%#)] walk[ss(%#)]`	= they walk	/	ey walks
 * es()	 : `[they(%#)] go[es(%#)]`	= they go	/	ey goes
 * is()	 : `[they(%#)] [is(%#)]`		= they are	/	ey is
 * was()	 : `[they(%#)] [was(%#)]`		= they were	/	ey was
 * has()	 : `[they(%#)] [has(%#)]`		= they have	/	ey has
 ## Differences for users coming from MUCKs
 * Instead of the `who`/`WHO` dichotomy, you can see who is in the room with you with `lwho`
 * Instead of `spoof <text>`, use `\ <text>`
 * You can still use `:` for posing. If you want the text to abut your name in poses (like for adding `'s`), use `;`. 
--- a/content/extras/nanon/_index.md
+++ b/content/extras/nanon/_index.md
@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
 ---
 title: Nanon
 layout: single
 ---
 Nanon is the common language spoken by the four races aboard Artemis. Originally secondrace's language, it has become the *lingua franca* amongst all Artemisians — and, after convergence, all humans who joined Artemis in its ongoing journey. It is an artificial language originally created in 2002 by Madison Scott-Clary as a way to alleviate the boredom of a Latin class. For a while, all digital copies were lost, with one [hard copy and notes](http://nanon.lang.drab-makyo.com/old/Nanon.pdf) remaining in a binder on her bookshelf. Now, sixteen years later, the docs have been scanned and the language is being typed up again. Due to being younger and dumber, the tone and quality is...not great, but the information is provided nearly in full to anyone interested.
 * [Phonology](phonology)
 * [Syntax](syntax)
 * [Vocabulary](vocabulary)
 * [Examples](examples)
--- a/content/extras/nanon/examples.md
+++ b/content/extras/nanon/examples.md
@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
 ---
 title: Examples
 ---
 ## Babel text
 1. Enzen mununier houka dehoudev an nanonam ate nanoni esles de t'n.
 2. Jaranuvier esdedev henunam up Shinar ate sunahier esles bronumam.
 3. Nanonier esles tho eslas, "Za tapotier esles anem estafataram." Unzen mununier eslas estafataram ate suroevier eslas estafataram de t'n tho suroevla rutar.
 4. Nanonier eslas, "Za tapotier esles bresdulam ate håzh brodåtam lubåtla hanaozhi raealam; ate za tapotier esles håt tapotevam eslesen aet nu eslesi esfetåtev nutho lubåt."
 5. Atoe zen båti Raedev ate jaruvier achlas bresdulam ate habrodåtam estdedeven.
 6. Zen nanoni anaodehoudev, "Jaruvia, eslasi an dehoudev ate mununier esles an nanonam; at tapotier esdedev lasam, za tapotier esdedev houal."
 ## 1 Corinthians 13
 4. Loråtla fetach. Anåt fetach. Nu kufemotla fetach. Nu haleputatla fetach. Nu haledatåtla fetach.
 5. Nu halesupotla fetach. Nu tuvårier fetach lubåtam t'ner. Nu kufori set fetach. Nu mununier fetach esunotalam.
 6. Nu jaruvåtier fetach unotalam - Ato harahier t'n houka anåtalam.
 7. Mununier fetach houkalam, konemier t'n houkalam, horanemier t'n houkalam, hatarier t'n houkalam.
 8. Nuka jodoti fetach...
--- a/content/extras/nanon/phonology.md
+++ b/content/extras/nanon/phonology.md
@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
 ---
 title: Phonology
 ---
 ## Consonants and semivowels
 &nbsp; | Stop (v/u) | Fricative (v/u) | Sibilants (v/u) | Nasals | Semivowels
 ---|---|---|---|---|---
 Glottal | -/x | -/h | - | - | -
 Velar   | g/k | - | - | - | -
 Palatal | dzh/tsh | -/ch* | zh/sh | - | -
 Dental  | d/t | -/th | z/s | n | l
 Labial  | b/p | v/f | - | m | w
 {: style="text-align: center" }
 ## Vowels
 * a - father
 * å - bought
 * e - bet
 * i - beet
 * o - alone
 * u - moot
 * ' - uh*
 ## Diphthongs
 * ae - bite
 * ei - bait
 * ou - own
 * ao - brown
 All other vowel combinations either aspirate the second vowel or separate with a glottal stop.
 ## Accentuation
 Meaning does not vary by accentuation, but usually falls on the penultimate syllable.
--- a/content/extras/nanon/syntax.md
+++ b/content/extras/nanon/syntax.md
@ -0,0 +1,230 @@
 ---
 title: Syntax
 ---
 Throughout this section, the various parts of the grammar of Nanon would be described, along with small examples. The examples will talk about you, your dog, a friend named Joseph, and his dog. Not a terribly interesting storyline, but hopefully it'll explain the subjects of the section. This section assumes you've at least glanced at the [Morphology](/morphology) section.
 ## Simple phrases
 Being an inflecting language, Nanon has a fairly free word order, but phrases tend to go VSO - verb, subject, object. You can tell what's going on, who's doing it, and, if needed, who it's being done to. That's just putting it roughly, of course, but we're still in the simple phrases section, so we won't get into stuff like doing something with someone else to someone and their dog quite yet.
 ### The simplest example
 The most basic example is a statement containing just a verb and a subject in the present tense.
 > Mabåti les.
 You've already seen *mabåt*, which means walk. We know that the *-i* suffix turns it into the verb 'to walk'. *Les* is the personal pronoun of rht efirst person 'I'. This simple example means "I walk."
 ### Adding an object
 It'd be nigh impossible to talk in sentences like that, though; we need objects. If we're going to have objects, though, we're going to need to make the verb transitive. Keeping with the theme of you and your dog, we'll make the dog the object, since that's usually what a person walks:
 > Mabåtier les henånam.
 We have our *les* and our *mabåti*,  but with the addition of *-er*, the transitive suffix. The word for dog is henån, but the one in this example has the suffix *-am*. This is the accusative suffix, which makes the word the direct object of the verb. So our sentence means "I walk the dog". *N.B: Nanon does not, as yet, differentiate between definite and indefinite verbs - there is no way to say 'the dog' vs 'a dog'.*
 ### Showing possession
 "I thought we were talking about my dog..." Well, for that, we have to learn a new case. A case is a variation on the root word. Nanon has three cases: nominative (the root word by itself - "the/a \_\_\_"), the accusative (the root word plus *-am* - the object of the verb), and the new one: genitive (the root word plus *-en* - "of (the/a) \_\_\_"). So if we want to talk about our dog, we'll add a genitive form of "I" to make it "my":
 > Mabåtier les henånam lesen.
 Notice how the *lesen* follows the *henånam*; we wouldn't want to say "I of me walk the dog". This is one of the few places where word order matters in Nanon. Thus, "I walk the dog of me".
 ## Joining phrases
 There are a few ways to join phrases in Nanon: you can uses the standard conjunctions, or the list modifiers. Standard conjunctions are almost completely like English, with the conjunction separating the two nouns (they still have some differences, as we'll see). List modifiers are the first modifiers you'll learn to use; they join (usually) three or more nouns together into an and-list, an or-list, a xor-list, or a negative-or-list.
 ### Standard conjunctions
 The standard conjunctions were cribbed mostly from Latin. Because of their origin, these conjunctions are fairly similar to those of English except for one or two differences: a few of the conjunctions use the word twice, and one of the conjunctions doesn't exist in English as one word (it does, however, exist in most computer languages).
 The first conjunction we'll use will be *ate*, which means "and".
 > Mabåti les ate henån lesen.
 We've got the standard lineup: you and your dog. This time, however, you're not walking your dog, you're walking with it, so the verb isn't transitive. This one's fairly easy: "My dog and I walk".
 What if you're not walking your dog, though? What if your friend Joseph is? Or both of you together?
 > Mabåtier les ite Josef henånam lesen.
 Now that the dog is back to being walked, we're back to transitive, and we need to see who's walking it: you or Joseph (spelled 'Josef' in Nanon). *Ite* is slightly different than in English, in that it's intrinsically inclusive. That is, if something is or'd in Nanon, it means that one, the other, or both together may be doing the action. Exclosive or, or xor, doesn't have a direct counterpart in English, but the closest example is "either X or &, but not both". In computers or logic, this is represented as `(X xor Y)`. In Nanon, it's represented as *ete X ete Y* - there are two *ete* because that was one of the parts copied from Latin.
 Now let's change the previous example and say you don't want to go walking with Joseph, but you'll let him walk your dog:
 > Mabåtier ete les ete Josef henånam lesen.
 There: "Either Joseph or I (but not both together) walk my dog". To negate this, you can use the negative form *nete* for "neither X nor Y":
 > Mabåtier nete les nete Josef henånam lesen.
 ### List modifiers
 List modifiers connect a series of words, phrases, or sentences (depending on the global affix) by surrounding them like parentheses. Depending on the modifiers, there is one for each conjunction, the words are connected in different ways: words connected with the 'and' modifier *atek...atet* act like a string of words connected by 'and'. and likewise for the rest of the modifiers: *itek...itet* for 'or', *etek...etet* for 'xor', and *netek...netet* for 'neither/nor'.
 List modifiers are the standard conjunctions with *-k* appended to the opening modifier and *-t* appended to the closing one. Keeping with our walks, let's all go for one:
 > Mabåti atek les, Josef, henån lesen atet.
 By surrounding the list with the 'and' modifier, we connected all of the words with 'and', leaving us with "Me and Joseph and my dog walk". This example includes commas, like in English. We can make it a riddle as to who's walking by switching to 'or', which specifies that any combination of the subjects walks:
 > Mabåti itek les, Josef, henån lesen, henån Josefen itet.
 We've added Joseph's dog to the mix: "I, Joseph, my dog, or Joseph's dog (or any combination thereof) walk".
 ## Compound phrases
 Conjoining phrases works very similarly to conjoining nouns, but uses a prefix to modify the conjunctions such that they apply to phrases.
 ### Conjoining phrases
 > Nanoni les inate mabåti Josef.
 It makes sense that if *Nanon* is a noun, and a Nanon word itself, it can also be a verb. In this case, it means 'to speak'. Here, we've used the prefix *in-* to cause the conjunction to apply on a phrase scope. In slangy speech, this can be dropped, as it's often evident from context. Here, we have "I talk and Joseph walks".
 Let's add a conjunction: *ato*. It looks a lot like *ate* and works rather like 'and', however, it expects a truth statement following it. In English, it's called 'but' (*ete* can similarly be changed to *eto*, which means 'except'):
 > Nanoni les inate mabåti Josef ato roevi avles.
 In the above example, we use the prefix *av-* (from *av* - 'two') to indicate a dual state - thus, when combined with *les*, we get *we both*. (On that note, the plural prefix, *es-* comes from *es* - 'three', which simply indicates a plurality). Therefore, *avles* means 'we both'. *Roevi* (from *roev* - 'tree') means 'grow', so here we have the rather saccharine "I speak and Joseph walks but we both grow".
 ### Lists of phrases
 It follows that we can apply this to list modifiers as well. These, however, do require the phrase scope prefix *in-*.
 > Inatek nanoni les, mabåti Josef, henåni henan Josefen inatet.
 The verb form of dog is 'to wag', so that makes our sentence "I talk, Joseph walks, and Joseph's dog wags."
 ## Questions
 We have Yet Another Affix to deal with, which creates a question. This addition, however, is an infix which only occurs in six words: *bronum* - 'place, location', *loran* - 'time', *lubåt* - 'reason', *dedev* - 'person', *uchlas* - 'it, thing' (neuter 3rd person pronoun), and *båt* - 'way'.  The affix by itself is also a modifier that makes the sentence into a yes or no question, or implies a 'whether'. If the words for 'yes' and 'no' are *ka* and *nu* respectively, that is the expected answer.
 ### The five W's and the H
 The affix/word in question is *aen*. It is how questions are made in Nanon. When combined with certain words, it forms the questions *bronaenum* 'where', *loraenan* - 'when', *lubaenåt* - 'why', *dedaenev* - 'who', *uchlaenas* - 'what, which', and *baenåt* - 'how'.
 > Dedaenev mabåti?
 "Who walks?"
 > Bronaenum mabåti los?
 "Where are you walking?" - *los* being the 2nd person pronoun.
 > Loraenam za mabåti los?
 "When will you walk?" - *za* will be covered in tenses.
 > She uchlaenas uchlas mabåti los?
 "Towards what thing are you walking?" - *she* being 'towards'.
 > Lubaenåt mabåti los?
 "Why are you walking?" Really, why are any of us walking?
 > Baenåt mabåti les?
 "How do I walk?"
 ### Yes and no
 Placing the question modifier before the word that's being questioned (word order important) asks a yes or no question. If you are expecting a a certain response, add that response to the end of the question.
 > Aen mabåti los?
 "Do you walk?"
 > Aen mabåti los, ka?
 "You do walk, don't you?"
 > Aen za bromuni los, nu?
 "You won't go, will you?"
 ## Tense
 This section assumes that you've read the section on modifiers in [morphology](/morphology) first, to get a taste of tense modifiers.
 As you know, our tense words are *ze* for past, *zo* for present (though it's usually implied) and *za* for future. You should know also that the suffix *-n* makes the tense perfect, or completed. These words, like most modifiers, default to modifying theverb that they come before, but can modify a phrase or entire sentence with the appropriate prefix. This makes it quite easy to mix tenses within a sentence.
 > Za jaruvier los Josefam ze lasi januruvam.
 "You will see that joseph was a spy". *Jaruvier* is the transitive verb form of 'see' put into the future tense by *za*. *Ze* puts *lasi* (the verb form of the pronouns becomes the verb 'to be', thus *lasi* - 'they are') in the past tense, so Joseph (who is in the accusative case for *jaruvier*) was in the past a spy, or *januruv*. Joseph and *januruv* are both in the accusative, though, so how do we know which is the object of *lasi*? The answer is that it doesn't matter, because 'to be' in Nanon is like an equal sign: it makes both nouns the same.
 Why isn't *za* in its phrase form, *inza*? Because *jaruvier* is transitive, and it still requires its object to be a full phrase. The truth is, you can often use the unmodified version of the modifier in place of the phrase or sentence version, and still have it make sense:
 > Ze mabåti les she esroevam, ato inza majarbåti les she estanunam.
 Which means "I was walking to the treas, but I will run to the mountains". *Majarbåt* is 'to walk' plus the 'fast' descriptor infixed to make 'to run'. a *tanun* is a mountain, which is plural with the prefix *es-*. The same sentence with the phrase-modified tenses, however, would mean the same thing:
 > Inze mabåti les she esroevam, ato inza majarbåti les she estanunam.
 ## Numbers
 Nanon counts in base-10, so the numbers are similar, but they're strung together in an almost Mandarin fashion: the numbers count up to ten, then it's ten plus a number, then for twenty, it's two tens, three tens for thirty, and so on.
 0. *'s*
 1. *an*
 2. *av*
 3. *es*
 4. *er*
 5. *et*
 6. *on*
 7. *ov*
 8. *or*
 9. *ur*
 10. *ans*
 11. *ansan*
 12. *ansav*
 {: start="0" }
 And so on, until 20, which is *avans*, 30 - *esans*, and so on. Here are some random numbers:
 * *mans* - 100
 * *ant* - 1,000
 * *nant* - 10,000
 * *mansant* - 100,000
 * *anc* - 1,000,000
 * *avans es* - 23
 * *erans av* - 24
 * *ant ermans urans av* - 1,492
 * *ant ovmans ovans av* - 1,776
 * *anc avmansant esnans erant etmans onans ov* - 1,234,567
 *Mans* is different, because otherwise, following the pattern, *onnans* and *onans* would sound alike.
 These numbers, by themselves, act as descriptors. If you want to talk about the number two, or number two in a set, precede the number with the word 'number', *sanav*. To say cardinal numbers, put the number in its verb form, as in *Ani Eskorinthev Anses* - First Corinthians 13 (see examples). Also, note the *-ev* suffix on Corinth: this comes from *dedev*, which means person. The *-ev* suffix, therefor, means a person of the noun it modifies, so *-ev* on Corinth means a Corinthian.
 ### Math
 Addition - "Number with number is number"
 :   *an tho an lasi av*: 1 + 1 = 2
 Subtraction - "Number without number is number"
 :   *av nutho an lasi an*: 2 - 1 = 1
 Multiplication - "Number by/against number is number"
 :   *av lar an lasi av*: 2 * 1 = 2
 Division - "Number except number is number"
 :   *er eto av lasi av*: 4 / 2 = 2
 Exponents - "Number by/against again is number"
 :   *av lar'che av lasi er*: 2 ^ 2 = 4
 Logarithms - "Number by/against an anonymous thing is number"
 :   *ans lar'che t'n mans lasi av*: Log10 100 = 2
 Roots - "Number except again root is number"
 :   *er eto'che av lasi av*: sqrt(4) = 2
 ## A note
 > Something must be said about the semantics of Nanon, as words separated by one letter become different parts of speech, and mean different things. Nouns and their verb components should not always be taken as near synonyms, even though this may sometimes be the case. For example, a word that means a driver of an automobile does not automatically mean 'to drive an automobile' in it's verb form. It might be best to learn the noun and verb form separately and not think of the -i as an affix, then realize later that there is a connection between the two words.
 >
 > Also, care must be taken to enunciate certain words carefully, as they may differ by just a vowel. The biggest problem, perhaps, would be the gender prefixes ach- and ech-
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 ---
 title: Opportunity Paralysis
 author: Madison Scott-Clary
 character: Rena Hatch — 2368
 type: story
 ---
 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 loveseats 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 38,529,358,059, 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?"
 "Milldions 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.
--- a/layouts/partials/nav.html
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@ -1,14 +1,23 @@
 <nav>
-    <ul class="nav-desktop">
+    <ul>
        <li>
            <details>
                <summary>Books</summary>
                <ul>
                    <li><a href="https://post-self.ink/cycle">The Post-Self Cycle:</a>
                        <ul>
                            <li><a href="https://qoheleth.post-self.ink" target="_blank"><em>Qoheleth</em></a></li>
                            <li><a href="https://toledot.post-self.ink" target="_blank"><em>Toledot</em></a></li>
                            <li><a href="https://neviim.post-self.ink" target="_blank"><em>Nevi'im</em></a></li>
                            <li><a href="https://mitzvot.post-self.ink" target="_blank"><em>Mitzvot</em></a></li>
                        </ul>
-    <ul>
+                    </li>
-        <li class="nav-mobile"><a href="/cycle"><em>The Post-Self Cycle</em></a></li>
+                    <li><a href="https://marsh.post-self.ink" target="_blank"><em>Marsh</em></a></li>
                    <li><a href="https://clade.post-self.ink"><em>Clade</em></a></li>
-        <li><a href="https://rpg.post-self.ink">The RPG</a></li>
+                </ul>
            </details>
        </li>
        <li><a href="https://rpg.post-self.ink">The TTRPG</a></li>
        <li><a href="/extras">Extras</a></li>
        <li><a href="/about">About</a></li>
    </ul>
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@ -30,18 +35,16 @@ ul {
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 }
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 .hero {
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    font-size: 18pt;
    line-height: 1.5;
    color: #444444;
    margin-bottom: 1rem;
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    background-size: cover;
    background-position: center;
    background-color: #fafafa;
 }
@ -77,7 +80,7 @@ ul {
    display: inline-block;
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0.5rem;
-            }
+}
 .carousel nav li.on {
    background-color: #555;
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