#post-self

[drabmakyo]

Did you know that I write a lot about memory, skunks, uploading consciousness, political maneuvering, skunks, aliens, skunks, queerness, identity, emotions, and skunks? It's true! I'm very proud of them. You can read books best described as

Given the chance to live forever in a world not built for death, what do you do?

Given the inability to forget—all your joys and sorrows, all your foundational memories and traumas—how do you cope?

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?

and

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.

The Post-Self Cycle is a tetralogy of meta-furry¹, gender-weird sci-fi books. 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?

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.

Digital versions come with illustrations from five artists — Iris Jay, Jade Laclede, Floe, CadmiumTea, and johnny a.

Available as paperbacks, ebooks, and free to read in the browser. Omnibus ebook and illustrated hardcovers coming soon!

Book I — Qoheleth

"All artists search. I search for stories, in this post-self age. What happens when you can no longer call yourself an individual, when you have split your sense of self among several instances? How do you react? Do you withdraw into yourself, become a hermit? Do you expand until you lose all sense of identity? Do you fragment? Do you go about it deliberately, or do you let nature and chance take their course?"

With immersive technology at its peak, it's all too easy to get lost. When RJ loses emself in that virtual world, not only must ey find eir way out, but find all the answers ey can along the way.

And, nearly a century on, society still struggles with the ramifications of those answers.

Features the bonus novella Gallery Exhibition: A Love Story.

Madison finds a way to address not only the joys and terrors of integrated simulation technology, but also tackles questions of gender and identity while telling a pretty gripping mystery story in the process.

— Nenekiri Bookwyrm

Book II — Toledot

"I am saying that you trust me — really trust me — and that life in the System is more subtle than I think you know. You let me into your dreams, my dear, and your dreams influence this place as much as, if not more than, your waking mind."

No longer bound to the physical, what lengths should one go to in a virtual world to ensure the continuity of one's existence?

Secession. Launch. Two separations from two societies, two hundred years apart. And through it all, so many parallels run on so many levels that it can be dizzying just keeping up. The more Ioan and Codrin Bălan learn, the more it calls into question the motivations of even those they hold most dear.

Madison Scott-Clary . . . trusts her readers to be able to understand a completely different culture and existence than our own, and makes it compelling to do so.

— Payson R. Harris

Book III — Nevi'im

"Do you know how old I am, Dr. Brahe? I am 222 years old, a fork of an individual who is...who would be 259 years old. I am no longer the True Name of 2124. Even remembering her feels like remembering an old friend. I remember her perfectly, and yet I do not remember how to be earnest. I do not know how to simply be."

The cracks are showing.

Someone picked up on the broadcast from the Dreamer Module and as the powers that be rush to organize a meeting between races, Dr. Tycho Brahe is caught up in a whirlwind of activity. And as always, when the drama goes down, there is Codrin Bălan to witness it.

When faced with eternity in a new kind of digital world, however, old traumas come to roost, and those who were once powerful are brought to their knees

Growth is colliding with memory, and the cracks are showing.

These characters are so well realized, so fleshed out, that I can’t help but to gush about how their interactions with each other inform the central plot of the book.

— Nenekiri Bookwyrm

Book IV — Mitzvot

"To be built to love is to be built to dissolve. It is to be built to unbecome. It is to have the sole purpose of falling apart all in the name of someone else."

Even the grandest of stories can feel small and immediate when it's just one person's life.

One of the most well-known names from one of the most well-known clades on the System, the avatar of political machinations and cool confidence, has been brought low. With help coming only from Ioan Bălan and the most grudging of support from her cocladists, all True Name has left to save herself is the ability to change.

Features the bonus novella Selected Letters.

Mitzvot drills down deeper into the lives of its characters and shows us that between the world-shattering projects that change the very understanding of the System, they’re just people trying to live their lives with love and purpose.

— Nenekiri Bookwyrm

Keep an eye out for Clade, an anthology of short stories from nine authors set in the universe, coming later this year.

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¹ That is, about members of the furry subculture rather than just furry characters.

[elizabethlazuli]

Thoughts regarding/plot synopsis of Post-Self: Qoheleth

[This is just a copy of my ramblings on Discord so apologies if there's some missing context or whatever, I didn't feel like reformatting this for the five people following my Tumblr.]

Okay. So. I'm going to be completely honest, it is hard to know where to begin with this.

So, for a few months I've known about this four-book series called the Post-Self Cycle. I don't remember where I first heard about it, it was probably on Cohost back when I still used to use that site. And after a cursory scan of the series' overall themes, I decided that despite fascinating me, I didn't feel like it was the right time to actually dive into it. And in retrospect that was absolutely the right call.

It's very philosophically heavy, tackling topics regarding identity and the future which I already struggle with a lot in my personal life. But the knowledge of this series continued to live in my head rent-free between then and a few days ago when I felt I was ready to explore what Post-Self had to offer. I literally remember talking to Sable [my girlfriend] one day having a breakdown(?) regarding identity and my fear of ego death, and the thing I remember most about that moment was how I actually brought this series up to Sable at one point. Without ever even reading it. Like it revealed to me fears I've been harboring my whole life.

I don't really know if there was anything specific that caused me to feel I was mentally ready to start reading it, because I knew that once I did it would change me in some significant way. And it's really fucking funny on the surface to be feeling this way about some furry book series. I think there's something particularly uncanny about combining furry with deep philosophical themes. I felt similarly with Slime Time. It's been so far ingrained in me that furry is just some nerdy hobby that doesn't really matter at the end of the day, that when it's used as a vessel to expose very serious things that I'm trying to ignore, it almost feels like an invasion of a safe space.

I guess that's why Post-Self latched on to me so intensely after just simply learning about it. Because it's the starkest I've ever experienced that sort of uncanniness. It seemed almost scary. And it is rare for me to feel that way about fiction anymore. But, I don't know. I've been thinking a lot about transhumanism lately, especially after having personally adopted the label "alterhuman". And I guess that's why the time felt right to finally check out Post-Self and hear what it has to say. For the past few days, I've been reading the first book in the series, Qoheleth. This is where I'm running into difficulty figuring out how to even talk about this. Because this isn't like any piece of media I've consumed before.

[1/3]

[defrostedvertebrae]

Updated my cohost only to send an appreciation ask to the author of the Post-Self series. Genuinely a 15/10 book series

[undead-tboy-swag]

if your weird enough with the homies you can break all boundaries of platonic/romantic love and make a third, more evil thing

[banrionceallach]

You know, that Mythbusters post legitimately changed my life. Before seeing it, I had exponentially more guilt and stress about not being able to sleep, which of course, further exacerbated my inability to sleep.

Now, every time I wake up about three am, knowing I have to get up at 6.45, instead of stressing and panicking about how my day is going to be sleep deprived and miserable, I just tell myself 'Time to activate Mythbusters Protocol' and lie there with my eyes closed safe in the knowledge that I am measurably reducing later feelings of exhaustion.

And when this happens, about 70% of the time the reduction of guilt and stress means I actually do fall back asleep, so all in all instead of getting only three or four hours sleep, I get five to six and a half.

Which y'know, major improvement in health and energy.

[soul-from-another-era]

Unconditional love isn't a free pass to hurt me.

[aimasup]

Favouritism

Bill get a hold of yourself man

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

License to Kitty.

[doccywhomst]

[jingerpi]

i think the important thing to understand is that sexual violence is an extension of violence, not sex

[sergle]

"tiktok is so toxic yall are on that evil app but I'm built different 💅" to you!! TO YOU!! YOUR TIKTOK ALGORITHYM MAY BE EVIL

Mine is FIRE

[drabmakyo]

Clade — A Post-Self Anthology

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.

Now available for purchase and free to read online! https://clade.post-self.ink

[ispyspookymansion]

stream i am the prayers of the naive on ao3 dot com

[samwisethewitch]

Homemaking, gardening, and self-sufficiency resources that won't radicalize you into a hate group

It seems like self-sufficiency and homemaking skills are blowing up right now. With the COVID-19 pandemic and the current economic crisis, a lot of folks, especially young people, are looking to develop skills that will help them be a little bit less dependent on our consumerist economy. And I think that's generally a good thing. I think more of us should know how to cook a meal from scratch, grow our own vegetables, and mend our own clothes. Those are good skills to have.

Unfortunately, these "self-sufficiency" skills are often used as a recruiting tactic by white supremacists, TERFs, and other hate groups. They become a way to reconnect to or relive the "good old days," a romanticized (false) past before modern society and civil rights. And for a lot of people, these skills are inseparably connected to their politics and may even be used as a tool to indoctrinate new people.

In the spirit of building safe communities, here's a complete list of the safe resources I've found for learning homemaking, gardening, and related skills. Safe for me means queer- and trans-friendly, inclusive of different races and cultures, does not contain Christian preaching, and does not contain white supremacist or TERF dog whistles.

Homemaking/Housekeeping/Caring for your home:

Making It by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen [book] (The big crunchy household DIY book; includes every level of self-sufficiency from making your own toothpaste and laundry soap to setting up raised beds to butchering a chicken. Authors are explicitly left-leaning.)

Safe and Sound: A Renter-Friendly Guide to Home Repair by Mercury Stardust [book] (A guide to simple home repair tasks, written with rentals in mind; very compassionate and accessible language.)

How To Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis [book] (The book about cleaning and housework for people who get overwhelmed by cleaning and housework, based on the premise that messiness is not a moral failing; disability and neurodivergence friendly; genuinely changed how I approach cleaning tasks.)

Gardening

Rebel Gardening by Alessandro Vitale [book] (Really great introduction to urban gardening; explicitly discusses renter-friendly garden designs in small spaces; lots of DIY solutions using recycled materials; note that the author lives in England, so check if plants are invasive in your area before putting them in the ground.)

Country/Rural Living:

Woodsqueer by Gretchen Legler [book] (Memoir of a lesbian who lives and works on a rural farm in Maine with her wife; does a good job of showing what it's like to be queer in a rural space; CW for mentions of domestic violence, infidelity/cheating, and internalized homophobia)

"Debunking the Off-Grid Fantasy" by Maggie Mae Fish [video essay] (Deconstructs the off-grid lifestyle and the myth of self-reliance)

Sewing/Mending:

Annika Victoria [YouTube channel] (No longer active, but their videos are still a great resource for anyone learning to sew; check out the beginner project playlist to start. This is where I learned a lot of what I know about sewing.)

Make, Sew, and Mend by Bernadette Banner [book] (A very thorough written introduction to hand-sewing, written by a clothing historian; lots of fun garment history facts; explicitly inclusive of BIPOC, queer, and trans sewists.)

Sustainability/Land Stewardship

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer [book] (Most of you have probably already read this one or had it recommended to you, but it really is that good; excellent example of how traditional animist beliefs -- in this case, indigenous American beliefs -- can exist in healthy symbiosis with science; more philosophy than how-to, but a great foundational resource.)

Wild Witchcraft by Rebecca Beyer [book] (This one is for my fellow witches; one of my favorite witchcraft books, and an excellent example of a place-based practice deeply rooted in the land.)

Avoiding the "Crunchy to Alt Right Pipeline"

Note: the "crunchy to alt-right pipeline" is a term used to describe how white supremacists and other far right groups use "crunchy" spaces (i.e., spaces dedicated to farming, homemaking, alternative medicine, simple living/slow living, etc.) to recruit and indoctrinate people into their movements. Knowing how this recruitment works can help you recognize it when you do encounter it and avoid being influenced by it.

"The Crunchy-to-Alt-Right Pipeline" by Kathleen Belew [magazine article] (Good, short introduction to this issue and its history.)

Sisters in Hate by Seyward Darby (I feel like I need to give a content warning: this book contains explicit descriptions of racism, white supremacy, and Neo Nazis, and it's a very difficult read, but it really is a great, in-depth breakdown of the role women play in the alt-right; also explicitly addresses the crunchy to alt-right pipeline.)

These are just the resources I've personally found helpful, so if anyone else has any they want to add, please, please do!

[reikacchan]

don't give up

[dapper-lil-arts]

That one friggin screenshot is mystifying me