Madison Rye Progress

A chapter from Toledot by Madison Scott-Clary. It's available as a paperback, ebook, or free to read in the browser!

The whole post-self cycle is amazing, and reading it changed me, but Toledot is its heart and crown jewel. It's spectacular. It's visionary, and it lays the runway for the books that come after it to soar. The book before it, Qoheleth, is also amazing, all of them are, but it can't quite give the world the breadth or the life that Toledot does. Don't just take my word for it, go read it

I have a system for books to:
a) avoid filling my relatively modest shelf space with books i never get around to reading or don't really like
b) start reading them in the first place because lol my executive function is BROKEN AS HELL

First I buy them in ebook format and read them opportunistically on a reader. Then, if I like them, I buy the physical copy to own, as a real object, in perpetuity.

I bought the entire main Post-Self quadrilogy on the strength of, mostly, Toledot alone.

Toledot has received the most varied feedback of all four books. One of my friends said "it's alright, but nothing really happens in it, does it?" Another review said that they thought the writing was competent, but that they hated shady types in black suits (which, okay, I do but think is an accurate representation, but I can at least see where they got it from). A third bemoaned the trope of there always being an 'evil' headmate in plural stories (I do not think this is fair, but also I will not dispute that this could be a reading for one of the characters, especially in retrospect).

However, my partner said that she enjoyed it, that she could tell I was thinking about how 2021 was the year all my friends died. And hearing stuff like this is really, really heartening, because it's hard not to get caught on the problems others have brought up. Thank you both for saying this <3

And for all you other lovely friends, support on Patreon helps me continue to exist in this world as a living being. Patrons get early access, plus free ebooks, early drafts, and unposted material such as outlines and notes. If you like the work I do, consider supporting~

Given the fact that most of the authors are in the Post-Self Discord server, we're moving IC asks to this page, so they are all collected in one place. Feel free to ask your questions of various characters, and I will make sure that they are directed appropriately. I'll push existing IC asks over anonymously to answer them here.

~@makyo

Moving all IC asks over to @post-self! If you wanna talk to Odists, ask there~

Spoiler level: consequential — Qoheleth

Hold My Name Beneath Your Tongue And Know:

Michelle had a long string of unfruitful, short, abusive, and otherwise quite boring relationships back phys-side. She (for I do not call myself her anymore; she was her own person, just as I am) struggled with that, and that was actually the origin of her picking a skunk as her fursona. She said that she liked the aposematic stripes. "Stay away," they said. "I am not for you to bother."

Similarly, at one point she started to question just how much of her body was involved in how she was treated by her partners. She liked it okay, to be clear. She was chubby. She was short. She was cute! I remember her thinking that. There were times that she wished she was skinnier, yes, but most of the time? She felt okay.

Still, when she did worry about her body, it was particularly in how it played into her interactions with romance. She liked being cute, and wanted to be seen as cute, but did not particularly like the way that that played out for her. After a bit, she sought out a reduction. It was not expensive, nor was it difficult to achieve: a consult, a counseling session, and then a surgery, all in the span of a month.

The end result was not quite what she expected. It was not just that she was relieved of back pain — though she was — nor that she was treated differently with regards to her body — though that was also true — but that she was happier. She did not experience gender dysphoria, in other words, but after this change, she experienced gender euphoria. It was then that she cut her hair shorter and changed the way that she dressed. It was then that she decided to stick with skunk, owning it as a view of herself rather than simply as a response to some dick in a furry sim that she then met in person.

All of us in her clade have carried over that euphoria in some form or another. Perhaps it is in the ways in which they look. Perhaps it is in the pronouns that they use (several use ey/em pronouns as another little tribute). We are all queer, in our own ways, and for some of us more than others, that queerness surrounds gender. I am a nonbinary trans woman. E.W. is a man. Dear's answer to the question of "What is your gender?" is "You are asking the wrong question."