iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Madison Rye Progress @makyo.ink · 03/10/2026

Aaaall the way back to the beginning. Chag sameach.

A hand holding a yad pointing to the first lines of the Torah scroll.

Madison Rye Progress @makyo.ink · 29/09/2026

I read Peter S Beagle's A Fine and Private Place (*highly* recommended) and decided what was missing from Kaddish, as a meditation on Jewish trauma after loss, was a wry, old Yiddishe bubbe. Natch~

“What Right Have I! Baruch HaShem, I’m glad to see you.” She speaks in the same mix of Aramaic, Hebrew, and syslingua that much of our out-of-character chatter takes place in, but I have decided that I will keep this record consistent. Evocation, rather than imitation. Imagine for me if you must an old Ashkenazi woman of the type who slips more readily into Yiddish than anything. Let not her Mizrahi appearance — all olive skin and thick, curly black hair — fool you, she is a Yiddishe bubbe at heart, and reminds me most of my grandmother Sarah, despite the similarity in looks to my other grandmother Rahel. “How’re you? How’ve you been? Come, you must tell me everything. Tea? You look parched.”

I slowly ratchet up my hearing to about halfway, enough to hear her without the noise of the crowd outside overwhelming my hearing. “As I am you!” I reply, a phrase not nearly so awkward in our easy chatter. “Yes please to the tea. I have...ah, I have been well enough. Not great, but well enough. What of you? You are well, I pray?”

Havivah gives a short, sharp bark of a laugh as she digs briefly in a chest and comes up with a bundle of mint. “That’s not telling me everything! You want I should just continue on blithely? What Right Have I, back in our neck of the woods for the first time in years, having fundamentally changed our holidays — and for the better I might add! — and now we must get by on ‘not great, but well enough’! Vey Gott! A pittance!” She cackles, brandishing the mint at me like a conductor might a baton, as though to lead me into speaking. “Now, Havivah will tell you all sorts, to be sure, but you must tell her everything, first, mayn skunkniu.”

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Madison Rye Progress @makyo.ink · 27/09/2026

Brunch in the sukkah with a bunch of lovely folks~

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Madison Rye Progress @makyo.ink · 22/09/2026

Best apple I've ever had. Shanah tovah!

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Madison Rye Progress @makyo.ink · 21/09/2026

The skunk is: still hungry. Very skunk kippah, though.

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Madison Rye Progress @makyo.ink · 21/09/2026

Oh, she sing... (Was with a small choir, cropped for privacy)

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Madison Rye Progress @makyo.ink · 21/09/2026

The skunk is: hungry, frazzled.

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Madison Rye Progress @makyo.ink · 21/09/2026

Helped build the sukkah this morning (ish, I mostly had choir practice, but I at least hauled lumber).

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Madison Rye Progress @makyo.ink · 19/09/2026

I don't know where my coworker, Shu, is, these days, but I hope she is well. She gave me this scroll she made of Su Shi's Shuidiao Getou as a graduation present back in 2011. Test-hanging it with paperclips.

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Madison Rye Progress @makyo.ink · 18/09/2026

And, of course, the Post-Self cycle, the story of (nominally) 100 ways of dealing with trauma told across four novels and two novellas. Half off for Skunktember itch.io/s/200343/sku...

And thus grew a new world, a world that was not built for death…

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.

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Madison Rye Progress @makyo.ink · 18/09/2026

New Year's Eve, 2399, and the world grinds to a halt... § Marsh, a Post-Self novel and short story anthology about a near miss with the apocalypse, is half off for skunktember itch.io/s/200343/

23:58, and I opened my eyes and smiled. “Well, seems like it’s been a pleasant enough year for everyone involved, though Marsh will deal with all the rest of that later.”

“It continues to amaze just how good you are at that.”

“What, merging?”

She nodded.

“It feels pretty straight forward for me,” I said. “I just…remember it all, and when memories or outlooks on life don’t line up, I choose mine.”

She laughed. “Still, far better than I am at it.”

23:59.

“Practice, maybe,” I said. “But hey, happy New Year.”

“Is it time, then?” she asked.

I nodded, willed away the drunkenness, took a sip of water. “Alright. I love you, Hanne Marie. I’ll miss you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Tell Marsh I said—

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Madison Rye Progress @makyo.ink · 18/09/2026

She painted her nails, her claws, herself. She got it on her fur. She got it on her clothes. She got stripes over her ears and polka-dots on her nose. ✨ Motes Played, a Post-Self story about identity and childhood, is half-off for Skunktember itch.io/s/200343

She used to just wave away her supplies, either letting them dissipate back into her memories or float back to their proper locations in her studio, but some decades prior, she had started using the process of putting things away by hand to unwind from the context of painting.

She split the difference today and forked quickly into four Moteses: one hauled the stool up above her head and trundled over to plop it down in the corner by the workbench; one ran off with the brush and palette to wash them off in the sink; one brought the easel, painting still clamped to it, over to the corner to dry; one tried to do a handstand in the middle of the room while Motes#Root watched. Eventually, she managed for a few seconds before collapsing into a giggling heap.

One by one, the various Moteses quit until #Root was the only one remaining. She pushed herself to her feet, stretched, and padded out of the pleasantly cluttered studio.

“Lights, Dot.”

Motes jumped at the sound of A Finger Pointing’s voice from the couch beside the door. “Oh! Yeah!” she said, forking off one more ephemeral instance to go flip the switch in the studio, make some spooky noises, then quit, all while #Root climbed up to join her down-tree instance on the couch, slouching against her side.

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Madison Rye Progress @makyo.ink · 18/09/2026

Once upon a time, there was not-a-king... × Idumea, a Post-Self story about the escape from suffering in a digital world and the effects of trauma on the functionally immortal, is half-off for Skunktember. itch.io/s/200343

Once upon a time there was–

“A king?” my little readers will immediately say.

No, children, you are mistaken. Once upon a time, there was a woman. She was not a fine woman, not a prize to adorn your arm or to set beside you at the head of a grand table, but a simple woman — the kind we pass on the street and imagine some plain home life for. She has a house, one might think. There are floors and walls and windows, there are tables and chairs and sofas and beds. There is a shower and a claw-footed bathtub. There is a creaky step — the eighth — that she always swears she will fix.

We must imagine such a woman happy. We must imagine that she has friends and that she goes and drinks okay wine or maybe strange cocktails with them at the most absurd bars. We must imagine that she comes home, wobbling slightly with each step, with some other simple woman on her arm. We must imagine them sharing their kisses, being happy together.

We must imagine these things because they are not true.

I do not know how it happened, but one cloudy day, she was asking after her friend most pure and then her mind was turned all in on itself, was wrapped and folded three times, turned, and then wrapped and folded thrice more. Some malicious baker kneaded and kneaded and kneaded, and when next she woke up, sixteen hours and twenty three minutes later, her mind remained in some unknown, integral way tied up into knots.

But that was three hundred years ago.

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Madison Rye Progress @makyo.ink · 07/09/2026

"Celebrate Labor Day by working!" is very much a sentiment of this modern age.

Notifications for GrubHub drivers, including "celebrate Labor Day Rush by hitting the road and earning more today"

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Madison Rye Progress @makyo.ink · 03/09/2026

"When I was Michelle, I was short and fat with...ah, with quite pale skin and curly black hair. On Lagrange, I have chosen to appear as an anthropomorphic skunk. Usually, I go for loose linen garb with a kerchief on my head." #QueerCharChat (Art @lunegrimm.bsky.social )

An illustration in the style of an illuminated medieval manuscript showing an anthro skunk writing

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Madison Rye Progress @makyo.ink · 20/08/2026

I fair okay, mostly. I die frequently. Sometimes, ghosts call me and my girlfriend "stupid sesbians".

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Madison Rye Progress @makyo.ink · 19/08/2026

First is the original email, which is...honestly mostly gibberish. If you get an email with anything similar (I also got an Around The World in 80 Books version), it's the same scam. And second/third is my reply that led to this kerfuffle.

Hi Madison,

I'm Linda Johnson, and I partner with Around the Year in 52 Books, a community of readers working through a themed reading challenge together from January through December.

I came across Qoheleth, and the premise of identity split across several instances of RJ losing emself inside a virtual world and having to find his way back out, with the consequences still rippling nearly a century later is a genuinely distinct take on post-self science fiction. Most books in this space ask what happens if you lose yourself; yours asks what happens generations after someone actually did, which is a much harder and more interesting question.

I'd love to feature Qoheleth in our current reading challenge. A few reasons it's a strong fit:

- Our science fiction readers looking for ambitious, identity-driven speculative work are exactly the audience this book was written for
- Featured books get surfaced directly in our science fiction discussions, putting it in front of readers already searching for exactly this
- It gives the book sustained visibility through the challenge rather than a single day's spike

Would you like to have Qoheleth featured in our reading challenge?

Warmly,
Linda Johnson
Around the Year in 52 Books

You know what sucks, Linda?

I started the process of writing Qoheleth back in 2016. During a conversation with some friends, I had this idea for a world of uploaded minds and the ability to fork into separate instances and then later on, merge back down into what one had been before, keeping all the memories along the way. At the time, I was deeply embedded in software engineering as a career, using version control systems like Git and Mercurial which allow for one to fork a project, work on it, and then merge the changes back in. I thought it was a cute little idea, but the friends I was talking with were quite excited by it. I figured, on a whim, that I'd switch gears from the contemporary queer fiction I had been writing and tackle it.

Contemporary to this, I had been working on a twist on the idea of isekai fiction, which always seems to dump the protagonist into a fully populated world, where they must learn the social and mechanical rules of this new universe. I wanted to write about what it would be like to be dumped into a world devoid of any rules, mechanical or social, and see what that would do to a mind.

I wound up combining these two ideas under the broad umbrella of a project I called Qoheleth, which was set under the broader umbrella of an open, shared setting called Post-Self. It was the first long-form entry in a massive project involving many writers.

Linda, my dear, I cannot tell you how excited this made me. I had something that provided the restrictions I needed to allow creativity to bloom! I tell my students that one of the best ways to spur creativity on is to introduce restrictions. These can be artificial restrictions to one's writing process, sure, but this is also the goal of world-building. And here! I was doing it!

Now, Linda, a decade later, and Post-Self has grown to include eight novels and a short story anthology, plus fan art from a thriving, but small community. Every now and then, I will search for Post-Self on Bluesky and see that new people do still find the book and find themselves taken by it.

Linda, this is incredibly gratifying. I love seeing new people find my books, love to hear their reactions, to know that I have touched them in some way.

Over the last few months, however, I have received a slew of unsolicited emails and spam on Bluesky from people who have very clearly not read the book and yet who nevertheless promise that they can help get it in front of readers. I'll give you credit that you passed one honeypot, which is that you gendered RJ correctly, but your second paragraph sits just shy of gibberish, with tortured metaphors that make me suspect an LLM was involved.

I'm so tired, Linda. I'm tired of not being able to trust. And, Linda, that's what sucks.

So, here's the deal:

Perhaps you're honest. Earnest, even! You would actually love to feature Qoheleth for this book-club without a searchable web presence. Perhaps you are a real person and not someone trying to bilk indie authors out of a few bucks. If that's the case, I trust you'll forgive my exhaustion, and will get back to me with an apology for the fact that you clearly didn't actually read the book, or perhaps you just skimmed it. You tell me what species Sasha is, and perhaps I'll believe you. If this is the case, I'll listen to your pitch.

My guess, though, is that you're doing just as I said, trying to bilk indie authors out of a few bucks with a promise of exposure. Your garbled summary of Qoheleth, the way you bold the title instead of italicize it, the fact that you emailed the Cóyotl Awards email address instead of my writing email...it's not looking good.

Linda, you're not bilking, are you? I will be so disappointed in you, if so.

Respectfully,

Madison

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Madison Rye Progress @makyo.ink · 19/08/2026

I'll out myself as the recipient to add that this 'Paul' business is them responding to me with the wrong form letter after I sent them a fairly heartfelt reply (which I'll share shortly) to their initial offering.

Madison: who the fuck is paul

Linda: IT a mistake please it is one of my client
.

Madison: I'm so disappointed in you

Linda: Sorry
.

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Madison Rye Progress @makyo.ink · 17/08/2026

There, I did it. 70% of the way through Kaddish and I finally snuck in some Dickinson. (Fixed alt text, whoops)

But I look back at my words in this project and I see the words of someone who is using this as a shield to keep from processing the very real anger that I felt, the very real pain. I see the way I fuss about Rav riding the line between condescension and genuine kindness. I see the way I describe her as looking down at me piteously as someone who cannot handle the world, then turn around and describe her as being unable to handle the world.

I hate that.

I hate those things that I did, those things I said, those things I kept myself from saying.

A deed knocks first at thought, I have cautioned myself, leaning on words from some old play from our youth. And then it knocks at will. It then goes out an act, or is entombed so still that only to the ear of God its doom is audible.

How many such deeds are thus entombed? Truly, HaShem has heard them all.

And yet.

And yet, I am proud of Yom HaShichzur, and I see also my slow re-opening of myself to those around me in these pages, and so I cannot say that there is some simple “yes” in answer to the question of whether or not I hate myself. I hate these things about myself, and I still like myself. I like that I am and that I can become more than just those things.

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Madison Rye Progress @makyo.ink · 06/08/2026

8. What is the first book I remember reading myself:

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Madison Rye Progress @makyo.ink · 02/08/2026

Never mind the crows, here is Jujube instead.

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Madison Rye Progress @makyo.ink · 24/07/2026

Photographer challenge: post a photo you're extremely proud of. It's silly, and probably something only I like, but I just love the textures and dynamic range I got on this. Was like...4:45AM with juuust barely enough light.

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Madison Rye Progress @makyo.ink · 23/07/2026

The bottom row is mostly cropped because it is personal, but the one I can show is this lovely bit of art from @roxannarachnid.bsky.social featuring What Right Have I and @bojanaharrow.bsky.social who is *so pretty*.

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Madison Rye Progress @makyo.ink · 17/07/2026

You should be able to cover your face with your tail to block out the light at nap time, tbh

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Madison Rye Progress @makyo.ink · 17/07/2026

the creature is relatively low on gorm, but sure does like eggs

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