dorfs Wrote:A ribald poetic form intended to praise a lover, originating in The Laborious Sun. The poem is a single couplet. Use of assonance, consonance and vivid imagery is characteristic of the form. The second line of the couplet uses the same placement of allusions as the first line. The second line of the couplet presents a different view of the subject of the first line. The first line has six syllables. The second line has nine syllables.

all dorfs everywhere Wrote:A reflective poetic form intended to satirize the hunt, originating in The Circular Cloisters. The poem is eleven quatrains. Use of simile is characteristic of the form. Forms of parallelism are common throughout the poem, in that certain lines have similar grammatical structures and they sometimes have reversed word orders. Each line has ten syllables. The ending of every line of the poem rhymes with every other. The second line of each quatrain presents a different view of the subject of the first line. The second line of each quatrain must expand the idea of the first line.

dorfles Wrote:A poetic form intended to express grief over a chosen subject, originating in The Mists of Winding. The poem is a single couplet. It is always written from the perspective of a relative of the author. Use of metaphor is characteristic of the form. The second line of the couplet presents a different view of the subject of the first line. The first line concerns the past. It has five feet with a tone pattern of even-uneven-even. The second line concerns current events. It has four feet with a tone pattern of uneven-even-even.

dorfles Wrote:A poetic form intended to express grief over a chosen subject, originating in The Mists of Winding. The poem is a single couplet. It is always written from the perspective of a relative of the author. Use of metaphor is characteristic of the form. The second line of the couplet presents a different view of the subject of the first line. The first line concerns the past. It has five feet with a tone pattern of even-uneven-even. The second line concerns current events. It has four feet with a tone pattern of uneven-even-even.

Quote:It was a dark and stormy night… which is, unfortunately, an entirely clichéd way to begin a story. But let’s be honest with ourselves. The story doesn’t begin here. It doesn’t even end here. This is one of those stories that interpose themselves in between the inflation of the universe and whichever flavor of cosmological-constant-related universe-death you prefer. It was night on Antares, or at least it was on the half of the planet we’re concerned with right now, and there was a major supercell overhead, buoyed and fueled by the warm waters of the ocean, that had decided at that particular moment to absolutely piss down across the rising waves. So we’re telling it like it is; there was a night, and it was stormy.

Quote:Gatecrashers

Lithely, she leapt through an open set of French windows: an entrance to the majestic ducal gardens of House Engelhardt. The short drop from the window to the ground was dealt with by a quick, silent roll, then a motionless crouch for a span of seconds. There were no calls of alarm; good. Moving like quicksilver, Naomi Thiotimoline unfurled all 6’6” of her supple, lanky body, and faced the lights on the green below.

The glowing lights danced, like butterflies, amidst the laughing crowds. Amusements and exhibitions and midway games, purveyors of oddities and adrenaline-boosting rides, joy, and wonder, and confectionery - it was the fairest fair of them all. It usually moved from place to place, but the Engelhardts had recently paid out of pocket to reserve them for the last five months. If this display was any indication, the festival had turned the money directly into becoming, if anything, even more lavish. All of this was an ongoing celebration for the Engelhardt - de Valenois marriage that had got the galaxy aflutter.

“So this is the Neverending Festival,” Naomi whispered to herself, “We’re going to have fun, you and I.”

“Naomi!” The call broke her from her reverie. From the window she’d just leapt from, a much shorter figure waved.

“Coming, you little brat!” Her long legs easily made the distance to the wall; reaching up, she plucked Eira from her windowsill perch and set her down on the dewy grass. They looked out onto the lights for a moment, tails a-swish.

“Did you really have to jump out of the window?” Eira asked, wearing an uncharacteristically devilish grin. “People are going to think you’re one of the acrobats.”

There was a flurry of giggles. Naomi’s hand descended, ruffled the Thiotimoline heiress’ hair. “And they’re going to think you’re one of the freakshow exhibits, won’t they?”

“Yeah - ‘The Most Beautiful of the Katarran’!”

“Ha! Yeah, right.” The two of them began to descend the hill, down into the laughter and the lights. “Race you there!”

“H-hey! No fair!”

Quote:Universes are fundamentally soap bubbles: self-organizing peaks in the entropy of existence that form, grow, shrink, spread, and - eventually - die. They form in all sorts of ways: one could bud from another universe, or one could form, spontaneously, from the chaos. One could be imagined from nothing, or blown from stretchy film by some multiversal deity. Two or more could collide together and mix their traits into one, or annihilate each other completely, leaving only scraps to float in the Void left behind…

Bubbles have an inside and an outside, separated by a hermetic barrier at once infinitesimally thin and infinitely thick. An unsurpassable film, one that protects at each moment the inside world from the ravages of the outside. In many interpretations, the barrier is the bubble: remove it, or cause it to fail and the bubble ceases to exist.

Yet in an infinite multiverse, there must come a time where the inhabitants of a universe are not only capable of finding a way to pierce this veil, but do so, regularly, in order to perform the most banal of tasks. They push back against the barrier that holds back the horror of infinity. They poke holes in the film that defines their existence. They drain the infinite potential without in order to bolster the failing potential within, and most aggravatingly, they /survive/...

As it was with Galaxy Eridanus.

Quote:[22:39] <Agentimoline> "Evelyn, we shouldn't be seeing each other on Christmas Eve."
[22:39] <Agentimoline> "To hell with it, Peter! Just come over and give me some company."
[22:39] <Agentimoline> "But your husband... and your kids, won't they be home?"
[22:39] <Agentimoline> "I have the kids this christmas. Bill's on a business trip. It's been hell, trying to explain to the kids why Daddy won't be here this Christmas. I need a release, Peter, please!"
[22:39] <Agentimoline> "But the kids. Won't they tell your husband?"
[22:39] <Agentimoline> "Bill can go to hell. Look - look, just dress like Santa Claus, all right? And come by late at night, when the kids have gone to bed. If they see you I'll just tell them that Santa isn't real."
[22:39] <Agentimoline> "I hope you're doing the right thing, Evelyn."
[22:39] <Agentimoline> "What are they going to do, write a fucking song about it?"
[22:40] <Agentimoline> ^ my imagination when i hear "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus"
[22:41] <Celti> Your imagination is a fascinating place, Agen
[22:41] <Celti> And I do mean that as a sincere compliment

Quote:It came to the point where thoughts of suicide became banal, commonplace. “If I take a good running start,” I would think, “I can jump out that open window and clear the sill. But,” I would continue, “We’re not high up enough, and I wouldn’t die. Just be paralyzed or horribly mangled, and life would be even harder than it is now.”

Quote:Hateful, one struggles
against chains and other bonds:
The rules of the game.

Enter, those who game
for rebellion's struggles -
unbound within bonds.

Last of all, one's bonds
least leave a scar of the game
yet pleasure struggles.

One struggles against the bonds of the game.

Quote:“The key thing… the key thing in any enterprise is… is… Graeme, what word am I thinking of?”

“What? Did you say something, Graham?”


“What word am I thinking of, Graeme?”

“How would I bloody know?”

“I was saying, the key thing in any enterprise is… what?”


“In what context?”

“I was just telling this lady here about all the news Worlds Weekly has to distribute, and…”

“Communication?”


“What?”

“Communication. The key thing in any enterprise.”

“Oh. Was that what I was thinking of?”


“How would I /bloody/ know?!”

“Well, let’s go with that. The key thing in any enterprise… oh, she’s gone.”

“Well.”

“I think that went pretty well.”

“I will /never/ understand you, Graham.”