Quincunx

Style. . .I like this quite a bit. I am not having trouble following along with what's flashbacks and what is current (I think). The only jarring element, to me, are the long unbroken stretches of banter. While you did take care to not label it he-said she-said, it could be further broken up visually with sometimes placing those before the quotations and sometimes not identifying the speaker of a line, once the order of bantering has been established.

That's a William Blake illustration in the background? Awesome new sig whether or not it's true!

"Don't you think we should defrost Wyvern?" Rydia frets. "He's been frozen there for days!" The quincunx's other heads bob up like meerkats, stare, then return to playing with and/or drinking the chocolate topping meant to be poured ONCE over a frozen dessert, then eaten. The lifesize statue of the Grim Squeaker is shaping up quite nicely, although we have Tzimfemme to blame for it being hollow.

I don't know the personae of most of the people who have signed up. . .Learning exercise! I'm in. Tzimfemme's single and ceaseless rant, check; Tables of earmoticons* for Rydia, check; Minta's notes on the effects of various sugars on undeads, check; Most current interpretation of the ravings of Rosemary, check; all made available for the person who draws my name from the hat. * \o_o/ is an earmoticon; note the pointy ears.

I learned that names were murder and that friends were more than blind, That justice of the civilized was lost upon your kind. So I arrayed the arms of self about you, charged to learn The foul primeval magic that would force a tongue to burn. And then the center of the cross, with words like hammers, spoke Your name, which named a patron saint of ferrymen. You choke. You windmill arms around the room, you stare; you're left alone. You'll be relieved of sodden lungs when cleaved upon the stone.

(ooc: what are anthro/furries?) (See explained it here already - Peredhil)

As an incurable doodler and one who's always making up new fonts, I keep a variety of pens around my person: one black ball-point pen with a wide line (currently a Pilot pen), one fine-line pen of unconventional color, preferably ball-point (currently fiber-tip, Zig Millenium in dark purple), one random purchase (currenly a sparkly green with ink so watery I use it as a marker), and one pencil as sharp as possible. The paper, on the other hand, is always the back of a receipt; the notebook is strictly for useful notes. Letters I write VERY rarely and on whatever gift-set of stationery someone gave me a few years previously.

Wyvern's "The Epheremal" was his first extended story without ever naming the protagonists, also--I'll try to flag him down and share any insight he'd gleaned. I used to use every single synonym I could think of, but that usually left the reader lost after the fourth one or so. Maybe keeping to only three would have been easier on the eye.

The only rough spot is a slightly repetitive feel to the pairs of adjective-noun. A few of adjectives could be perhaps moved within the sentences or cropped away. As a swift snapshot of a scene, it's excellent--no flaws in plot or characterization.

ooc: Thirst is a hunger, also. . .the kender is wise.

Extra Large Sicilian pizza. . .$22. . .add $6 for every topping conceivable. . .return to apartment with a pizza that probably would not fit in a Volkswagon Beetle, and possibly the inspiration of "A Pizza the Size of the Sun". . .yes, I read children's poetry I'm making a pizza the size of the sun, a pizza that's sure to weigh more than a ton, a pizza too massive to pick up and toss, a pizza resplendent with oceans of sauce. I'm topping my pizza with mountains of cheese, with acres of peppers, pimentos, and peas, with mushrooms, tomatoes, and sausage galore, with every last olive they had at the store. My pizza is sure to be one of a kind, my pizza will leave other pizzas behind, my pizza will be a delectable treat that all who love pizza are welcome to eat. The oven is hot, I believe it will take a year and a half for my pizza to bake. I hardly can wait till my pizza is done, my wonderful pizza the size of the sun. --Jack Prelutsky

Please STOP HITTING 'REPORT POST TO A MODERATOR'. I KNOW this doesn't belong here, and I'm removing it after twelve hours as we do not have a board for otakus to gripe to one another (this is, at heart, a writing board and a refuge from the mundane), but that does no good if you all never even see the notice, so read the notice and please cease hitting the button! --Tzimfemme the exasperated

Um, did you want this consolidated with the movie thread, so we can maybe get that one onto insight as well?

Pearl between the sand and surf they quiver Scallop shells that strain on end, obedient to whims of water Not shut, though they pretend to be, strained through by thinking of her. there are a million grains of sand Streaming past into the bay and they the grit that makes the water Scar the shells that wait and pray that there's a way this world is kinder. but what of grit that's swept inside Sheltering within the shell that's hid away from whispers, water Thrashes outside like a bell yet does not wake the grain; it's calmer. she settles down to rest in velvet Nacreous and softly breathing and from demands of soulless water She is safe, shell's love receiving, glowing, lets the shell transform her.

Satyrs I tried the parties, music, booze, and drugs And sweaty bodies snared in pheronomes. I tried the sex, oh how I tried the sex! You're getting poetic, must be really bad. Don't tell me, let me guess. You tried to remember someone's special info and forgot. A couple of times. They got hung up on me. People and their hangups. So now what do we do? Run like hell? Works for me. Satyrs run eternally.

No, alarm clocks are like bugs--some people smash 'em, some people aren't annoyed by 'em, yet they seem to be everywhere.

A flash of insight! Somehow the browsers are preserving knowledge of what font the message was originally written in (and the assorted Mysterious HTML Formatting Doohickeys), if not the one provided by EZboard; if our computer knows the font, it displays properly--if not, it doesn't. Salinye's copy-pastes in Times New Roman look fine to me but the Verdana do not--guess which font I have installed?

"Her"? (Tzimfemme squints at the chibi-Vincent avatar, trying to remember which board she'd seen that one upon. . .all the shounen-ai starts to blend together after time and distance.) Wyvern! No sparklies and no gasp equals no female!

Another poem of yours where the end rises a scorpion's tail, but I think I'm reading into it more personally. I would love to see you unleashed from that couplet rhyme scheme as it's the only part that ever feels contrived--maybe step next to the sonnet, which builds around four lines and ends with a couplet as you do so well? --Tzimfemme, the naked mage

Trying typing this in Word 97, in Courier New Apostrophes' are easy to please, Quotations say "oh nonono". . . Punctuation quite demanding Never leaving the same selves standing. Drat. This font also has a symbol for quotation-marks distinct from the symbol for apostrophes.

"What is this tripe?" Tzimfemme said, crinkling her nose at the forkful of vegetables. "I was going to cook the lamb, but Minta zombified it, and have you ever tried to eat zombie flesh?" Rydia waggled a wooden spoon at Minta and Tzimfemme, who looked equally appalled at their servings. Tzimfemme pushed her plate aside and picked up the shard again, then stuck the point into the table and gouged out a few splinters. "I can't remember the damned particulars," she muttered. "All I'm sure of is that I feel bloody violated. Not just 'someone interrupted my sleep cycle' either, though I'd like to see the idiot who thinks they can present me with a reflective surface first thing in the morning." "Actually it was almost afternoon," whispered Rydia, and Tzimfemme clicked the shard flat upon the table in lieu of a smile. Abandoning her plate, Minta squatted and leaped off of her chair, crawled under the table a few times, then clambered up the ladder-back of Tzimfemme's chair. "This mirror is broken. Look-look. Is fine with the reflections of the veggies but me an' you look the same." She pointed down from Tzimfemme's shoulder and showed the truth of it. The single reflection was mostly Tzimfemme, but there was something of Minta in the rapid motions of the figure. "So this is the game, is it!" Everyone cowered away from Tzimfemme's sudden berserker snarl, and Rydia twisted her side trying to dodge the shard which the naked mage snapped through the air. The fracture of fantasy and reality flashed between worlds until Rosemary, who'd thrust out her own mirror like an evil-eye charm to shield her from the rage, shattered it with that motion. Splinters of souls carved deeper tracks into the filligree already on the silver mirror's edge, and Rosemary fell into a rapture as she studied the enhanced patterns. Voice flat with rage, Tzimfemme scowled, "This must not be allowed to go unpunished--oh hell, I still don't remember what happened, but anything so bad as to crack open reality--ugh! Is there no place immune?!" She shivered, and challenged everyone's eyes. Minta nodded, baffled, and didn't contribute. Rydia's eyes strayed to Rosemary, whose gaze broke away from her reflection and pinned Rydia. "Eight," she snapped. "Barely involved, barely revolving! but they follow simply to sing, they are. . ." Rosemary faltered, then stopped with a dull glare. "They are equidistant. Neutral." She took out the heavily scratched mirror and pointed out the fresh outermost inscription, almost a circle as compared to the frenzy of spirals further in. "They are as far as it is possible to be." Rydia picked out the only useful phrase. "Who sings?" she asked the table. "Woods, or he attempts to. Joat does legitimately. Possibly some other bards. . .BARDS! Who are those people who are scooping up the bards? The Pen is Mightier than the Sword, right?" Tzimfemme whacked the table in triumph, then screwed up her face in pain as splinters sliced into her palm. "I remember now. Peredhil and Jechum cruising like genteel piranha, keeping everything proper--not like this. Being around them certainly can't hurt. Let's go." Minta squeaked as Tzimfemme picked her up under one arm, looking to the vampire for guidance. Rosemary held her mirror level to the ground and performed calculations with an arrowhead pendulum and a hand abacus, then exited the room walking swiftly. Tzimfemme and Rydia quieted Minta by each placing a hand over her mouth, then threaded after Rosemary. Words came back from the darkness: "I don't like it any more than you do, but it is not surrender. Neither forgetting nor forgiveness, just. . .time. We need time.". . . . . . .She stood in the opening doorway and glittered, expecting everyone's attention, and unfazed by the lack of inhabitants. Her overskirts and mantle glowed sunshine yellow, embroidered with constellations of glittering silver beads, and reflected the light painfully. Beneath that, the tunic was navy blue like a midnight sky, and her skin was deathly pale, suffocated lilac-pink on the lips. Beneath that, her eyes glazed and her mind celebrated the onslaught. The eyes blossomed from brown to gold as she rebuked someone intangible, then darkened again. With the darkening, she faded, leaving the shell as a four-foot-tall blonde woman who'd barely passed adolescence. With that mood broken, another one catapulted into the room, rebounding off of the walls twice before clinging to the top file of a filing cabinet and flipping herself upward into it. The little girl sported short, wavy-curly indigo hair and matching eyes in a round face. Durable child's research robes crafted out of zombified leather covered her from neck to toe. Stumpy fingers searched at least a dozen pockets before finding a slimy crayon of compressed zombie meat. Slurping absently on a strawberry pixystix, she tossed documents willy-nilly out of the filing cabinet, mumbling, "nope. . .nuh-uh. . .not this one. . .it's gotta be here someplace. . ." Yet another peeked in the doorway, then slipped inside, side-stepping flying pages. She was the tallest one by far, though not quite of average height, even with her mane of green hair flipped up and to one side. Sparkly makeup made her glitter, green eyes danced, light green sundress barely clung to her slender body. In her confusion, she tapped a little whip against the toe of her knee-high boots as she looked around the room. "Wyvern? . . ." she read off of a name-plate on the desk, then shrugged delicate archangel's wings. Sidestepping past the first one, she settled into one of the chairs, crossed her legs at the knee, took out a pouch of extra-shiny jacks and glittery bouncy ball, and settled in to play. "Don't make me pull rank on you, Wyv," announced the last one as she swept the first aside and entered, stark naked. She could have been a Minoan painting brought to life, with long brown hair braided into the proper style and an expression willing to vault over whatever bull got in the way. One set of knuckles rested on her hip, supporting a flail with a dagger-edged head, while her brown eyes scanned the room. Finding nothing new, she flicked the bell atop the desk with her index finger--ting!--while scooping up a pen from the blotter. The child handed down some papers, and the naked one slapped them down on the desk and stood, filling in the forms.

I am abusive and something about that statement just doesn't wash. If (in the poster's view) someone needed knocking about that badly he'd have done it himself--else intervened, for a show of superiority. And then to slink around on a bulletin board and post about being too weak to act, and have to defend yourself against Rune, one of the most accommodating personalities I know*-- this person isn't worth anyone's time. Well, one person's perhaps but I promised myself not to go down that path. [*Edit: I know that you would NOT be accommodating on this issue, but as I see it you generally are.]

(Inspired by a fictional email that cropped up in my box today, and remembering when the author and I were the most horrible little feminists to ever shove a boy out of the lunch line.) Pass it round! Shout it out! She's the worst, she's a lout! And when she said it she smiled! We disown her! Deny her! We do not retry her! We're supposed to be wicked and wild! Shamelessness! Treachery! Filth and debauchery! Sylvia's having a child.

Animal crackers ALL OVER the only clean sheets in the house--she'd rumpled them up too, thrown them down on the floor--but when I scrunched up my face to scold her, suddenly the entire zoo was plain to see. I wanted to remember my best friend, the one who taught me that neither time nor appearance could dim a woman's mind, but was thwarted by her distorted and sluggish body and that other reminder clinging to her shapeless jumper. It's raining. Ants scurry to repair their collapsing anthill. The ants can't tell that each drop is salty. They don't care that their tunnels are ruined by the tears of a procession which bears their dead king on its shoulders.

The poem wavers and falls in imagery and meter during the last line of the next-to-last stanza (perhaps "And loving is gone from the stream?"--imagery still weak but the intended meter) and never recovers. If I touch the last stanza now, I'll impose too much of myself upon it--won't suggest anything.