Quincunx

What Ayshela said, summed up in the single word "propaganda". . .I have got to learn to expound as she does if I'm ever going to have an essay not cited for a) being too short not explaining my points sufficiently. (Tzimfemme takes out a paper and pen and starts taking notes, which are, alas, also single words.) [EDIT: On reflection, I have a moral question. Do I take the "don't let the doorknob hit ya where the good lord split ya" stance, which gives ntraveler see-I-told-you-so points, or do I adopt the gentler, weaker, we were trying to do that anyway and it didn't work, "we'll welcome you back when the acid has had time to rest" opinion?] [EDIT #2: You have to re-set emoticon preferences when you edit if you had changed them in the original post.]

Have you ever chosen between saving a story and saving a person? Have you ever chosen the story? Have you ever chosen?

The undershirted human came to groggily, supine and face-to-face with the unmidgeted machine. He removed the wallet from the salesmachine's suit pocket, removed a crisp bill, and stepped out onto his curb while holding the bill out to the street. Shortly a bus veered out of the inmost lane, nearly broadsiding three eared black coupes, and pulled up short by the human. The bus door creaked open. "I know whut ya wanna say, but buses is all we got," smiled the driver, and the undershirted human left his mouth open. Instead he gawked at the familiar man, with his little "DRIVER" visor, government-issue sunshades, and the extra ace inserted into the cuff of his sleeve in plain view. "YOU CHEATED!" roared the man on the curb. "Yes, I did. But if ya win, the bus is free," and the driver hooked his thumbs onto the steering wheel, spread his fingers, and fanned out the cards in two arcs which cut through the solid wheel and whirred with menace. The man on the curb went paler than his attire and gasped, "N-n-no shirts no s-s-service," before fleeing back to his curb, treading on a patch of slime, slipping, and landing with terrific force upon the vacuum cleaner. As the bus door whooshed shut and the bus pulled away--WITH his money--the man's glare fell upon the bagless upright. He tugged it roughly inside by the handle, slammed the front door, and laid the vacuum cleaner out speculatively on the carpet. The NEXT time he saw that man, he'd give him what-for, but first he needed to be caught. Great Granny Hestia (ashes to ashes, dust to dust, finally shut up, you must) apparently couldn't write a demon summoning circle that worked, but maybe the chapter on flying could be modified for modern appliances.

Alright, fair enough, I'll add the only anecdotal evidence I have--an article in an online, Great Britain-based newspaper about a "Free IPod" offer resulting in enormous backlogs (>60,000 desired vs. 10,000 supply). That had run as an advertisment in a newspaper, clip the coupon and send it in, most unlike your proposal.

(Minta drags a footstool over the list, hops up on the stool, reads over the list. . . .She giggles and summons a zombie over to her, which seems to drag its feet more than usual. One stomp and forceful downward pointing, and it shambles over in double time, already peeling the skin off of one finger for Minta to use as a crayon. . .) 1. Gnarlitch 2. Rahsash Geldich 3. oozing ochre 4. Astralis 5. a big floppy hat with glow in the dark skellies on it 6. fashionable 7. skellie tamer 8. totally 9. zombie slobber 10. slimed 11. sugary 12. candies 13. more sugary 14. even more sugary 15. Nim™ plushie 16. fuzzily 17. snorfled 18. giant 19. TAG! (you're IT!) 20. pixystix! (The answer to #14 begins to ooze down the wall as Minta skips away. . .)

Falcon, you've been here for awhile, really you should know better, now root those linkies out of your post! --Tzimfemme, the naked Feeling clement enough not to nuke the post entirely. Or lazy.

I'm envisioning a slice of warm apple pie with vanilla sauce. Does it count as a vision if you baked and ate the pie yourself? \o_-/ --Rydia

Ohhhhhh. Is that what I'm doing wrong \o_o? (Rydia looks strangely at the very non-working replica of BabyBot, earshrugs, and schedules a trip to the toy store instead of the electronic hobby store. . .)

Have you ever laughed for half an hour, hysterically, non-stop and without benefit of caffeine? Have you ever gotten a night's sleep on a skeeball ramp? Have you ever worked with your friends for half an hour to create a whirlpool in their pool just to enjoy ninety seconds of swirling in the current? Have you ever bridged the language barrier with earspeak? (Taru speak ear, too, even with their tiny round nubbin ears.) Have you even been part of a functional anarchy?

(Rydia, in blazing dayglo green micro-mini-dress and designs painted on her bare bits, dances in a cage. Small doors fly open from the wall behind her as Tzimfemme, Dr. Tzimfemmestien, and Minta's current pet lich open them, argue, and close them.)

(Rydia, in her most dreamy saccharine bubble-brained voice and expression) What's a bippy?

Forget that. I want Thordain's Clue by Four and/or permanent rental of Knight's AARKaSL (Automatic Alternating Repeating Kendricke and Scorn Launcher). I do NOT want the DEP back. EVER.

Have you ever. . .and how! Have you ever played football with one of your friends being the football? Have you ever made your own ink? . . .and then wrote with it. . . . . .on your clothes? Have you ever shouted "whee" whenever an airplane flies through turbulence? Have you ever been SHINY!

Rydia takes the cold medicine away from Salinye and puts it in the Nooooo More of This for YOU! bag, along with Valdar's caffeinated peppermints and as many of Minta's pixystix as she could find.

Maybe it's some variant of Australian Ebonics. I have no way of knowing. And "Squidgee" was misspelled. Y'know, squidgee-mop? [EDIT: Google "Squidgee" and get forum usernames, window sealants, and a "Squidgee Willie" toy better left to the imagination. No mops.]

*takes the caffeinated peppermints away from Valdar* The oddest thing is, I could almost swear I've heard that slang elsewhere. Damned if I can remember where.

And Twinkies stuck to inaccessible bits of wall. After five years.

So young to know the dirt this world can drum up, most of it now smeared on all her skin, and ribbon flowers stuffed with sandwich crumbs, a buttered nose, and milk upon her chin. The jelly-flesh, confined by denim jeans, is tensed like water droplets at the waist, low waist, high shirt, and trembling between, the water ripples--will you have a taste? Eight wrinkles chopped where smiles used to be, the bust is waisted, hair has gone to seed and floated off, one artificial knee, and fingers stained from pulling every weed. Photographers walked past in hot pursuit of perfect girls; their senses weren't acute.

Boaz - thank you, I don't remember ever seeing a better metaphor for why we would have free will. I had delved back into my collection of Hawthorne short stories and been troubled by the mention of the blessings. Benedictions are so _rare_ in this, my irreligous life, and yet they might be so useful. . .

I do remember seeing water gleaming as molten gold in the late morning, two hours after sunrise. . .inlets and bays burning my retinas, fingers of fire lying between dead grey stones worn and creased--if the hand of god ever pressed into clay, it was there. . .

grins at the vivisection Truly there is no mercy in compassion. Presented with two tones of the same religion, I'll go unerringly for the more mystical one; a workable set of social rules was never something with which I was adept. I don't have a religion, haven't felt the lack of religion, know that I would be a mystic, and suspect I'll end up subscribed to a non-intrusive state religion to give my children something (unimportant to my lessons) to rebel against. [Edit: And I've given up on classifying anything by its genitalia, since most of the qualities I have labeled Uniquely Human don't have anything to do with them. Ex-feminist, ex-misogynist.]

Salinye 70, Xaious 60, cryptomancer 20 (Behold the power of guessing!), Ayshela 68 (weighted scores. Odd), Alaeha 50, Zadown 60 (embarrassing), Merelas 60, Finnius 43 (sheesh, did I even PLAY Archmage?), Celes Crusader 70(Cambronne/Carbone 80), Zariah 20, Katzaniel 24, jonathan wolfe 39, Izabella 0, Gyrfalcon 100, TBPO 50, Peredhil 60 (Better clarify that last question but I'm assuming 'bard'), end of page one and my mind is wandering.

Rosemary matches with the Dreamer (it's not easy being all-important) MintaMintaMintaMintaMintaMinta! (pick-up stix an' pixystix!) Rydia matches with Salinye (ears, check; shinies, check!) Tzimfemme matches with Ozymandias ("..but he changed it to Michelangelo when the publishers got nervous")

It's odd, but floating in the middle of that field of white chocolate flecks, I could have sworn I saw a floating cherry and several marshmallowy ghosty thingys.

Rydia grins evilly. "I have only one thing to say: Dora dull and not so nice--" She's interrupted by a horde of banquetteers fleeing the Pen, hands over their ears and screaming to block out the noise.