Read this now: Thou Goddess, by horizon · 7:25am Mar 3rd, 2014
I need to go to sleep, not blog, but this story came out 3 hours ago, and it's brilliant, beautifully written, and tells a wonderful (and Safe for Ghost (TM)) story that just about everyone will enjoy.
Poetry is key to the plot, and there are a lot of poems, but they're pretty good, and they mostly scan well. You might need to keep consulting Wikipedia like I did to get some of the implications made through choice of poetic form, though horizon explains it when it's important.
But the story would be great even without all that erudition. This is a 5000-word story that has 5 major plot points, yet it isn't rushed. This one is going in my user-page top-ten list.
Oh, plot, tags... It's a romance. It involves Luna. I predict it will earn its author a beautiful Luna figurine, even knowing that Skywriter also entered that contest. I no longer feel bad that my Luna story was too short to qualify. This one deserves all the figurines. (I haven't read Skywriter's yet, so it is possible I'll revise that opinion. But unlikely.)
Folks, this is the best thing I've read in a long time. Can we get it in the featured box? Pretty-please? It isn't even on the Popular Stories list!
If I don't earn a Luna figurine, this is going to be one hell of a consolation prize. Thank you for the glowing review! My Wall of Egoboo needs updating …
(And, yeah, a twinge disappointed that it fell off the front page without much more than a whimper, but not surprised. My story description is crap — I had no idea what I could say that wouldn't ruin the secondary climaxes — and stories-with-poetry-in don't do well numerically. I figured this one would be writing for the contest rather than the masses; I've got Hard Reset 2's 1100 followers to console me if this had vanished down the memory hole.)
> You might need to keep consulting Wikipedia like I did to get some of the implications made through choice of poetic form, though horizon explains it when it's important.
I figured the ones that weren't immediately plot-relevant would just be easter eggs for folks like Augie who I knew would know them, though it tickles me that someone bothered to look them up! I'll try to annotate the poetry in some greater detail once the competition is over and I post my author's notes.
Ugh. it's so good, I can't even handle it.
Oh, and also:
> I just can't decided whether to file it under "sweet" or "savory".
I knooooooooooow! This story is so perfectly on that knife's-edge I can't even figure out whether I should add a Sad (or maybe Tragedy?) tag or not. (What's stopping me is the fact that that's a spoiler; and it breaks my brain that the mere act of setting an almost-as-incorrect expectation can so easily disarm at least one of the pivotal moments.)
I think — and this is such a HUGE spoiler that I'm not even going to spoiler-tag it, I'm going to rot13 it — that it all boils down to jurgure lbh pbafvqre Yhan n znva punenpgre be jurgure fur'f va gur fhccbegvat pnfg.
Guvf vf nyfb jul V unq gb bhgevtug yvr va gur fgbel'f punenpgre gntf.
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I was going to say something nebulous like "thanks, I hope!" but then I noticed your comment on the story itself. So, a hearty and unambiguous thank you.
You'll like this one better than mine, I promise.
On "popular" as of now at the least!
Safe for Ghost? Ghost pre-read it!
Well part of it, anyway.
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I was going to write a long paean to it, but, honestly, I'll stick to what I said when I read the start of it: Your story is awesome and you should feel awesome.
Its beautifully sad, and sadly beautiful. It is wonderful. I love it to bits and only wish I could like it many, many times.
And it has Dotted Line in it! (I think I'll make it canon in the Serviceverse, too.)
I submitted a story for the contest just for the experience, knowing there would be better stories than mine. And because you urged your followers to send AugieDog stories about Luna
I just never expected something this good to also be competing
I rather crassly forgot to thank you for the recommendation--I'm glad I read this story, and I have you to thank for it! Well, you and horizon that is...