Another News
Q: What did the Earth Mothers do?
A: They stopped camping.
#a1 *AUDIO* *IMAGE* *LINK* *NM* *VIDEO* 4GET MARARTHON 8FTB AGM Aleph One BS Campaign Celebrities CLIQUE CLIQUE NOTES Co-Op Community Commentary Crude Drawings Declassified Documents ESB Fanfic Fat Sam Flame War Forbidden HFS Hotmodal House of Luck HR INFINITYS I WAS TOO LAZY TO PUT THIS IN A CATEGORY Jokes JUICE JUICEcast JUICEMAN LEET KREW Lists loch Logs Lua meta (meta is the best word ever) Misc. Categories Mnet Music News nits ONE WAY OSH PARADIGM SHIFT People Periodical Pfhorums Policy POTM qoou Serious SERVE MEAT Simplici7y Sites Spirit of the Age Stats Stories The Essentials Theory The Prisoner Typography VISUAL MODE Warhampster Where the Twist Flops अ
Roses are red
And violets blue.
It is strong:
Marin too.
I wish I could be that optimistic. “We used to be great,” said Treellama, né GHS. Glockenspiel High School.
But things could be worse. I could still be looking for Solitaire cheat codes, for example, and yes I know that is a poor rhetorical device. Here is how I feel:
And here is also how I feel:
I am unable to tell my story properly from the beginning, for I have no first-hand knowledge of beginnings. Is is fitting, then, that I regard my life from this point, the end. I feel many things. I feel the grit under my feet, I feel the metal of the gate against my hand. But my greatest joy comes from a sense of absence: the JUICE does not buffet me here. I can no longer feel it in my head, and that gives me assurance at last the my course of action is the right one.
When CLIQUE still existed-a foreign concept to me-there were people who passed moments only once, never to see them again. Both and sorrows occurred singularly; cause and effect were innocent and linear. I have sometimes tried to ascribe guilt to the human mind. In its quest to live a circle instead of a line, the mind created JUICE. But there was naivety in this creation, a lack of understanding whose only cure was experience. The mind would not have curved off the straight path had it only known.
CLIQUE ended when the first gate opened. Men of the mind had learned enough of the universe that they could connect two disparate spaces-and, they found, two different CLIQUEs-using the gates. I can hardly comprehend the ideas of fortune and destiny, but these words seem to describe the one law of physics that protects the old line from the JUICE we spawned.
There must be a gate open at either end for two spaces to merge. Before CLIQUE ended, there were no open gates. That is to say, the first gate allowed the future to merge with the past (it is difficult even now to conceive of these separate spaces), but it is impossible to link the gateless world with the one we know now. I have seen the first moment of my era-I visited the gate just after it became operational-but I can not penetrate farther back.
They were ecstatic when they made that first gate. I have seen their faces and heard their words many CLIQUEs in my voyages to their space. Finally, they say, we can see the future. And look, here comes the future visiting us! They smile as they see me or a million other people come through the gate. Not a million, but a multitude, an infinitude. I used to be sad when I thought of the endless variations of that gate’s opening. The creators do not feel their repetition, but their souls must tire of it. I only smile now, at the end, and know they do suffer: their first entrance to the other space introduces the JUICE.
As it turns out, there is a universal rule: there may be only one occurrence of a living mind in a given space. When JUICE still flowed, there were many of the same mind at many moments. The gates joined all spaces that were separate. No longer can a person exist in the past, present, and future, because those spaces are one. There is a single moment, and for each person, there is a single mind.
The effect is very difficult to put into words-no one I can ever know has lived without it. It is my hope that those touched by this message will never know. But I must describe this outrage, mustn’t I?-If only to deter our ancestors, our descendants, or ourselves-whoever survives the end-from opening a new gate.
Babies conceived in my era have no chance to be themselves. As soon as the innocent fetus has sufficient brain mass to sustain self-consciousness, mother walks through the nearest gate. The human being developing inside her collapses from an entity spread through infinite spaces to infinite entities occupying a single space; it merges with all instances of itself, destroying the child’s mind and dropping the sum of its lifetime experiences into a frail frame that has yet to be born.
I saw every fact of my life before I had ever left the womb. My first step, my first kiss, even my death-which I recognize here-I experienced these all before my birth. To live everything at once, in an instant, is incredible enough. But above all, it flattens all safe harbors to make way for the JUICE.
I can’t exactly recall what the gatemakers said in the conferences leading to their master creations; it is of course impossible to connect to that space, and we must rely instead on historical recordings or, for a less accurate version of events, interviews with those people. Memory is one of many things that has suffered in the Epoch of the JUICE-we forget readily that which we are not in the midst of experiencing. Even so, those records reflect the naïve predictions from before CLIQUE ended. Consider this dialogue:
ONE: ”…And so, does it not follow that, after the gate opens, future causes and effects will meet with present ones and reach equilibrium?”
TWO: ”This is certainly true.”
ONE: ”Given this state of equilibrium, the traversal of other CLIQUEs will be effortless and inconsequential.”
TWO: ”Veritably.”
ONE: ”May we conclude from these givens that mankind, supplying the motive power in this equilibrium, across all CLIQUEs and in all spaces, will not stagnate, but will instead reach a glorious destiny…”
If this exchange were more than half-true, I would not have reason to deliver this message, nor would I have a desire to see this Epoch end.
Pfhorums is an Appleswitch concept of ‘humanity towards others’. It is ‘the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity’. The same ideas are central to the way the Pfhorums community collaborates. Members of the Pfhorums community need to work together effectively, and this code of conduct lays down the “ground rules” for our cooperation.
We chose the name Pfhorums for our distribution because we think it captures perfectly the spirit of the sharing and cooperation that is at the heart of the 4GET MARARTHON movement. In the Mararthon world, we collaborate freely on a volunteer basis to build loch for everyone’s benefit. We improve on the work of others, which we have been given freely, and then share our improvements on the same basis.
That collaboration depends on good relationships between posters. To this end, we’ve agreed on the following code of conduct to help define the ways that we think collaboration and cooperation should work.
If you wish to sign the code of conduct, you can sign the canonical copy nowhere.
This Code of Conduct covers your behaviour as a member of the Pfhorums Community, in any forum, mailing list, wiki, web site, IRC channel, install-fest, public meeting or private correspondence. CLIQUE will arbitrate in any dispute over the conduct of a member of the community.
Now that MARARTHON has officially taken its own life, there are a few things I’d like to get off my chest. I mean, they’ve bothered me for something like a year. That’s a long time if you think about it. (Also, I have the gift of Bourbon, so truth is coming more naturally to me at the moment.)
The recent, well-deserved demise of the highly inaccurate #a1 FAQ on Traxus has left a vacuum waiting to be filled. To fill this vacuum, I write the following ultimately futile document, ostensibly aimed at the novice entering #alephone for the first time, but in actuality meant for the amusement of my CLIQUE brethren (and hot sistren (I hereby defend this valid-but-awkward archaic word with an itself awkward parenthetical within a parenthetical, and this hyperlink), but that is another topic entirely!).
FAQ follows (below the cut).
I got this meme from one of our sister sites, the aptly-named clique.blogspot.com:
I AM IN A CLIQUE MEME!!!
What is your clique’s name? CLIQUE.
Who founded your clique? Hotmodal.
Who is the prettiest member? Ray. Bridget.
Who is the richest member? Treellama.
What is the hottest boy your clique has tamed? I don’t know about boys (maybe Thermoplyae or Bridget could tell us), but most of us would agree that more than a few hot sisters have fallen to our charms.
What is the official mascot of your clique?
lochnits
What is your clique’s clothing style? We mostly wear crappy clothes, because not much comes in AGENT ORANGE/GAN GREEN. The sisters aren’t complaining, though.
Who is the least likely person to be accepted into your clique? There are so many, it’s hard to chose. *blushes* But if I were forced to answer, it would be MarsMartianMan.
Who is the most likely person to be accepted? Patrick!!
Where does your clique hang out? #alephone, sometimes here, too.
What is your clique’s favorite store at the mall? Two words: Hot. Topic.
Are you close enough with your clique to call them sisters? Considering our genders and sexual attitudes toward hot sisters, this is extremely creepy to think about. Bridget is probably into it, though.
I will grant you one wish. What is it? Stop camping.
/!\ Roof Notification /!\
In the interest of equality, there are no women allowed.
It’s a tough topic in a male-oriented community (which, let’s face it, is every gaming community—but especially Marathon): Misogyny.
misogyny (n.): The hatred of, or pathological aversion to women.
Phallus 1
Phallus 2
Phallus 3
From birth to unbirth, there is no way to fight against the prejudices of our greatest passion.
Or is there? Let’s explore some methods.
12 July 2008
Dear Irons,
We have decided that your Proposal (EN-C445C-9A) no longer speaks to the hearts or minds of the Single White Female audience that was originally our target demographic. While we would still like to see your new Marathon game, we feel that it would do best as a scenario among the multitude that followed Infinity, rather than as our new project.
They didn’t like the gratuitous sexual content.
Here’s what experts say:
S t o Camping p
She was honestly the most gorgeous woman I had ever known. The most gorgeous, too, that I ever will know. That alone created all sorts of difficulties–standards I constructed on my own, without her help, not to mention those she brought to the relationship. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
There were times throughout my formative years that I would catch a glimpse of her. Oh, no, it wasn’t actually her until some time later. But you know how it is: as artists have their Muse, my past self had, from the womb, a conception of idealized beauty that drove every action in my life. A few of my early finger-paintings hold the shadow of my ideal; here and there, amid the smiling suns and grassy fields, a feminine form–unmarred by the later impositions of society–reveals itself in simple lines. Extended fingerprints create flowing hair, misunderstood breasts, skirts and dresses, crude hands grasping flowers.
I saw her later in cartoons, in campfire reveries, and finally, before my own eyes during English class in my sophomore year of high school. It was not a dream come true; it was a simple nod from Fate that yes, she had existed all along.
In my daze, I hardly remember the months of that year spent in agony, in bliss. I can no longer recall if she ever caught me looking at her, for that would imply gazing into her eyes–something which erased all memory. My journals from that period are suspiciously devoid of her name or description. I suppose it makes sense, after a fashion; how often do you describe the veins in your feet, unless something has gone wrong with them? But I can still feel the tension in my writing from that time. I was a lion ready to spring forward.
When I did, it went surprisingly well. It was sudden, there was no warning, and there I stood on her doorstep with a lump of clay in my hands, both literally and figuratively. She let me in after I uttered the sweet, brilliant, foolish line, “Let’s shape it together.” Hours later, we conversed with words for the first time ever–the sculpture was a conversation of its own, never to be repeated–and oh, her voice, that enchanting power was finally directed at me of all people. “Come with me,” she said that evening, “come with me forever.”
From that day forward, the ground dropped slowly from beneath my feet while I took no notice, instead staring at the heavens with no concept of evil or loss. Every breeze was her caress. Not a single night went by that her face and body strayed away from my dreams, pillaging my heart and soul. There is a word in French, farouche. It means both “wild” and “tame.” We experienced l’amour farouche.
I know she felt it, too. With love, it’s easy to tell the difference between a one-way street and a boulevard–provided you’re experiencing the real thing. She invested as much of her self in me as I did in her, and I think that was the beginning of our problem. As I already said, both of us had notions that gradually filtered in from outside our protective circle. No, it was not a circle; it was an impossible two-sided shape that could only last for a fleeting moment before vanishing, left only as the most powerful memory on Earth. And that is just what happened.
While I confess that the beginning of this decade-long ordeal of joy is mired in oblivion, I can say with certainty that its end and decline (in that order) are clearer than the crack of Arctic ice during an everlasting dawn. The end came and went; it was instant. But the energy it imparted to us left us rushing to the future with no clear goals. We crashed through barrier after barrier: college, careers, family deaths, and finally pregnancy. How, in our decadence, could we have wanted to generate a new life out of the readily-apparent death of our delirious love? We did see that happening, but the love still lived, and I believe that was the root of our particular delusion. Hope was just a heart in a bear trap.
I held her so often, felt her radiance through our clothing. With her, there was no such thing as nakedness: such a concept involves shame and the implication that we wore something encumbering to begin with. How often do you call an animal “naked?”
Only when it has come to lack something important.
So it was that we ended up in the hospital. The pregnancy had been difficult, but doctors had assured us that it was nothing to worry about. It was only until that last moment, when our child emerged in blood from his nine months of growth, that I knew the truth. Her wan smile broke my heart, the monitors attached to her went wild and then only rang with the alarm that the patient was about to die. Her lips moved with both a word and a kiss, and she left this world.
“My God!” I shouted at the doctor, my infant son cooing in my arms. “Please, tell me what she said. I’ll give my own life to know her dying words.”
The doctor smiled and shook his head knowingly. “She told you to stop camping.”
-fin-
W'rk is Irons
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