Province of the Muses

A hundred earthly kings and princes convened for the concert of the musician, a legend though alive, who had returned from the divine court after receiving superhuman instruction. His first chord caused all to shiver.
After hundreds more, the listeners suffered not shivers but rather impatience. One among them, a crowned head known far and wide for his unwillingness to feign affection for the arts, asked how long this first composition could possibly be.
"Eight years," the musician answered.
Because of that, the earthly kings and princes understood what before they had only been told, that the things of gods are not meant for man. In their piety, they slipped away.
Finis

Addendum

We used to go to game shrines for hints and tips, but now we watch a video. When will this diminution of the sacred end?

Oblivion's Vast Realms

Dragon Blaze and Schoolgirl Strikers 2 are shutting down, and I never knew they existed. How wide a world exists outside our comprehension. People are still streaming on Kick, too. For a short time the internet made the world seem small, back when we were all on the same webrings, but now it seems bigger and less knowable than ever.

Addendum

That aside, the future will almost certainly have either trains or the apocalypse. Possibly both.

Science Fiction Logistics Considerations

When considering whether your setting's transportation has developed to such a level that there are no longer surface trains, remember that people can grab on to the sides and shoot bandits or else have tense fights on the top.

Addendum

Were dozens of dog breeds developed so that dog-specialized shapeshifters could drive up their counts? Yes.

Competition in the Shapeshifting Community

Is it based on how many forms they have, how big they are, or how detailed their imitations are? Obviously all of those and more based on the argument the individual wishes to make at the time. Number is probably the usual criterion though.

The Heart's Inquiry

Deep in the valley, just before the ruin whose builders had not waited for history to begin before they retired, the man at last found the sage.
"I praise the sacred mountain and all its denizens by whose power alone I succeeded," the pious man made sure to say before he addressed the sage. "I have come to ask my one question according to the law."
"No," the sage said without a glance at the petitioner.
"I have," the man insisted. "How may the looming disaster be averted? That is my question."
"No. That is the world's question. I am not bound to answer that. Only your own."
"Oh." The man thought to argue, but he knew what the sage said to be true. Defeated, he asked this. "Who is responsible for bees? They're odd in every way, from how they look to where they keep the honey, saying nothing about why they make it in the first place."
The sage transfixed the man with an intense gaze. "It was the wizards of Gitki Parst who, foreseeing their prowess would never be greater, commenced a grand project to create the incomparable device, the Pur Konva Karm. Such was the power of their enchantments that all around was warped so that bees are far different from what they were then, and much else too. The bee of today has no reason to it but only chance. To learn more of the wondrous capacities of Pur Konva Karm, seek it in Imvada's mausoleum. For it to overcome a calamity is nothing unthinkable."
The man was later regarded as a hero by all the world and as a wealthy seller of honey beside, for both the Pur Konva Karm and its power of affecting bees for the better he returned to mankind's store.
Finis

The Three Kinds of Interplanetary Science Fiction

1) Everybody listens to the same bands
2) Every planet has its own bands
3) Every region on the planet has its own bands

Obviously there's going to be some galactic superstars and some local specialties, but in a normal week, seven of the top ten songs the average person hears are shared X far.

Addendum

The conventional method is to have uninvolved characters comment on how exciting the action is, but I'm not sure that does anything but pad. By "action sequence" we here mean "card duel" of course. Have you ever gone back and watched Yu-Gi-Oh? It's amazingly fast-paced till the ratings came in, and then began the age of milking.