My First Flame

No, I’ve already written mine. I just received my first flame. It was a beautiful eloquent one too, from someone named ‘Meh’. (And it’s an anonymous review, so no matter how much I’d like to reply, I can’t. It’s a pity, because most of the fun in flaming someone is reading the reply.) I’ll post it here so you can all admire it:

I can’t believe you ended your saga on such a PATHETIC note! arggh…you know what? it might have been better for everyone if you just ended the series with part three…but no…you just had to go and make another one…and guess
what…it was an EPIC!

an EPIC FAIL that’s what! do us all a favor and quit writing these horrendous crossovers!

Personally, I laughed at the thought of someone who cannot capitalize the beginnings of sentences calling someone’s writing an epic fail.  This is my reply.

If you’re reading this, then I’ll have to say you gave me quite a laugh. It’s quite something for someone who can’t even capitalize their sentences to call someone’s writing an epic fail. If you’re going to flame, then I advise you to do so with correct punctuation. By the way, there will be another crossover. I guarantee it. By the way, thanks for the review and for reading, even if you did hate all four instalments, each a hundred thousand words or so long.

A note to all flamers: If you’re going to flame, then do as Flame Rising does (no, not copy and paste flames) and leave a signed review, or at least an e-mail address so the flameater can reply. Otherwise, you look like a coward because you seem to be afraid of getting a verbal lashing from the flameater. Just a little bit of advice.

With You, I’ll Be Only Sibylla (part 15)

Disclaimer: The plot and characters of Kingdom of Heaven belongs to Sir Ridley Scott, William Monahan, and history. I don’t own anything.

 

Chapter 15: What Have I Done?

 

She was alone in the crypt with her son, save for the echoes and bitter memories of brighter days. In her hand, she held a pewter knight. It had been Baldwin’s favourite toy. She was still mouthing the words to the song she had been singing when he had fallen asleep forever. Sibylla felt dry, as if all her tears had been drained from her. The grief, however, had not lessened, nor had the guilt. Had she done the right thing? She was almost certain that it had been more merciful to send her son to God peacefully and painlessly, but doubt was still gnawing at her heart. At the back of her mind, there was a small voice calling her a murderer.

 

Sibylla vaguely remembered going out of the crypt and being dressed in the royal robes of a queen. She was queen? That didn’t sound right. But she was, and that…made Guy the King of Jerusalem. She stiffened. How had it come to this? She had killed her son, and her kingdom. Balian had been right; she could not hold the kingdom in peace, and there would be war. Even now, she was certain that Reynald and Guy were busy spilling blood and preparing for a confrontation with Saladin. And the kingdom was in its death throes like a beast, felled by disease and now attacked by the spears and arrows of hunters.

With You, I’ll Be Only Sibylla (part 14)

Disclaimer: I own neither the plot nor the characters of Kingdom of Heaven. They belong to Sir Ridley Scott, William Monahan, and history.

 

Chapter 14: Weeping Angels

 

Why? That was the question that Sibylla kept asking, even as she played her part in her bleak grey world of politics and intrigue. In her eyes, the colour and vibrancy of Jerusalem had been stripped away, leaving only bare hard rock. She would give up her power, her city, just to save her son. The thought of watching him become a masked ghost as her brother had done was unbearable.

 

The words on the piece of paper before her made no sense, even though she was the one writing them. Her quill moved slowly, sometimes pausing above the paper with a droplet of ink hanging from the tip.

 

It pained Raymond to see Sibylla like this. This was but a shadow of what she had been. This disease was not only slowly taking away the young king’s life, but it was also leeching the life from his mother. He watched her write, knowing that she had to acknowledge the truth soon. A king’s mother could not afford to live in a dream. And in Jerusalem, the gossips had been hard at work. He did not doubt the physician, but someone else must have seen the young king’s reaction to pain; someone like Heraclius. Something had to be done, or else the storm would be enough to raze Jerusalem to the ground.

With You, I’ll Be Only Sibylla (part 13)

Disclaimer: I don’t own anything that you recognize. The characters and the plot of Kingdom of Heaven belong to Sir Ridley Scott and William Monahan, and History.

 

Chapter 13: Why?

 

Rumbling drunken snores penetrated the darkness. Sibylla lay wide awake, staring at the canopy above her. The sweaty sheets were twisted around her body, hiding her shame and nakedness. Beside her, Guy snorted and then rolled over so that his back was turned to her. That was better, but only just. Her body still hurt from his brutish touches, and she knew she would find bruises blossoming on her pale skin the next morning. It hadn’t been like this with Balian.

 

A lump grew in her throat as she remembered the tender touches of her gentle knight. Every caress had spoken of love. She supposed that she would never feel those caresses again. He had rejected her, and hurt her pride in every way possible. She had expected him to return to his little fief at Ibelin and stay there, becoming just another baron who regarded her with cold distant courtesy. Why he was still in Jerusalem was a mystery, for he never showed his face at court, probably because he was loathe to see her. Perhaps he was still here because he had business to settle before he could go back to Ibelin? That was the only rational explanation. However, in her heart, there was a little voice whispering to her, telling her that he was here because even though he did not want to see her, he was even more reluctant to leave her.

A Portrait of the Joker as a Young Man

Disclaimer: I don’t own anything that you recognize. Batman belongs to DC Comics and Christopher Nolan. I’m just playing with the characters.

How had it come to this? Delirious with medication and only slightly aware that he was in a white room, Jack Donahue repeated this question over and over again in his head. As the anaesthetics wore off, he became aware of the tubes connected to his body and the soreness of his swollen face. Slowly, he reached up. His fingers came into contact with stitches on his cheeks. The memories came back. Jack groaned and tried to sit up, but his body was still uncoordinated for the anaesthetics were still in his system.

 

“Mr. Donahue?” said a voice. “Don’t try to move. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” A hand pushed him back down onto the hospital bed. Jack did not resist. As consciousness returned, so did the memories. A tear slid down his face. He wished he could forget.

A Different Type of Discrimination

Right now, I should be getting dressed and eating breakfast instead of being on the computer. However, I don’t want to go offline yet, as I’m in the middle of a role-playing game. It’s funny how addictive the internet is. Perhaps I crave the companionship of people like me. Creative people are a rare breed. You only find one or two amongst hundreds (might be a slgith exaggeration there) and even amongst creative people, there are those who don’t know what you’re on about. I had a friend who was a brilliant writer; she won a prestigious national literary award when she was fifteen. However, she and I could never agree about what constituted as good literature. What I enjoyed put her to sleep and vice versa. She was more like the mainstream literary people in my country who preferred literature which reflected aspects of society. I was more of a person who wanted to write stories reminiscent of Hollywood blockbusters.

In my country, discrimination is rampant. However, there is one sort of discrimination which no one has addressed yet; genrism. It’s not an official sort of discrimination, but it’s what I call the descrimination against certain genres of literature. People who write historical or fantasy epics are said to be wasting their talents. These stories simply are not welcome in our literary circle. Everyone who is a ‘proper writer’ should be writing about serious real life. It puts people like me at a disadvantage because I don’t want to write about serious real life. I see enough of that; when I write, I want to escape to a fun and exciting place with people who I want to meet, not people who I see everyday.

Children are discouraged from writing fantasy in school. When I was sixteen, I was forbidden by the teacher to write anything set in history. She said I had to bring myself back to the ‘real world’ and write about an ordinary setting. To prove my point, I wrote about guerilla warfare in the streets of Baghdad. It took a heck of a lot of research about rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns and tanks, but I finally got there and even got to describe gore, something which I’m good at and fond of doing. I guess I have to thank that teacher actually, because she made me strive to prove that epics are just as valid as literature as all the boring gritty real life stuff which I wouldn’t touch with a barge pole. She made me really try to improve my writing, and to create good believable and likeable characters for my epics. Of course, I got into fanfiction and one can’t publish fanfiction, but I still managed to achieve something. Apart from the reviews, I got nominated for the MEFA awards, something which I am still surprised about.

In my opinion, far too many authors write for renown and not for fun. That is true of me to some extent, but what really brought this to my attention is my friend’s question. She said, “What’s the point of writing fanfiction? You don’t get any recognition for doing it.” I replied saying that I did it because I loved doing it, and it’s true. I also said that people get renown for writing good (or bad) fanfiction, just like in the world of printed literature. In the end, it isn’t recognition that I really want. I just want to prove to the world that writing epics is not a bad thing and end this discrimination against certain genres so that other really good works (such as the film Kingdom of Heaven) will be recognized for their brilliance. At the moment, some wonderful works of art are ignored just because they happen to be of the ‘wrong’ genre.

With You, I’ll Be Only Sibylla (Part 11)

Disclaimer: All the characters and events of Kingdom of Heaven belong to Sir Ridley Scott and William Monahan, and, of course, History. I’m just borrowing them and writing my own interpretation.

 

The walls and hangings muffled the sounds from outside. Many candles burned, but they did nothing to dispel the shadow which was falling over the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. It took a while for Sibylla’s vision to adjust to the darkness of the king’s chamber. It had been so long since she had set foot in here. The scent of incense could not conceal the underlying smell of decay which permeated the room.

 

She approached the bed where her brother lay; a pitiable and wasted figure. One bandaged hand rested on his chest. The other arm was outstretched; it was in the same position which the physician had left it. The silver mask was still in place, however. It was the same cold emotionless face which he showed the world; the face which was supposed to hide weakness.

 

With a shaking hand, the princess reached out and rested it on her brother’s bandaged one, unsure of whether he would feel it or not. Baldwin stirred, and with what seemed like a great effort, opened his eyes. “Hello,” he said. His voice was breathy and weak, but Sibylla’s heart lurched at the sound of that benevolent tone. It was the same one which he had used with her all those years ago, before he had put on the silver mask.

With You, I’ll Be Only Sibylla (Part 10)

Disclaimer: Kingdom of Heaven is directed by Sir Ridley Scott and written by William Monahan. I don’t own any of it, and I’m not making any profit. I’m just borrowing the story and the characters and making my own interpretation.

 

Chapter 10: The Pain of Love

 

To be confused was one of the most tormenting feelings that a man could have. The horse moved of its own accord underneath him. It knew its way home, but Balian, unlike his horse, did not know exactly where he would go next, or where he actually wanted to go. He held the reins loosely, all the while battling the urge to go back and beg Sibylla for forgiveness, even though he had done nothing wrong. His heart ached. He longed for her, loved her, and he would gladly die for her, but he could not sell his soul, not even for his Sibylla.

 

‘Did you know?’ he asked Godfrey inside his head. ‘Did you know that to be a knight meant that I would have to suffer?’ He felt the phantom sting as he remembered the slap that the old knight had given him at his knighting ceremony. Yes, of course Godfrey had known. He himself had been a knight, and he had told Balian through that slap that he would suffer. The man closed his eyes. He should be accepting this all with good grace; he had come to Jerusalem for forgiveness, after all, and this was his penance. However, his heart would not accept it quietly. He was torn.

 

“I do love you,” he whispered into the cool night breeze, half hoping that it would carry his words to his princess.

And the fanfiction feud continues.

I admit, I lurk a bit in other people’s forums, if only to better my understanding of the so-called ‘enemy’. Mind you, while I respect a lot of them as wordsmiths, I have no respect for them as people. They tend to like to stick their noses in other people’s business. One of them, I’ll call her N for the sake of her right to anonymity, attacked my friend for writing a parody of a really bad story. Now, I only write parodies of other people’s stuff if I have reached the end of my patience with them (that occurs when the author has refused to accept any helpful advice which people have given them and has rudely said so), and to my knowledge, that bad story was the only story which my friend has ever mocked, and the author doesn’t care. 

As a result, the parodies and MST’s of other people’s stories have now been banned on the site, where N is a moderator. To add insult to injury, N has been gloating, yes, gloating about her victory. Not that it’s much of a victory to speak of. I was actually thinking of giving up my MST because frankly, I don’t have the time to MST twenty-one or more chapters of a bad story. However, after this little episode, I’m determined to finish the MST no matter what, if only just to spite those who think they have won. We’ll not stop just because the site has banned us. That’s why my friend made a site, and I’m advertising it. If you’re interested, you’ll find the site here. I’ve also made my own MST blog, called Mockfiction. That’s just my nature. I’m not doing this because of the story. I’m doing this because I refuse to admit defeat to those women who are acting like children. Yes, I know I’m being immature, but hey, I’m a teenager; I’m allowed to be immature. Those women are mothers or are over thirty. They shouldn’t be having bitch-fights with teenagers.

It is an author’s right to write bad fiction. It’s called ‘Freedom of Speech’. It is also someone’s right to mock bad fiction; that is also called ‘Freedom of Speech’. No one complains about parodies of Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, simply because they’re published works. When someone puts his or her work on the internet, it is open to scrutiny, and readers have just as much right to write parodies of those as they do to write parodies of actual published works.

Our parodies might not be well-written, but some of them are very well written, and it’s a way to relax, to let off steam after having read bad fiction, or just to try and convince the author that they have made some stupid mistakes if they won’t listen to nice suggestions.

With You, I’ll Be Only Sibylla (Part 8)

Disclaimer: I don’t own anything that you recognize. It all belongs to Sir Ridley Scott, William Monahan, and History.

 

Chapter 8: To Offer the World

 

The city was cool and quiet, its inhabitants still slumbering. Balian walked with Sibylla down to the courtyard, where her servants were waiting with the horses. No one spoke. It was their master’s secret, and they had no desire for anyone in the court to find out. Godfrey had entrusted Balian to them, and they would keep him safe. It was all they could do to pay their old master back for his kindness.

 

“God keep you, my lord,” said Sibylla.

 

“God does not know me,” replied Balian. There was a gentle smile on his lips. He stood beside her horse and cupped his hands, allowing her to place her foot on them to boost herself up into the saddle. She longed to cup his face, to kiss him there and then in the courtyard, but she could not. That would almost be signing his death warrant.

 

***

 

Raymond was deep in thought, as always. Sibylla was a hard woman to predict. Even he, who had watched her grow up, still did not truly understand her. At the moment, she seemed to speak about Balian all the time, praising his virtues, as if no one else knew about them. In fact, it seemed as if she was in love with him. He knew she had visited his house; that was no secret. However, what did she really want?

 

The Marshal paced outside the king’s chamber. He could hear urgent murmurs, but he could not make out the words. It seemed as if Bishop Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, was in there with the ailing sovereign. What was that old fox trying to do? The murmuring stopped. The king had won the argument, whatever it had been about. Moments later, the patriarch emerged. He did not even deign to glance at Raymond. Perhaps he had not even seen the count; surely his mind was on more serious matters.

Exams, doom; what is the difference?

I guess I should be studying, since I have an exam in less than two days. But I’m really not in the mood. It’s Sunday, and I feel like lazing around, reading novels and generally not doing anything useful. There isn’t really much to talk about, considering I’m not in the mood for writing good prose, nor am I actually doing something interesting at the moment. I’m still involved in that political debate, except Tibet has totally gone out of the picture. Who would’ve thought that one little comment on YouTube would lead to a huge long discussion about the nature of the Chinese government? I doubt that many of the people whom I debate with realize that I am not yet twenty. They talk as if I should know about all the ‘-isms’ which supposedly academic people tend to allude to, although my history professor did say that ‘isms’ ought to be used very carefully, because they are often stereotypical and vague, encompassing a large variation of definitions.

I have gone on Fanfiction.net and given some constuctive criticism (or ‘concrit’ as it is known as on that site). Not much though. Recently, I have not been in the mood, preferring to laugh about bad writing. Maybe I need something to lighten the sombre mood of someone who is about to meet their doom. Exams are very daunting after all, especially when you realize that it is impossible to finish them, or some of them anyway. I’m looking forward to when they are over, so that I can just relax and forget about them. Halfway throughout the actual exam itself, I just stop caring, and concentrate on doing as much as I can in the time that I have left. That was what happened during my Medieval history exam anyway.

On Writing Good Crossover Fanfiction (Guidelines only)

Well, considering I’m in the middle of writing my third mass crossover fanfic, and am planning a fourth, I thought I would discuss this topic.

Crossover fanfiction–it’s not original, it’s not popular, but it’s been done multiple times. The question I want to ask is, why is it not popular? I mean, putting two stories together, and I presume that these two stories have their own fanbases, what’s not to like? The fact is, there are a number of things that can go wrong.

Prior Preparation

Yes, you have to prepare before you can actually start writing the crossover. Before I wrote mine, I’d seen the Lord of the Rings movies about fifty-two times (the theatrical versions and extended versions) and I’d seen Kingdom of Heaven about fifteen times (theatrical and director’s cut). I’d done a literature research for school on the two texts, focusing mainly on Balian’s psychological growth, and how Legolas and Gimli learnt to accept each other and become friends. I’d also read the LotR books a few times, and done some reading on the Crusades. To write a crossover, you need to know the character very well so you can write how they deal with being thrown into this bizarre situation. You also need to do some research about the characters’ backgrounds, and think about how this would affect them as people.

Characterization

I cannot stress how important this is. People only read crossovers because they’re interested in those characters, and how they will react in this entirely strange situation. They want to see the characters they know and love, not people who share the same names and nothing else. You need to be able to describe things in relation to the character’s experiences. For example, Balian compares everything in Middle Earth to his village in France and the Holy Land, because those are the things he knows. If I’d had, say, a Roman soldier in Middle Earth, he’d be comparing everything to Roman things.

Tip: I suggest sticking to the original canon plots as much as possible, and only changing what you really need to change. However, you have to take into account the fact that because you’ve merged these two or more stories, the plot is definitely going to change. The visitors should not change the plot too much though. A good way to prevent this is instead of having them as the centre of everyone’s attention, have them on the periphery, and then tell everything from their point of view. That allows you to step into their shoes. Also, research their background and the sort of world they come from. If it’s a modern insert, then you probably can use your own experiences, but remember, if you’re trying to do period pieces, people are going to think differently from the average modern day person. Research is everything, and anything that research doesn’t answer, you can fill in with your own imagination.  

The Plot

This is much easier. For my first crossover, I just followed the plot of Lord of the Rings, with an extra character or two. Sometimes, the characters want to do one thing but you want them to do something else. Go with the characters. They know what’s best for your story. Your job is to write down what they think they ought to do, and throw in some random events so they can have a reaction. I suggest not changing any of the outcomes of the original story, if you’re following a canon plot. You can take a slight detour — in fact, that is encouraged.

Use of movie/book dialogue

Sometimes, it’s impossible not to use lines from the movie or book, but try to keep it to a minimum, since if your readers want to read a rehash, they can just search out the script. And I suggest you add your own commentary if you have to use the movie lines. If you don’t think you can do the characters justice with your own dialogue, then perhaps you shouldn’t be writing the story at all, since you don’t know the characters well enough. Do not, and I stress this, do not write out the script and then insert a few lines about your other character here and there. It doesn’t work.

Of Ditzy Days and Student Life

I can’t say today was my best day. It started out pretty well, with handing in my second-to-last essay, a history lecture, and then shopping. I bought myself a proper Moleskine notebook, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl DVD.

And then I got lost on the bus route, waited at some strange bus-stop for half an hour, and then caught the same bus back. This time I kept my eyes open. I totally missed my destination (the university) the first time, because it was the other side of campus, and me, being half-blind, with no orientation skills, couldn’t recognize it. So that was about an hour and a bit. I came back to campus, and tried to study, but even with the caffeine pumping through my system from the coffee I had just before, I still managed to fall into a stupor while studying speech anatomy. I have to say flicking through notes is extremely annoying, especially since I have to keep referring back to diagrams which are somehow separate from all the written stuff. Definitely prefer history. The only way to study speech anatomy without falling asleep is to have loud music and a hot drink, preferably caffeinated. Too bad my mp3 player is broken.

I have an interesting new fanfiction idea. This morning, the history lecturer showed us a video about the story behind the cathedral of Chartres. It was during and around the Kingdom of Heaven period, and the architect is unknown, so there is great mystery surrounding him. Since in the movie, Balian returned to France, I was thinking of having him be the mysterious architect, since he’s an engineer, he’s smart and he’s quite innovative. I would think he was a pretty good mathematician for his day as well. It would be an effective disguise for the defender of Jerusalem. No one would be expecting him to build cathedrals, I don’t think. I’m adding it to my growing list of fanfiction story ideas. And at the same time, the Albigensian Crusade is taking place. I could have him take part, and try and save some of the Cathars. Don’t even know if I’ll get around to writing it, but putting Balian in all of these fascinating situations in history certainly does help me to learn it.