Assignment 8: Fantastic Firefly Fanfic

Based on the cult hit show Firefly, by Joss Whedon. The scene takes place shortly before the first episode.

Sergeant Malcolm 'Mal' Reynolds settled his dark brown long coat as he finished his wake up routine: the same way each cycle on the troop transport hurtling through space. Mal figured you couldn't call it morning without a proper sunrise, so the brown-coats relied on a 24 hour cycle of activity. Closing his footlocker and taking one last look in the mirror on his way out, Mal clambered up the ladder of his cubicle onto the barracks catwalk. Leaving his quarters exposed him to the hubbub of the barracks bay, a cluster of human activity in tight confines. The sound of people, fighting for their rights on the border of the galaxy. 

Stomping along the catwalk towards the officers quarters for the briefing set that morning, Malcolm considered their current mission. This was the last jump before their final destination: the last push against the Alliance of planets. Finally, the war of Independence would be ending, and the rebel brown coat army would have secured itself the leverage it needed to beat the oppressive Alliance.

He passed a handful of grunts cooking a can of beans near the end of the catwalk, among them his right hand woman Corporal Zoe Alleyne. A tough amazonian warrior-woman, she's saved Malcolm's life many times before, and more like than not would again. She nodded towards him as he passed, prodding the soldier making the food to check the pot again.

“How's the chow, boys?” Mal chimed jovially, stopping briefly.

“As good as we're gonna get out here, sarge” replied one of the men. A fresh face, Mal didn't recognise him. His name tag read 'Bendis'.

“Yeah? Well maybe you can get out and ask the Alliance for some of their rations, I hear they get actual meat with theirs!” Zoe added. “At least they have qualified people making their food.”

“Well, that's why we call ourselves 'Independents'. Do all our work for us.” Mal quipped as he continued down the catwalk.

“So where we goin' to now, sarge?” asked one of the other squaddies.

“The last stand of the Alliance, private. Only a few hours out is an agricultural world called Hera, and a little place called Serenity Valley...”

Assignment 7: Pilfering Prose for Plunderverse

We wear the mask, by Paul Laurence Dunbar
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,-
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!


Mask of Evil

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,-
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!

Assignment 6: the Devilish Duty of Death

The Duties of Death.

The wheel of time turns, ages come and go,
Each day one learns, yet man will never know,
Bony faced Death. Til one breaths his last,
Rattles last breath, they see that rictus mask.

Astride a pale horse, the shadow of man
"Time runs its course, I haven't a hand."
No mind for our plight, he does his duty,
Recovers our last light, and sets it free.

Long misunderstood, that curious figure,
Agent for good, he works with great vigor.

In the poem, the author has presented death as a figure, personifying it as a person doing his job. He describes death as a bony faced man on a pale horse, common imagery used when writing about death, who is a lonely figure who none will ever know due to his onerous duty of gathering the dead. Death explains, "Time runs its course, I haven't a hand", trying to defend himself perhaps to someone he has come to visit for the last time: because his purpose is so villified, a misunderstood servant to those who would curse him for as long as they live. Yet even then, he knows how important he is, and so long as there are living beings, shall he have a purpose.

Assignment 5: Typing two paragraphs Telegraphing Tone

The poem "Ozymandias" by Percy Shelley is written in a distant manner, emphasizing a solemn tone. The poem itself is a story twice removed from the audience: a tale told to the narrator by a traveller from an antique land who speaks of an ancient statue left to crumble in the desert. This removal supports the tone, and gives a better impression of the great statue that once stood, how all great things come to fall given time.

The traveller describes the statue, the shattered visage rests next to trunkless legs of stone, yet the expression survives to tell us of the sculptor who formed it. How the cold sneer, the wrinkled lip, yet survives the trials of the sand to tell the world of Ozymandias, King of Kings and the command he once bore. Reflecting on the ancient statue, the narrator says that "Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away" speaks to the finality of the desert.

Assignment 4, Striving and struggling solving a sonnet.

All across the rolling cuboid landscape
A land of trees, rivers, pigs and creepers
Where one has the means to change the squarish shape
And carve your home despite frightful creatures.

Upon wits aloe one must rely
And the myriad tools you can construct
With which you dig the riches that bely
Though honestly one must rely on luck.

Beneath the earthen crust you must go
Through caverns dark lit by molten lava
Gather your wits, explore the depths below
Even when it's all programmed in Java.

But Minecraft is a game quite creative
It's just best not to upset the natives.

Whilst writing a sonnet I struggled with the content, being much more focused on the structure. Though once I got one started, it started to flow quite easily after I decided that it was going to be tongue in cheek and referential to a favorite game of mine, Minecraft. I did my best to prove that one can write about anything, and find beauty in a simulated landscape.

Assignment 3, haiku and limerick

Along it's path, courses
Cuts through stone and us alike
Time waits for no man

A man late for his usual mass
Worried where he might end up in the last
Well he shrugged and he said,
As he crashed into bed
Sleep is just too good to pass

Writing these, I found that it was actually easier to write a haiku than a limerick. The strict rules on syllables force me to think more creatively in the content, to really play with the words to find the right composition to fill the syllables and the meaning alike. Meanwhile, the adherence to a rhyme scheme is something I struggle to apply whilst writing a limerick, a similar challenge, but harder to fulfill. In the time it took me to write a single Limerick, I had written a handful of different haiku.

A cool wind blows east
Speeding the change of seasons
Winter is coming

A leaf on the wind
Carried along 'cross the ages
Watch how it can soar

Assignment 2, Musical poetic analysis

For my second blog post I have chosen to analyze the song "Limelight" by Canadian power trio, Rush. (The greatest band in the world.)

Living on a lighted stage           A

Approaches the unreal             B

For those who think and feel     B

In touch with some reality         C

Beyond the gilded cage.           A

Cast in this unlikely role,          A

Ill-equipped to act,                   B

With insufficient tact,               B

One must put up barriers          C

To keep oneself intact.             B

Living in the Limelight,              A

The universal dream                 B

For those who wish to seem.    B

Those who wish to be               B

Must put aside the alienation,   C

Get on with the fascination,      C

The real relation,                      C

The underlying theme.              B

Living in a fisheye lens,             A

Caught in the camera eye.        B

I have no heart to lie,                B

I can't pretend a stranger          C

Is a long-awaited friend.            A

All the world's indeed a stage,   A

And we are merely players,      B

Performers and portrayers,       B

Each another's audience          C

Outside the gilded cage.          A

The song describes the author as uncomfortable with adoration, finding it hard to deal with being put up on a pedestal. He explains that he feels unprepared for the attention that he's getting from his fame, and he's walled himself off to keep it from getting to his head, from losing himself. The fourth stanza especially tells us how he can't seem to relate to his fans, or the press, that he won't put on a show for people just because they recognize him.

The rhyme scheme is relatively consistent, ABBCA, except for the chorus which has it's own longer pattern of ABBBCCCB, and the second verse, which changes the last line to rhyme with the second.

The author is trying to give the audience a glimpse of what his life is like: a series of stages, the gilded cage he says he plays on and the world he sees beyond it, how he still has to try and act a part even when he isn't performing. It really sets the tone that the author regrets his fame, and how it's changed his perception of the world beyond the stage. How he yearns for a simpler life where he doesn't have to worry about being accosted by anyone who wants his attention.