Speak Stiltedly and Wear a Yellow Shirt

Filk on demand - one muse, no waiting…

Title:   I Will Revive
Author:  Jemima
Series:  TOS
Summary: A filk of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" for Rocky.

Oh, once I was a god
I was idolized
For bringing order to a world
I should have sterilized;
But then my flock put up a fight,
Foolish quislings led astray -
I slipped away,
I fled in the Bot'ny Bay.

And now you've come
To outer space -
I just woke up to find you here
With that dumb look upon your face;
I would have set another course,
I would have hewn your family tree,
If I had thought for one mad moment
You would dare to follow me.

So this is man
You look the same -
Still no improvement
I see the race I overcame.
Just like the sheep who sent their shepherds to the sky
You thought I'd perished,
You thought you'd kissed Khan goodbye...

Oh no, not I!
I will revive -
Genetically superior,
I know I'll come alive.
I've got one more life to live
I've got sins not to forgive
So I'll revive
I will revive

And by my superhuman strength
Saved from death's embrace,
In Sickbay on the mend
I'm glad to see a friendly face.
I have dreamed two hundred years
Of angry rabble in my way,
But she will stay,
Yes, I've found a mind to sway.

I grow fatigued
I will retire;
Back in my quarters, oh, lieutenant,
You and I'll conspire.
Because she felt like dropping in,
Because she knelt and made her plea -
Yes, she came despite my warning,
She has bound her fate to me.

So this is man
You look the same -
Still no improvement
I see the race I overcame.
Just like the sheep who drove their shepherds to the sky
You thought I'd perished,
You thought you'd kissed Khan goodbye...

Oh no, not I!
I will revive -
Genetically superior,
I know I'll come alive.
I've got one more life to live
I've got sins not to forgive
So I'll revive
I will revive

So this is man
You look the same -
Still no improvement
I see the race I overcame.
Just like the sheep who chased their shepherds to the sky
You thought I'd perished,
You thought you'd kissed Khan goodbye...

Oh no, not I!
I will revive -
Genetically superior,
I know I'll come alive.
I've got one more life to live
I've got sins not to forgive
So I'll revive
I will revive
I will revive

Oh, once I was a god
I was idolized
For bringing order to a world
I should have sterilized;
But then my flock put up a fight,
Foolish quislings led astray -
I slipped away,
I fled in the Bot'ny Bay...

[fade out]

You see a character you like, whom everyone else hates, and you want to redeem them. You have a weakness for second-person fic, though you’ve never dared to write any of your own. Put the two together and you get fic in the second person, present tense.

You’re amazed at the immediacy of this new perspective. You hope that being addressed as the character will give your reader some sympathy for this misunderstood soul. No one hates themselves; people are quite forgiving of their own perversions. You’re hoping that they’ll forgive one little mutinous love affair, or better yet, understand it.

You become discouraged when every paragraph begins with “you,” and you wonder what the maximum tolerable length of a 2nd-person POV fic is. It can’t be much. You begin to chat in the second person, and that inspires a blog entry but it doesn’t solve your problems.

You decide to hope for the best.

I’ve added a TOS section to the website to house my two Khan filks and my collection of Khan links. (For legal reasons, the Khan image collection is not on-line, though I may eventually link more good Khanage.) I managed to track down the STII movie trailer and some helpful reviews of The Eugenics Wars.

This is my first site update since the awards season started, but not the last of the Khan. His is the superior ficcability.

In my Khan research, I’m currently looking for Punjabi historical fiction. I tried What the Body Remembers by Shauna Singh Baldwin but found the feminism too jarring, out of place, and annoying to read the entire novel. I found an on-line translation of Sundri by Bhai Vir Singh at sikh.net. [Warning: the story is incomplete, though there’s more than enough there to get the idea.] As pulp, it’s a great read, but for historical flavor it leaves much to be desired.

I have a weakness for pulp fiction, especially Edgar Rice Burroughs. There’s something about all the fighting and damsels in distress and romantic misunderstandings that never fails to grab my attention. Yes, it’s cliched and repetitive and unrealistic, but I like it. Someday I hope to write my own.

With the conclusion of AAA and the ASC Awards, a new fanfic year starts for me. In the course of the past month and a half, I’ve been reading reams of fanfic, including almost all the VOY fic posted to ASC this year, some TOS, TNG and MIS (miscellaneous Star Trek works not necessarily associated with a show), and at least the beginning of every non-smut story in AAA. Now that the feedbacking frenzy and AAA voting are over, I have time to write again.

Reading and evaluating all that fic, even if it’s only for a 1-2-3 vote in AAA, is a lot of work, so it’s insulting when someone like the person Rocky blogged about accuses you of having voted for your friends or otherwise unjustly ignored his latest masterpiece. It’s also discouraging to see minions and sockpuppets trying to undermine the voting process.

One thing that doesn’t bother me is losing. I didn’t place in AAA, but I read some memorable stories (all by other people who didn’t place, but that’s another kettle of fish). I don’t know what the results are for ASC, but I’m not going to be Best Author or anything of the sort and that’s fine with me. I figure I’m a writer’s writer - that is, other writers seem to appreciate my writing more than the average reader does. That means fewer votes, but they’re more precious to me.

I love all the feedback, of course, and I never object to a nice graphic, but the biggest benefit of Awards season for me is reading other people’s fic that I’ve been putting off all year. I used to read and write only VOY, but gradually bites of TNG, TOS and MIS have been added to my menu. (ENT has been banned because no matter how good it is, it still reminds me of the show. Brrr.) And it’s that foray into reading TOS that brought you…

Khan filk! Sometime before Awards I’d thought of writing a Ceti Alpha V story, but, like many stories I thought of last year, I never actually wrote it. Then I read Rabble Rouser’s “Weeds” and started thinking again about my idea of Ceti Alpha V. I’ve always found that an overdose of other people’s fic gives the muse more ideas.

So my fanfic resolution is to write more TOS, possibly even involving some bridge crew - but that’s a stretch for me. I’m a Khan fan first and foremost.

Thanks to RJ, my sister queen.

Numenorean

To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?
brought to you by Quizilla

This one’s for Jerie, though Seema’s to blame for the title. You can hear the tune at Slushbuzzz’s Midi Madness.

Title:   Raj of Rage
Original: "Turn the Page" by Bob Seger

On a long and lonesome journey
In the Bot'ny Bay
You've been sleeping out the decades
Driftin' through the Milky Way.
You've been dreamin' of the nation
Or the world you ruled just yesterday...

But your dreams will soon be memories
Of deeds that others rue;
When you wake another century
Will strive to conquer you,
And you come this close to dying
But you know your trip is through.

Say...
I am Khan - entertain me for
I am Khan - new to your age.
I was Singh - Sikh conquistador,
I was Singh - Raj of Rage.

Then you wake up on the Enterprise
Wary of your fame,
And you see their dull suspicion
As you tell them half your name;
You pretend they could be different,
But mankind is still the same.

Most times you can fool them all
Other times you can't -
Still the same old question,
Are you a monster or a man?
And you find your kind outnumbered -
You have to make a stand.

I am Khan - entertain me for
I am Khan - new to your age.
I was Singh - Sikh conquistador,
I was Singh - Raj of Rage.

Study their schematics -
You're two hundred years behind;
Technical advances pose
No challenge to your mind.
As you plan to seize this starship,
Take the woman that you find.

Make a new beginning;
As you struggle to survive
Watch a red star dawning wrathful over
Ceti Alpha Five -
This earth a howling wilderness
And yet you're still alive.

Ah...
I am Khan - entertain me for
I am Khan - new to your age.
I was Singh - Sikh conquistador,
I was Singh - Raj of Rage.

I am Khan - entertain me for
I am Khan - new to your age.
I was Singh - Sikh conquistador,
I was Singh - Raj of Rage.