Subject: [FFML] Re: [fanfic][SM] Who will read the sutras?
From: Brian Randall
Date: 9/15/2001, 6:41 AM
To: Kuro Taka
CC: Allyn Yonge <ayonge@yahoo.com>, ffml@anifics.com

Kuro Taka wrote:

Brian Randall wrote:

Thunder rolled across the mountain peaks and a bolt of
lighting slashed from the clear sky to smash a mountain peak
into rubble. A golden beam  flashed and the tons broken rock
vaporized.

   This doesn't show well on my e-mailer, but I think you have an extra
space between 'beam' and 'flashed'. Is a 'were' missing from the final
sentence?

I think there's an "of" that needs to be there too.

 [ . . . ]


  Could be stylistic.

Is knowing his language neccessary for this fic to work?

IMHO I like the language thing. It adds subtle flavor.


  Well enough, but are asterisks neccessary? Standard quotation should work just as well, I'd think.

I would also like to say you have excellently expressed, through
quoting the Koran, a point I have tried with little success to make
to my neighbors. "Islamic" and "Arab" are NOT, I repeat NOT,
synonymous with "terrorist."


  I recomend watching, "The Siege."

  It is something very important to remember indeed...

*Crystal, actually,* she corrected,

That line made me smile...


  Sorry, forgot to mention that... it was a good line.

Since this is a... uh... hyperbole? Simile? One of those things that
I can never remeber the name for. At any rate, the comma before the as
suggests that it's an actual event, not a comparison. So I would suggest
removing the comma. :p

   Merely a suggestion, mind you, as is everthing I say. And you can
feel completely free to disregard me.

The same goes for me as well. And Mr. Randall, I hope you aren't
offended by my critiquing your critique.


  Not at all. I'm sure I make mistakes. But if you don't try, you can never get better, or so it goes.

He had a sudden vision of a garden of earthly delights,
such as were promised to the Faithful. Only this garden was
open to heathen and unbelievers and he could see the weak
and doubtful falling away from God----

I'm afraid I don't get that line about the weak and doubtful.
But it's probably just me being dense today. (Allah?)


  I think it was that the less fanatic are less worthy and corrupt the perfect vision, or some such.

"You killed her, and you didn't even know who she
was." The girl in blue was somehow beyond the flames again.
"She just wanted to take a picture from the tallest building, to
show----" her voice broke for a moment, and he felt a stab of
pleasure that he'd managed to hurt her.

Stab of pleasure?  Last I heard, stabbing wasn't a pleasurable
sensation.  And speaking of stabbing, can I do that to him? ...


  It's a more organic word than some substitutes. Technically, it works.

This is the part I find questionable, Mr. Yonge.

   In the light of the tradgedy, do you really have to kill one of the
Senshi? This work is _very_ powerfull and compelling without that, and
adding it feels like a cheap-gimmik to gain symphathy where no such
trick is neccessary.

   The fact that the Senshi seem mostly upset about that one person
(Usagi? Hotaru? It's not clear to me yet) than the other thousands that
lie dead cheapens this, for me.

   If it _is_ neccessary to have her dead, then must they all focus
soley on her?

   I would hope that the defenders of love and such that the Senshi are
would take equal offense to _all_ lives lost, not just the one. Any one. :/

   I'm sorry if this comes across as harsh or abrasive -- I really _do_
find this fic compelling -- very much so. It's just that there's no need
to focus so much on soley their anger over that _one_ loss, when there's
something everyone who reads this can sympathize with much more
easily... And that's the many others. Your readers won't find as much
sympathy for a dead character, when there are real-world hurts out there
that are worse.

   I'm sorry. I'll leave well enough alone on that issue.

Mr. Randall, I'm sorry but I feel I must disagree with some
of your sentiment.
 P2 -- I agree this is an amazing story; and I must say the best
of the greif-fics I've yet seen.  However, killing one of them
brings home the sense of tragedy.  To be blunt, while Tuesday
was a very bad thing, why would a group of Japanese high school
girls hold within them enough rage to force Setsuna (I think that
the best explanation as to how they knew he was going to Sudan)
to violate her oft debated temporal laws and tell them where
and who this guy is.


  That point is well enough, but then, are the thousands of others lost simply dismissed?

 P3 -- I know that if I had lost someone I loved that closely in
the attack, I would be less angry as an American and infinitely
more angry and vengeful as a grieving family member.  Strangely,
I too at first thought it was Hotaru...
 P4 -- Understandable if they did, and Ami's chosen quotes tell
me they aren't.
"*Do not kill an old man, a woman nor a child.* She quoted softly."


  I'll leave well enough alone on that one. Suffice it to say that not all will agree on a given piece -- in the end, the decision on what changes, if any, are in Mr. Yonge's hands.

P6 -- If you'll permit me to use your own words, *I'm sorry if this
comes across as harsh or abrasive -- I really _do_ find this fic
compelling -- very much so.* And I find your review to be an excellent
piece of C&C.  You managed to catch some points I never noticed.


  No slight taken.

  Mm. Praise for C&C. I've never seen that before. :/

The waiting plane carried only a single battered and
bleeding passenger to the Sudan.

   Uh... he made it out alive through all of that?

To quote Iago of Disney's Aladdin, "It's amazing what one
can live through!"


  True enough.

Now... this is all happening before they collapsed? There's no more
fire that I'm aware of in the rubble, is there? And if there is, does
jet-fuel burn that long?

   I don't know the details, and it's not something I really want to
think about too much anyway, but... is that all accurate?

The jet fuel burned quite a while  It is the main reason that even
18 hours after the fall, the rescue workers couldn't get near the heart
of the rubble.  Although as a side note, on the floors where the planes
hit; It is believed that the fires spread fast and hot enough that everything
that wasn't steel was basically vaporized.


  Lovely thought. -_-

* In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.
     . . .show them kindness and deal with them justly;
surely Allah loves the doers of justice . . .*

I just had to leave that one in.  And of course the one that I most
wish would be reread by those who plan more Jihad...
*The best type of Jihad is a truthful word before an unjust ruler.*


  I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry... But I have no words...

  Suffice it to say I agree.

A man once asked a Zen master:

    "Where will you go when you die?"

    "I will go to hell."

    "But master, you are a man of great goodness and
wisdom. Why would you go to hell?"

    "If I don't go to hell to teach you, who will?"

Now I've had some harsh criticism from some of my
teachers before, but OUCH!


  But it's said with love.

--

"Sometimes we must do things, not because they are the right things
to do, or the easiest things to do, or the ones that will bring us
rewards. Sometimes, we must do things because they must be done."
                 -- "Waters Under Earth" by Alan Harnum

-- 
I write fanfiction. Too much of it. You can read it here, thanks to a kind grant from the Larry F foundation:
http://members.tripod.com/lwf58/fan_fiction/durandall/index.html
--
Haiku of my lament:

Forgive my spelling,
my U.S. education,
is the source of blame.


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