Blakes7

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5511 discussions

Re: [B7L] Re: fandom
by Ellynne G. 18 Feb '01

18 Feb '01

Been thinking over the reasons for fandom. Here's my two cents. To Be Continued - For the urge to write fanfiction, this is one of the most important phrases around, that week or season spent stewing and wondering _what_ will happen - and coming up with your own answers. Closely related to this are eps like Orbit, Blake, and Rumours where you have what seems like a very long time to consider the many ways a scene might work out (and are sitting on the edge of your seat wondering). Interesting characters and situations? Yes, also important. I have to admit, however, a character could be relatively flat and, if there was the right 'hook' to them, I'd probably be sucked right into the show. Loose ends or those unsatisfactory explanations? Gotta love 'em. Oh, and let's not forget shows that were flawed (NOT B7, of course) that could have been done better (I keep having this urge to 'fix' Return of the Jedi and Phantom Menace [and I'm not up to it, believe me]). With a lot of 'realistic' shows, I don't get this. There's this part of me going, "Oh, it's one of _those_ stories." Besides, there are the inbuilt limits. Will Perry Mason ever be on the supreme court and seriously alter trial legislation? Dream on. Did Gomer Pyle end the cold war? Would the cast of JAG _fail_ to save the president? For that matter, do they ever get off the island on Gilligan or does Jethro go to school and get an IQ? But _could_ Blake defeat the Federation? Or could Servalan win? And might Avon ever join the other side? Could we ever learn something about a character that would serioulsy alter how we view them? I guess what it comes down to is something in the brain going, "Hmm, what if . . . ." Ellynne ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.

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Re: [B7L] Was it something I said :-)
by Ellynne G. 18 Feb '01

18 Feb '01

On Sun, 18 Feb 2001 12:08:36 +1100 (EST) =?iso-8859-1?q?Cheryl=20=5F?= <avonsgirl(a)yahoo.com.au> writes: > I like Blake's 7 - I thought I'd like to talk to other > Blake seven fans about the show, so I decided to join > a mailing list. When I first posted and said hello to > you all, and received no response (although, I will > add, I have since been welcomed by one person) First, I have enjoyed your posts. Second, welcome. Third, it's that crowd mentality thing. Trust me, if everyone on the list replied to each posting, we'd all stop subscribing because we wouldn't have the time to go through, read, and delete. Ellynne ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.

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Re: [B7L] Re: Blakes7 & detective stories
by Ellynne G. 18 Feb '01

18 Feb '01

> > What might be even more fundamental is that the detective genre is > about the > > establishment (the detective, professional or freelance) taking on > the > > forces of chaos and disorder (crime, social disruption), whereas > in fanfic > > the focus is normally on those forces of chaos, ie; outside the > > establishment. > I read once that, starting in the 30's, British mysteries were dominated by the intellectual, civilized sleuth (Poirot and Miss Marple types). American mysteries in that era were dominated by the gumshoe, a tough guy who understands the criminal mind because he has one and who solves cases partly through brute force and partly because he has a paranoid disposition that might make Avon a bit uncomfortable (Sam Spade, in The Maltese Falcon, has no trouble imagining the woman he's fallen for might have killed his partner in cold blood, her husband, or anyone else. He also doesn't see that as necessarily a barrier to seeing her in 20 years when she gets out of prison - but he's still going to make sure she serves the sentence, not him [RoD would be rather different with him]). Ellynne ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.

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Re: [B7L] Re: Character junnkie vs. other attractions
by Sally Manton 18 Feb '01

18 Feb '01

Neil wrote: (Now, how to go about converting Sally. This wil rekwire the suptle approche, sines of flatery boxis of chocklits flours pretending to luv (chiz) whizzo computer feend ect ...> Hey, bribery will probably do just fine, I'm infinitely corruptible where chocolate's concerned ... OTOH, [a] speaking as someone so hardened she looks for A-B moments in Ultraworld and DeathWatch, you may have to arrange for someone to hide my treasured 2nd-season tapes; [b] are you sure you *want* me to take a deeper and considerable more loquacious interest in the non-junkie threads, Neil? Are you really really sure you'd want to *read* it? And you don't *have* to love My Darling - as long as threads follow Sue Clerc's rule ("Any topic not directly about Avon will mutate into an Avon-centered discussion within a maximum of 5 posts.") I'm happy :-) _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Re: [B7L] Was it something I said :-)
by Sally Manton 18 Feb '01

18 Feb '01

Cheryl wrote: <I have wasted precious time, giving you all the benefit of the doubt, by posting enough posts, to be sure I actually was being ignored -> Ummm ... hardly :-) It's the nature of mailing lists, innit? People do respond to some posts and not to others, for all sorts of reasons - not interested in the thread; agreed with everything in the post and don't like to just write 'me too'; disagreed violently with everything in the post and is out walking off a head of steamy invective; someone *else* has said what I was going to in response to another someone else's post that came in just before a third someone else's ... mean to answer but damnitall am running late for work and have forgotten brilliant riposte by the time I get home. etc, etc Doesn't help that you seem to have joined us at the very time one particular thread went into overdrive (the D-one) and everyone was exhausting their typing fingers over sexism, phalluses and Avon Behaving Badly (no I'm not saying that's *your* fault :-) but I for one was so busy explaining why I Still Thought I Was Right that I mostly only answered people who disagreed with me). Look on the bright side. Try posting *six* posts in one evening and not getting so much as a peep from the *lot* (I decided that as the key phrases penguins, leather trousers or Jarriere weren't in there, I shouldn't get offended by the deafening silence :-)) _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Re: Blakes7 & detective stories
by Helen Krummenacker 18 Feb '01

18 Feb '01

> What might be even more fundamental is that the detective genre is about the > establishment (the detective, professional or freelance) taking on the > forces of chaos and disorder (crime, social disruption), whereas in fanfic > the focus is normally on those forces of chaos, ie; outside the > establishment. Assigned reading for tonight, any Raymond Chandler novel. Phillip Marlowe, the detective, once worked for a DA's office. These days, as a P.I. he still has enough friends on the force he *might* not get his liscense yanked just because he won't break his client's confidentiality: but he'll probably need help leaving his jail cell because his kneecaps have been banged up as someone's idea of fun. Bay City, where he's sometimes had to go, the police would shoot him if he pursued some investigations too far. In short, Marlowe deals in chaos. He tries to make things a little less chaotic for his client, and that means a lot of... Beautiful Suffering(?) in the process. He usually goes up against corrupt officials, organized crime, and rich people who can afford bodyguards. This sounds very much like the Federation. Hmm. I think I may end up trying to write my own dectective Blake's 7 story.

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Re: Space Fall
by Betty Ragan 18 Feb '01

18 Feb '01

Dana wrote: > What I'd really like to know is why Jenna > knows Avalon and Blake doesn't. Oh, that one seems easy to answer. Blake, it seems, has mostly been active on Earth (at least until he was forcibly ejected). He knows who Avalon is, after all, he's just never met her in person: quite understandable if she's been tootling around the outer worlds while he's been busy rabble-rousing on Earth. Jenna, on the other hand, has spent her career tootling around the outer worlds. She probably did business with Avalon at some point, delivering supplies. I sometimes wonder if that's not the reason Jenna was arrested, for dealing with the rebels. -- Betty Ragan ** bragan(a)nrao.edu ** http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~bragan Not speaking for my employers, officially or otherwise. "Seeing a rotten picture for the special effects is like eating a tough steak for the smothered onions..." -- Isaac Asimov

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Re: [B7L] fannishness
by Ashton7＠aol.com 18 Feb '01

18 Feb '01

In a message dated 2/16/01 6:17:53 AM Eastern Standard Time, N.Faulkner(a)tesco.net writes: << Whereas in my case it's precisely the reason why I turned to writing fanfic in the first place. Different strokes etc.>> Yes, of course, but in your original post on this subject, you were opining that the reason most, if not all, fans become fans and write fan fiction, was for the reasons you gave. Or so I interpreted what you said. I apologize for obviously misinterpreting your statements. <<< OTOH, B7 is the *only* series I have ever got fannish about, whereas for many people a fannish approach to a number of series (not just telefantasy) seems to be common. If you're fannish about one series, chances are you'll be fannish about several. Assuming that 'fannish' can be satisfactorily defined in the first place.>>> It seems to be true that many fans, once they become full-fledged, participating fans in one fandom, will participate in other fandoms. However, there are often also those who stick to their original fandom and never find another show that excites them in the same ways. There are also those fans who change fandoms at the drop of a hat and lose interest in their older fandoms. Personally, I'm one of those who tends to stick with a fandom a good, long time, but I do "get fannish" about other shows. I never lose interest in my older fandoms, though, I just don't spend as much time participating in them. <<< Ah, but what is it about the characters or show that make them so captivating? Are there any general principles that might be extracted? Do shows that generate fandoms have any particular common factor(s)? >> For me, it's generally a show that has good writing elements and likable characters and relationships. Some of the shows I really, really like currently are Queen of Swords, Stargate, Buffy, Angel, and Andromeda. On these shows, I like virtually every character to one degree or another and I don't find it hard to simply ignore elements of the plot (for example, Queen of Swords is a show based on the Zorro genre, requiring a lot of suspension of disbelief) that might not normally "make sense." My favorite character on these shows is often the character that is hardest to figure out, because usually they become the most interesting. Annie

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Re: Who knows who
by Helen Krummenacker 18 Feb '01

18 Feb '01

> What I'd really like to know is why Jenna > knows Avalon and > Blake doesn't. > > -(Y) Blake was a peaceful protester at first, wasn't he? I had the impression the Freedom Party was a political group on Earth just trying to work with the system, not stage a revolution. Avalon was evidently from one of the outer worlds, and a revolutionary. Furthermore, she looks pretty young. She might not have had a name for herself while the Freedom Party was a movement; her prominience among rebels would have come while Blake was in 'good brainwashed citizen' mode.

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Re: Character junnkie vs. other attractions
by Helen Krummenacker 18 Feb '01

18 Feb '01

I'd classified myself as character junkie but more and more I'm thinking that *isn't* it. Mostly thanks to Neil's questions and comments. I tend to discuss characters because everyone likes to talk about them. But there's plenty of things with marvellous characters I'm not the elast bit fannish about. Unanswered questions-- THAT's my hook. Every bloody thing that gets me hooked gets me because it makes me think about the possible answers. I fond of spinning theories and solving puzzles, and the world of fiction is entirely safe to speculate about. I also like being pushed to consider answers on a philosophic level. I can have fun with the character questions, but the reason I like the Star One debates isn't to know whether Avon or Blake was right, but the higher question of "what price freedom, and can someone choose that price for other people?" Frequently I am turned off from a burgeoning fannishness by a writer who foolishly gives an ill-thought out answer, one contradictory to prior evidence. However, in other circumstances, it may be fun to try to Play the Game to work out why the impossible answer.

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