Blakes7

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5511 discussions

Re: Fanfic, Internet and writing
by Helen Krummenacker 10 Feb '01

10 Feb '01

Once, in my pre-Internet days, I got chewed out by an editor for useing Internet-style markings on my writing. What I haad been doing was setting off a persons thoughts with asterisks. I had seen this done in novels I'd been reading in my childhood, so obviously it predated the Internet, but was not in general enough use for the editor to realize I'd pcked up the habit from a different source. I liked it because quotation marks indicate speech out loud, and there seemed to be a need to make speech in one's own head be punctuated as such. Likewise, I've been very fond of the ellispses (...) to indicate pauses for as long as I've been writing. One might be able to leave out punctuation for emphasis and pauses in FanFic and have people still know that Avon would drawl a line ironically and Vila would spout off quickly, but what about original fiction? You need to give people a sense of the character's voice. Just not every line, which, I except is the actual complaint?

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Re: [B7L] Let's Do the Time Squad Again
by Sally Manton 10 Feb '01

10 Feb '01

Dana wrote: <Later on, instead of asking the pilot's opinion of the controls in the capsule, he asks Avon, when there isn't a reason in the world why a systems analyst and avocational hacker would know anything about them.> Two things: 1. Blake *already asked* Jenna for her opinion just before they ran out of air, remember? And now he's asking if "Avon's got any (further) ideas." Why not? 2. Whether there's a reason in the world or not in ordinary terms, the fact is, from Avon's answer, he does know quite a bit. And the three of them have been on that ship for 4 months ... you really think Blake [a] hasn't worked that out and [b] doesn't know that Avon likes to be asked for his opinion? _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Re: Deliverance
by Helen Krummenacker 10 Feb '01

10 Feb '01

I watched in again last night, taking more careful note of the nuances. Cally and Jenna: definitely not in 'victim' mode in spite of being captured. Blake's cotribution of Cally's freedom consisted entirely of shouting "now" while Ensor collapsed. Odd thing about the "Avon's a bastard" line of thought. Blake doesn't seem to have any interest in the humanitarian rescue thing. We don't know who suggested going to see if there were survivors from the explosion, but my first guess would be Jenna, as there would likely be an ethical code among free traders that you try to help other downed pilots. OTOH, it could be Avon. He's definitely leading the rescue party. The exchange between Avon and Blake: "Are you afraid I can handle it better than you?" "No." "Well, you should be." This is not as much of an Avon and Blake moment as a Paul and Gareth moment! The 'it' in question isn't the rescue or the radiation (although it's vague, to be interpreted as either). Now that I've heard it was originally to be Lord Blake helping Meeghat, I know that this is about Paul taking over the script. Not sure whether this wa filmed to fill time after, or if Boucher threw it in there as his own inside joke, being fond of Paul's delivery. On to Avon and Meeghat. Yes, he was attracted to her. I had never noticed before how much time they spent holding hands. I had interpreted his avoiding looking at her at first as embarrassment, but since someone mentioned he was hold his gun, I paid more attention and saw that when they first entered, he was afraid Meeghat's act might be an attempt to distract them while someone lurking back attacked. Once he'd had the time to realize things were genuine, his attitude changed. Sending off the rocket. The man who created it had been killed before he could launch it; it was waiting for "the word". The Liberator crew were able to get the machines up without a problem, but surely the people who were guardians of it *at the time* could have launched it if getting the power up was all that was needed. No, it needed "the word". Avon is a computer genius, not a rocket scientist, as has been pointed out. When they returned with Jenna, the camera focussed away from Avon for several seconds. AVON TYPED IN THE PASSWORD DURING THAT TIME! That is what a computer expert could do. Either he ran a password cruncher, or he used the little tricks of investigating the work area to see where the useer made a notation of their password. Either way, it falls into his expertise and suggests a genuine prophecy such as the one in Sarcophagus. True, this is a guess based on the script, but it does help fix the gaping plot hole of why no one fired the rocket before all the technology was forgotten. Nothing fixes the gaping plot hole of why the boys cower in terror from the rocks rather than shoot their weapons, except that Gan can't kill and Vila *won't* use a gun if there's anyway out of it. All I can guess here is that, gee, the colonialist/empirialist/Boy's Own heroes were actually trying not to kill if they didn't have to? As for Avon not taking Meeghat with him. This is flimsy evidence at best but: He says his taking care of the rocket is a poor reward for her long wait, and apologizes that she did wait so long. He is evidently atracted to her. She would be endangered by joining them, nor could they transport her anywhere that they could gaurantee her a safe welcome. He is in a fairly good mood when we last see him on the planet, but on the ship, we obviously come in at the tail end of a discussion. He is calm while discussing the rocket. Then Cally brings up Meeghat, who they had evidently talked about for a while before. (There must have been a discussion, otherwise, Cally, who'd been on ship, wouldn't ask about her. There goes the idea that she was an afterthought after the rocket) Avon turns snarky when Blake joins in the discussion. Perhaps Avon hadn't wanted to leave Meeghat behind and Blake insisted he look at it rationally. There's no place for her, she's safer where she is, etc. His sulkiness in ORAC may have to do as much with still being touchy about leaving her as suffering radiation sickness. Once again, I know the evidence is flimsy, but it does answer the questions why they didn't talk about Meeghat and why Avon, who was holding hands with her, leaves her behind. Also, in regards to how Meeghat now knows he's not a god... if he asked her if she'd like to come along before contacting Blake, he'd have to explain a bit. Hearing Avon getting chewed out by Blake for such a silly notion would blow away the rest of the illusion. And no, I'm not trying to make Avon look good by making Blake look bad, here. I think it would be preposterous to take her away from her world, and Blake would be right to say no if Avon was foolish enough to think of it.

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RE: [B7L] cats
by Louise Rutter 10 Feb '01

10 Feb '01

Neil wrote: >As I was taught at school, gingers are overwhelmingly male and the few >ginger females are sterile. Sorry, Neil, they lied. Ginger females breed just as well as all the rest. Louise

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RE: [B7L] cats
by Louise Rutter 10 Feb '01

10 Feb '01

Pred wrote: >Do male torties (Yank: calicos) exist or is that an unbreakable genetic >wossname? They exist, but they're extraordinarily rare - I haven't seen one in 6 years as a vet. They're genetic accidents (XXY as I recall) and they're sterile. Louise

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there was a young lady
by Alison Page 10 Feb '01

10 Feb '01

I thought up an ending for Vila's limerick on Cygnus Alpha, and I must share it (apol's to those also on alt-fan-b7) There was a young lady of Cygnus Who thought that 'dimension' meant 'bigness' She thought 'standard by seven' Would be something like heaven When it only meant relative quickness Alison

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Re: [B7L] cats
by Bizarro7＠aol.com 10 Feb '01

10 Feb '01

In a message dated 2/10/01 6:36:10 AM Eastern Standard Time, predatrix(a)ntlworld.com writes: << Do male torties (Yank: calicos) exist or is that an unbreakable genetic wossname? >> Statistically, one in every 2,000 torties or calicos are male, and are usually (but not always) sterile. Leah (I ran the cat boards on AOL for 2 or 3 years; Annie's been breeding and showing pedigreed cats for over 25 years)

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Let's Do the Time Squad Again
by Dana Shilling 10 Feb '01

10 Feb '01

At the beginning of Time Squad, Jenna tells Blake that he has correctly followed her directions for flying Liberator manually. He then says "let's ask the expert" and asks Zen if he performed the maneuver correctly. Later on, instead of asking the pilot's opinion of the controls in the capsule, he asks Avon, when there isn't a reason in the world why a systems analyst and avocational hacker would know anything about them. But this may have more to do with distrust of his staff than distrust of Jenna's abilities as an individual or as a woman--after all, Blake has Vila and picnic cooler go to the communications station, but Blake seems quite surprised when Vila is able to open the door to the core unit. -(Y)

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Re: [B7L] liking 'character'
by Tavia Chalcraft 10 Feb '01

10 Feb '01

Neil wrote: >What grates me most in fanfic dialogue is the way many writers >try to capture the exact phrasing of lines with lots of superfluous >italics and'...'s (forgotten the technical term for them), together >with a liberal peppering of adverbs. Curiously enough my non-B7 fan (and non-writer) other half made precisely the same criticism this evening on perusal of some of the TTBA proofs. We came to the conclusion that some of the problem might be that many fanfic writers spend a lot of time on the internet and so develop text-based ways of conveying emotion, including italics, ellipsis and emoticons, which they then find tricky to disgard when writing fiction. Tavia

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Re: Liking 'character'
by Betty Ragan 10 Feb '01

10 Feb '01

Tavia wrote: > Neil wrote: > > What grates me most in fanfic dialogue is the way many writers > > try to capture the exact phrasing of lines with lots of superfluous > > italics and'...'s (forgotten the technical term for them), together > > with a liberal peppering of adverbs. > Curiously enough my non-B7 fan (and non-writer) other half made precisely > the same criticism this evening on perusal of some of the TTBA proofs. We > came to the conclusion that some of the problem might be that many fanfic > writers spend a lot of time on the internet and so develop text-based ways > of conveying emotion, including italics, ellipsis and emoticons, which they > then find tricky to disgard when writing fiction. As a prime offender on this point (and one who, reading this, has just made a resolution to make every effort to stop doing it, really and truly), I don't think it has a whole lot to do with the internet. (Although I have seen "internet-ese" influence some of my writing habits in other ways.) Can't speak for anybody else, but in my case, at least, it comes from wanting to write down dialog exactly as I "hear" it, but realizing (often in extreme frustration) that simply writing down the words leaves out a lot of the qualities of the speech. In my head, there are also pauses, inflections, subtle emphases... To leave those out seems to be leaving out important (to a character junkie) information, but there's no simple, elegant, non-grating way of putting them *in*. I tell myself that *I* as a reader have no trouble generating (re-creating?) all that stuff from the simple words-on-paper (at least, not if the writing and characterization are good to begin with), and I should trust my own readers to do the same thing. I am now telling myself this again. But it's difficult to escape the feeling that I'm leaving some of the most important stuff out. (I do the same thing with facial expressions, which I think I tend to overdescribe, although nobody's complained about that yet, the way they have about the punctuation.) I think what I *really* want is to be able to put a fanfic on the TV screen so everybody can see and hear things exactly as I imagined them, but CGI technology ain't nearly that good yet. :) (And even if it was, I'd probably have absolutely no talent for it, alas.) -- 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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