Calle wrote:

Shane Little writes:

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I don't know about emma, but it appears that the reason why Kathryn left was because of Annie and Leah's totally unprovoked and quite shocking attack on her Christian beliefs.

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Don't put words in her mouth. Kathryn had been on this list since the beginning, and she's taken far worse attacks on her beliefs than that. This is what she actually wrote:

# Now it isn't bullies driving me away, but simply the general # snarkiness of far too many people, for far too long.

(Entire post is in http://tezcatlipoca.algonet.se/cgi-bin/getbyid.pl?id=45974 if you want to check for yourself)

I believe you.

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That "general snarkiness" most definitely includes you, Shane. Could you *please* drop this debate now, before you manage to empty the list completely?

Well done, Calle. I'm leaving this lyst. You will never hear from me again. Some of you will be pleased. Some of you will say, "thank God he's gone. Things will be so much better now." Others may think, "That's a pity. A lot of what he said was true. I wish I had stood up and said something. Oh well, too late now I suppose."

It is too late. People on this lyst have failed to stand up for too long. And now the battle is over and they've lost.We've all lost. And that is why I am leaving Blake's 7 fandom.

We've lost because we have allowed B7 to be hijacked, and turned into a homogenised hamburger. We have lost because certain very selfish people have no respect for the actors involved, who have supported fandom for over twenty years. These people are being grossly exploited, and none of you care. We have all lost because we have allowed Annie and Leah, two very powerful fans, to bully us into submission. We know what they are like, but we have failed to stand up to them.

And the result? People on this lyst don't talk about B7 anymore, they talk about themselves. They talk about sex. B7 fans have talked about sex for so long now they have mapped it back onto the series. Sex was always a small part of B7. Not any more. All you now see is sex. And a twisted version of sex at that. It's a homophobic kind of sex. It's a kind that demeans gays. And it's only function is to titillate straight women. Women who think that Meegat is a good role model for them to follow. People who have read so much porn that they can now only see relationships in terms of domination and submission.

Slash has become B7, and B7 has been distorted out of shape to make it fit this totally alien interpretation. Everything has its place. Even slash. But B7 fandom has gone the same way as some other fandoms. It has become a show about slash. B7 had a lot of interesting things to say. Not any more. Whatever B7 had to say has been submerged beneath a tide of puerile sexual fantasy.

I am a recent member to this lyst. When I joined I was very disturbed by what I saw. Perhaps people who have been here a long time don't see it anymore, or are trying to ignore what's going on here, because they want to keep the peace. What I saw made me very sad indeed.

Yesterday I read a post about a newbe fan who was sat down in front of the TV and told what they should be seeing. That is appalling. That image demeans all of us. B7 fandom has become the Federation. No, worse than that, it has become George Orwell's 1984. A story about the distortion of reality. Those who control the present, control the past, and so also control the future. During the humiliation and brainwashing of Winston Smith, O'Brian holds up three fingers and tells him he is holding up four. He tells him that the people Winston though existed didn't exist at all, in fact had never existed. He is told that if O'Brian so wished, he could defy gravity and float above the ground. The reason he doesn't? Because he chooses not to! In the end Winston Smith is destroyed. He believes everything O'Brian tells him. He has learned to "love" him and the state he represents.

In these last few weeks I have seen reality turned on its head. "If I perceive something to be true, it must be true." Sorry, you are wrong. It just means you're self-deluded, or worse, just plain mad.

What happens if you challenge this mindset? People sulk, they stamp their feet, they run away, they twist your words. They say, "the characters weren't very realistic anyway," they say, "the programme was silly" they say, "the acting was bad", they say, "it looked cheap." They attack the programme they profess to love, to justify an interpretation which at best is totally without merit, and at worst is totally perverted and demeaning, to the show, to the actors, to the writers, to yourselves.

I don't care how powerful somebody is, or how much they've allegedly done for fandom, or how many of their zines you've bought. If they're hurting actors and belittling the beliefs and sexual identities of fellow fans, not to mention the programme itself, then their behaviour is totally unacceptable, and no amount of cons organised can change that. On Ashton Press' welcoming page, there is a picture of two idealised, well-fed wolves. I wonder what poor old Wendy would have made of that...

Calle, you are welcome to your lyst. If I were you, I'd press a few buttons and wipe the whole rotten thing out.

Shane

"The mad and the very powerful have one thing in common. They twist the facts to fit the theory. That's all very well, until you become one of those facts." -- The Doctor

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