Blakes7 March 2001

blakes7@lists.lysator.liu.se

96 participants
1067 discussions

Fanfic on the Lyst?
by Susan Beth 23 Apr '01

23 Apr '01

Long ago I got the impression that, as a whole, the Lyst membership was interested in discussing the episodes, and real life aspects that affected the show (directors, writers, actors, BBC standards and budgets) but not in flights of fancy derived from the show. Aka fanfic. As a result, whenever I'm ready to post a piece of fanfic (all too rare these days, I'm afraid) it doesn't occur to me to post it to the Lyst instead of FC, or even as well, even when the story in question is completely sex-free. Is this how it should be? I mean, I've been pretty much assuming that everyone who would enjoy reading fanfic is subbed to FC as well. (Yes, we've got a sizable minority on FC who aren't into slash in fanfic, they just skip scenes or stories that don't suit them, for the sake of getting others that do.) Am I wrong? Are there a lot of people on just the Lyst who might enjoy a piece of fanfic now and then? Or maybe even want to join in creating one? In the past, FC and SC have spawned several Round Robin stories, some of which reached successful conclusions, other which were amusing while they lasted. Just wondering if there is enough interest to make something like that fly. Or would it just be seen as an intrusion on the more episode-oriented list? Susan Beth (susanbeth33(a)mindspring.com)

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Blake Changes His Mind (was Re: [B7L] Re: Interpretation )
by Fiona Moore 03 Apr '01

03 Apr '01

>From: "Dana Shilling" <dshilling(a)worldnet.att.net> >The trouble is that Blake seems to undergo a complete >character change between TWB and Space Fall-- True. >which I suppose might happen given the level of >trauma, but still should have gotten at least a minute >of screen time. Blake in TWB is a pawn completely >at the mercy of events--he doesn't go outside with the >deliberate intention of returning to subversive activity, >only to hear about his brother and sister (since Ravella >and Richie are blackmailing him, they may also have >fabricated the story that his family has been killed). >He spends the massacre hiding, which is a very natural >and believable human reaction but not very Blake-like; >his conduct in the rest of the series is nothing if not >pro-active. And he tells Ravella that he needs time to >think about what she's just said--something he very >conspicuously doesn't give Avon in Space Fall. I don't find the change of character at all surprising, myself. Between the two stories, Blake has been galvanised into action. At the beginning of TWB, he is a good citizen, and believes he always has been so; as you say he is completely at the mercy of the events which overtake him. Between the massacre and "Space Fall," however, his world is completely shattered. Not only has he just witnessed the massacre you mention and learned the truth about his family, past and mental conditioning at the Federation's hands, but he has been framed for child molestation, told that he is insane, given a show trial, had his lawyer killed before he could get an appeal, and packed off to Cygnus Alpha on a ship full of sadistic guards. Enough to rouse anyone to action, I think; militant fanatics are often made of much less. It's worth noting that in "Space Fall," it is the knowledge that his family are dead that gives Blake the strength to resist Zen's trap. If there had even lingered the slightest bit of doubt about the reasons for doing what he was doing, I think he'd have been every bit as trapped as Jenna and Avon. And the thing that kept Blake going was the things he had experienced on Earth, in the brief time between the massacre and his being put on the London. So yes, I agree that there is a change in character, but one that under the circumstances seems to ring true. Fiona The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Totally unchanged at http://nyder.r67.net _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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Re: Perceptions (was Re: [B7L] Lost in France ...)
by Fiona Moore 02 Apr '01

02 Apr '01

>From: "Neil Faulkner" <N.Faulkner(a)tesco.net> > > To snip an absolutely magnificent post down to its conclusion: > >Aww, Fiona <blush> Wouldn't have said it if I didn't think it. As a fan, I'm not oblivious >to these deficiencies, but I'm also hard pressed to pin down the >counterbalancing merits. Deep characterisation? Hardly - most of the >characters are cyphers, two-dimensional at best (and yes, I am talking about >the likes of Blake and Avon here). Scientific accuracy? Don't make me >laugh. Social or political realism? No, please, really, *don't* make me >laugh. Taut, gripping plots? Credible visions of the future? What has >something like B7 got to offer? I think you answered your own question in part, when you referred to the fact that we're operating within the conventions of TVSF. Often B7 seems to be viewed in comparison with other programmes: people say "it's cheaper than ST:TNG, but with stronger women and harder-hitting themes." Or else "it's similar to Survivors, but with more of an edge." Or (quoting myself the other night when watching DS9) "Crikey, why doesn't anyone write scripts like Chris Boucher's anymore?!?" Within the conventions of TVSF, B7 does stand out in a number of ways that might be lost on the outsider (just as *Der Mude Tod* is a radical film in many ways lost on people who aren't into expressionist film). >source series itself adopts a position of 'mature naivety', recreating the >state of the empty child-mind waiting to be filled with knowledge of the >world, *whilst simultaneously* preserving a prior but knowingly incomplete >experience of that world. I agree with you about the source series, at least, to some extent. The best radical work, not just SF, often does strip down a problem to its bare essentials and deal with it in that stylised way. This isn't just naivete I think: William Blake and Robert Frost both wrote very stripped-down poetry, and I don't think you could call "Fire and Ice" naive: rather, deceptively simple. Fritz Lang's "Mabuse" films are often dismissed by their critics as sheer gangster-film schlock-- but the message behind them incurred a ban by the Nazi party as soon as they came to power. In sci-fi, "The Time Machine" was dismissed by many as sheer fantasy (and Wells IIRC preferred his contemporary-set novel "Kipps" to any of his SF), but it contains a subtle polemicism Wells never again equalled even in his tracts for the Fabian society. And to return to B7, I would also argue less for naivete than for the power of deliberate stylisation. It may be naive to strip a fascist society down to one woman and a handful of guards-- and yet in a way this is also the most powerful part of it, as we are lulled into a false sense of thinking that if Servalan is removed, the Federation will fall--but when she is removed, nothing changes. A sobering thought for those of us who thought that voting Labour would stop the privatisation juggernaut. The underlying Federation society is totally vague: we don't know if Servalan is running a dictatorship or a democracy--but that last possibility should give us pause, rather than set us dismissing the politics as naive. So I would say not so much deliberate naivete as deceptive simplicity, and actually I'd probably say the same about the punk lyrics you quoted too. >The boundary between the childlike and the childish can be a narrow one, >which might account for why something like B7, both canon and fanfic, can >often veer towards the juvenile if not the infantile. Hm. I'd agree with you about individual moments of the canon--the Vila scenes in Ultraworld, for instance-- but I'm not so sure about things as a whole. When I think "juvenile" in SF, I think of things like "The Tomorrow People," aimed totally at children with no pretense at anything else, or the faux-educational message of some of early Doctor Who's worse efforts. B7 has its silly moments, but I've never seen it being patronising or faux-educational. If we ask a simple > question like 'Why?' we might find ourselves answering with an equally > simple answer, like: 'The Jews'. And end up heading down an essentially > childish path of uniforms, banners, parades and rallies, assured in the > knowledge that no one will laugh at us because no one will dare. But if we > can retain our pre-knowledge of the world as it is whilst simultaneously > re-envisaging the world afresh, we might not fall into that trap. I've been coming to the conclusion lately that it's not following the banner that's the problem. Initially, large numbers of Germans (Italians, Spanish...) did *not* in fact follow the banners: what they did was more disturbing. They said "Oh, that lot over there, with the banners, the parades and the rallies-- they're just a radical fringe. Ignore them and they'll go away." Even under the Nazis, the majority of Germans were neither monsters nor mindless automatons-- they were people like you and me, who simply said "Well, they're in power, not much I can do but keep out of trouble." In occupied Hungary, by contrast, a concerted resistance effort was made and the oppressor held back to an incredible degree. I don't need, I think to quote back Paster Niedermoller (a Lippstadt man, hooray)'s famous statement to the effect that "first they came for the Jews; I was silent, I was not a Jew..." It is this essentially *adult* behaviour that is more dangerous, I think, than the childish behaviour you describe. >Fandom, like SF, like punk, like radical politics, strips reality down to >its bare essentials and asks fundamental questions. That, I think, is the >root of its appeal. That the answers are not always adequate underlies much >of the deficiencies of all four. Perhaps I've just been disillusioned by recent events on the lyst, but Neil-- *how* does fandom in and of itself strip reality down to its bare essentials and ask fundamental questions? Jenkins' assertion that fans are a bunch of heroic resistors of social convention has always sat ill with me, especially given that he is ultimately forced to admit that the fans he studies are usually very much *within* social convention. And I think, were you to go out and ask a group of B7 fans why they're in fandom, 9/10ths of them would say "To have fun, now hand me back my Scorpio clip-gun, I'm late for the masquerade." Individual fanfic stories and audios make one think, it's true, but those describe the activities of individuals--because a group has a few radicals, that doesn't necessarily mean membership therein is a radical act. While the show, as I said, frequently seems to me to be more clever than its surface would suggest, membership in B7 fandom in and of itself in no wise strikes me as a radical act. Membership in B5 fandom... now that's a radical act. Radicals should always champion lost causes :). Fiona The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Personal and political at http://nyder.r67.net _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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D ot G - second thoughts
by Alison Page 02 Apr '01

02 Apr '01

I said - > Hey I like that bit! By my standards it's sparkling repartee. And then I thought, perhaps you dislike it Neil because it is insulting to disabled people? I didn't mean to overlook such a thing, but I never thought of it, I just thought how clever Tarrant was being. Alison ********************************************************************** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by MIMEsweeper for the presence of computer viruses. www.mimesweeper.com **********************************************************************

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Nonfic on the Lyst
by Fiona Moore 02 Apr '01

02 Apr '01

I've had an idea, which I wanted to put to the Lyst to see if other people thought it was a good one. I belong to a Doctor Who mailing list called "Jade Pagoda," dedicated to the BBC and Virgin Doctor Who novels. They have a practice they call "Book of the Month," which means that every month, the person running the thread names a book, and everyone who wants to participate reads it, and then posts their comments, reviews, mad ideas etc. After the last day of the month, no more posts on that particular topic can be sent in. It occurred to me that something similar could be done on Lysator with the B7 episodes. Say every month we pick a B7 episode, and people who feel like talking about it, do. People don't have to go away and watch it, just read the script or make a few comments on what they remember about it or whatever, but it provides a common discussion point and B7-related activity for the Lyst. At the end of the month, we move on to the next one. In addition, it could provide a useful source of episode reviews and essays for people's zines and websites. If a month is too long, we could always make it a weekly or fortnightly thing (I suggested a month because that seems to be the time limit that works best for JP). Maybe you all think this is an oppressive idea, or whatever, but it would give those of us who don't write fanfic, or who do but also like talking about the programme, something to do. Fiona The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane 52 months is a long time at http://nyder.r67.net _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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Re: [B7L] leaving the lyst
by Shane Little 02 Apr '01

02 Apr '01

Calle wrote: >Shane Little writes: > > > > 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. > > >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. > >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 Who needs Cupid? Matchmaker.com is the place to meet somebody. FREE Two-week Trial Membership at http://www.matchmaker.com/home?rs=200015

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RE: [B7L] surveillance cameras
by Louise Rutter 02 Apr '01

02 Apr '01

Una wrote: >Issuing fines for speeding is lucrative, however. Isn't there surveillance >technology that can take a picture, recognize your registration plate, and then >issue a fine accordingly? What worries me about this particular technology is >that it can monitor your movements as you travel. But at least the damn things only take photos if you _are_ speeding. Be grateful for our toll-free roads. On the French autoroutes, they can issue you with a speeding ticket if you get from one toll booth to the next too quickly, which means they must routinely register which vehicles go through and when. Louise

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Back again
by Jacqueline Thijsen 01 Apr '01

01 Apr '01

Didya miss me? Don't you all yell "No!" too loudly, I might hear you. The prozac seems to be kicking in now, so yelling "boo" won't scare me off anymore. I dunno who invented prozac, but I hope they got a Nobel prize for it. They've more than deserved it. Erm, ObB7.: They may not have carried drugs for radiation sickness, but I'll bet that the crew got a full load of prozac or drugs like it on board somewhere within the first ten episodes. There's no way they could have kept on functioning as well as they did otherwise. Hmm, maybe that's what the soma was all about. Vila didn't seem to know about it until Cally started administering it. BTW, another thank you to all those who mailed me for your support when I was feeling down. It helped just about as much as the medication. I'll answer privately when the tired feeling has worn off a bit more. Jacqueline

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Re: [B7L] surveillance cameras
by Tavia 01 Apr '01

01 Apr '01

Julia wrote: >2001, and everywhere I go on the rail network >and the London Underground, there are security cameras >"for the protection of our customers and staff". I guess it depends whether hypothetical member of the public encounters them in the context of 'privacy invasion' or 'protection'. I've exited the London Underground at non-busy stations carrying several thousands of pounds-worth of computer equipment (on business) and been bloody glad of the security cameras on those dark deserted stairwells. Ditto airport car-parks. And I would probably rate myself on the personal privacy end of the spectrum. >It's given me an insight into one of the aspects of TWB >that I personally find deeply disturbing - that the population >seem to accept what's going on. I guess the Federation administration just has to persuade the average plus/minus law-abiding citizen that each *particular* usage lies on the protection end of the spectrum... Tavia

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surveillance cameras
by Julia Jones 01 Apr '01

01 Apr '01

Something that's struck me in my recent intensive encounter with the British public transport system is the way public attitudes to surveillance systems have changed in the last twenty years. As recently as 1978, surveillance cameras in public areas were seen as a symbol of an oppressive government. There's ample evidence for that in The Way Back, and in the title sequence for the first two series. And then there's the way the same cameras that are seen keeping an eye on the general public in TWB are used to control prisoners both in the detention area on earth, and on the London. 2001, and everywhere I go on the rail network and the London Underground, there are security cameras "for the protection of our customers and staff". Large notices drew my attention to the presence of these cameras, and the management's willingness to use them to protect those using and running the trains. Watching the BBC documentary series on The Face, and there's a demonstration of the wonders of modern technology - the software system that can take an image from a security camera, and match it up against a database of faces, returning any match within a couple of seconds. Did I hear correctly when John Cleese mentioned "millions" in connection with how many faces are stored in this database? This software and database are up and running - it's what Neil and I were having a rant about last year. It's being used by the police right now. The documentary had nothing to say about the ethics of such a system. Just how does a face get into this database? And why? It's given me an insight into one of the aspects of TWB that I personally find deeply disturbing - that the population seem to accept what's going on. Doesn't seem to have taken much for *us* to accept similar uses of surveillance technology. It's wonderful for crime- fighting, and if you don't like it, what is it you want to hide? After all, only criminals would be worried about such a system. Well, yes. Only criminals would be worried, I'll grant you that. It's the definition of "criminal" that worries me. Are you quite certain that you'll never be defined as a criminal? Or that you aren't already? An awful lot of people who consider themselves to be upright honest citizens get most indignant about the police "wasting their time on speeding offences when they could be catching criminals". It's an offence, sometimes an extremely serious offence, to speed on the roads, but somehow that isn't a crime because it's nice middle class people doing it. Or to take an example a little closer to home for me - once, and only once, thank god, have I experienced what it's like to be classed as a criminal because of my race, by someone in a position to make my life unpleasant. UK passports list place of birth. I was travelling from England to Amsterdam a few years ago, at a time when the IRA was using the Netherlands as a base for terrorist attacks on British targets in Europe. The customs officer who examined my passport questioned me in an extremely unpleasant and threatening manner about the fact that I had an English accent when my place of birth was listed as Belfast. I've been asked about it by other customs officers, but politely and apparently out of curiosity, and this man's attitude was a frightening contrast. And now people are finding themselves considered legitimate targets by vigilante groups, because they have the same name as someone convicted of paedophile offences, or because they live at an address that was once used by someone convicted by paedophile offences, or just because a nice juicy bit of gossip has been doing the rounds of the estate. All at the instigation of a tabloid paper that has cottoned on to a wonderful way to boost sales. I wonder how many tabloid readers have stopped to consider that *they* might be reclassified as criminals in the next wave of hysteria against some outcast group. Somehow, I no longer find it implausible that Blake's lawyer was that naive about what was going on in his society. -- Julia Jones

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Blakes7 March 2001