In a message dated 8/3/01 9:41:08 AM Eastern Standard Time, maya@multiweb.nl writes:

<< The recent discussion about slash has left me rather bemused about the blatant disregard for canon and the writers' intent expressed by some lystmembers. In writing B7 fanfiction, we are in effect hijacking characters created by others. It's something I, for one, am acutely aware of, and it makes me feel obliged to keep to the canon, out of respect for the show's creators.

As I writer, I'd hate it if someone would take the characters from my books and distort them to the point where they would become unrecognisable to me. And it would hurt even more if they then went on to claim that their version was the way I had really intended the characters to be, and kept ignoring my denials. >>

I think I would be inclined to draw a distinction here between TV and books, in that the author of a book has almost complete control over "their" universe - OK, the editor will alter some things, but the charcters and broad plot are still going to be entirely the author's creation. In a TV series like B7, however, there is no ultimate figure of control. Terry Nation willingly handed his charcters over to script editor, actors and other writers who then placed their own interpretations on top of his own. Gareth Thomas and Chris Boucher from the start cheerfully subverted Terry Nation's idea of Robin Hood in space to a much darker, morally ambiguous story.

Since so many different people with differing interpretations worked on B7, at what point do the characters become unrecognisable to whom? Fanfic is only doing what all the different B7 writers have already done by putting your own interpretation into the show. What did Terry Nation or the actors think of Tanith Lee's scripts, for instance? Certainly there are some fans here on this list who feel Sarcophagus and Sand violated the B7 universe.

I think I would be much more reluctant to write novel-based fanfic than I am to borrow TV programmes, purely because of the differing degrees of authorial control.

Louise