yonmei

11:01 am: Five Favourite TV series
Meme gacked from alixtii: Pick five of your favourite shows, in no particular order, before you read the below questions, then answer them!

1. Blake's 7
2. Doctor Who
3. M*A*S*H
4. House
5. West Wing

( Q&A )



Tags: blake's 7, doctor who, fannishness, house md, hugh laurie, lists, m*a*s*h, meme, slash, someone died, tv addiction, west wing

10:14 pm: Zulu said Fred
1. What is your greatest ambition 1) for today, 2) for the month, 3) for the year?

1.1 For today: to compile the email bulletin. 1.2 For June or for July? I could be perverse and say June, which would be the same as for today, wouldn't it? For July: to launch my new website effectively, and to finish writing the latest fanfic. Or I'll get killed. 1.3 To get my photoblogging back on line and to cope with work without losing track of home.

2. You can change one law. What is it, and what does it become?

I would amend the 1975 Marriage Act so that same-sex couples could get married. Oh, that's awfully serious. I would change the Hollywood Law that makes it impossible to have two women talking to each other about plot stuff instead of teh menz, and so from now on all films and TV series would pass the Bechdel Test. Is that too frivolous? I think I want to repeal the law of gravity, so that we can all fly whenever we want to.

3. What's your favourite website to visit?

I wondered how to answer this one. xkcd because it always makes me smile? www.guardian.co.uk because I habitually turn to it for news? insanejournal.com or redbubble or feministsf - the blog for obvious reasons?

No, I think in all honesty it's much simpler than that: www.google.com. Sorry.

4. What's something you are or have been fannish about, and how would you pimp it?

Depends what it was. If Blake's 7, probably start with fanfic, and move on to episodes only when actually begged to do so. If Star Trek, probably begin and end with fanfic, plus maybe carefully selected bits of episodes that are genuinely OK, mostly because Spock and McCoy are gazing into each other's eyes. If ST:tng, I'd probably try to start off with "Chain of Command", because that's certainly what hooked me, or possibly just all the Picard/Q episodes. Especially the one where Q licks Picard's ear. Or the one where Q and Picard are tucked up naked in bed together. If The Professionals, same technique as for B7. If MacGyver, make them watch the Murdoc episodes until sufficiently convinced this is the primary pairing, then introduce them to the sincere yet limited M/M fanfic. If M*A*S*H... well, who could fail to melt at the thought of Hawkeye/Mulcahy? They're just too adorable.

5. Beanie caps: height of fashion, or accessory disaster?

Disaster. That was easy.

You know the rules: if you want to be interviewed, ask me!




Tags: bechdel, being queer, blake's 7, fanfic, fred, m*a*s*h, redbubble, star trek

07:12 pm: The character list meme
The list of characters





( Copracat asked: Why do birds sing? )

( Copracat asked: Don't you regret betraying her? )

( Magpyr asked: If 3 could go back in time, what is the one thing they would change about their life? )

( Magpyr asked: What is 5's favorite food? )

( Magpyr asked: If 7 were to be a dog, what breed would they be? )

( MuninnHuginn asked: Number 13, what is the length of a piece of string? )

( MuninnHuginn asked: Number 6, was it 'in the greenhouse with the conductors baton' or 'the downstairs loo with a grand piano'? )

( EileenLufkin asked: 2&11: do they fight each other, fight crime, or have hot sex? )

( EileenLufkin asked: Question for number four; 1, 8, and 9; cliff, marry, shag? )

( Ruthi asked: 1 and 7, how do they save the world, and from what? )

( 12, 14, and 15, on finding themselves ignored )

Tags: babylon 5, blake's 7, books are what i read, dr who, highlander, house md, m*a*s*h, macgyver, shakespeare, slash slash slashity slash, star trek

03:25 pm: Redemption: Iron Man
I had just finished a rather fascinating panel on US English vs UK English, when I realised it was past three and I was late for Iron Man.

I had settled down on the floor when I realised that, um, the coffee and wine drunk earlier had backed up on me, and I urgently needed PLUMBING. This meant (it is this hotel's drawback) running up one floor and down a corridor to our room and using the facilities there, or running down several flights of stairs to the ground floor...

...so I left my laptop opened up, switched on, in the middle of the floor, and ran upstairs and also grabbed a Stoats Christmas bar. It occurred to me that there are not many public events where it would be perfectly, completely safe to do this...

I volunteered for Iron Man, but I was quite - say very relieved - to discover I wasn't in it (pinkdormouse lost my e-mail) because I was doing a lot of other panels on Sunday.

The closing ceremony is at 4pm, and then there's the Bechdel Test panel at 5pm, and I have a date at 6pm to eat dinner and do more regendering of the A-Team, and another panel at 7pm on original SF films and fantasy.

Poor Paul Darrow. He really could not write. But I wonder if he'd like one of these readings? (I played Scorpio last year - two years ago. I was jolly good.)

At the US/UK English panel, the steampunk fan on the panel, discovering that slash derives from the American word for the "/" punctuation symbol, announced that from now on the steampunk fandom word for "slash" would be "oblique" - because (I said, charmed): Watson writes oblique stories about himself and Holmes. Ah sweet.





Tags: blake's 7, redemption

10:07 am: Redemption: Writing Bad Blake's 7 Slash
List of items: Aprons, feather dusters, Dustpan and brush, long-handled broom, scrubbing brush, mop and bucket, marigold gloves

( Written collectively in an hour by hungover, tired, insane slash fans.... this is your only warning! )



Tags: blake's 7, fannish snark, redemption

03:25 pm: Class on TV
I am still thinking about a comment alixtii made on her journal. Just out of interest, what's your impression, imaginary Internet people, of the difference between class representation on British TV and American TV?

Never mind (for the moment) how you yourself define upper, middle, and working class: what shows currently (or historically) on British TV portrayed which classes, and which ones did you watch? And what is the difference between this and American TV?

Tags: blake's 7, bob, class, doctor who, fannishness, m*a*s*h, tv addiction

03:53 pm: Ooh, new friends!
*waves hi!*

Tea? Or coffee? I will brew up a big cafetiere and a big pot of tea, and there's some decaf tea of various sorts in that cupboard over there. Do you take hot milk with your coffee? Fancy a ginger biscuit? Mmm, me too. Here *offers jar*

( fred the meme )

Tags: blake's 7, fanfic, fred, journal housekeeping, meme

01:02 am: 10 flash fiction stories - late, argh!
Yes, yes, I suck. Sorry. I got distracted Christmas Day and couldn't focus to do flashfic, and with one thing and another have been getting distracted ever since - until tonight, when...

As requested, following a longstanding tradition:

( Moonflowerz, Xena, familiar )


( Jekesta, M*A*S*H, frame )


( Whatho, West Wing, headache )


( Melancharisbron, Mary Sue )


( Plasticsturgeon, ballad, heather )


( Bubosquared, Mickey/Jake, rain )


( Strangerian, Georgette Heyer, stranger )


( rainherder, Lord of the Rings, femur )


( solar_boat, Blake's 7, Library )


( ruthi, Ninth Doctor, duck )

Tags: blake's 7, brokeback mountain, christmas day stories, doctor who, dr who, flashfic, georgette heyer, m*a*s*h, star trek, tolkien, west wing, xena

10:13 pm: Fantasy Pirate League
jekesta did it, and she got it from tiniago. We should all do it and then we'd have a Fantasy Pirate Fleet. Which will sail round livejournal being swashbuckling and everything and talking pirate talk and taking prisoners and loot and everything!

( My Fantasy Pirate League )

Tags: blake's 7, discworld, georgette heyer, jane austen, m*a*s*h, macgyver, pirates, running away to sea, silly memes, star trek

11:25 pm: 10 flash fiction stories
As requested, following a longstanding tradition:

( Spacefall, Blake's 7 )

( Foreverdirt, West Wing/Star Trek/Drop the Dead Donkey )

( Nerdcakes, Star Trek )

( Shoshanna, Highlander/Next Gen )

( Derryderrydown, Professionals )

( Whatho, M*A*S*H )

( Angelofthenorth, Harry Potter )

( Melata_fic, Discworld )

( Thette, Buffy the Vampire Slayer )

( Coyotegoth, Harry Potter )

( Bugshaw, hamster )

Tags: bible, blake's 7, christmas day stories, discworld, flashfic, harry potter, m*a*s*h, professionals, star trek, west wing, write write write, yuletide

08:50 pm: Gauda Prime Day
24 years ago the last episode of Blake's 7 was broadcast for the first time, and I watched, absolutely devastated, as all my favourite characters died.

And then I wrote about it in my journal for days on end. Thank God I wasn't online then, eh?

Tags: blake's 7

01:08 pm: Meme: Five Characters
Five Characters I Want To Punch in the Face. Or rather bitch-slap, since it seems more appropriate somehow. (nicked from snowgrouse)

The one thing all five of these characters have in common is a smug self-satisfaction - a certainty that they're in the right and they are the centre of the universe. *eyes the line-up* Some of them, of course, with more justification than others. And any pain they might cause is nothing because they didn't feel it themselves.

None of them are outright villains. I tend to find outright villains either not interesting enough to slap around, or so painfully interesting I want to vivisect them slowly and in public, not just bitch-slap.

( my five )

Tags: blake's 7, buffy, house md, i watch tv obsessively, lists, m*a*s*h, meme meme meme, star trek

11:24 pm: 10 flash fiction stories
As requested. A very different range from last year.

( Sinsense, Harry Potter )

( PhoenixW, Harry Potter )

( Daegaer, Good Omens )

( CoyoteGoth, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen )

( Kickair8p, Due South )

( RedStarRobot, Blake's 7 )

( DarkLily, Sherlock Holmes )

( AngeloftheNorth, Merchant of Venice )

( HFNuala, Earthsea )

Tags: bible, blake's 7, christmas day stories, due south, films, flashfic, harry potter, leguin, shakespeare, write write write, yuletide

09:22 am: "With a ship like this and a full crew, then we CAN start fighting back."
( wanna be in my gang? )

Tags: blake's 7

09:58 pm: I wondered how eB7 was going to work out...
Andrew Sewell, who wants to revive Blake's 7 for the 21st century, hates Blake's 7 fans. Or at least, he hates all of us who write and read slash, and threatens: "They will find out how I am going to clamp down on it. The moment you start doing something of an extremely dubious nature of the pornographic variety or for a commercial benefit without acquiring the rights, I and my partners will take a dim view of that."

You know, someone should tell Andrew Sewell that it's really not a good start to a sequel project to deliberately offend so many fans of the previous series. Still, on the plus side, it sounds like Paul Darrow is off the project.

Tags: blake's 7

08:42 am: 20th Anniversary
Twenty years ago - on a cold and miserable day sometime in late October or early November - I arrived home from school to find an envelope waiting for me, with a fanzine inside. (I could tell by the heft and weight.) I stood there over the envelope, in my heavy winter coat with the hood that tied close over my head with a knot that had got wet and was a struggle to undo, breathless with anticipation. I had discovered fandom that year, 1983, and was not unaccustomed to coming home to find envelopes with exciting fanzines and newsletters inside. But this was advertised as a fanzine with "same-sex stories", age statement required. Well, I already knew how to handle that: write to the editor saying "I state that I am over 18". It wasn't exactly a lie, I told my conscience: I certainly was stating that I was over 18. That I was 16 was, well, beside the point. (In any case, as I realised later, editors want an age statement, true or not, to save themselves from potential prosecution by angry parents. My parents had never tried to stop me from reading anything, however "unsuitable" they deemed it. They might have felt differently had they seen the Gayle Feyrer cover illustrations for The Prize, but as far as I know, they never have.)

I kept telling myself, while focussing very hard on the damned knot (it was hot inside the house and I wanted to get my coat off before I sat down and started reading) that Blake's 7 fandom, so far, was full of women, and that these "same-sex stories" would undoubtedly be mostly about women, not men. But even then, as a very newly-out lesbian (hadn't told anyone that I didn't already know to be lesbian) I knew that what I wanted to read about was Avon and Vila.

Finally, my 16-year-old self got the knot undone. I can't remember what I did with my coat. (My adult self tells me I hung it up. More realistically, I suspect I simply dropped it on the floor. I may have picked it up later. I certainly hope so.) I sat down, opened up the envelope, pulled out the fanzine, and discovered with an instant shock of recognition, happiness, joy, and, yes, sheer sexual arousal that this was a zine full of stories about Avon and Vila. I was hooked. I took zine and self upstairs to my room and didn't come down again until I was yelled for to come and have tea. Towards the end of the zine, I even found out that my feelings had a name: this was a slash zine. I was a slash fan.

And have been, now, for twenty years.

Tags: blake's 7, slash slash slashity slash

11:18 pm: Top fannish viewing moments
eliade just started what I think is an absolutely brilliant fannish meme: ( top fannish viewing moments--moments that stand out in memory, or that shaped my response to a show in some powerful way )

Look, this is fannish stuff, okay. Either don't click or deal with it.

Tags: blake's 7, buffy, fannishness, highlander, meme, professionals, star trek