Fanart: [Haven] Three Factions

Full version of last week's cartoon:



Here are the three panels as separate pieces: Charlotte/Dwight | Audrey/Nathan | Mara/Duke

It's entirely possible that the scope of this was always beyond my drawing ability/drawing style to convey, but I think that as things go it... does not suck.

December meme: first fandom

tassosss: What was your first fandom?

I've just one substantial fanwork for my first fandom posted online and it's this one (if you've never seen Blake's 7, btw, this will spoil the hell out of you, but it'll definitely let you know what you're getting into):

"Avon - All Fall Down (Blake's 7 fanvid)" (Watch on YouTube)

Blake's 7 happened to be tucked in amongst the 1970s sci-fi and Doctor Who novelisations on my dad's old bookshelves which I raided when I was growing up and got tired of Enid Blyton and pony stories. The whole series started to be released on video when I was about 14, and I bought them. All of them. That was obsession to the tune of about £300 of saving up pocket money in the early 90s. I was in the fanclub, Horizon, and had some paper zines, but I've never actually published/posted any fic anywhere, although I did write some. I've still got it somewhere. The first fanfiction I ever wrote was a PGP (post-Gauda Prime, ie. the end of the series) episode-style gen. I think it may have been typed on a manual typewriter. Unless we were up to the greenscreen and the dot printer by that time. :D

My investment in the show was mostly about Avon and also about the women, because this show has awesome ladies. Women running around with guns doing everything that the men did, without anyone questioning their right or capacity to do that or treating them any more delicately than the male characters was very important to me. Cally and Soolin were my favourites. Soolin's characterisation was spotty because she wasn't around for as long as the other cast, but there were plenty of hints that she was as tough and ruthless and as smart as Avon, once she got going, albeit in different ways. Cally... I really liked Cally. The contradiction of the fight-to-the-death doggedness of her and being the compassionate voice of the crew, the telepath-alone. And obviously, SERVALAN. Is she the best female villain ever?

Anyway, back to Avon. I don't know how Paul Darrow manages to be a sex symbol in those outfits hamming it up for all he's worth. I think it's mostly about the voice? The character was something I hadn't seen before, Spock without the alien, adherence to logic with the knowledge that there's a human behind there who life somehow made that way, which I think is more intrinsically interesting. And there's the wall of sarcasm and mercenary attitude but of course you know he cares. He's out of his depth and he never wanted to be a part of the crew anyway and he ends up, somehow, in charge of the Liberator holding off an alien invasion and then nominally in charge of the remnant of Blake's quest, fighting for a cause he doesn't believe in and is endlessly sarcastic about but still fighting.

I'd have to admit here that I didn't have a huge amount of interest in Blake. He needed to be there to make up the themes and the tension but I don't have any amount of connection with that sort of idealist character. Vila's another popular one that I'm... eh, okay. And I'll read the Blake/Avon and Vila/Avon slash, but I'd rather read gen.

...Oh yes. And this, in my very first fandom, was where I encountered my first slash as well. I don't have a good memory of how I approached this at first. I remember seeking out the Vila/Avon for a while, because it tended to be fun and bantery, but was never terribly interested in Avon/Blake. (I think I was more into reading the slash in my second fandom, which was Deep Space 9, and Bashir/Garak & Bashir/O'Brien.)

This is kind of the Fandom of Death (which is what the above vid is about) and, gee, am I morbid? Let's see... Blake's 7... to Angel... to Haven. Hah.

I think this show definitely shaped my view of how science fiction should be, with the rag-tag band of dubious allies on a stolen spaceship, hopping from random planets which all looked vaguely like quarries, occasionally facing weird aliens that weren't supposed to exist but they sure encountered a lot of them for just one crew. The political dystopias, and the bleakness of it all. The crew that banter and go through all that together but might still stab each other in the back given the right incentive.

This didn't end up much of a pimping post, it's more just a blurge of thoughts. But if you haven't seen it, and you can take the shoddy sets and special effects of 1970s sci-fi, you should definitely give this one a go. Farscape and Babylon 5 were great but this was first and this is still greater.