Re: Survey of Voyager Fandom - B/7 & J/7 -- Alternative Quadrant Message Board

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Subject: Re: Survey of Voyager Fandom - B/7 & J/7

Author:
Caro.

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Date Posted: 19:47:48 03/26/02 Tue
In reply to: RalSt 's message, "Re: Survey of Voyager Fandom - B/7 & J/7" on 16:34:45 02/24/02 Sun

B/7 is almost compulsive when you start to try and write the characters of Torres and Seven in fics. The force of their personalities means that you can't write them as neutral to each other. And that leaves you with two ways to go. Either they develop a powerful friendship and it's then a short femslash step to a romantic relationship or they become mortal enemies and again only a step away from some kind of passionate relationship. (A good example of a J/7 story that explores B/7 is Beginnings by Lisa Countryman. This story could easily have become B/7 and in some ways might have been better if it had.)

There's a shed-load of J/7 subtext in the series and a mere thimbleful of B/7 but in part that reflects the lack of screen time shared by these two characters. There is a strong dynamic in the few scenes they do have together. It's a typical failure of Voyager screenwriting that no consistent relationship (good or bad) was developed between these two.

It is certainly a benefit in writing B/7 that you don't have to deal with the inequality question that plagues J/7 and gives most J/7 stories their dramatic focus. B/7 has its share of cliches for sure (and there is that pesky Tom Paris to contend with) but they can be avoided more easily whereas 'the Captain' issue simply doesn't go away and is such an intrinsic part of the J/7 dynamic that even uber stories replicate it in some way.

That's certainly been my experience of writing J/7 and B/7. In J/7 the parameters within which you have to write are much more defined. In B/7 you have more freedom to play while still being true to the characters.

Caro.

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