FORKNI-L

FORKNI-L Digest - 28 Jul 2000 to 29 Jul 2000 (#2000-228)

Sat, 29 Jul 2000

There are 14 messages totalling 608 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

  1. Was "attracted to vampires", now is "goo"
  2. YKYBWTMFK...
  3. Seems like Old Times
  4. [Re: [FORKNI-L] Attracted to vampires?] (2)
  5. Dear Ye and YKY...
  6. YKYBUTLWFKW...
  7. Aging & FK
  8. FK as detective or cop show fare (2)
  9. Attracted to vampires?
 10. Permutations of Last Night (2)
 11. Admin: URGENT Vampires, death and FK

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Date:    Fri, 28 Jul 2000 21:02:12 -0400
From:    Amand-r <deparsons@e.......>
Subject: Was "attracted to vampires", now is "goo"

<Emily wrote>
> With technology, people are going to be living a lot longer.  The average
> life-span is increasing every day.  And with new genetic techniques, how much
> do you want to bet they'll find a way to stop aging, at least for a while?
> Course they'll charge us an arm and a leg for it, but at least we won't have
> to sell our souls.

Highly doubtful.  Ironically, the cell knows when to falls apart.  Look
at how Dolly the sheep died.  It's not religion talking here, but
nature knows what "ain't right", sometimes.

I am not a heavy proponent of religion, but I am one of mythology.
Look at  the mythos of the vampire-- a creature that could never die,
and was required to eat (yes, eat in old legends) the living to die.
They had full sets of pointy teeth, and they slept in graves, and they
had nasty breath.  And I think they smelled like rot.  Yum.

Dracula was the first "sexy" vampire.  Romanian tales from before that
time say that vampires were horrid things that crushed your chest in
the night, most often dead family members.  With Stoker, vampires
became sexier.  Think about the appearance of evil-- the dark and
middle ages generally chose to describe evil creatures as horrifyingly
ugly, but with a great deal of the enlightenment and the like, people
started to think of the possibility that evil was extremely beautiful.

Vampires, until recently would never have been seen as beautiful.  In
Romanian and other Slavic villages, they are still a bit of ananthema.
Incidentally, the list of traits that suggest who is likely to wake up
as a vampire include:  promiscuity and red hair.  Oh, and if you were a
barmaiden, you could pretty much plan on a set of fangs.

Where was I going?  Oh!  I think the concept of living forever is a
love/hate thing that we have now, because death in hospitals is no
unnatural, and lots of people see the suffering or drugged slip into
unconsciousness and think to themselves that "it's not the way to go."
Lots of people might very well have warped senses of death, life, and
pain.

I am scared to death of death (she says redundantly).  I 've never seen
it done naturally.  And so the other year I looked back at all my
obsessions and things I watched and wrote for:  Xena, Highlander,
Forever Knight, Anne Rice Vampires, et ceteras.  No freaking wonder.
I'm immersed in things that don't die.  I wonder, is it chicken or egg?
Do these things appeal to me because I fear death, or do I feel death
because I am immersed in immortals?

Of course, I do have a special preference for LaCroix...mmm...happy
place...

Sorry!!  ARRGH!!

Amand-r

------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 28 Jul 2000 21:06:11 -0000
From:    Barbara Vainio <bevainio@w.......>
Subject: YKYBWTMFK...

...When you hear the song "Conquistador" on the radio and when you hear the
line "You did not conquer, only die" think "Not quite" and smile at the
thought of Vachon.

Barb

------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 28 Jul 2000 21:23:42 -0400
From:    "Susan M. Garrett" <susang@v.......>
Subject: Seems like Old Times

I was thinking the other day about some of the great times we've had at
cons, on-line, etc.

Has anyone collected any of our history?  Is there a place where old con
reports are kept and viewable?

Just curious.

Regards
susang@v.......  -- http://www.vitinc.com/~susang
EVER Faithful Ravenette. http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/2167/fiction.htm
"Friends help you move.  Real friends help you move bodies."

------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 28 Jul 2000 23:30:46 -0400
From:    "Brenda F. Bell" <webwarren@e.......>
Subject: Re: [Re: [FORKNI-L] Attracted to vampires?]

At 12:19 PM 7/27/00 +0100, Gordon wrote, regarding the aesthetic and
character of living and aging:

 >I want to live, and I want to live as me.

Should you continue to live a normal lifespan, you *will* live as *you* --
NOBODY can take that away from you unless you let them. Simply, your
perspective of who *you* are will change -- deepen, broaden, expand -- as
your knowledge and abilities expand. There is something very satisfying
about having been around the block enough to be able to help someone deal
with the hurdles of life, or to be able to envision something and make it
happen, that just... seems like it was shallow and callow when you were
five, ten, twenty years younger.

I *won't* say, "Trust me, in five or ten years you'll see it and
understand" -- far too many people *don't* take the time to understand, and
don't take the measure of themselves and their peers to see either forest
or trees, or the seeds those trees were, or the books and furnishings and
firewood they'll become. I will, however, hope that you will learn to
appreciate the complete life cycle and not just the small part of it you've
seen to-date.

 >Death terrifies me.

Have you ever known Death? I mean, close-up and personal -- someone you
cared deeply about dying, either from illness or from accident, or from
just slipping quietly away in his or her sleep? Most people your age have
not yet seen enough of Death to understand it as another stage of Life; so
too, do many who do not have a religious or psychic faith to assure them
that Death isn't the absolute end. When you are ready to die, Death will
have lost its sting and become, instead, a refuge.

But until you are ready to die -- *truly* ready to die -- you should not
seek Death, but learn when and how to accept it when it seeks you.


At 09:13 AM 7/28/00 CDT, Emily Hanson responded to Gordon's fears of aging:

 >With technology, people are going to be living a lot longer.  The average
 >life-span is increasing every day.  And with new genetic techniques, how much
 >do you want to bet they'll find a way to stop aging, at least for a while?

You miss the point, Emily: Gordon wants to stay forever in an arrested
stage of mental and physical development (let me guess, Gordon: 18???),
brought on by cultural programming that considers anyone of legal age to be
as good as worthless. He's living in a sort of vampiric _Logan's Run_...


Brenda F. Bell   webwarren@e.......   /nick TMana     IM: n2kye
Arctophile, computer addict, TREKker, stealth photographer...
        UA, PoCBS, FKPagan; Neon-Green GlowWorm
HugMistress of the Ger Bear Project http://members.Tripod.com/~TMana/
Gerthering 3 Photos:  http://members.Tripod.com/~TMana/gertherng/
Visit the Fiendish Glow at http://home.earthlink.net/~webwarren/glow/

------------------------------

Date:    Sat, 29 Jul 2000 04:51:48 +0100
From:    Laurieta <laurie@f.......>
Subject: Re: [Re: [FORKNI-L] Attracted to vampires?]

This post wasn't directed at me... but I still need to say something. I've
seen death, up close and personal. I've seen beautiful, brilliant people
snatched away without any explanation or reason. I've seen the emptiness
left in their wake. And I believe that death is the absolute end. All that
is left behind are memories and unanswered questions. Death is no
transition... not in my opinion, it's an end to all things. We are energy,
our particles go on for as long as that energy propels them, and one day
finally expires and transforms into some other, milder current, and destroys
our fragile consciousness.

It's the end. And that's why the idea of the vampire is so damn appealing.
Ageing makes no sense. A person can grow and mature without withering and
shrivelling up, losing sight of the youthful beauty they took for granted.
They can according to vampiric lore, anyway. And though it's a myth, a
story, it's appealing because people -are- so damn afraid of getting old and
dying. People learn to accept death because it's inevitable and there's
nothing for it but to accept it. There's no escape. And the possibility,
even if it's just an idea, a concept, is thrilling and to most people
irresistable. It's control. As human beings we don't control nature, it
controls us. It takes us and places us into an egg timer, where the sands
eventually run out and we drown in the memory of who we once were. People
want to take that egg timer and shatter it, and they should. Death is the
ultimate demonstration of how utterly insignificant we were all along.


Brenda F. Bell wrote, regarding the aesthetic and
> character of living and aging:

> Should you continue to live a normal lifespan, you *will* live as *you* --
> NOBODY can take that away from you unless you let them. Simply, your
> perspective of who *you* are will change

> Have you ever known Death? I mean, close-up and personal -- someone you
> cared deeply about dying

> Death isn't the absolute end. When you are ready to die, Death will
> have lost its sting and become, instead, a refuge.

------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 28 Jul 2000 23:41:58 CDT
From:    Jen Harding <jensharding@h.......>
Subject: Dear Ye and YKY...

well, the surgery went well... they clipped the aneurism that was leaking,
but now they have to do the other one... sometime ;)

they had to shave the hair off half her head for the surgery... she has
really long hair (past her back length), so it'll probably be traumatizing
when she sees herself in the mirror... although one can't really tell
because of the bandage... which leads to a story.

my mom and i look so much alike, and sound so much alike (many friends
cannot tell us apart on the phone)... we both used to have very long hair,
but then i cut mine shoulder-length.  well, i'd gotten very sick of my flat,
flat hair ;), so i told my mom i should get a buzz-cut.  i told her, though,
that even if i got my hair cut a-la-lacroix, it would probably still be
limp!!!  then, in the hospital, she told me, 'well, i'm gonna get that buzz
cut you and dad always want to get'... i pulled a nick and felt guilty.  i
mean, i know *academically* that doesn't make sense....

YKY....

you see the blood being drained from the head into a little container and
you think... "nick and lacroix would love that"

on the way to the hospital you pass over 'cross creek' and think of lacroix

you see 'saline' street, and instead of thinking of salt or such, you think
of seline.... ;)

oh, and on the way to the hospital, my dad and i saw the cutest little baby
skunk running across the road!!!!  musing on that, i partly remembered some
story i read long, long ago comparing lc to a skunk (or something to that
effect)

RN Lambert is still my mom's *nighttime* nurse... maybe sometime i'll ask
him about family..... ;)

thank you all for your thoughts, prayers, and especially your caring.  it
has helped and meant *SOOOOOOO* much!!!  please continue to think happy
thoughts for us.... it's really hard for us sometimes..... ;)

peace, pax, shalom,

Jen Harding, jensharding@h.......
CotK, KoC, Faithful, Val, CP, LC, RoGe, Urchin
"I love you all. And I want all of you ... to love me" -- the Nightcrawler

------------------------------

Date:    Sat, 29 Jul 2000 02:08:04 CDT
From:    Jen Harding <jensharding@h.......>
Subject: YKYBUTLWFKW...

my, my life is full of these!!!

you know you've been up too late with forever knight when...

you are loading an fk page behind your email, take a break and talk to
someone, and hear a bump noise.  you listen closely, sure it's coming from
outside the window.  you realize it's the fk theme song!!!!  'oh, no, i'm
trapped in fk!' (not like that's necessarily a bad thing)  then you realize
it's from the page.  what a letdown!!!!!

pretzels, pop, and procrastination (i'm a fan of alliteration)
(and rhyming, too) (yes, it's true)

jen

Jen Harding, jensharding@h.......
CotK, KoC, Faithful, Val, CP, LC, RoGe, Urchin and assorted others

------------------------------

Date:    Sat, 29 Jul 2000 08:16:25 CDT
From:    "Emily M.Hanson" <emily.m.hanson@u.......>
Subject: Aging & FK

"Brenda F. Bell" <webwarren@e.......> wrote:

>  >Death terrifies me.
>
> Have you ever known Death? I mean, close-up and personal -- someone you
> cared deeply about dying, either from illness or from accident, or from
> just slipping quietly away in his or her sleep? Most people your age have
> not yet seen enough of Death to understand it as another stage of Life; so
> too, do many who do not have a religious or psychic faith to assure them that
> Death isn't the absolute end.
>

Hello, just had to respond.  I lost my mom from cancer when I was 17.  At that
age, I already had known death and the consequences there-of.  I think the
attraction of FK for me was that a man who made a bad choice and regretted it
and was trying to turn his life around.  (Not to mention that particular
vampire is very good looking!)


Emily M. Hanson

http://www.starbase-eprime.com

------------------------------

Date:    Sat, 29 Jul 2000 10:23:21 -0400
From:    Bonnie Rutledge <br1035@i.......>
Subject: Re: FK as detective or cop show fare

Laurie of the Isles wrote:

<snip> That brings up an interesting question: if you forget the fantasy/horror
> element of the vampires on the show, how does FK rate as a cop show? <snip>

Overall, not very good. It certainly wasn't a 'Law & Order,' 'Murder One,'
'Profiler' or a 'Homicide.' I think the first season had more decent 'detective'
storylines than flimsy, my favorites being 'For I Have Sinned' and 'Last Act.'
With second and third seasons, they progressively deteriorated, but by that
point, I was interested in the characters, so I wasn't going to stop watching
over it.

<waves>

**************************************************************************
Bonnie Rutledge.......<br1035@i.......>.......Single and Fabulous!
       "Must everything I bring into this bed be flawed?" -
        Miranda, on her new sheets, in 'Sex and the City'
"Humor would have suffered greatly had there been no Spanish Inquisition."

------------------------------

Date:    Sat, 29 Jul 2000 11:21:10 -0400
From:    Bonnie Rutledge <br1035@i.......>
Subject: Re: Attracted to vampires?

Brenda wrote in response to my comment:

> >Vampires have to adapt to the changes in the culture that surrounds them
> >for better or for worse if they don't want to draw attention.
>
<snip> I shouldn't have to say this, Bons -- but so to do we humans.<snip>

Oh, I certainly agree, Brenda! I didn't mean to imply that I thought humans
were exempt. My focus was that vampires were not exempt, and that I felt they
would be even more prone to the drag of time than mortals, because we were
talking about changes over hundreds and thousands of years, not just decades.

In my lifetime, computers, VCRs, microwaves, cellular phones, and compact discs
have been introduced into everyday activities, AIDS has exploded into an
epidemic, and political correctness has blossomed into a cloud threatening to
smother freedom and original thought. I'm not even thirty.

I can't even begin to imagine the contrasts that would arise if I compared life
today with the 1st, 11th, 13th or 16th centuries. Granted, the changes would
still be gradual for our vampire characters, rather than punctuated, but it
brings to my mind the scene where 'the guys' muse over the changes in women
over the years, missing the good ol' days in 'My Boyfriend Is A Vampire.' :D

Laurieta wrote:
<snip>Death is the ultimate demonstration of how utterly insignificant we were
all along.<snip>

This exemplifies why we have a variation of opinions on this subject. There are
probably no two people on this list who have an identical conception of life,
death and their place in the universe, so we focus on different proponents
and impediments to the subject of being attracted to vampires, and why we would
or would not want to join them.

I think that my life *is* insignificant when compared to the history of the
human race, our planet, and the universe. Despite the insignificance, I think
nature is a fascinating machine.

This brings me to another reason I wouldn't want to be a vampire, and since I
can relate it to events from the show, rather than wander completely into
theoretic off-topic land, I'll talk about it.

The vampires we see on 'Forever Knight' aren't immortal, not by a long shot.
They are long-lived. There's a difference between existing for hundreds of
years and existing for eternity. Eternity means watching thousands, millions,
or billions of years from now as the human race dies out or evolves into
something else. Eternity means existing until our sun transforms and frazzles
the earth about 5 billion years down the line. I look at the pathos that LC
expressed in 'A More Permanent Hell' at the prospect of continuing indefitely
in a starving limbo after the asteroid hit, and I am filled with dread. Death
doesn't frighten me. Living forever frightens me.

<waves>

**************************************************************************
Bonnie Rutledge.......<br1035@i.......>.......Single and Fabulous!
       "Must everything I bring into this bed be flawed?" -
        Miranda, on her new sheets, in 'Sex and the City'
"Humor would have suffered greatly had there been no Spanish Inquisition."

------------------------------

Date:    Sat, 29 Jul 2000 11:34:08 -0400
From:    "Susan M. Garrett" <susang@v.......>
Subject: Permutations of Last Night

I've been asked often enough what I thought would follow Last Night and
I've said there were at least eight follow-ups that I could think of off
the top of my head.

Well, I was wrong, cause there's 16, assuming that you only use Nick and
Nat as the variables in the equation:

Nick is MORTAL; Nat is MORTAL
Nick is MORTAL; Nat is VAMPIRE
Nick is MORTAL; Nat is DEAD
Nick is MORTAL; Nat is OTHER
Nick is VAMPIRE; Nat is MORTAL
Nick is VAMPIRE; Nat is VAMPIRE
Nick is VAMPIRE; Nat is DEAD
Nick is VAMPIRE; Nat is OTHER
Nick is OTHER; Nat is MORTAL
Nick is OTHER; Nat is VAMPIRE
Nick is OTHER; Nat is DEAD
Nick is OTHER; Nat is OTHER
Nick is DEAD; Nat is MORTAL
Nick is DEAD; Nat is VAMPIRE
Nick is DEAD; Nat is DEAD
Nick is DEAD; Nat is OTHER

(OTHER being defined as a hunter, half-vamp, etc. - keep in mind that
slipping OTHER into further categories increases the number of possibilities)

LaCroix, Vachon, and Tracy are three other variables that could be entered
into the mix.

The possibilities are staggering.

Regards

susang@v.......  -- http://www.vitinc.com/~susang
EVER Faithful Ravenette. http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/2167/fiction.htm
"Friends help you move.  Real friends help you move bodies."

------------------------------

Date:    Sat, 29 Jul 2000 12:08:31 -0400
From:    mclisa@m.......
Subject: Admin: URGENT Vampires, death and FK

First, to all who have kept things on topic by discussing vampires and death
only in relationship to FK, thank you.

Second, I know, I started this by saying that not everybody considers
vampirism a desirable condition, including me, or is attracted to vampires
as vampires.

But -- I should have explicitly said "vampirism as depicted in FK" and "not
attracted to the FK vampires as vampires." For that I apologize.

Vampires in general are not a topic for FK and neither are death, dying and
attitudes toward it in general.

Please, if it isn't directly related to FK in your post, take it to private
correspondence.

Thank you.

Cousin McLisa  (Lisa McDavid)  "That will be Trouble."
mclisa@m.......
Listowner Forkni-l, Fkfic-l, Fkv4s-l

------------------------------

Date:    Mon, 27 Aug 1956 13:32:35 +0000
From:    Jeannie Ecklund <jecklund@l.......>
Subject: Re: Permutations of Last Night

Susan wrote: The possibilities are staggering.(of Last Night)

Thats why Last Knight Fan Fic is so much fun. That's how we keep this
show alive and new.  Without Fans and Fanfic this show would have died
long ago. Never thought of some of those combo's.  Nick as Other! Wow!
Oh and with Nick (Ger) so easy on the eyes it's not hard to watch over
and over and over...

Jeannie
jecklund@l.......
new member of GWDFC

------------------------------

Date:    Mon, 27 Aug 1956 13:38:58 +0000
From:    Jeannie Ecklund <jecklund@l.......>
Subject: Re: FK as detective or cop show fare

Bonnie wrote:Overall, not very good. It certainly wasn't a 'Law &
Order,' 'Murder One','Profiler' or a 'Homicide.'

I agree.  I don't think if Nick had been a normal cop I would have
bothered.  What first attracted me to the show is the "love story"
between Nick and Nat.  I wanted to see them together so badley.  At
least try (better than Last Knight..huge let down).

I have grown to love many of the characters.  All together they make a
wonderful past time.

Jeannie
jecklund@l.......
GDWFC member

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End of FORKNI-L Digest - 28 Jul 2000 to 29 Jul 2000 (#2000-228)
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