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Digest - 14 Mar 2000 to 15 Mar 2000 - Special issue (#2000-75)

Wed, 15 Mar 2000

There are 14 messages totalling 1175 lines in this issue.

Topics in this special issue:

  1. Fanfic info request: dialog and card text from BMV
  2. random questions
  3. FK Chat
  4. Nick's native tongue (3)
  5. Global 100 Charts
  6. Jenny Schanke, Vampire Slayer
  7. Converts and Canonical Gaps (3)
  8. Your Daily Vote and FK's Position
  9. Brabantish
 10. WHOA !!!

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Date:    Tue, 14 Mar 2000 13:58:39 -0800
From:    "D. K. Kraft" <cat@e.......>
Subject: Fanfic info request: dialog and card text from BMV

Greetings and Felicitations!

        I need to get a "transcript" of Lacroix's diatribe in the CERK studio,
that occurs after he's seen Nick and Nat at the window.  My video tape
unfortunately cuts off the first 10 seconds of his speech.  This is the
monologue where he mentions "one night stands," if that helps to reference
what I'm looking for.

        Also, if someone could freeze-frame the close-up of the card included
with Nat's roses, and let me know the exact text written there, I would greatly
appreciate it.  My tape has a bit of a fuzz-out at that point, and I can't
quite make out the whole card.

        I'm hoping to have this story completed by the end of the month.  I was
originally intending to have it finished around mid-February (with good
reason: Valentine's Day), but the best laid plans of mice and men often go
awry.  And cats, too, much as they dislike to admit such a thing.  ;-)

        Any and all replies gratefully accepted.

Paws in the Ink --
--
     /\ /\                      |  "Thousands of years ago, cats were
     ^o o^     D.K. "Cat" Kraft |   worshipped as gods.  Cats have
     ->T<-     cat@e.......   |   never forgotten this."
       ~       Lynnwood, WA     |
___oOO___OOo___                 |                        -- Anonymous

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Mar 2000 17:11:30 -0600
From:    Monica Thadine Rodriguez <mrodri14@u.......>
Subject: random questions

Couple of random questions:
What is the difference b/w the ftp site and Mel's site or others that
archive stories?  Are there different stories there, different authors, or
what?

Would Nicholas have been conversant in the Parisian French of his time, or
would he have only spoken "Brabantish" or whatever it is that he spoke?
(I've seen it refered to this way in some fanfic.  Apparently it wasn't
really french?)

curious minds want to know,
monica
luscious lucius lover

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Mar 2000 19:13:19 CST
From:    Thomas Lambert <eternaltl@h.......>
Subject: Re: FK Chat

Wow, that easy?? Is that the room name, or its password?

>From: Alifoxx@a.......
>Reply-To: Forever Knight TV show <FORKNI-L@l.......>
>To: FORKNI-L@l.......
>Subject: FK Chat
>Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 21:46:38 EST
>
>For anyone wanting to know of another FK chat, this is the AOL chat on
>Monday
>evenings at 11 pm, EST -  <A
>HREF="aol://4344:754.tvrc.6701083.561337992">Chat
>/Remote Control</A>
>
>Just enter the room, it's easy. This chat has been going on for years!
>
>JL

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Mar 2000 22:01:44 EST
From:    WRDRR@a.......
Subject: Re: Nick's native tongue

In a message dated 3/14/00 6:12:09 PM Eastern Standard Time, mrodri14@u.......
writes:

<< Would Nicholas have been conversant in the Parisian French of his time, or
 would he have only spoken "Brabantish" or whatever it is that he spoke? >>
I don't know at all but I guess his native tongue was something other than
the Queen's French.  Back in those day, before TV, radio, rapid transit and
print - regional dialects went on pretty undiluted.  Previous to Shakespeare
and the King James version, most of England couldn't talk to each other.
Nick learned lots of other languages later, it seems.
CTFS

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Mar 2000 21:21:13 -0600
From:    Nancy Kaminski <nancykam@m.......>
Subject: Re: Nick's native tongue

 In a message dated 3/14/00 6:12:09 PM Eastern Standard Time,
mrodri14@u.......
> << Would Nicholas have been conversant in the Parisian French of his time,
or
>  would he have only spoken "Brabantish" or whatever it is that he spoke?
>>

I think it's likely he spoke both French, the language of the court and the
nobility, and Brabantish, which is a kind of Flemish. He might also have
spoken or at least read Latin, the language in which most books were
written.

Nancy Kaminski

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Mar 2000 22:49:16 -0500
From:    Sandra Gray <sandragray@r.......>
Subject: Global 100 Charts

I was looking at the current official chart for TV shows
(click on the TV Shows link on the Home page) and noted
the following:

>New (unofficial) calculations are performed every hour.

>Official charts are based on the calculations that take place on Sunday at
>midnight. In our database only the performances in the official charts are
>stored permanently.

So wouldn't the second quote indicate that any voting for
FK for the official chart is best done on Sunday in the
hour before midnight?  But since this site is a foreign
site (Dutch, isn't it?), what time would that be?

--Sandra Gray, forever Knightie
--sandragray@r.......

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Mar 2000 20:40:14 -0800
From:    "Amy R." <akr@l.......>
Subject: Jenny Schanke, Vampire Slayer

I'm sorry I didn't see the "Jenny Schanke, Vampire Slayer" question in the
digest until tonight.  I was wracking my brains from the moment I saw it,
so I can only imagine the amount of wracking since it posted.  :-)

I couldn't even place the story on my own, finally.  I could almost *taste*
my memory of the piece, with Jenny holding the crossbow in the graveyard,
but even rummaging through the entire FTP site failed to trigger my memory.
 I was going crazy.  Luckily, I know someone who knew the answer, and she
put me out of my misery.

The story about Jenny Schanke as the Slayer was by Marian Gibbons, and was
called something like "Don't Call Me Buffy!"  It must have posted in 1995
or so -- after the movie, before the series.

Unfortunately, like all of Marian's outstanding fanfic, including her
impressive "Natalie Lambert, Vampire Coroner" series, it's no longer
available on line, under any circumstances, ever, period.  <sigh>  She's
awfully firm about that.

So it wouldn't have been eligible for the nominations anyway.

Amy R.
akr@l.......
http://users.lanminds.com/~akr/fk/

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Mar 2000 22:51:56 -0800
From:    "Amy R." <akr@l.......>
Subject: Re: Converts and Canonical Gaps

In Sunday's digest, Sandra said: <<(Hi, Amy!):>>

Hi, Sandra!  :-)  Been a while, hasn't it?

Sandra wrote:  <<If it is truly a choice, then that, imo, opens up for
debate again whether the FK vampire should be considered just an "ultimate
predator" (like any lion following its nature in obtaining food) or a
"murderer" of humans since he or she has made what amounts to a moral
choice to become what he or she is.>>

Well, that's the fun bit, of course.  No one tells stories which are
actually *about* lions -- not really.  They relate fact about lions, not
fiction.  But they do use lions to tell stories about humanity -- the human
condition of choice, temptation, responsibility, joy and sorrow.  If a
story were to be *about* vampires, as such, it would be even less
interesting than a story about lions; vampires don't exist.  But to use
vampires as metaphors in stories about the human condition!  There's the
potential and the power!

I wrote:
<<A few other stories and discussions [have attacked] Nick for supposedly
"poor vampire senses." (And if that's your goal, FM's great fodder! As is
the initially-unnoticed vampire technician in UTV.)>>

Sandra replied:
<<I disagree with both of these being examples of Nick having "poor vampire
senses.">

Well, as you know, I don't go around looking for excuses to minimize Nick's
general wonderfulness, to say the least.  :-)  I also find holes in that
assertion, and can easily turn it around.

However, canonically speaking, it's not an invalid argument.  If one
wished, for whatever reason, to begin with the hypothesis that Nick's
vampire skills are not all they should be, one could take what some
characterize as a poor record of conversions -- Elizabeth, Gerald, Roger
(perhaps even Janette, to stretch a point) all "out of control" or
"insane," his difficulty sensing Serena and Alexandra (assuming he has a
link to Alexandra), dead Alyssa and Natalie.  This line of logic posits
that Nick's obliviousness to Alexandra's being undead at all, much less her
presence and motives, indicates an incompetence in the skill of bringing
others across.  In that sense, Alexandra fits neatly into what some have
perceived as a canonical pattern of Nick's lack of vampiric skill.

The other use of his inaccurate or weak sensing of Alexandra to support an
assertion of generally weak vampire senses pairs "Fatal Mistake" with
Janette's comments (LYTD and KI?) about Nick's waning and waxing ability to
sense her as he becomes more human throughout first season, and of course
the incident in "The Human Factor."

Now, of course, to turn those around, we have the possibility that Nick has
no link to Alexandra.  Assert that, and her place as evidence in the "poor
vampire senses" argument simply goes up in smoke!

Aside from that, though, there is also the cumulative logic of, first,
Janette's testimony in the Canadian cut of "I Will Repay" that bringing
people across at all is far from easy -- in fact, it's very difficult, and
Janette has failed multiple times.  Nick has successfully brought across
many people.  Second, we can reject the "insane" interpretation of the
behavior of Nick's converts.  Rather, each and every one (Serena excepted)
acted as a perfect vampire, shedding mortal scruples and turning
immediately to violence and destruction in exactly the way Lacroix
preaches.  Third, Lacroix may always "sense" Nick, but rarely understands
his motivations, and, moreover, Lacroix isn't the only example of a
vampiric master; Vachon's sense of Urs (HoD) seems more on par with Nick's
of his converts, setting a different standard of "normal" connection.  On
all these points, therefore, Nick's conversion ability is neither weak nor
defective, and the Alexandra assertion again becomes irrelevant.

As to using "not sensing Alexandra and Janette" as evidence of weak
vampiric senses, the immediate argument against is Janette's own connection
of that phenomenon to Nick's progressive humanity, implying that when, in
the past, he was more the vampire, things differed.

The UTV incident was not quite as ambiguous as I recalled it, Sandra;
you're correct.  However, if one wished to posit that Nick had failed to
figure out that the man at the station was a vampire until it became
*logically inevitable* -- that is, that he figured it out with his mind,
not with his senses -- in his conversation with the reporter, canon allows
that, too.

I think that this is one of those issues which depend primarily on one's
assumptions about the FK universe, and that canon may lead either way
depending on where you're standing when you examine it, rather than the
canonical evidence storming the barricades of preconceived stances.

<<it's also possible that Alexandra might have blamed Nick for getting her
in such a "compromising" (and I don't mean that sexually) position in the
first place: the "I wouldn't have been brought across if I hadn't been
bitten by you in the first place." idea>>

Well, this inverted logic is a large part of what earned her that
"Alexandra the Bimbo Barmaid" title originally, right?  She goes on and on
about hating being a vampire, but she directs her anger at the one who
merely killed her, not the one who made her what she claims to hate.

Actually, though, that's my favorite part of Alexandra -- like most other
first-season vampires, she is not happy with what she is.  Alexandra hates
Nick for her condition; Baroness/Doctor Jurgen says vampirism is something
she and Nick had to "resort" to, something she wouldn't wish on her
patients; Erica has her carefully calculated scale of moral "life"
repayment; 1992-93 Janette is more accepting of her vampirehood than
enthusiastic.  In first season, even the "bad-guy" vampires like Alexandra
and Sofia agree with Nick's evaluation of the state of vampirism, if not
his course of action.

<<Of course it's also possible that LC gave Alexandra only the most
rudimentary of training and then deserted her>>

"Oh, we skipped those lessons, didn't we?" -- LC in UTV

I wouldn't doubt he makes a habit of it.  The uneducated are so much easier
to oppress.  Or, to look at it another way, to keep dependant -- and if all
Lacroix has ever wanted is truly companionship (cf. AMPH) then keeping his
companions dependent on him is a sure way of keeping them close.
First-season Lacroix does it because he's a monster.  Second-season Lacroix
does it as strategy.  Third-season Lacroix has no idea he's doing it at all.

<<I don't think a firm case of canon reserving room for both
interpretations can be made. We only have Alexandra's word that Nick is to
blame for what she is.>>

I think we also have the evidence of the many times that people have become
vampires on screen without consuming their master's blood.  In order by
episode, we have seen Elizabeth, Richard, Daniel, Sofia, Janette, the Mafia
Don, Mad Jack, Lacroix, Serena, Vachon, the Inca, Ralegh, Perry, Jody, Urs,
Gerald and Janette (again) come across without seeing them consume blood
from their master, right?

On the other side, we have seen only Nick and Alexandra consume blood from
their master.  (And dead Alyssa was offered blood, of course.)

One may speculate that all the other cases included blood consumption
*off-screen*.  That's fine.  But it's no more canonical than assuming that
what we see on screen is all there is to see, and that Nick (who almost
didn't come across, cf. ND) and Alexandra (laid out at her own funeral) are
exceptional cases -- that the consumption of a master vampire's blood is a
special and uncommon situation.

I think canon allows both interpretations -- and several variations between
the extremes.

And any interpretation which allows that blood is not absolutely necessary
allows the possible significance of Nick, the drainer, in Alexandra's
scenario.  He's the one who sent her to the door, in the "Near Death" way
of looking at it.  Does Lacroix become her exclusive master because he
provided a way back?  Natalie provided Nick a way back (rat poison) in ND,
after all.

<<It seems to me that there is some sort of threshold of blood loss beyond
which the ability to come across is impossible. If there wasn't, *everyone*
who died from a vampire's bite would become vampires.>>

Except those who choose true death, of course, as per the "Near Death"
interpretation.  Perhaps more people choose to face eternity than to shy
away from it?

<<I remember Alyce being *outside* the window and Nick, Nat and Schanke in
the museum.>>

You're right.

I had always thought that Nick, Natalie and Schanke went down the stairs
and out of the building, into a courtyard, where Nick and Natalie made
Schanke hand over his cigarettes, and that Alyce looked out at them through
an upstairs window with grill-work.  Turns out, that was a symptom of too
much familiarity with a fuzzy Nth-gen tape.  Looking specifically at that
scene now, on a SciFi Channel taping, I see that the three civil servants
went not out of the building, but into that interior rotunda, so Alyce must
be outside, on the roof.

Hey, I just learned something new about "Dark Knight!"  That's outstanding!

:-)
Amy R.
akr@l.......
http://users.lanminds.com/~akr/fk/

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Mar 2000 10:14:29 +0100
From:    Debi McK <vachesang@s.......>
Subject: Re: Converts and Canonical Gaps

From: Amy R. <akr@l.......>

>if all Lacroix has ever wanted is truly companionship (cf. AMPH) then keeping
>his companions dependent on him is a sure way of keeping them close.
>First-season Lacroix does it because he's a monster.  Second-season Lacroix
>does it as strategy.  Third-season Lacroix has no idea he's doing it at all.

What a wonderful description!

Debi McK

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Mar 2000 09:12:48 -0500
From:    Mary Combs <mcombs@e.......>
Subject: Re: Nick's native tongue

WRDRR@a....... wrote:
> Back in those day, before TV, radio, rapid transit and
> print - regional dialects went on pretty undiluted.  Previous to Shakespeare
> and the King James version, most of England couldn't talk to each other.
>

Can't let this pass. This is simply not true.
To anyone interested in finding out about the languages spoken in the
England of Nick's time (and before and after), I recommend that you read
the book "The Story of English" by Robert McCrum, William Cran and
Robert MacNeil, or check your video rental store to see if the PBS
special is available for rent.
-----
Mary
mcombs@e....... N&Npacker

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Mar 2000 09:32:31 -0500
From:    Amanda R Cleveland <arclevel@m.......>
Subject: Re: Converts and Canonical Gaps

>However, if one wished to posit that Nick had failed to
>figure out that the man at the station was a vampire until it became
>*logically inevitable* -- that is, that he figured it out with his mind,
>not with his senses

Danny, the video tech vampire, is only shown/mentioned in 4scenes in UTV,
if I remember correctly.  Nick only comes into contact with him twice.  The
very first time, Danny makes his head turn and they exchange a long glance.
 I always took this to mean that Nick had instantly sensed him.  The next
Danny scene is just Danny and Tawny, and the third is the one in which Nick
tells Tawny that Danny's also a vampire, something heknows having only met
him once.  I think the canon on this one pretty clearly shows that Nick can
*sense* Danny.

I think when we discuss FK "canon" we have to remember how often it
blatantly contradicts itself.  For instance, Janette says in IWR that she
has never managed to bring anyone across, but only a few episodes later,
(ILCK?) she has brought across the Baroness.  Also in the same conversation
in IWR, Nick seems to imply that he, too, has rarely brought people across.
 That seems to be why he's seeking Janette's advice on the matter.  Yet
he's shoown doing it casually and with little foresight in those flashbacks.

>I think we also have the evidence of the many times that people have become
>vampires on screen without consuming their master's blood. . .

We should also note that of these vampires, Daniel, the Mafia guy, Sofia,
Raleigh, Perry, Jody, and Janette's second conversion have all been
completely off screen.  In some cases we see the events immediately leading
up to their conversions, but we don't see a vampire bite them *or* them
drink a vampire's blood, although something clearly happened.

I think there's a problem with assuming that most people can be brought
across by being nearly drained with no follow-up action.  So many vampires
would be made, that the earth would soon be overrun with them.  In many
cases, we're shown a vampire taking merely a few moments to drain a person,
then just leave the body.  One example that comes to mind is Daviau in
AFWTD--there's no way Janette would want him coming across (and LaCroix
would know this and, we'll presume, keep it from happening if it were going
to, plus Janette would by then know how she came across) yet she takes
maybe three seconds to drain him, comments on revenge, and just drops him.

>Except those who choose true death, of course, as per the "Near Death"
>interpretation.  Perhaps more people choose to face eternity than to shy
>away from it?

I highly doubt that.  Most people are terrified of death,  even if they
won't say it.  Also, would Nick have spent three centuries hunting
criminals if many of them were going to come back as powerful, immmortal
beings?  It would seem a bit self-defeating.

>Sandra wrote:  <<If it is truly a choice, then that, imo, opens up for
>debate again whether the FK vampire should be considered just an "ultimate
>predator" (like any lion following its nature in obtaining food) or a
>"murderer" of humans since he or she has made what amounts to a moral
>choice to become what he or she is.>>

(Yes, I'm quoting a quote.)  Do most of them know what they're getting
into?  They may have had a choice, but do any know what it really involved?
 Nick was seduced with sex, Elizabeth and the Baronness with the promise of
beauty, Janette with power, and Gerald with immortality and immunity to
disease.  None of them was really told what the actual consequences were,
and only the Baronness even knew what they were (of the above examples.)
Also, Serena wanted a baby, not immortality, yet she chose to come across.
Most convincing, though, is Urs, who flat-out *wanted* to die, yet came
back across anyway.

Okay, that's my dime or two on the subject.  :-)
Amanda

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Mar 2000 10:26:15 -0600
From:    Kristin Harris <kris1228@s.......>
Subject: Your Daily Vote and FK's Position

Hi!

This is just a reminder for you to add your daily vote on the Global 100
Charts.

To vote go here: http://www.global100.com/item.asp?Item=51259

We could really use the help of those wo have never voted before.

Currently it is still in the #7 position unofficially.(this is what needs
to increase so it will officially).

Officially it is in the #7 position.

Kristin

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Mar 2000 12:57:20 -0500
From:    mclisa@m.......
Subject: Brabantish

Brabantish is the Brabant version of Netherlandic, the ancestor of Modern
Dutch and Flemish, which were not distinct languages in the first quarter of
the 13th c., Nick's mortal life. It is not related to French, except that
both are Indo-European. French is  of course a Romance language, whereas
Brabantish and its descendants are Germanic.

Nick's French would have been a distinct dialect, but would have been mostly
comprehensible to speakers of other dialects. There's a similar thing in
modern English. I, being a southerner from the US, and a Scotsman from
Glasgow, sound nothing alike, but we can and have communicated, even though
some things had to be repeated slowly. :)

The Ftp site and the web site are both story archives and both can be
reached from the web. They don't for various reasons contain all the same
stories.

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

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Mar 2000 19:34:08 +0100
From:    Alyssa Flynn <kokuyo@f.......>
Subject: WHOA !!!

Oh my !!!

I have been Žbout 10 days offline (grin, but now we have a new PC)  - and when I
read this morning through the mails I fell from the chair (literally!).

Will Steeves schrieb:

> This summer, I will marry the lovely and talented and sweet and intelligent
> Dr. Lynn Messing, known around FK circles as a Knightie and filk writer.
> (Who ever said that you can't put a Cousin and a Knightie together?)

AAARRRGH !

This is so cute !!!
Why the heck do I have to get this news so late - after all the letters where
you complained about your lonely fate ???  <bg>

Nevertheless:

    CONGRATULATIONS !!!

from me and Stefan (at the moment he looks more like Tom Cruise than ever!)

Damn, I hope you'll be able to come to Toronto in September - together with
Lynn!

And I also hope that youŽll send me a photo of the wedding (wish I could be
there...)

Please keep me updated, O.K.?

Big hugs for you and Lynn from Germany !!!

(this is one of the best news IŽve heard this year - yeah, Forever Knight  IS  a
phenomenon... )

Cousin Sonja

<binary file snipped>

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

End of FORKNI-L Digest - 14 Mar 2000 to 15 Mar 2000 - Special issue (#2000-75)
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