Jenna/Cally

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Pairing
Pairing: Jenna Stannis/Cally
Alternative name(s): Jenna/Cally, Cally/Jenna, J/C, C/J
Gender category: femslash, f/f
Fandom: Blake's 7
Canonical?: no
Prevalence: rare, the most common femslash pairing
Archives:
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Jenna/Cally a femslash pairing of Jenna Stannis and Cally from Blake's 7.

Fandom

Like all the f/f pairings in Blake's 7 fandom, Jenna/Cally is a rarepair. For example, the tag for this pairing on AO3 shows only 19 works (as on 2020). Nevertheless, it is the most popular femslash pairing in the fandom.

The first known J/C stories are probably the poems "Homesick" and "Telepath", both by Bryn Lantry, published in the issue #7 of the multifandom slash and femslash zine "touched" in March 1986. The first known prose story is "Kindred Souls" by Aislinn, published in the issue #8 of the same zine in July 1986.

Comments by Sally Knyvette

From a 1987 interview with Sally Knyvette, the actor who portrayed Jenna:

... the women had this sort of petty thing, Cally and I. Why? Because a man wrote it, and they thought girls must automatically loathe each other because there were men around; that’s pathetic! We could have had a strong affinity; we could have developed all sorts of exciting things between Cally and I, and Cally, I and the blokes. I was just a sidekick and a clothes horse. Had I been older then, or had I known how to approach these things, I obviously would have done it. I’d love for there to be an episode written now; God, I’d probably get thrown off without getting thrown off. [1]

Fanfiction and Tropes

Many J/C stories follow same patterns than f/f Blake's 7 stories with other pairings. They tend to be short, sometimes less than 1000 or even 500 words. PWP stories and sex scenes in general are relatively rare. The relationship is usually portrayed as warm and friendly, but rarely intense; "the women are generally presented as sensible, rather than romantic, in their approach to sex". [2]

Jenna/Cally sometimes appears as a background pairing in Blake/Avon fics or has Blake/Avon as a background pairing, though stories that focus exclusively on Jenna/Cally also exist. Other f/f pairings with Jenna involve her with Servalan or OFCs. Changing by Jane Carnall, Jenna/OFC fic from "touched" #4, is credited by Nova as the first femslash fic in Blake's 7 fandom. [3]

In her essay about Blake's 7 femslash (Re)Making Space for Women Nova pointed out the following Jenna/Cally tropes:

A certain amount of fanon has also developed – a more hardbitten and piratical Jenna than the series allowed; an assumption that Cally's telepathy helps to overcome Jenna's resistance; a lot of drinking and the ongoing parallels between A/B and f/f.

Friends to Lovers: Majority of Jenna/Cally stories that are not Established Relationship fall under Friends to Lovers category, while the stories that make use of the initial distrust between them are very rare.

In Vino Veritas: In a small subset of J/C stories the characters become closer over drinks.

Background Pairing: A lot of J/C fics include their relationship as a side pairing, with either other relationships or a non-romantic plot being central. Blake/Avon is the most common main pairing in such stories, though some fics also pair Jenna or/and Cally with other characters (usually as past relationship or unrequited attraction). Jenna/Cally stories also often feature background pairings between other characters.

A subset of such fics are the humorous stories that pair up all the main characters:

Parallels with B/A: Some stories that have both J/C and B/A pairings compare and contrast those two relationships. Some fans also brought up parallels with B/A as one of the attractions of J/C pairing:

Strangely this reminds me of B/A but less angsty than B/A bc:

- Jenna is less closed off than Avon and more willing to express her feelings to Cally.

- Cally, might be bc she had less trauma than Blake so she is not as insistent towards the cause either, thus she would be less oblivious to people surround her, probably that is bc she had suffered less… or probably bc of my stereotypical opinion in general (I think.. girls in relationship looks more intimate somehow, it is called ‘橘里橘气’ in Chinese)

In a word, they do not have that much of baggage or egos, it would be easier for them to be in a longer term relationship than either B or A. [4]

"Girls Own Adventure": The subgenre defined by Nova as stories where "lesbianism is one of the strategies used by the writers to position the B7 women, rather than the men, as heroes and leaders." Such stories more often than other types feature Jenna and Cally as main characters and their relationship as the main pairing. In some of them Jenna and Cally leave Blake's group and start a new life for themselves.

Poetry: While poetry is rare in the modern Blake's 7 fandom, many known J/C stories of the 1980s and 1990s were written in the form of short poems.

Fanart

There is almost no J/C fanart in the zines and very little fanart in general. Most Jenna/Cally arts were created in the 2010s.

  • artist is Mary Gerstner, from Gambit #7 (1991)

    artist is Mary Gerstner, from Gambit #7 (1991)

  • Illustration for the Ika's story "The Impossibility of J/C" in Sleer as Folk, manip by Pat Fenech

    Illustration for the Ika's story "The Impossibility of J/C" in Sleer as Folk, manip by Pat Fenech

  • Art by I Fought Space. "Jenna/Cally in 18 - which was supposed to be a surprised kiss… Jenna’s blushing… that can be surprise, right?" [5]

    Art by I Fought Space. "Jenna/Cally in 18 - which was supposed to be a surprised kiss… Jenna’s blushing… that can be surprise, right?" [5]

See Also

References

  1. ^ from a 1987 interview with Sally Knyvette in Freedom City Gazette 1989 Winter Special
  2. ^ Nova in (Re)Making Space for Women
  3. ^ Nova (2002) 'Re(Making) Space for Women: A guide to f/f slash in Blake's 7 fanzines' Sleer as Folk 308–322
  4. ^ hadescavedish answering an ask about the pairing, September 10, 2020
  5. ^ comments by the artist in drawing-blog-of-fun tumblr, January 09, 2016
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