Avon/Cally

Avon/Cally is the most popular het pairing in Blake's 7. Although looking at fic-numbers on places such as Hermit's pairing guideAvon Cally has c100 entries on Hermit's list of all know slash and adult fic, where B/A has c500, and A/V has c350 and Archive of our ownAs of May 2016 A/C has only 60 works to B/A 500+! would suggest this ship was written significantly less than slash ships, such as Blake/Avon and Avon/Vila, the pairing frequently appears in what were then labelled and categorised as gen fanzines. For example, the Avon/Cally romantic relationship is important in Sheila Paulson's Jabberwocky series, and is mentioned in as a definite possibility in Lillian Sheperd's The Machiavelli Factor, neither of which are listed as A/C on Hermit because they do not involve the relationship being explicitly consummated within the fic. It therefore has a bigger presence as the main pairing in a fic than can be easily categorised.
Many fans writing about Blake's 7 seem to treat this ship as essentially canonFor example, the Wikipedia page quoted below. Another example on the Trek BBS forum: here (in the same way that they treat Blake/Jenna as essentially canon). Avon/Cally is therefore relatively likely to be included as an off-screen pairing or background pairing in other fics (for example, as well as its two actual A/C fics, Forbidden Star 2 has two fics that treat Avon’s relationship with Cally as important history: Neil Faulkner’s "Things that Never Get Said" and Loulou Harris’s "Cold Revolution”. Avon even has a previous relationship with Cally in slash-fic The Long Way Back!)
]]Given Avon's status as fandom's darling, it is at least possible that Avon/Cally is derives much of its popularity from being a heterosexual ship that involves Avon and doesn't involve a villain. It is also possible that many writers see Cally as an identification figure. 
The question of whether the actors or writers of the show supported the Avon/Cally relationship is important to many fans of the pairing. Some fans point to writer Tanith Lee's episode Sarcophagus where Avon kissed Cally to release her from from a spell as evidence of support. Because het ships have historically been more socially acceptable than slash ships, others believe that the actors involved have been asked whether or not they see the pairing as canon, which they have denied. In contrast, pro-support fans argue that Paul Darrow made several statements regarding the Avon/Cally romantic relationship. In 2011 a fan reports that she remembered Paul Darrow answering a fan question about whether there was a relationship between Avon & Soolin: Another fan replied two years later: 
Other supportive examples include the 'Paul Darrow Writes', a regular column in the Blake's 7 magazine Blake's 7: A Marvel Monthly (Sept 1981) where the actor said: "One other thing. Cally was no longer with us. If you have watched the series, you will know what that meant to Avon. Jan Chappell’s departure from the programme left a gap that was never filled. She had her own good reason for leaving. I, for one, wish she hadn’t." 
Perhaps for the reasons mentioned above, Avon/Cally seems to be perennially popular with non-transformative fandom, where other ships are not. There has been relatively little A/C fic written in the internet age, although some has been posted to Fanfiction.Net and Archive of our Own.
A popularity of this pairing in songvids was noted in the 1993 essay Pairings in B7 songvids:
There is relatively little fanart.
==Avon/Cally in canon==
The Wikipedia page for Kerr Avon has clearly been updated by an Avon/Cally fan. The 'Personal Life' section includes a quick discussion of Avon's relationship with his canonical girlfriend Anna Grant, and an equally quick discussion of his relationship with Servalan, and then three whole paragraphs analysing his relationship with Cally, which is arguably out of proportion.
Big Finish have provided some additional evidence for this ship in their paraconical audio plays and books, particularly in those works written by women (many of whom were previously in fandom). These include Jac Rayner’s ‘Mindset’, Una McCormack's Ministry of Peace, and MG Harris’s Cold Revolution (a complete re-write of her Forbidden Star 2 story of the same name).
==Fanfiction==
The oldest Avon/Cally fic is likely to be Anne Lewis’s ‘The Initiation’ in Alternative Seven 1 (1978). This early fanzine also published A/C fic in its later issues, for example Miss Terious’s ‘Empathy’ and Carole Fairman’s jokey ‘What a Way to Go’ in issue 2, and Kathleen Glancy’s ‘The Reason Why’ in issue 3 (all c1978). Although A/C was later going to dominate het shipping, the spread of ships is relatively even (for example, the first issue continues one of each of the following: B/C, A/Meegat, V/OC, A/C, B/J, V/C, J/Tr, A/J, G/J, C/G; the second zine contains two A/Cs, and one each of various other ships, many of which feature an OC, etc). The other major B7 het zine, Straight Blake's, is similarly varied. Avon/Cally dominated overall by appearing mostly in mixed zines alongside various slash pairings (presumably quite irritating for some het shippers), as well as in “gen” (as mentioned in the introduction).
The Blake/Avon/Cally novella Mindfire (1979) was also published before the series finished airing. Interestingly this story, though not publicly available for many years, includes many of the tropes that characterise later Avon/Cally fic - most notably that Avon has some sort of latent telepathic powers.
* Sheila Paulson, Jabberwocky
* Jean Lorrah, Trust, Like the Soul
* Jean L. Stevenson, "Swan Song for a Survivor"
In other fics Cally’s telepathy is used for other plot devices, for example in Madelyn Darring’s "Everybody Wants You Now" Avon broke up with Cally because he could see their sex was telepathically affecting the rest of the crew, but her sexual frustration then reflected onto the rest of the crew who then spent the rest of the fic trying to get him into bed.
Although Mindfire’s choice to bring Blake sexually into the central relationship is unusual (a few later fics do include a threesome, but this is relatively rare), many A/C fics do include a strong friendship between Blake and Avon which may drive the narrative more than Avon’s romance with Cally (see, Jabberwocky, The Machiavelli Factor, Renaissance, The Mind of a Man is a Double-Edged Sword etc). Others are more likely to see Blake as the force that keeps Avon and Cally apart. A/C fics are also likely to deal with the near-bodyswap experience of series 3 episode ’Ultraworld’ (one fan comments in a review of Don't Send Me Back by Fran Ward: "the-tubes-got-switched-at-ultraworld', and I, who will willingly read almost any tripe, just cannot bring myself to read this plot. Once was enough") Cally is often sexually inexperienced with human men.
A fan asked to provide some good links in 2016 wrote:
Other example Avon/Cally works include:
* Tashery Shannon, A Companion for My Death
* Lillian Shepherd, The Quibell Abduction (gen)
* Judith Rolls, "The Interlude" and Pita Enrique Harris, "The Secret Miracle" in Ultra
* Pat Jacquerie (editor Straight Blake’s), Interstice
* Liz S., "Orpheus Dreams" (won a 1996 FanQ)
* kalinda001, New Patterns and Old Friends (contains 7 stories)
* Alicia Ann Fox, Orac and the Art of Programming
* Shimere277, 5 fics in the Changes Universe (AUs), Change #1 Encounter with Destiny, Change #2 Beatific Vision, Change #3 Distance Runners, Change #4 Realignments, Change #5 A Change of Course
==Fanart Gallery==
As stated above, there is relatively little A/C fanart, perhaps because although a popular ship it never dominated any zines. The collection of fanart below encompasses all the definitely A/C images currently uploaded to Fanlore, as well as some that just feature the two of them together. Some later fans also created A/C manips.
File:Gambitusseven-7.jpg|, artist is Mary Gerstner, from Gambit #7 (1991)
File:Trustlikethesoul.jpg|Cover by Suzan Lovett of Trust, Like the Soul. In this story Avon and Cally swap bodies, and Vila (also shown) develops an attraction to Avon while in Cally's body
File:Trustlikethesoul2.jpg|Interior art by Gayle F in distinctive woodcut style of Trust, Like the Soul. This image shows Avon in Cally's body holding Cally in Avon's body
File:Otherside9.jpg|Cover by minds-i-view of The Other Side, possibly depicting "Don't Send Me Back" by Fran Ward, another post Ultraworld bodyswap
File:Talesfromspacecityfirst4.jpg|Avon/Cally interior art from Tales From Space City. Whitby27, the artist, is much better known either for nude Avons, or explicit Blake/Avon. This image is from a zine where she illustrated numerous different pairings, including Avon/Anna and Tarrant/Zeoona, as well as A/C
File:B7 horizon6.JPG|While there are very few definitely A/C images in zines, several covers do depict Avon and Cally together. For example, this cover of Horizon 6, by Valerie Leibson. This zine features a story called "Of a hero"by David G Bell, which features Cally making a prophecy about Avon's future - something that happens in A/C fics
File:Naomicomm.jpg|A recent (May 2016) A/C commission by Drawing Blog of Fun (i-fought-space)Drawing Blog of Fun aka i-fought-space, Tumblr, MAY, 2016
==Other Links and Resources==
* Hermit’s List of all known A/C adult fics
* Mutual Affinities: the Avon and Cally Fanlisting
* Forever Avon’s Avon/Cally fanfics
* Neil Faulkner, The Art of Falling Apart (meta - the evidence for an Avon/Cally relationship)
==References==
Category:Het Pairings
Category:Blake's 7 Relationships