Pedestal (Blake's 7 fic)
| Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Pedestal |
| Author(s): | Thomas |
| Date(s): | January 1993 |
| Length: | 13064 words |
| Genre: | slash |
| Fandom: | Blake's 7 |
| External Links: | Pedestal at AO3 |
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Pedestal is a Blake's 7 Blake/Avon story by Thomas.
It was published in Fire and Ice #2.
Reactions and Reviews
"Pedestal" is actually one of the best Blake stories I've ever read, one of the best Avon stories I've ever read, one of the best B7 stories I've ever read, and one of the best stories I've ever read in or out of fandom, period. I even ended up believing the sex between them could have happened the way it did. But mostly the story is just such a perfect rendering of the major underlying dynamic in that relationship.[1]
One of those "stranded" type of stories. Some degree of hurt/comfort. Avon tries to be sophisticated and emotionless, but ends up caught in his own trap - the last to know about his own feelings.[2]
So, they're trapped on a planet together - and Avon is injured (meaning Blake has to carry him, mm). Hello classic tropes - you're most welcome. The writing is pretty good, nice dialogue - and I particularly like Blake's thoughts about how Gan was the only one he knew would object to his ideas because something was wrong - 'not for the safety, not the practicality, not the wisdom, not the value, but the rightness' - and Avon's answer 'As I said, Blake. We're all useful to you' (it's a nice observation from both characters, but also suggests why Gan was a good person to have on that ship, and a fundamentally necessary one. And why his death is quite so awful, and why it works so well narratively - it's the death of innocence and the beginning of the end).
But... I have some problems with this fic, or rather one problem, which is that I don't really understand what Avon feels or why. Maybe it's just because he's such an unreliable narrator, but I find his decision to fuck Blake so that he'll have a hold over Blake baffling/ditto the kiss at the end. It's not hatesex, because there's no passion to it - simply calculation that goes awry because he finds he is interested in Blake... but it doesn't quite sell it to me enough. I believed Avon's distaste for Blake too completely to think he'd be won over just because Blake was nice to him during sex... I dunno.[3]
T This is the one and only slash story I have ever enjoyed or remotely believed. It has Blake and Avon stranded on Fosforon at the end of "Killer", and there's not a single false note in it, characterization-wise, from start to finish. In fact, I don't even think of it as a slash story. I think of it as a first-rate B-A story which happens to contain an explicit sex scene. If you don't read slash because it offends you morally, you obviously won't want to read this, but if you don't read slash because you find it out-of-character, you just might want to make an exception for this one.[5]
References
- ^ from a fan is very outspoken in her dislike of slash material, a comment in Rallying Call #13 (1995)
- ^ "review by Predatrix at Judith Proctor's Blake's 7 site". Archived from the original on 2011-06-01.
- ^ Aralias reviewed this zine in 2013 on Dreamwidth, Archived version
- ^ Subject: Zine review: Fire and Ice 2 (slash), Lysator, dated July 29, 1993.
- ^ Lysator, Sondra S., dated September 6, 1994.