Something to Live For (Blake's 7 story)

Fanfiction
Title:	Something to Live For
Author(s):	Sean Charles
Date(s):	1989
Length:
Genre(s):	slash
Fandom(s):	Blake's 7
Relationship(s):
External Links:	online here
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Something to Live For is an Blake's 7 Avon/Blake story by Sean Charles.

It was published in Oblaque #3 and has been archived online.

Reactions and Reviews

MUSE OF FIRE RESPONSIBLE: Sean Charles

HAS POOR VILA BEEN DRAGOONED INTO THIS SHITSHOW? Vila appears to be… doing his own thing and allowed to have a life??

WHY ARE BLAKE AND AVON DOOMED THIS WEEK? They’re not, actually.

EDITOR’S NOTE: none

PROSE: fine

OVERALL: The old ‘Avon thinks he killed Blake, but it was only the clone’ saw. Then Avon’s being held, first by Servalan and then at Freedom City, as a sex slave in exchange for Vila’s continued existence. (He feels he owes Vila one/doesn’t want to be the reason his last remaining friend/crew-member/responsibility gets killed off.) Blake finds him there in a brothel, they rescue Vila and then Avon, and the future looks to be full of romance and adventure. In short, it is a story, with a plot and character relationships that make some sense and matter.

It’s not my favourite. It’s got a lot of stuff I’ve seen before, decently but not exceptionally well-executed. While the ‘making love with a prostitute in the dark and then realising you’re actually with your long-lost love’ feels Shakespeare-classic and is decently handled, it’s also a little inherently melodramatic. The story doesn’t give me enough of the emotional reactions I particularly dig to get me over that hump/make me excuse that entirely.

I want a little more of Jenna, and continue to eye-roll at Beautiful Prostitute Avon (THE MAN IS IN HIS 40s AND NOT THAT CONVENTIONALLY HOT). I wonder why I’m reading a sex scene between Vila and his brand new OC boyfriend who I don’t know or care about yet. The writer clearly has some basic story-telling/craft legs: this feels at times almost conventionally ‘episodic’. Ultimately it doesn’t do a ton for me, but not due to its being bad, really. It’s just not good enough.