Terms of Surrender (Blake's 7 story)

Fanfiction
Title:	Terms of Surrender
Author(s):	Sean Charles
Date(s):	April 1990
Length:
Genre:	slash
Fandom:	Blake's 7
External Links:	online here
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Terms of Surrender is a Blake's 7 Avon/Blake story by Sean Charles.

It was first published in Oblaque #4 and has been archived online.

Reactions and Reviews

MUSE OF FIRE RESPONSIBLE: Sean Charles

HAS POOR VILA BEEN DRAGOONED INTO THIS SHITSHOW? —

WHY ARE BLAKE AND AVON DOOMED THIS WEEK? Avon’s been raped by Federation troops who were torturing him for information and is pissed Blake didn’t prioritize him over a LOT of people getting killed. Blake points out that

1) that was a lot of people, and

2) giving the Federation what they wanted wouldn’t have protected Avon.

Avon is worried Blake largely acted out of concern for others rather than for him, though, and finds that unacceptable. They’re still together, but Avon’s lingeringly pissed. To an extent this is fair, and to an extent it is irksome. Shit’s happening to you, it’s not really his fault, your emotions are legitimate and your own and you can have time but also be accountable for your own shit.

EDITOR’S NOTE: none

PROSE: fine

OVERALL: The ‘what would you do under torture??’ question really interests some people, and me–not even slightly. It is like saying that without food, people starve: it’s not people doing anything particularly psychologically interesting. Everyone breaks just like everyone burns when set on fire, it’s just a matter of degrees/the clothes they were wearing at the time. Yes it’s impressive if you can hold out against some torture, and yes it says something about your character, but it’s also a question of training, etc., and everyone can be broken, and what they do when broken–isn’t particularly interesting (even as you’re likely to have a richer and more nuanced conversation with someone who’s sated or even a bit hungry than you are with someone who’s starving). So any time someone has BETRAYED SOMEONE!! in these stories by breaking under torture, I just raise an eyebrow, because that’s like saying someone can betray you by getting eaten by a bear. Also I am bored. Also why do we keep doing this shit, putting pressure on a never-good-in-the-first-place idea?

Weird typographical error where lots of sentences end in ?s for no reason.

This fic sets itself up to occupy a kind of complicated emotional place and make some weird manoeuvres therein, and that’s fine, but ultimately I’m not feeling the emotional through-line as well as I ought to be? I think I’d have to like–actively beta this before I could suss out how to tighten everything.