Excerpts from Chapter 23 of "Blake's Rebels: A Historical Perspective", with Interludes (PG)

[lady-smith.livejournal.com]

Hello again! I'm Liza, and you may or may not remember me from my stint back in June 2005, driving the van for that other set of escaped prisoners who act like they're on Jerry Springer: Farscape. But I'm going back to my roots this month, and giving you the tour of one of my first fandoms - Blakes7.

I'm a big lover of Vila, Cally, AI's, angst, Gen, and unhappy PGPs, so expect a lot of those, but I'm not above slash, crackfic, or happy endings, so there should be something for everybody. I've also limited myself to one fic per author (no really I mean it this time), so while you're going to see a lot of familiar names, you should be introduced to a couple new ones, too.

Enough about me. Time to teleport!

Fandom: BLAKES7
Pairing: open to interpretation, but vague suggestions of Avon/Blake
Author on LJ: astrogirl2
Author Website: Maximum Verbosity
Why this must be read:

Besides the fact that it's Astrogirl, besides the fact that it's Astrogirl doing Avon, and besides the fact that it was a product of the Multi-Fandom Lyric Wheel (a little known and much underrated ficathon collecting some amazing stuff), this is I think one of the best examples I've ever seen in my life of the "faux history" fic sub-genre. Astro here perfectly assumes the position of some nameless, faceless Federation Historian, progressing through the last year of Blake's Rebellion, offering theories and questions about the motivations of that most enigmatic of historical figures, Kerr Avon.

...The question of Kerr Avon's motivations has been a favorite subject of historians, psychologists, and psychostrategists for many decades, and nowhere are those motivations more unclear that at the opening of the final year of his life. What could possibly induce a man to turn, seemingly overnight, from random, unsuccessful acts of piracy and undirected destruction to a serious attempt at fomenting strategic, carefully organized rebellion?

What sets this fic apart from your average meta-fic is that Astro then puts her money where her mouth is and gets into Avon's head, answering her own questions and raising countless others.

So, if death and defeat are his future, as they have been his past, what is there left to do? Self-destruction holds some little appeal, but the survival instincts of a lifetime are not so easy to overcome. Hedonism, perhaps? Enjoy the present while it exists? Ah, there might have been a time when that would have been possible, but there's far too little joy left in him now.

Only one viable option remains: go down fighting. He mulls the idea over and finds it appeals to his sense of drama. He can almost fancy the idea of himself, defiant at the end, standing, perhaps, over a pile of Federation bodies and smiling at approaching annihilation and the satisfactory completion of his plans.

How can you resist irony like that? This is a tightly woven, satisfying read, spoilery as all hell. Enjoy, and don't forget to feed the author.

Excerpts from Chapter 23 of "Blake's Rebels: A Historical Perspective", with Interludes

Comments

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Aww, thanks. I've gotten a fair bit of positive response to that fic, which really is a great relief, considering that it's one of those (all too common) stories where I simply had absolutely no idea while I was writing it whether it was going to work or not. :)

[lady-smith.livejournal.com]

I have to tell you, this fic blew my mind so utterly and completely, I kept paranoidaly checking the Memories list, because I refused to beleive it hadn't been rec'd yet. It's that damn good.

[pathology-doc.livejournal.com]

Holy hell, that was good (saw the end, no spoilery whining!).

I have always wondered, and the context of this fic brings the question up again, who fired that first shot as the last episode cut to black (after we see Avon smiling), and at whom. I was about eleven or twelve at the time, and I talked it over with a friend the next day.

My opinion: Avon, firing at Servalan.

His opinion: Avon, firing at himself.

The other shots are clearly Federations soldiers shooting at Avon.

After reading this fic, I am undecided; satisfactory completion of his plans, in isolation, suggests that he nailed Servalan, when she succumbed to the desire to be in at the end. The Gotterdammerung complex Astrogirl suggests in this fic supports my friend's idea that he shot himself, and that the remaining shots were fired at his dead body out of frustration.

[lady-smith.livejournal.com]

Daaaaaaynm - that's thought-provoking. I never considered that possibility, that he shot himself - but you're right. The way Astro presents it, it's a very plausible scenario, but then so is yours. I'm really really happy that a fic I loved and rec'd was able to spark such contemplation - thanks very much for sharing it!

[hafren.livejournal.com]

When I first saw the scene, that unforgettable night in '81, I thought, in so far as I was capable of thought, that he was preparing to turn the gun on himself. And I'm sure Servalan was not there. When feeling really gruesome, I think she was away having Tarrant's baby....

[hooplasugarlump.livejournal.com]

The link's down! *cries*

[lizamanynames.livejournal.com]

Kat apparently re-structured the site - I hunted down the link for you: http://www.katspace.org/Fiction-Stories-MultiLyricWheel/BlakesRebelsAHistoricalPerspective

[hooplasugarlump.livejournal.com]

OHHHH Thank you! xxx