B7 Mills & Boon ficathon story: Stunned by Love

[vilakins]

Here's my Blake's 7 Mills & Boon ficathon story. Many thanks to astrogirl2 for her excellent beta-reading. :-)

I chose plot number 64 from the list of real M&B story synopses, and this is my teaser:

Kertis Chevron's new business partner was not at all what he’d expected. Beautiful and outspoken, Valanne Ward was also the perfect image of a woman he thought was dead, a woman who had once ruled a star-spanning empire and had almost won his heart--and almost killed him. But was she a schemer out for revenge, or an innocent caught up in circumstances she didn’t understand?

Stunned by Love

Comments

[shimere277.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's sweet...I really like the interaction between Valanne-Servalan and Vila. You nicely tease out the glimpses of humanity we see in Servalan every now and then.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I was intrigued by the fact that she saved Vila three times in Moloch, probably in gratitude for him saving her, and of course it was obvious that she and Avon were attracted to each other.

[alinewrites.livejournal.com]

Ooooh! Awesome! I loved that. The characters are so broken, and human, and Vila... I love him.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

What's not to love? ;-) I was going to go for parody, but then once I had Servalan with amnesia, the characters decided otherwise.

[kernezelda]

I don't know Mills & Boone, but I do know B7, and I like what you've done here. Allowing Servalan her humanity, Avon his regrets and his continuing need for security, Vila his moment of cruelty.

Wonderful job, and I find it not implausible that Servalan can change if given a way, structure and support to do so. I've always thought she and Avon would make a marvelous team - though the galaxy might suffer for it.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Well, at least they're only going for wealth this time rather than power, and having each other might fill a void for both.

I don't know Mills & Boone either, though I once read three very lame stories for research. That's where I got the OTT descriptions of appearance and clothes from, but once I had my plot, the idea of outright parody went out the window.

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

It's as lovely as when I first read it. Servie and Avon... sigh... lovely. I'm sorry that I hadn't noticed this tiny typo then. A misplaced 'a' , what could be smaller?

"Always wanted little a sister, even if she's older than me."

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Eep! THanks! I shall fix that now.

[blakefancier.livejournal.com]

Wow! You made me pity Servalan in this, then fall in love with her. Brilliant!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Thank you! All she needed was a fresh start. :-)

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

Ooh! Lovely:). I knew you could write a story in this style and make it work. I loved it. It's an amazing feat to make the reader feel sympathy for Servalan, of all people! Well done:)!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I have to say, the plot leaped out at me when I was going through the synopses and losing hope of finding one I liked. It was a lot of fun to write and I'm tempted to have a go at M&B, but I can't bring myself to read any more than the three I tried a few years ago for research.

[kerravonsen]

Oh, that's lovely. I so like redemption stories!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought of it that way, but Servalan needed to know what she'd done and be sorry, and Avon to acknowledge his own mistakes for it to work. :-)

I know you didn't see all of Babylon 5, but to me it was all about Londo's fall, realisation of what he'd done, and his redemption as he willingly pays, and his relationship with G'Kar as it changes from enmity to friendship via forgiveness.

[kerravonsen]

Interestingly enough, I thought she might have been a clone of Servalan, at first.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Oh, that never occurred to me, but I can see how it would, with clones in canon. And Servalan would be the sort to do that after her baby plan failed.

[kerravonsen]

And Servalan would be the sort to do that after her baby plan failed.

Or her genetic material could have been amongst the gene banks taken to Kaarn. After all, if we can have Cally-clones from that source, having a Servalan-clone that way isn't that much of a stretch. Which would be really kind of fascinating, to see what Servalan would have been like brought up as a set of clone-siblings in the culture of Auron.

(I need a Servalan icon...)