Woods Forsaken
| Sentinel Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Woods Forsaken |
| Author(s): | Josephine Darcy |
| Date(s): | August 2001 |
| Length: | |
| Genre: | slash |
| Fandom: | The Sentinel |
| External Links: | online here |
Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Woods Forsaken is a Jim/Blair story by Josephine Darcy.
Reactions and Reviews
2001
tried to read this. I really did. I've liked Josephine's stuff in the past, and I was looking forward to a good long wallow.I ignored the first typo (a missing apostrophe in the second paragraph) -- it can happen to anyone. I flinched at the "tell-not- show" episode retellings in the second and third paragraphs -- she's just warming up and will hit her stride anytime now.
Then I hit the fourth paragraph: "Blair-sounds". That's such a fanon-based construction (like Blair-skin) that it makes me cringe. And well, that was it for me and this story.
I skimmed through the rest of it and found a couple of scenes that grabbed me -- there's good angst in the scenes where Jim tries to come to grips with being attracted to Blair. The passive characterization of Blair in most of this story bothers me, because he's too often a drugged and unaware victim of his circumstances.
The story finally grabbed me at the end, though I did think that Jim's conversion from "I'm not gay" ("His mind shied away from words and thoughts, not wanting to acknowledge just what it was he had done, what he was still doing, what it might mean for tomorrow.") to "I'm yours forever" ("So let me go on record as saying that I like having sex with you, Sandburg.") seemed a bit sudden.
I'd love for someone to tell me that I'm totally wrong, and tell me why I should reread it.[1]
I enjoy Josephine Darcy's stories very much and I liked this one, too, with a few reservations. Her characterization of Blair was nice but it lacked a little Blair-oomph. He seemed to me to be a little withdrawn and lacking in his usual animation, an excitement I would have expected him to have given this very odd, exotic *family*. As far as Jim's "I'm not gay" internalizing, I didn't mind this at all. I just think his was "doth..protest[ing] too much" and his realization of his sexual/romantic feelings for Blair a combination of the foreboding atmosphere, the threat he felt from these people, his fear that he could lose Blair. And when they did make love it was like nothing he'd ever experienced. I love that and I loved the ending. I'm a sap for a happy ending. Besides, I have to admit that I kinda like a story that has Jim and/or Blair refuting their gayness, so to speak, until they come to the realization that they love each other emotionally, spiritually and sexually. So Jim's 40 years old and this new orientation doesn't bother him. Maybe not real life, but that's why I read this stuff - it's fiction and in most cases far removed from real life as it gets. I like that.[2]
Blair-oomph. He seemed to me to be a little withdrawn and lacking in his usual animation, an excitement I would have expected him to have given this very odd, exotic *family*. >>Blair in the first half of the story was pretty inconsistent with the series and his younger self, I thought. Even if Blair were depressed and downtrodden from how wrong things had gone with Jim, he should have been a little more assertive with people who had nothing to do with that. The Blair I recall from TS was pretty good at compartmentalizing, especially since he professed to not remembering enough about the year he spent with Andros to be grief-stricken to the point of carelessness.
I also have a hard time with the drugging. It's never totally clear if Blair is drugged or just being psychically influenced by the other alphas, but if it were drugs, I have a hard time believing the pack would be able to slip him more than one mickey.
Until after the sex with Jim, Blair was just too passive to be Blair.
I can't reconcile Blair spending a year with Andros and the pack and knowing so little of what was going on, either.
The whole thing from Blair getting them away from Marco to the end just suited me right down to the ground, though. I would take sequels before and after the action of the story even.[3]
The deep rooted problem I had with this one was another one altogether. Besides the fact that I am not much into the fantasy scene (which is why I am reading Sentinel fic and not say Marion Zimmer Bradly but I decline) I had some trouble understanding the basics of it.A jewish castle owner named Andros in the middle of the Black Forrest.
A castle in the middle of the Black Forrest undisturbed by japanese and american Tourists.
Any spot in the middle of the Black Forrest undisturbed by ...well, see above.
Many people in the middle of the Black Forrest and not one of them speaking german.
I could go on, but then again, maybe you can already see why I am not into the whole fantasy scene. [4]
2005
It's a werewolf/not a werewolf story, atmospheric and well put together. This rec Jim gets to play rescuer - or is he? [5]
References
- ^ comments from Prospect-L, quoted anonymously (August 2001)
- ^ comments from Prospect-L, quoted anonymously (August 2001)
- ^ comments from Prospect-L, quoted anonymously (August 2001)
- ^ comments from Prospect-L, quoted anonymously (August 2001)
- ^ calic0cat: That TS story meme…, January 2005