Yellow Roses

Fanfiction
Title:	Yellow Roses
Author(s):	Speranza
Date(s):	24 September 2000
Length:	16776 words
Genre(s):	slash
Fandom(s):	The Sentinel
Relationship(s):	Jim/Blair
External Links:	Yellow Roses at AO3
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Yellow Roses is a Jim/Blair story by Speranza.

Reactions and Reviews

2000

I have a weakness for Jim suddenly having the bottom drop out of his world, and Francesca's new story, Yellow Roses, is probably the best exploration of that I've ever seen. I think there's an abrupt mood change about three-fourths of the way through, but both moods are great: angsty, intense and committed past the point of reason.

I haven't been reading much because I'm on vacation in Charleston, SC (woo hoo!!!) but when I saw a new story posted to SXF by Francesca, I just had to read it. Its not a happy story, it deals with a lot of hard issues, but her completely believable dialogue, and use of metaphor is as irresistible as usual. The woman is simply brilliant. This is a story I will read over and over again.

If you haven't read the story yet, get out of here and go read it.

I'm about to spoil the plot for you.

Okay, warning's over. So the major plot thing here is that Blair's gotten this woman Nina pregnant. And he's not sure what to do about it, but he's being a mensch and telling her he'll do whatever is right for her.

Meanwhile, he's realizing that the diss is a dead end. Which we who have seen four seasons of TS already knew, but one of Francesca's unique gifts seems to be the ability to rewrite the TS arc, including all the Big Stuff (see the Nature's... series) but basically doing it in a more interesting way than Petfly did, at least sometimes.

I really like the way the diss and the baby become parallel. Because along with the baby comes the question of Blair's maybe-partnership with Nina; and along w/ the diss comes the question of Blair's partnership, in whatever form it happens, with Jim.

[snipped]

But it's not as snappy and giddy as some of Francesca's dialogue -- it's just as tight and clean, but there's something darker behind it, this time. Which suits the story.

Another thing I like: she manages to write a Jim who says the wrong thing now and then, and feels crappy about it, WITHOUT writing the kind of Guilty!Jim we've all been lambasting. She can write lines like "Jim felt sick; he felt his own fuck-up viscerally, like a toxin in his system." -- without having Jim then dwell on the fuck-up. Which is exactly right, to my mind. Jim *does* say stupid things now and then. But it doesn't turn him into a quivering pool of regret, canonically, and Francesca knows that, and her story reflects it. Yippee.

And here's another thing that's great about the way Jim is written, here, I think. Jim becomes kind of obsessed w/ the baby. Because the baby isn't just parallel to the diss; in some way, the baby is parallel to him.

He's envisioning Blair taking care of the kid in much the same way Blair's taken care of him. Babies stare glassy-eyed into space; Jim zones out. And either way, Blair's there, with his voice calming and soothing, encouraging -- Jim, the baby, either way -- encouraging him to see the roses, smell the roses. And isn't that just what Blair does for Jim, in the best of moments? Whether you take "smell the roses" literally or figuratively, it's a great image.

Jim does have something of a freak-out, when Blair comes home and announces Nina's decision. And I still don't totally have access to why Jim behaves exactly as he does.

Then again, I don't totally have access to how Jim behaved in S2, either. So the fact that he loses me a little is not necessarily a bad thing, for the story. It just means he's operating from someplace I don't totally understand. And I'm going to read this story a dozen or so more times, see what else I can glean from watching Jim do it over and over.

I love the scene where Blair has come home from the abortion, and he feels...blank. Not sure how to feel. It's not a happy scene, but I think it's a *true* scene.

And as the story goes on we get more snatches of insight into Jim's complicated psyche here. There's a great line, when Blair's typing like a maniac in the post-abortion frenzy, where Jim says he can't stand listening to Sandburg fucking that machine. And I realize, my God, he's got everything all twisted up. The baby, the diss, Jim himself, all tied up together.

There's a great build-up of tension as they yell at each other. And both of their logics begin to come clear: for Blair, it's a question of valuing something that took ten seconds to create (the baby) vs. something that's taken years (the diss); for Jim, it's a question of valuing human life over the words on the page, although obviously it's tied up with all of the other stuff he's got mixed in there. (And I can't help being amazed at how tangled Jim's psyche is -- and how impressive Francesca's brain must be to be able to keep all of this straight :-).

So the fight builds. Comes to a head. And then they start interacting like human beings again. Which is a set of transitions I think is very skillfully-done.

I'm just not sure anyone else can write them as so convincingly-fucked up, and yet so convincingly able to make things work, in some kludgy way, by sheer force of will, or something.

2004

This might just be my absolute favourite Francesca story of all - the one I admire the most for it's subtlety and the multiple levels on which the imagery and themes work within the text. This is a powerful story that deals with a very controversial subject. I think Francesca was brave to attempt to deal with a subject that inevitably causes controversy amongst any group of people. I've always loved Francesca's work but this story pushed my admiration up to another level - it's superbly executed and I am, as always, envious of her skill as a writer.