Rec: Sailor's Delight by General_Jinjur
Jan. 6th, 2011 01:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunabee34Sailor's Delight by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
general_jinjur; Dawn Summers and Jeannie McKay-centric gen; Big Bang length; major character death
This story haunts me. I read it a few days ago, and I can't stop thinking about it. It's grabbed me on multiple levels and refuses to let go.
First and foremost, this story is an excellent example of good writing--the language is beautiful and evocative, the plot interesting and well-paced, the ending neither forced nor rushed. It's by turns tense and suspenseful, terribly sad, and nearly unbearably hopeful without pathos and without being maudlin. And the title is so wonderfully clever. I'm so bad at them, I always admire a good title.
Second, you all know I am a sucker for a good apocafic. I haveana_grrl to thank for that; she turned me on to the wide, wide world of zombies and apocalyptic rain. This is a damn good apocafic. It's full of that unremitting and overwhemlming sense of loss that is, for me, the hallmark of this genre. Dawn and Jeannie are essentially the last two people on Earth, and their grief at what has been taken threatens to subsume them. This reminds me very much of that SPN fic (I can't remember the title; it must be three, four, maybe even five years old now) where everybody on Earth but Sam and Dean die---it's a hopeful fic, but it's an active exercise for the reader to come to terms with what losing everyone on the planet means enough to enjoy the future that Sam and Dean carve out for themselves. "Sailor's Delight" is similar in that a reader has to work through the same numbness and disbelief and grief as the characters as the story progresses.
I think that the end of the world is a kind of crucible that does one of two things to a person--it either makes her uber herself (reinforces her personality, strengthens the core of who she is), or it strips away everything extraneous until what is left is the stark bones of what's needed to survive. I've read a lot of fics where the latter happens but not too many with the former. In this fic, Jeannie and Dawn aren't distilled into their basic elements; they are Dawn and Jeannie who have been called on to be more than Dawn and Jeannie. The fic is written from Dawn's POV, and rather than retreat or ruthlessly crush within herself anything that interferes with survival, Dawn is saturated with Dawnness--from her internal monologue, to her ultimate affection for Jeannie, to the small vulnerabilities that so endearingly shine through from time to time.
This is the best Dawn I've ever read. She is strong and capable, practical and pragmatic, brave and strong and utterly beautiful. She is afraid and defiant anyway and still very much Buffy's little sister even if Buffy's gone.
The absolutely only thing that bothered me about this story is that it ended. LOL
Even if you think gen is not your Thing, I urge you to read this story. I don't think you'll be disappointed in the least.
general_jinjur; Dawn Summers and Jeannie McKay-centric gen; Big Bang length; major character deathThis story haunts me. I read it a few days ago, and I can't stop thinking about it. It's grabbed me on multiple levels and refuses to let go.
First and foremost, this story is an excellent example of good writing--the language is beautiful and evocative, the plot interesting and well-paced, the ending neither forced nor rushed. It's by turns tense and suspenseful, terribly sad, and nearly unbearably hopeful without pathos and without being maudlin. And the title is so wonderfully clever. I'm so bad at them, I always admire a good title.
Second, you all know I am a sucker for a good apocafic. I have
ana_grrl to thank for that; she turned me on to the wide, wide world of zombies and apocalyptic rain. This is a damn good apocafic. It's full of that unremitting and overwhemlming sense of loss that is, for me, the hallmark of this genre. Dawn and Jeannie are essentially the last two people on Earth, and their grief at what has been taken threatens to subsume them. This reminds me very much of that SPN fic (I can't remember the title; it must be three, four, maybe even five years old now) where everybody on Earth but Sam and Dean die---it's a hopeful fic, but it's an active exercise for the reader to come to terms with what losing everyone on the planet means enough to enjoy the future that Sam and Dean carve out for themselves. "Sailor's Delight" is similar in that a reader has to work through the same numbness and disbelief and grief as the characters as the story progresses.I think that the end of the world is a kind of crucible that does one of two things to a person--it either makes her uber herself (reinforces her personality, strengthens the core of who she is), or it strips away everything extraneous until what is left is the stark bones of what's needed to survive. I've read a lot of fics where the latter happens but not too many with the former. In this fic, Jeannie and Dawn aren't distilled into their basic elements; they are Dawn and Jeannie who have been called on to be more than Dawn and Jeannie. The fic is written from Dawn's POV, and rather than retreat or ruthlessly crush within herself anything that interferes with survival, Dawn is saturated with Dawnness--from her internal monologue, to her ultimate affection for Jeannie, to the small vulnerabilities that so endearingly shine through from time to time.
This is the best Dawn I've ever read. She is strong and capable, practical and pragmatic, brave and strong and utterly beautiful. She is afraid and defiant anyway and still very much Buffy's little sister even if Buffy's gone.
The absolutely only thing that bothered me about this story is that it ended. LOL
Even if you think gen is not your Thing, I urge you to read this story. I don't think you'll be disappointed in the least.
