Take Clothes Off As Directed by Helenish

[millefiori.livejournal.com]

Take Clothes Off As Directed by helenish is NC-17, BDSM themed, and an unauthorized homage set in the alternate universe created by xanthelj in General & Dr. Sheppard and Coming Home.

I read Helen's story both as a sly, clever reflection of male/female relations in Western society, and a look at the potential pitfalls of a society with an institutionalized BDSM lifestyle. And it's an interesting contrast to Xanthe's stories and style.

First off, I have to say I feel kind of cheeky posting about this, because I've only read parts of General and Dr. Sheppard, and I haven't yet decided whether or not to read Coming Home. I have some strong feelings about BDSM, and (of course) that colors how I read stories with that subject matter. I think BDSM in the bedroom is a kink, and I take a live and let live attitude toward kink. BDSM (and Domestic Discipline) as a lifestyle is something else, and it's something which for personal reasons makes me uncomfortable.

Having said all that, I think I read enough of General & Dr. Sheppard to get something of a feel for the writing, and I think it's an interesting contrast. Xanthe's writing feels lush and emotional, sweeping the reader along like a fictional Tchaikovsky. Helen's writing is more spare, quirky and at times almost uncomfortable, more like, say, Erik Satie. And I think these different styles suit the different stories very well. I can see these two styles/stories existing in the same universe, the lush, operatic story told of people who are happy and suited to their lives in this society, and the quirky, sadder story of people who don't quite fit and aren't quite as happy.

I found Helen's story to be very sad, the only hopeful part being that John had finally found in Rodney a partner who loved him and would treat him the way he wants/deserves to be treated. I'm not sure if it was Helen's intent, but I read this as John not really being a sub per se (nor Rodney being much of a top), but both of them forced into the roles by the rigid hierarchy of their society, and going along the best they could. I read it as John being the sort of person who wants to play BDSM games in the bedroom, not live it as a lifestyle, and the only reason he wasn't crushed by this society is because he's a stubborn, contrary bastard.

I was almost nauseated by the way Elizabeth so obviously and earnestly felt she was doing the best, right thing for John with her inappropriate 'discipline', when in actuality she was more of a hindrance, just one more thing to be ignored/overcome in John's attempts to be himself and to do his job. Because being routinely beaten, undermined and humiliated is just the downside of being a sub who's trying to do his chosen job. (And, of course, he wouldn't have these problems if he hadn't got above himself and stayed in his proper place.) It felt very realistic, and therefore very unsettling, to see just how easy it was to strip John of his dignity and humanity, and turn him into a second-class citizen, essentially a slave. And perhaps it's all the more unsettling because there are still people in the world who are slaves, and who are routinely treated in degrading, disrespectful ways, and they too have no choice but to suck it up and endure.

Although it's a bit of a slap in the face to overlay this dynamic on our society and see the sub=women angle, I think (I hope) things are not quite that bad for women anymore. At least not in first world Western societies. It's also good to remind myself that fantasy universes aside, most of the people living rigid BDSM lifestyles are doing so because they want to, not because they have no choice. Nevertheless, I think this story is going to stay with me for a long time.

Comments

Re: no plato...but

[september1967.livejournal.com]

From the reactions to the story, it has garnered some of the most disparate reactions to it from being humorous to being feminist to being sad.

Re: no plato...but

[corinna-5.livejournal.com]

I would say it's all of the above, actually.

Re: no plato...but

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

I didn't read any humor in it, but I'd agree both with feminist and sad.

Re: no plato...but

[flambeau.livejournal.com]

It's really interesting to see the various reactions here. I thought the story was definitely very funny in places, in a black comedy, meta kind of way (the relationship conversation with Laurie, for instance -- to me, that's painfully funny, with the emphasis about equally on the painful and the funny) as well as a helenish-dialogue kind of way.

Re: no plato...but

[copracat]

I don't see it as foremost a feminist commentary, though I see that thread, nor do I see it as sad because they do work it out, the romantic goal of mutual understanding and acknowledgment of love is achieved, a typically grumpy and abrasive Helen kind of romance, but romance just the same.

For me the story is primarily about Rodney and John finding their way to each other and understanding each other. All the rest, fascinating as it is, is the frame that makes it possible to write these words and these interactions to show this scene with Rodney and John and that and to tie them together scene by scene to get to the payoff, the acknowledgment, the emotional payoff.

Xanthe's story is using the bdsm theme to write a glorious, well-lubed slippery slide of romance, where friction is barely acknowledged and John has to be emotionally ept while Helen's story takes them opposite and mirrored, beyond canon characterisation - John in particluar, not so much Rodney - in the other direction.

What interests me in reading other opinions and thinking about my response is how much it underlines how narrow my focus can be. Sure, feminist commentary, very clever but hey, more important: hard won, emotionally inarticulate romantic payoff.

Re: no plato...but

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

have you seen Ces's comment to my post?

I just responded to it and am really thinking now about what makes us read slash, what our underlying desires are that come out to play...

b/c i'm with you on some level; i saw the feminist stuff, commented on it, even, but if I reread it won't be for that but for relationship and "emotionally inarticulate romantic payoff" (beautifully articulated btw :-)

Re: no plato...but

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

See, the "emotionally inarticulate romantic payoff" bugged the crap out of me. I had no idea where it was coming from or why it was there. I see both John and Rodney coming from canon as having to work hard to talk about emotions (John in particular, whereas Rodney's just kind-of comes out), but doing it (as can be seen when John does talk to Teyla about his ffeeling), so the stiltedness of their interactions kept tripping me up. V.V. annoying, yet still a good story.

Re: no plato...but

[copracat]

I am still thinking about a lot that Ces has said. I found her body replacement theory not a close description of what fan fiction is for me, but I didn't know how to say it in that conversation (from last week? In your LJ?). Putting in the context of Helen's story and this discussion I see why it doesn't work for me all the time. I love a big foofy romance with glamorous and beautiful and fabulous hero/ines as much as the next person but Helen's kind of story is also something I want from my fan fiction and something I reach for when I get round to writing but rarely achieve, so I triply admire the skill in others.

Re: no plato...but

[flambeau.livejournal.com]

Hee! I'm going to have to reread the story for the hard won, emotionally inarticulate romantic payoff; not to say I missed the actual story, but I was pretty caught up with my delight in the metanarrative framework. :)

Re: no plato...but

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

LOL...I think that stories that have such strong reactions as this one may do so exactly because we read them for different reasons and with different payoffs! (Or rather, they lend themselves to be read for different...)

I'm reminded of the responses to Freedom, where different readers took near contrary interpretations from it. And I'd argue that was one of the reasons for its wide appeal and success! (Then again, my current definition for "great" literature is writing that allows for the largest amount of literary schools to get something out of it...)

sidebar

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

I am deeply amused that Freedom won a 'gen' category award from the stargate fan awards, as that was my reading of it. *g*

Re: sidebar

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

yup...mine too (and the author's fwiw :-)

Re: no plato...but

[copracat]

Are you joking? You're not joking, are you? That's the best bit, every time John and Rodney approach but miss, no matter how bad each encounter is, how unsatisfying underlying that is this faith and hope that there's something better, something they want that no-one else has come close to offering, something worth trying for even though they're both rubbish at it and just can't seem to get on the same page for more than five seconds at a time. And the best bit is that it's not said; John can't talk to Rodney because he can't even talk to himself but he knows the most important thing about himself and that's what he's not. It's so hard for them but at the end there's this tiny little green shoot o' love, forced up between the cracks of a slab of fuckedup, gasping in the sun.

But then, I have always loved Helen's style of making characters argue themselves into love.

Re: no plato...but

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

but....could that simply be that we read the story like that, b/c we already "know" that they belong together?

i'm wondering whether reading this about some random couple, we wouldn't end up seeing them as very dysfunctional and not all that meant to be after all...do they argue themselves into love or just make do with what's left???

Re: no plato...but

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Well, I have no investment in the pairing and even when I do have OTPs, I don't believe in "meant to be" and prefer dysfunctional in some way, but I still read it as working for them. I bought the attraction. In that respect it didn't seem OTPish in the sense of knowing the audience thinks they're meant to be and not showing why they would like each other. As the story progresses, I think John learns that he doesn't have to try and force himself and Rodney into these roles and that they can do what works for them. It seems like he starts to accept that Rodney can still top him without being this textbook top that he thinks Rodney should be, just as he himself can still sub without being what a sub is supposed to be. By the end of the story, I see it coming together. It's not perfect, there are still problems, but it's optimistic in that it seems like they're beginning to work the kinks out and eventually things will be smoother. I like that sort of ending better than one where everything is neatly tied up and suddenly things are perfect.

Re: no plato...but

[copracat]

That's a really tough question to answer. Because the story is understood to be fanfiction, slash, set in the SGA universe with the main characters of John and Rodney the weight of expectation is indeed that they end up together. The number of fan writers who would confound this expectation are few indeed. Since the story is a romance - slash is most often a romantic storytelling - then even if they were named other names I would expect a romantic resolution. Romances are generally as formulaic as slash fanfiction, after all.

The question then is, has the writer written it convincingly? For me, yes. Rodney behaves unlike any of the other tops that John has ever encountered, he doesn't treat John as sexual outside the bedroom but instead affords him the same Rodneyish professional respect he affords everyone else. I think Rodney is the first person who has ever treated John the way he wanted to be treated when he first chose his life path. John is drawn to Rodney because of this difference and marks him as the character we have to notice in the romantic equation.

There's more, but I have to race off to an appointment. Blah blah blah I'll fill in the middle if you like but at the end, at the end when Rodney says, 'Everything' and means he wants to give John everything, that's his flowery declaration of undying and perfect love. He wants to give John everything and he wants everything back. You could go on for five or so pages with a romantically perfect love scene, mutual orgasms, more declarations of love, plans to move in together and a hint of children and/or marriage but that would be another story altogether and I would have stopped reading at 'Everything' anyway because that's the emotional payoff for me, the heartfelt confession of love by an inarticulate person.

I acknowledge that someone who wants their romance written differently ain't gonna like this at all.

I remember Helen getting flack in Sentinel for her argumentative and angry Blair. Oh, the horror of writing Blair other than as a hippy, true love peace and sage wise shaman to be!

Re: no plato...but

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

I agree that the "Everything" really makes it look like they (we:-) get a happy ending. But your invocation of hippy love sage or pages of romantically perfect love scenes kind of establishes a spectrum that's already predicated on the fact that we *are* reading a romance, that John and Rodney *are* together. [Or, said differently, I don't think my desire to actually *see* the love in the text requires purply prose as a result. i think we have enough writers in fandom who heavily uderwrite just like Helen and yet bring across the true love and all...]

I guess I'm still not convinced that the story read outside of a slash context, outside of our expectations, is convincing as a love story. And then the next question, of course, is whether that's even relevant! Because we *are* reading it in contect, and, like you, I totally melted at the everything, b/c it seemed the happy ending in spite of...the fitting together almost against their own awareness?

Re: no plato...but

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm still not convinced that the story read outside of a slash context, outside of our expectations, is convincing as a love story.

I think that regardless of who is reading it or their expectations in regards to the type of story, some people will see it as working and some won't. It has more to do with people's own ideas of love, their own prejudices, etc. than with the text of the story.

I mean, I can't answer whether they were in love or not, but at the end of the story, it felt to me like they were getting it to work, which is as good an ending for me as anything.

Re: no plato...but

[copracat]

I like to see emotionally inept characters like John and Rodney written that way in fan fiction. In comparision I read an adorable story recently, well written, fun, emotionally satisfying, but John was just a bit too good at understanding what was going on between him and Rodney and a bit too good at explaining it to Rodney. That didn't hurt the story for me, but I notice it and it feels a little less true. Take Clothes goes a little way the other side of characterisation, but I like the work I have to do, every external misfire and fumble between John and Rodney has a (or I read has a) companion internal desire for connection. If John didn't want Rodney he would shut him out as he shuts out everyone else. If Rodney didn't want John he would just ignore him and forget his name. For me all their interactions count positive because they don't have to have them. They are both capable of staying away from each other if they didn't care.

Re: no plato...but

[copracat]

I like talking to you SO MUCH, by the way.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

*g* thank you! same here!

I love the discussions this story has generated and the way it invites meta on so many levels! (and if I said any more I'd probably be in defiance of the community rules)

But yes, I do think that Helen consciously defies traditional slash bdsm tropes only to--on some level--still rely on the larger "shipping" trope that makes us accept the two together and their meant-for-each-otherness. In fact, I wonder if the underwriting we're so fond of in slashdom *can* function in the same way in pro literature.

[Yes, there's always Hemingway... But I knowI wasn't the only one who loved Naomi's stories but wished there'd nbeen *more emotion...something I never feel in fannidsh stories that underwrite...]