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maculategiraffeFirst of all, my hugest apologies for being even less on top of things than usual right now. I'm afraid I'm less "back" than I'd hoped-- my husband is worse (for those of you who don't know, he's post-transplant and spends a lot of time in the hospital, but right now he's unconscious again and breathing on a vent which is REALLY not good) and, um, yeah, I'm not getting into everything else in my personal life that's causing me to lose what little mind was remaining to me; I'll just say I'm sorry I'm so behind on replying to everyone's lovely messages and recs and fics and generally all things LJ.
Anyway, you know how sometimes I write a story in response to comments on a story? This is kind of a chatty non-story post in response to comments on the last story. I was just writing it as a reply to the comments in question, and then it got all long and rambly and interconnected and I thought it would work better as a separate post. Also it's faster for me, and also if anybody wants to kick up further discussion, well, go for it!
(also disclaimer, I wrote this whole thing really fast and at like three in the morning, so if any of it doesn't make any sense, let me know.)
First, thank you all so much for your kind words. It was a very hard story to write (I have thought of writing it several times before, and every time I just thought "I can't, it's too painful, I'll just leave it to the imagination") and I'm so glad to know that people thought I did it well.
Now, the question came up (and was bandied about a bit) as to whether Alix had the option of taking Jer with her when she left, either instead of or in addition to Holden. It's not established in canon what he said to her or how the offer was made, but, well...
Say you're Argounov, and you own, among others, an attractive and obedient young slave named Jer. Now you buy an attractive young slave named Holden, who turns out to be a total nutcase; once you get him home, Jer smacks him around a bit and appears to exert a calming influence on him, such that eventually, with Jer's good influence and a certain amount of thrashing and starvation, he settles down a bit.
Then, oh then, you buy a lovely young woman named Alix, who appears to be the Kagome to Holden's Inuyasha, in that when she says "shut up, Holden" he actually does. Alix is not only the best pet ever, but she's also such a good influence that you no longer find yourself contemplating whether you're going to have to kill Holden and write off the loss just to give yourself some peace.
Now, for reasons that you consider outside your own control, you're setting Alix free-- already a considerable money and personal loss. If she takes Holden with her, you're left with the nice, sensible boy you had before all this mess started. If she takes Jer with her, you're left with a violent, unstable, freshly heartbroken boy who's lost both his best friends and lovers in one fell swoop and has zero incentive to continue to obey you and every reason to smash the mirrors in the bathroom and slit your throat with the glass without caring what happens to him afterwards. (And, of course, if she goes alone, you're left with both.)
How likely are you to offer Alix her choice of whom to take with her? Really now. I mean, picture the following scenario:
LIGHTFINGERS MCGEE: I see you keep a velociraptor as a pet.
DR. CALIGARI: What, Friday? Yes, he's not nearly as cuddly as my rare and equally expensive crested chinchilla Fritz. Fortunately he is contained by the presence of this velociraptor-specific phlebotinum, which keeps him relatively docile.
LIGHTFINGERS: I'm stealing the phlebotinum to power my plot device.
DR. CALIGARI: For the love of God, then, man, take Friday with you! ...Or would you prefer Fritz? He's quite cuddly. Take your pick. Have both if you like. Anything to oblige.
Argounov didn't give Holden to Alix just out of the goodness of his heart (or out of the evilness of it, either, which I'll get to in a second). I'm sure that, as Valor said to Bran when we first learned this had all gone down, he did it partly "so she wouldn't be lonely" and to give her some measure of protection and help ease the transition. But he also did it out of self-preservation. That wasn't a factor with Jer, or at least Argounov didn't think it was (and he turned out to be right).
Relatedly, there was a lot of "curse Argounov's black and blistered heart" in the comments, and while that's fair enough, because he did pretty much single-handedly ruin Jer's life and I love Jer as much as any of you (no, really, I do!)-- I feel I should mention that I don't see Argounov as a sadist or an unusually evil man. He's just a slave owner who's not particularly angsty or thoughtful about the harsh realities of chattel slavery. Honestly, I think the violence of Jer's reaction, yelling and cursing at Alix, probably took Argounov by surprise. Jer is so stoic-- he's really not one to show much genuine emotion, especially not to his owner and especially emotions that could so easily be used against him-- that I really doubt Argounov even understood the extent to which Jer loved and needed his friends. He knew the three were close, and he knew Jer would be upset at the loss, but bear in mind, too, that Argounov was probably quite preoccupied with his own loss of Alix at the moment, and I doubt he's empathetic enough to understand that there was a whole other level to Jer's heartbreak and helplessness. I doubt he really clocked Jer's grieving process, either; Jer wouldn't consider it either seemly or wise to pine visibly, and Argounov isn't exactly the "Dear, you seem a bit quieter than usual since your friends left; do you want to talk about it?" type.
This is a really painful story, obviously, and if it does its job well, you come away from it in desperate need of someone to blame for the horror of it all. A couple of you went for Alix, most of you went for Argounov, but![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
anne_squires went for slavery itself, and asked a great question: How come Alix and Holden took so long to see that the institution of slavery is wrong? They (especially Holden) were living with the pain of what slavery had done to them for years after they were freed. Did they just get so used to it that they couldn't imagine anything else? Is it a matter of not being able to think outside the box?
That last one, I think. Pretend for a sec that we all live in New South Nuzzleton, a lesbian separatist utopia (so boys, you may find it necessary to don an elaborate and hilarious disguise possibly involving petticoats and/or duct tape) and reproduce by parthenogenesis. Might we not have the following conversation with Sandy, a bemused female traveler to our shores:
FIRST NUZZLETONIAN: How can you not see that dating men is a terrible idea? Look what it's done to you! It broke your heart and your left pinky finger!
SANDY: Um, well, really that was just that one guy.
SECOND NUZZLETONIAN: But don't you still bear the psychological scars? And what about that other guy, the one who cheated on you and made off with your chinchilla?
SANDY: Well, sure, I've had some bad experiences, but that's no reason to write off men altogether. I mean, y'all seem to be having fun with it and more power to you, but personally, I'm dating a really nice guy right now. And yeah, maybe I've had some bad luck and made some poor choices, in the past...
THIRD NUZZLETONIAN: Or maybe relationships between men and women are inherently destructive and wrong.
SANDY: Um, that's kind of a radical stance to take.
THIRD NUZZLETONIAN: Doesn't the evidence available to you support it, though?
SANDY: I guess maybe... wait, how did you know about the chinchilla? Are you stalking me?
SECOND NUZZLETONIAN: We prefer to call it "recruiting."
Although, for the record, I think slavery is inherently wrong and heterosexual relationships are not-- I also think status quo is a powerful thing. It's way easier for someone who lives in a time and place when slavery (or heterosexual marriage, or meat-eating, or shaving one's legs) is an almost universally accepted practice, to come up with justifications for why we do the same thing everybody else does. And vice versa, in that if we did live in a lesbian (or vegetarian, or fuzzy-legged) utopia, we'd probably get as frustrated with the denizens of the barbaric regular world as readers who live in a time and in places when it's clearly established that slavery is inherently wrong, and trying to figure out how Holden doesn't figure out for himself that it's not just that he's personally had some sucky experiences.
(Man, speaking of lesbian separatist utopias with parthenogenesis, it's been forever since I updated Babysitter of Themyscira, hasn't it? I should poke that and see if anything comes out. As the actress said to the bishop.)
Anyway, you know how sometimes I write a story in response to comments on a story? This is kind of a chatty non-story post in response to comments on the last story. I was just writing it as a reply to the comments in question, and then it got all long and rambly and interconnected and I thought it would work better as a separate post. Also it's faster for me, and also if anybody wants to kick up further discussion, well, go for it!
(also disclaimer, I wrote this whole thing really fast and at like three in the morning, so if any of it doesn't make any sense, let me know.)
First, thank you all so much for your kind words. It was a very hard story to write (I have thought of writing it several times before, and every time I just thought "I can't, it's too painful, I'll just leave it to the imagination") and I'm so glad to know that people thought I did it well.
Now, the question came up (and was bandied about a bit) as to whether Alix had the option of taking Jer with her when she left, either instead of or in addition to Holden. It's not established in canon what he said to her or how the offer was made, but, well...
Say you're Argounov, and you own, among others, an attractive and obedient young slave named Jer. Now you buy an attractive young slave named Holden, who turns out to be a total nutcase; once you get him home, Jer smacks him around a bit and appears to exert a calming influence on him, such that eventually, with Jer's good influence and a certain amount of thrashing and starvation, he settles down a bit.
Then, oh then, you buy a lovely young woman named Alix, who appears to be the Kagome to Holden's Inuyasha, in that when she says "shut up, Holden" he actually does. Alix is not only the best pet ever, but she's also such a good influence that you no longer find yourself contemplating whether you're going to have to kill Holden and write off the loss just to give yourself some peace.
Now, for reasons that you consider outside your own control, you're setting Alix free-- already a considerable money and personal loss. If she takes Holden with her, you're left with the nice, sensible boy you had before all this mess started. If she takes Jer with her, you're left with a violent, unstable, freshly heartbroken boy who's lost both his best friends and lovers in one fell swoop and has zero incentive to continue to obey you and every reason to smash the mirrors in the bathroom and slit your throat with the glass without caring what happens to him afterwards. (And, of course, if she goes alone, you're left with both.)
How likely are you to offer Alix her choice of whom to take with her? Really now. I mean, picture the following scenario:
LIGHTFINGERS MCGEE: I see you keep a velociraptor as a pet.
DR. CALIGARI: What, Friday? Yes, he's not nearly as cuddly as my rare and equally expensive crested chinchilla Fritz. Fortunately he is contained by the presence of this velociraptor-specific phlebotinum, which keeps him relatively docile.
LIGHTFINGERS: I'm stealing the phlebotinum to power my plot device.
DR. CALIGARI: For the love of God, then, man, take Friday with you! ...Or would you prefer Fritz? He's quite cuddly. Take your pick. Have both if you like. Anything to oblige.
Argounov didn't give Holden to Alix just out of the goodness of his heart (or out of the evilness of it, either, which I'll get to in a second). I'm sure that, as Valor said to Bran when we first learned this had all gone down, he did it partly "so she wouldn't be lonely" and to give her some measure of protection and help ease the transition. But he also did it out of self-preservation. That wasn't a factor with Jer, or at least Argounov didn't think it was (and he turned out to be right).
Relatedly, there was a lot of "curse Argounov's black and blistered heart" in the comments, and while that's fair enough, because he did pretty much single-handedly ruin Jer's life and I love Jer as much as any of you (no, really, I do!)-- I feel I should mention that I don't see Argounov as a sadist or an unusually evil man. He's just a slave owner who's not particularly angsty or thoughtful about the harsh realities of chattel slavery. Honestly, I think the violence of Jer's reaction, yelling and cursing at Alix, probably took Argounov by surprise. Jer is so stoic-- he's really not one to show much genuine emotion, especially not to his owner and especially emotions that could so easily be used against him-- that I really doubt Argounov even understood the extent to which Jer loved and needed his friends. He knew the three were close, and he knew Jer would be upset at the loss, but bear in mind, too, that Argounov was probably quite preoccupied with his own loss of Alix at the moment, and I doubt he's empathetic enough to understand that there was a whole other level to Jer's heartbreak and helplessness. I doubt he really clocked Jer's grieving process, either; Jer wouldn't consider it either seemly or wise to pine visibly, and Argounov isn't exactly the "Dear, you seem a bit quieter than usual since your friends left; do you want to talk about it?" type.
This is a really painful story, obviously, and if it does its job well, you come away from it in desperate need of someone to blame for the horror of it all. A couple of you went for Alix, most of you went for Argounov, but
anne_squires went for slavery itself, and asked a great question: How come Alix and Holden took so long to see that the institution of slavery is wrong? They (especially Holden) were living with the pain of what slavery had done to them for years after they were freed. Did they just get so used to it that they couldn't imagine anything else? Is it a matter of not being able to think outside the box?That last one, I think. Pretend for a sec that we all live in New South Nuzzleton, a lesbian separatist utopia (so boys, you may find it necessary to don an elaborate and hilarious disguise possibly involving petticoats and/or duct tape) and reproduce by parthenogenesis. Might we not have the following conversation with Sandy, a bemused female traveler to our shores:
FIRST NUZZLETONIAN: How can you not see that dating men is a terrible idea? Look what it's done to you! It broke your heart and your left pinky finger!
SANDY: Um, well, really that was just that one guy.
SECOND NUZZLETONIAN: But don't you still bear the psychological scars? And what about that other guy, the one who cheated on you and made off with your chinchilla?
SANDY: Well, sure, I've had some bad experiences, but that's no reason to write off men altogether. I mean, y'all seem to be having fun with it and more power to you, but personally, I'm dating a really nice guy right now. And yeah, maybe I've had some bad luck and made some poor choices, in the past...
THIRD NUZZLETONIAN: Or maybe relationships between men and women are inherently destructive and wrong.
SANDY: Um, that's kind of a radical stance to take.
THIRD NUZZLETONIAN: Doesn't the evidence available to you support it, though?
SANDY: I guess maybe... wait, how did you know about the chinchilla? Are you stalking me?
SECOND NUZZLETONIAN: We prefer to call it "recruiting."
Although, for the record, I think slavery is inherently wrong and heterosexual relationships are not-- I also think status quo is a powerful thing. It's way easier for someone who lives in a time and place when slavery (or heterosexual marriage, or meat-eating, or shaving one's legs) is an almost universally accepted practice, to come up with justifications for why we do the same thing everybody else does. And vice versa, in that if we did live in a lesbian (or vegetarian, or fuzzy-legged) utopia, we'd probably get as frustrated with the denizens of the barbaric regular world as readers who live in a time and in places when it's clearly established that slavery is inherently wrong, and trying to figure out how Holden doesn't figure out for himself that it's not just that he's personally had some sucky experiences.
(Man, speaking of lesbian separatist utopias with parthenogenesis, it's been forever since I updated Babysitter of Themyscira, hasn't it? I should poke that and see if anything comes out. As the actress said to the bishop.)
