Keptverse Thinky Thoughts #1

[darkrosetiger.livejournal.com]

Part of the thought behind having a comm was because there was so much good meta discussion about the world going on in various places. So...here: have some meta. :)



For me, one of the things that's been fascinating is seeing the ways in which Jensen, Joe, and now Kyle are both similar and very different, and how closely that's tied in with their childhood experiences. (Jared as well, but unlike the other three, he's not a body-slave, which adds another layer of difference.)

Kyle is coming from a completely different place from Joe and Jensen, since he was enslaved as a teenager. Joe and Jensen were both enslaved as very young children--Joe at 5 and Jensen at 7--but for them, the key difference is in the households and who their owners were. Jensen, of course, was owned by Tom Cruise (who I loathe in this fic even more than I already do the real-life version). He was trained by private tutors, and from what we've seen so far, he never had much contact with other kids his own age--in fact, it seems like he was never actually allowed to be a child at all. His only source of affection was Cruise, who was also his master, making him dependent on him both for emotional feedback and literal support. And...Cruise was good, and by the time he was through, Jensen seemed to have internalized the propaganda of this world, so that he genuinely believes that Master Is Always Right, and that he has no identity outside of his master's will.

Joe...well, not so much, for one reason that I didn't actually plan. While on paper, his owners were David and Sarah Neal, his master was Dylan, a boy only a year older than he was. Basically, they bought Joe for Dylan instead of, say, getting their son a puppy--and then, because they were overprotective, they didn't tell Dylan that Joe wasn't just his best friend who happened to live with them until they'd been living each other's pockets for over a year. Joe and Dylan did kid stuff together: playing video games, swimming, and just generally goofing off. Joe knew what the real situation was, but for the most part, it didn't affect his daily interactions with his nominal master.

Then Dylan and Joe went to school. Again unlike Jensen, Joe was constantly in the company of other kids who were in situations similar to his. But when the instructors tried to indoctrinate their slave charges, and to get them to understand that their masters know best because they're the masters, they ran into the rigid logic that kids often have. Joe's weighing what he's being told against his own experience, where Dylan's older but more passive, and much more willing to let Joe take the lead--or, as he puts it much later, "They were trying to tell me that my master was inherently more capable than I was, and I kept thinking, "Yeah, but he's a year older than me and sometimes he still wets the bed."

Even after Dylan figured out what Joe's true role was, he wanted desperately to believe that Joe liked him for himself, not because he had to. Especially after he got Joe beaten, Dylan hated to give Joe orders because he was terrified that Joe would go into perfect slave mode, which both of them knew was fake. Joe grew up thinking that Dylan was nice but really clueless, a mix of mild contempt for how helpless he was and an older sibling's protectiveness. Joe and Dylan were a bit of an extreme, but in general, I think the trend for rich kids having their own body-slaves from a very early age would become less common over time because it does lead to an over-familiarity, and slaves who don't hold their masters in awe.

The other big difference between Joe and Jensen is in who their parent figures were. Jensen had Cruise, but Dylan's parents made it clear from the get-go that they weren't interested in playing that role for Joe. (They weren't all that good at doing it for Dylan, frankly.) He also seemed to have Mimi for part of the time. Joe, on the other hand, was essentially the baby of the staff, and everyone, especially Kim, the Mistress' body-slave, Andy, the head groom, and Sherri, the cook, positively doted on him. I've got a whole separate post of what it meant that Joe was close to the other (non-body) slaves in the household. But in terms of parental affection, he got it from people who weren't supposed to be above him in station.

Looking at some of Jensen and Joe's formative experiences, it's easy to see how this made a huge difference in their later outlooks. Jensen had Cruise blindfold him and leave him to find his way out of a huge room with all sorts of obstacles, to teach him how slaves must rely on their master's guidance. Afterwards, Jensen remembers that Cruise picked the glass out of his feet himself, as a sign of affection.

At a similar age, Joe got beaten by Dylan's father in order to teach Dylan about having responsibility to his slave. Dylan's parents were concerned with their son's well-being, but they did have one of the other slaves come in and take charge of Joe. I've only shown that moment so far from Dylan's POV, but after Andy took Joe, Kim and Sherri ran a bath for him and hugged him and wrapped him up in Andy's bathrobe and gave him ice cream. More importantly, though, they let Joe vent for a while, and scream about how much he hated Dylan. Eventually they did explain that he couldn't say that--but they also validated Joe's feelings and agreed that Dylan had been wrong and that Joe had a right to be angry.

The staff also served as a reality check for him. He could come back from school and ask if it was really true that the masters knew more because they were masters, and get the answer, "No, it's not--but you need to pretend that it is." When Dylan's father was obviously interested in having sex with Joe, everyone (except for poor Dylan) knew it, and disapproved even if no one said it out loud. Here again, Joe's sense that David wanting to fuck him was wrong was backed up by the messages he got from people around him, even though it contradicted what he'd been taught in school (you're property; your owner has the right to use you as he sees fit). If anyone ever suggested that Joe'd been raped, he'd give them a John Sheppard-style smirk and say, "Don't be ridiculous--the law says that slaves can't be raped."

Jensen and Joe were both given indoctrination in how to be a good slave, but where Jensen internalized the messages because he didn't have anything to counter it, Joe was constantly having those messages subverted, and learning how to fake it enough to get by. He had people around him who loved him for himself, and a master who would have been happier if he and Joe could have just been friends.

So does this mean that Joe's healthier than Jensen? No, actually. Where Jensen's armor is his "perfect slave" mantra, Joe's is his cynicism. Jensen believes that the masters really are superior; Joe has enormous contempt for masters as a class--but in both cases, it's what lets them get through the day. It's tiring to have to maintain the masks, and to pretend you respect people that you generally despise.

Comments

[almostnever.livejournal.com]

It's really interesting to see all this spelled out meta-wise. Thanks!

[lomer.livejournal.com]

I thought Jensen was 7 when he was enslaved, but I suck at numbers, I could be remembering it wrong.

I think one key difference between Jensen and Joe is Jensen was raised in isolation and Joe was raised with a community. You've pointed out that difference, and it's a huge one. Jensen literally had to rely on his first love/father figure for any sort of insight as to who he's supposed to be while Joe was able to get many opinions and then decide for himself.

It also seems like Jensen had negative experiences associating with other slaves whereas Joe had positive ones. This can only heighten the sense of isolation for Jensen and cause him to rely even more on his Master.

It's too late for me to properly verbalize my thoughts, but I'm loving these discussions!

[telesilla.livejournal.com]

Since we'll be getting a little more of his backstory in the next part of Lock and Key, I'll throw in some stuff about Kyle here.

Kyle's dad skipped out on his family when Kyle had just turned 14. He left behind Kyle, Kyle's mom, and a pile of debts that Kyle's mom, who wasn't well to begin with, could pay off. She killed herself and Kyle, who already knew they were in trouble financially, ran away.

He managed to live on the streets for about a year, mostly hooking because there are guys out there are free but can't afford to keep slaves. As is inevitable, he gt picked up by the cops and turned over to Commerce. Normally, he'd have been sent off to do one of the shit jobs, but since he was very very pretty, Commerce knew they'd make more money off him by selling him as a body-slave. He was given minimal training and sold to a single guy who just wanted a pretty boy for a while.

Kyle's first master was about average as masters in this universe go. He wasn't as batshit crazy as Cruise, nor was he as liberal as Jeff, Jason, David or Dylan. He wanted Kyle to be there for sex and to maintain his wardrobe and make sure he looked good in public.

From there, Kyle went to the Parsons, specifically Lady Parsons. She was pretty crazy, but it was more a matter of constant mood swings and spoiled rich lady temper tantrums than anything else. As long as Kyle kept her amused and/or distracted so she didn't ask questions about where her husband was getting all his money, things were fine. He mostly managed and toward the end, was pretty good at judging what she wanted from him. Although he was usually busy dealing with her whims, the rest of the household appreciated him because he kept her as stable as possible.

But what he came away with from this is that the master class are a bunch of hypocritical assholes who should be first against the wall when the revolution comes and really the only way to survive in this world is to look out for Number One.

So he's cynical like Joe, but he's also angry and not all that resigned to his fate. He thinks that slaves like Jensen, who actually buy into the whole thing, are idiots.

Of course, he's young--just 24--and so he's got a lot of learning to do.

(I'm gonna need a Kyle icon at some point.)

[livrelibre.livejournal.com]

It's tiring to have to maintain the masks

What you say here struck me in the last part that poisontaster just posted in a different way. Whereas Joe is disguising cynicism and contempt, Jensen reminds me of a geisha in that his mask is compliance and reflection of his master's needs. It's the "perfect slave" mask but the real reactions he's covering are often based on anxiety (am I measuring up, pleasing), though he has his standards that Jeff clearly isn't living up to (in fact, that's the most human/critical Jensen seems to get). Both are tiring, just in different ways.

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

[nod] It's very easy to assume, from our realspace POV, that Joe is healthier than Jensen, whatever that means. But if one defines "mental health" as the ability to cope and maintain and get through the day with some sort of satisfaction, then I think a lot of that is situational. That is, what's a healthy attitude depends on circumstances, and especially sucky circumstances are going to define some particularly weird and even unhealthy-looking attitudes as "healthy" within that environment.

Jensen looks particularly messed up, and it's true that his world view has an especially narrow range of applicability. But given that he is a slave, in a world where manumission is impossible and physical escape nearly so, Jensen's world view and his definition of success for himself being a behavior set which is focused on being perfectly pleasing to his master is actually very adaptive. We might admire a person who's constantly resisting and rebelling and trying to escape or otherwise thwart the inherently evil system and the people it privileges, and we might recognize that if enough slaves hold that attitude and take those actions, eventually something is likely to crack, but that doesn't do any individual slave much good along the way.

There's a reason people who stand up and defy a bad system are considered heroes; heroic action is, by definition, action most people don't or can't take. And there's a reason heroes are so often honored posthumously; we might admire a brave, futile, symbolic stand which eventually inspires or encourages others to successful action, but the dead guy is still dead.

From Jensen's POV, he figured out as a child how the world worked and then settled in. He figured out what worked for him, what attitudes and standards brought him the greatest amount of positive reinforcement and comfort, and the least amount of pain and disapproval. By defining for himself the way his masters treated him as inherently good and right and fair, he freed himself from the stress of resentment and dissatisfaction. If he could construct a world view for himself where his treatment was normal and positive and satisfying, then he could relax into it and know for a fact that his life was good. It might look completely messed up to us, and to the reformers and abolitionists of his own world, but it worked for him. It might be frustrating to see what we think of as a completely subordinated sense of self and a twisted view of what's right, but again, it worked for him. It was a very adaptive attitude, especially given the reality of his particular experience of slavery, and of his complete lack of any sort of support for developing a more cynical and subversive attitude.

I don't think Jensen's attitude of complete acceptance would've been likely to develop if he'd been raised with other slaves, even others his own age. It doesn't take much to reassure a person that he's not crazy, that yeah, other people resent this too, other people wish for this other thing too, other people are angry too. Just a glance at the right time and you know that the kid next to you thinks this is kind of fucked up, the same as you do, and you know you're not crazy and that can be enough to let you build the layers of masks -- which is what Joe did. (Although he had even more support than that.) Jensen didn't have that, though. Everyone he came into contact with reinforced the system, not only the actions but the attitudes. In his world, when he was small, he would've been the only person, so far as he could tell, who wondered or doubted or held any resentment. That's a classic brainwashing situation, and it would've been easy for even an adult to start wondering whether he was the crazy one after a while. For a 7-year-old it was pretty much inevitable that he'd adapt and go along and internalize the propaganda.

Which is a lot of verbage to say that I agree with you. Jensen's having more trouble now than Joe is, but Jensen is like an animal which had perfectly adapted to its weird little niche environment. Now that he's been taken out of that environment, he's having a harder time re-adapting, but his belief system was more adaptive for someone owned by supporters of the slave system.

Angie

[rose-in-texas.livejournal.com]

And yet for both of them, this one overriding truth holds: Give the master what he wants. No matter how they arrived at that position, it's the same for them both.

Jensen might give it because the master is right to want those things. Joe might give it because he thinks he can manipulate the master later. But they both end up in obedience as de facto condition.