Janeway and Roslin: Because They're Just Sexy
Dynamics of the Janeway/Roslin Pairing (Musings)
(Icon by radak)
(This was written in response to projectjulie's comments on a recent J/R discussion piece I wrote [and then some] and for the pairing's sake.)
I think the first Roslin/Janeway fic I ever read was selenay_x's "Blink". By the time I ended the fic, I was scrounging all over the internet for femslash VOY/BSG crossovers. Finding very little or none at all, I decided to take full advantage of the #80 remainder challenge on femslash100, flooding the comm with ficlets (I'm just so sorry about that, projectjulie!).
It's very interesting how people are increasingly amused on how the pairing is written. I especially liked missfoxie, kjaneway, thesocialnorm and selenay_x's styles, drawing out details and giving the universe a certain weight (and a considerable weight, at that). Their fics drove a realistic stake into the J/R universe, appealing to the imagination and to the inner voyeur, pushing the pairing into visibility (and I was so happy when they did!). In conjunction with that, I sought to delve into the pairing's dynamics.
I. The Captain and the President
Yes, Roslin is indeed the more flexible of the two and Roslin's pragmatic approach to problems --sometimes doing away with ethics altogether --holds in stark contrast to Janeway's more sterile approach. Though, as some people would protest, Janeway's decision to "kill" Tuvix in order to preserve Neelix and Tuvok was radical --some would even insist that it was downright criminal. Janeway’s decision to strand her crew in the Delta Quadrant in order to save the Ocampan homeworld, is another patchy quirk which writers could delve into. In both instances, she may have chosen the lesser of two evils.
Then we have Laura Roslin. Roslin's decision to airlock/kill certain people/Cylons who disturb the peace: that's something to look into and it begs the question, are we any different from those whom we call murderers? Associate these with Six’s treatment by Pegasus’ crew and Roslin's certainty to the good in Cain's assassination, then maybe we’ll see a darker side to humans that none of us are very comfortable with.
Allegorical as they are, certain situations in both shows echo in the real world.
Janeway and Roslin are strong leaders, albeit faulty, and I think that their flaws provide a great avenue which fic writers could explore. Why? Because they somehow represent the universe from which they come. Because they’re perfect examples of human strength and at the same time, gross paradigms of (flawed) human decision-making.
II. I, Woman
One other way that the pairing could be so interesting is in terms of sexuality.
Janeway does possess a certain mode of sexual repression/sublimation, or at least in relation to Chakotay. She did let her hair down on New Earth, but I can’t seem to recall an episode with her in bed with anyone, male or female. And this, for the duration of the trip. As is fandom’s wont, the comms flood with ficlets that get her laid. Roslin, too, stumbles onto this archetype of the sex(life) -less leader (hahaha!). Though we may see her as more capable and certainly more open to the opposite.
A friend and I were talking in the car a few hours ago about how Janeway --if she happened to be a male Captain --could be said to be emasculated and that somehow, due to the writers' own folly, she was de-gendered for the duration of the trip.
A whole paper could be written about this, comparing roles that B'elanna, Kes, and even Seven fill but that somehow Janeway doesn’t quite imbue. Sexual exploration (and dare I say, part of that power) is reserved for everyone but the Captain, who, in projectjulie’s words “honestly believed, however punishing or illogical it was, that she couldn't have sex with anyone on her ship”. Sex factored in rarely, if not at all to our dear Captain and it may have crippled her character. Though of course, we also take great pleasure in knowing that she belongs to the fans now (and my, do we take care of her!).
Roslin, on the other hand, enjoys a certain brand of sensuality: her clothes, her skirts (and those legs!), her shoes, even her hair. Unlike the barren Starfleet uniform and its uncanny ability to somehow neuter a person, the President’s apparel projects her body, provides a spectacle, if you will.
(Then we’d somehow come to the question of what comprises femininity and I daren’t go there for fear of making this longer than it should. We'll reserve that discussion for someone more literate because I'm ill-equipped to tackle it further.)
To make things short, Roslin’s given more leeway in terms of expression (of her body, of her sexuality), removed as she is from the strictures of the military.
III. The Cyborg Connection
I think that what partly makes these two women interesting is they both deal with non-biological races, or at least a compound of both machine and bio-matter, which in turn opens the floodgates to questioning.
For the ST universe, you have the Borg; for the BSG universe, you have the Cylons. At first, they’re presented in polarities: good here, bad there. Judgment on who was which increasingly blurred as episodes on both shows probed into behavior and even belief systems: the inhumane-ness of the Fleet’s vanguards, the relativity of a non-existent “absolute” on both the Cylon and Fleet’s parts. Extend this to ST, and we deal with the Borg Queen, the constraints of the Hive Mind, and Seven's integration (or sometimes lack thereof) into Voyager (care of yours truly, Capt. Janeway).
The audience starts asking these questions: are these machines alive? If so, will terminating them be murder? In spite of both races' genocidal tendencies, I'd like to believe that they have their place in the universe... but for now, we'll leave that to the scholars and those courageous fic writers who explore these aspects of the show. (Oh my, I think I've gone on a tangent with that!)
In conclusion to this… I say that with regards to this pairing, we only have our answers by virtue of the fic writers’ perspective, his/her words, and the interactions they paint. And readers, in their own way, create their own universes through the fic writers’ lense. In short, WRITE MORE FICS PEOPLE!
(Icon by radak)
(This was written in response to projectjulie's comments on a recent J/R discussion piece I wrote [and then some] and for the pairing's sake.)
I think the first Roslin/Janeway fic I ever read was selenay_x's "Blink". By the time I ended the fic, I was scrounging all over the internet for femslash VOY/BSG crossovers. Finding very little or none at all, I decided to take full advantage of the #80 remainder challenge on femslash100, flooding the comm with ficlets (I'm just so sorry about that, projectjulie!).
It's very interesting how people are increasingly amused on how the pairing is written. I especially liked missfoxie, kjaneway, thesocialnorm and selenay_x's styles, drawing out details and giving the universe a certain weight (and a considerable weight, at that). Their fics drove a realistic stake into the J/R universe, appealing to the imagination and to the inner voyeur, pushing the pairing into visibility (and I was so happy when they did!). In conjunction with that, I sought to delve into the pairing's dynamics.
I. The Captain and the President
Yes, Roslin is indeed the more flexible of the two and Roslin's pragmatic approach to problems --sometimes doing away with ethics altogether --holds in stark contrast to Janeway's more sterile approach. Though, as some people would protest, Janeway's decision to "kill" Tuvix in order to preserve Neelix and Tuvok was radical --some would even insist that it was downright criminal. Janeway’s decision to strand her crew in the Delta Quadrant in order to save the Ocampan homeworld, is another patchy quirk which writers could delve into. In both instances, she may have chosen the lesser of two evils.
Then we have Laura Roslin. Roslin's decision to airlock/kill certain people/Cylons who disturb the peace: that's something to look into and it begs the question, are we any different from those whom we call murderers? Associate these with Six’s treatment by Pegasus’ crew and Roslin's certainty to the good in Cain's assassination, then maybe we’ll see a darker side to humans that none of us are very comfortable with.
Allegorical as they are, certain situations in both shows echo in the real world.
Janeway and Roslin are strong leaders, albeit faulty, and I think that their flaws provide a great avenue which fic writers could explore. Why? Because they somehow represent the universe from which they come. Because they’re perfect examples of human strength and at the same time, gross paradigms of (flawed) human decision-making.
II. I, Woman
One other way that the pairing could be so interesting is in terms of sexuality.
Janeway does possess a certain mode of sexual repression/sublimation, or at least in relation to Chakotay. She did let her hair down on New Earth, but I can’t seem to recall an episode with her in bed with anyone, male or female. And this, for the duration of the trip. As is fandom’s wont, the comms flood with ficlets that get her laid. Roslin, too, stumbles onto this archetype of the sex(life) -less leader (hahaha!). Though we may see her as more capable and certainly more open to the opposite.
A friend and I were talking in the car a few hours ago about how Janeway --if she happened to be a male Captain --could be said to be emasculated and that somehow, due to the writers' own folly, she was de-gendered for the duration of the trip.
A whole paper could be written about this, comparing roles that B'elanna, Kes, and even Seven fill but that somehow Janeway doesn’t quite imbue. Sexual exploration (and dare I say, part of that power) is reserved for everyone but the Captain, who, in projectjulie’s words “honestly believed, however punishing or illogical it was, that she couldn't have sex with anyone on her ship”. Sex factored in rarely, if not at all to our dear Captain and it may have crippled her character. Though of course, we also take great pleasure in knowing that she belongs to the fans now (and my, do we take care of her!).
Roslin, on the other hand, enjoys a certain brand of sensuality: her clothes, her skirts (and those legs!), her shoes, even her hair. Unlike the barren Starfleet uniform and its uncanny ability to somehow neuter a person, the President’s apparel projects her body, provides a spectacle, if you will.
(Then we’d somehow come to the question of what comprises femininity and I daren’t go there for fear of making this longer than it should. We'll reserve that discussion for someone more literate because I'm ill-equipped to tackle it further.)
To make things short, Roslin’s given more leeway in terms of expression (of her body, of her sexuality), removed as she is from the strictures of the military.
III. The Cyborg Connection
I think that what partly makes these two women interesting is they both deal with non-biological races, or at least a compound of both machine and bio-matter, which in turn opens the floodgates to questioning.
For the ST universe, you have the Borg; for the BSG universe, you have the Cylons. At first, they’re presented in polarities: good here, bad there. Judgment on who was which increasingly blurred as episodes on both shows probed into behavior and even belief systems: the inhumane-ness of the Fleet’s vanguards, the relativity of a non-existent “absolute” on both the Cylon and Fleet’s parts. Extend this to ST, and we deal with the Borg Queen, the constraints of the Hive Mind, and Seven's integration (or sometimes lack thereof) into Voyager (care of yours truly, Capt. Janeway).
The audience starts asking these questions: are these machines alive? If so, will terminating them be murder? In spite of both races' genocidal tendencies, I'd like to believe that they have their place in the universe... but for now, we'll leave that to the scholars and those courageous fic writers who explore these aspects of the show. (Oh my, I think I've gone on a tangent with that!)
In conclusion to this… I say that with regards to this pairing, we only have our answers by virtue of the fic writers’ perspective, his/her words, and the interactions they paint. And readers, in their own way, create their own universes through the fic writers’ lense. In short, WRITE MORE FICS PEOPLE!