Restraint (J2 fic)

Restraint is a male/male romance set in Regency England. Posted on the Archive Of Our Own (AO3) as an alternate universe real-person story with Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles cast in the lead roles (a J2 AU), it has been characterized by many readers as an original novel. The main characters share notable traits with the actors they're based on, and the story contains some Supernatural canon references, characters drawn from the celebrities' circle of friends, and one or two real-life events, giving the story its somewhat tenuous status as fanfiction.
DarkEmeralds posted the first 100,000 words on the AO3 on Valentine's Day 2010. The Supernatural/J2 fandom was at that time near its peak and very active, so interest in the work's completion was high. The remaining chapters, totaling some 133,000 more words, were posted one at a time over the next twelve months. The work was complete as of January 11, 2011. As a result of the one-year wait between initial posting and completion, Restraint is still listed on the Work_In_Progress page under "Other notable works posted as WIPs" (though it has since been marked "complete").
== Summary ==
Restraint is the story of the lifelong love affair between John Acklebury and Tristan Jarret, Viscount Penrith, set in the milieu of upper-class society in early 19th century London. It explores the social, legal, and moral restrictions faced by gay people of the time; the title refers to the constant discretion and secrecy the two main characters must exercise to circumvent the dangers of gossip, discovery, blackmail and ruin for then-crime of being gay.
John Acklebury, son of a prominent clergyman, accepts a commission to paint a daring portrait of Lord Penrith despite deep misgivings about the immorality of his feelings for his subject. As mutual attraction between artist and subject deepens into love, Acklebury must confront his own homosexuality, while Penrith, as a rising young peer with political ambitions, must strive to protect his own reputation. Though they are barred by circumstances from living together, and constrained by convention to adopt "normal" lives, their love endures.
Restraint is structured in four parts, plus a prologue and an epilogue. The prologue consists of scenes from the early lives of the two main characters. It establishes John as an introverted and sensitive artist struggling against his father's disapproval and his own "sinful" nature, while revealing Tristan as the outgoing and self-aware younger son of an abusive aristocrat. Part I tells the story of their meeting, and establishes the danger that immediately arises as society starts to gossip about Lord Penrith's "new friend" and the passionate nature of John's first great work of portraiture.
Part II begins as the portrait takes society by storm, catapulting John into fame. It details John's hopeless battle against his "weakness" and culminates in his surrender to desire. Part III introduces the story's external conflict and depicts the gradual deterioration of the relationship under the stress of secrecy and lies. The external conflict is eventually and tragically resolved, but not before it has created what seems to be a permanent rift between John and Tristan.
Part IV resurrects the relationship in a new form and accelerates through time, ending when both men are much older. The Epilogue serves to bring the story full circle, definitively closing John and Tristan's story.
== Characters ==
In keeping with the novel's insistence on historical accuracy, the names of the real celebrities were changed to suit the conventions of the period and culture. Some readers expressed frustration at not easily recognizing the actors "starring" in the story.
* John Acklebury (Jensen Ackles) The only son of a prominent clergyman, an artist trained in portraiture by a Venetian painting master.
* Tristan Jarret, Viscount Penrith (Jared Tristan Padalecki): Younger son of the Earl and Countess of Barringford, came into the Viscountcy on the death of his older brother.
* Christopher Caine (Christian Kane, a personal friend of Jensen Ackles): John's friend, scion of an impoverished Irish aristocratic family.
* Josiah Wheaton (Joss Whedon): Minor character, a friend of Tristan's at school in the Prologue, later a London playwright and art critic. There is no real-world connection between J2 and Joss Whedon, and his appearance in the story is only accounted for by the coincidence of Joss Whedon in real life having attended Winchester College (the fictional Tristan's boarding school).
* Charles Murray (Chad Michael Murray, a friend of Jared Padalecki): Tristan's first serious lover, the profligate son of an extremely wealthy East India Company merchant.
The remaining characters, major and secondary, are original. Some readers have asked whether Collins, the manservant who enters John's employ in Part IV, is based on Misha Collins. DarkEmeralds has said in comments that that was not her intent.
== Fannish References ==
The story includes several, largely whimsical, references to Supernatural or the celebrities involved, which the reader doesn't need to understand in order to follow the story.
* John's clergyman father is a dean at Winchester Cathedral, an oblique reference to Dean Winchester, Jensen Ackles' character in Supernatural
* Mr Caine (i.e., Christian Kane) first enters the story when he leaves a pub called the Angel, a reference Kane's role in the series Angel
* Tristan first sees the 19 year old John Acklebury at a Winchester public house called The Impala, referring to the car Sam and Dean Winchester drive in Supernatural.
* The Impala public house is located in St Cross Road (a real road in the city of Winchester), an oblique reference to the Crossroads storyline in the second and third seasons of Supernatural.
* During a bar brawl in Part II, Tristan breaks his hand. In real-life there was a bar incident during the filming of the second season of Supernatural in which Jared Padalecki broke his wrist. He appeared for several episodes wearing a cast.
* Tristan's two dogs, Samson and Delilah, refer to Jared Padalecki's well-known love of dogs.
== Reception ==
Restraint has enjoyed a long life on the AO3. Comments and hits mounted during the Work in Progress period and accelerated in the weeks following story completion; however, the story has also accumulated thousands of hits and hundreds of comments in the years since. Restraint continues to appear on lists of recommended, favorite, and best-loved fics. Word has spread, and several later commentators on the work mention that they were referred to it from non-fannish places such as Goodreads, and came to the story from outside of fandom entirely.
Many express appreciation for the story's historical accuracy and consistency, particularly in terms of the contrast between 19th century society and today.
:I *think* this is slash, but having no idea what work this was based on and who the characters come from, I read this as original fiction. I stumbled on this completely by accident. And dear god, it's beautiful. The fact that you show rather than tell, the attention to historical and technical detail, the intelligence and the wit, the language I'm so familiar with from having to consult 19th century scientific journals as a contributor of Wikipedia, and the story itself which is so realistic I actually suspected midway that it was about real historical people...As a gay man, I'm now more keenly aware of how fortunate I really am to be born in this time and not then. And yep I cried at the end, heh. This is NOT fanfiction, it's honest-to-goodness literature.
Reader comments are generally positive, but overwhelmingly mention a strong, sometimes too-strong, emotional response to the story's conclusion:
:I have spent the better part of a day reading this in its entirety; and while I cannot say I loved every minute of it (because you broke my heart, seriously, the end), I have not read better in published novels... this was beautiful and heartrendering and made me ache for them always...
Restraint has drawn an international readership, and despite its length and somewhat archaic style, has received positive reviews from readers whose native language is not English:
:I'm french and I found your book via Goodreads...I don't know if you know this but France had just adopted a law that permits marriage between person of the same sex, it was very hard because a lot of people doesn't want to accept this kind of love. I wish one day there will be no more John and Tristan that can't be who they really are... I will convice some friends to read it.
During the work-in-progress period, the new-chapter announcements on LiveJournal and Dreamwidth conveyed a sense of the story's origins in the lighthearted Regency romances of Georgette Heyer. And indeed, the story, particularly in the early chapters, uses many Heyer novel conventions, such as detailed descriptions of clothing, an obligatory ballroom scene, snuff-taking, Hyde Park promenades, etc. When the final chapter and epilogue were posted, a number of readers expressed dismay at an ending that was not happy in the Regency romance tradition. Some readers pointed out the need for more serious warnings, and these, along with several new tags, were added.
The Author's Note ultimately read:
:WARNING: Though this story is set in Regency England and employs some of the conventions of novels from and about that period, it is emphatically not your Mama's Regency novel; and though the author dares to hope that romance, frivolity and humour are not lacking in the work, she would be remiss in letting the tag of "Historical: Regency" set expectations which this story does not purport to meet. Restraint is a story of faith, betrayal and a forbidden passion that lasts a lifetime, with all that that implies. The author begs the prospective reader to be aware that despite its labels, this story is not cut from the cloth of Miss Georgette Heyer's estimable works, but from a darker and more demanding fabric, and urges the reader to look at all the tags before proceeding.
== Related Fanworks ==
* Fayjay recorded the Prologue and Parts I, II and III of the novel as they were being posted, for a total of more than 17 hours of podfic. Part IV and the Epilogue were never recorded, and the audio work remains unfinished.
* Owzers created a series of photo-based illustrations for the story, matching screen captures from Regency-period movies with carefully-culled images of Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki.Ref links main and sample.
* Darkemeralds posted several deleted scenes during the work-in-progress period, and in early 2014 added a coda in the form of a Wikipedia article about John Acklebury.
==References==
Category:2010 Fanfiction‎
Category:2011 Fanfiction‎