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careycuprisin · 3 years ago

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What just happened?

The Olympics have wrapped up; the figure skating season is over. Sure, there'll be a world championships in a few weeks like there is every year, and many of the top skaters will go, but the point at which this whole season was aimed -- the Olympics -- is done, and for all substantive emotional purposes, so too is the '21-'22 figure skating season.

It's been a slow build to a meltdown. A lot of fucking around, so we could all find out at the Olympics. The season started with another of Eteri Tutberidze's junior phenoms, Kamila Valieva, entering senior competition. She put together a mildly shaky but technically advanced performance at the pre-season domestic review called the Russian Test Skates but was overshadowed by Alexandra Trusova's five-quad program. Only a few days later, Trusova failed to replicate her test skates blowout performance at the US Classic in Boston and was almost beaten by Korea's Yeongjeong Park. (Many people argued that she should have been.) Meanwhile, Valieva went to the Finlandia Trophy and set a new world record score in the free skate and total combined points to win gold at that event.

This pattern would continue throughout the season. Trusova never quite pulling it all together and Valieva... well, the judges were so mesmerized by Valieva that they kept leaving themselves very little room to score anyone more highly under the current scoring system.

Trusova went to Skate America and won, but fell on her 3A in the short and (unusually for her) managed to rein it in on a fractured foot by only attempting one quad (and landing it) in the free skate. In a rarity for a skater out of Eteri Tutberidze's Sambo 70 program, Trusova actually withdrew from the NHK Trophy because of her foot fracture. Apparently even Eteri wanted to have all her senior skaters ambulatory for the Olympics. (The same was not true for her skaters unlikely to make the Olympic team -- Daria Usacheva fractured her hip on on a jump in warmup and had to be carried out of the arena, her season over.)

Valieva on the other hand went to Skate Canada and got a world-record high score. She then went to the Rostelecom Cup and got another fresh world record. A subtext of the season was which Russian skaters would be named to the three spots on ROC's Olympic team, and Valieva was the only one that had a spot for herself locked down from the beginning of the season. After the Grand Prix final was cancelled because of covid, Valieva won both Russian Nationals and then the European Championships comfortably. She was the overwhelming favorite for the gold medal at the Olympics

Valieva's combination of a beautiful 3A in both her short and long programs and three solid quads in her long program was approachable (theoretically) only by Trusova, who despite landing 3As in practice could never pull one off when it counted in competition, and couldn't quite replicate her five-quad performance in her free skate. Nevertheless, Trusova landed enough quads at Russian Nationals and Euros to get herself an Olympic spot, along with Anna Shcherbakova, who had a two-quad free program and was absurdly overlooked even as the reigning world champion.

You will have noticed that I haven't mentioned any skaters from a country other than Russia, and that's because there were none that were even close to matching the enormous base-value programs of Valieva, Shcherbakova, and Trusova. The Japanese skaters Kaori Sakamoto and Wakaba Higuchi were having good seasons by every metric other than winning, since without a 3A or a quad (Kaori) or with just a 3A and no quad (Wakaba), there was no chance they would beat the Russian skaters no matter how well they skated.

Even before the Olympics, figure skating fans were looking at all this with a jaundiced eye. They knew from experience that Eteri Tutberidze deals in volume -- sending a ton of young girls out with extremely high tech content, waiting for one of them to hit it big each season despite fundamentally unhealthy training regimens, taking credit for that girl's success, and then quickly pivoting to someone else when that year's phenom inevitably got injured and was forced to retire much too early from the sport. Eteri was a 'winner' every year, even as the skaters whose glory she stole came and went: Lipnitskaya, Medvedeva, Zagitova, Kostornaia, and now Shcherbakova, Valieva, and Trusova. Real fans of figure skating saw this season progress and saw in Valieva just the most recent of one-and-done superstars who would never be able to compete in more than one Olympics because of prematurely shortened careers.

Meanwhile the bureaucrats that run the sport couldn't get enough of Eteri and her latest amazing skaters. Eteri was named the ISU Coach of the Year. Commentators Ted Barton, Tara Lipinski, Johnny Weir, and others gushed about the greatness of 15-year-old Kamila Valieva without once reflecting the widespread sentiment among many fans that this repeating pattern had a dark side. The judges kept handing out the 'Eteri bonus,' evidently unsatisfied with her skaters winning on high base-value technical programs, but also insisting that these same skaters be awarded the highest 'artistic' or program component scores (PCS) every time they set foot on the ice.

So then, the Olympics. The fucking around had been going on for a long time; would the finding out ever happen? Valieva beat Kaori Sakamoto like a drum in the team event free program by thirty something points enroute to securing the gold medal for ROC. The Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) which everyone had to call them because 'Russia' had been caught at the Sochi Olympics doing massive systematic doping. Obviously the name change wasn't preventing the Russians from enjoying their Olympics!

And then the medal ceremony for the team event was postponed because of, the organizers told us, 'legal reasons.' People speculated that ROC skater Mark Kondratiuk had been caught with weed. But, some people said, why would everyone be keeping secrets if it didn't involve the only skater young enough to be considered a minor and therefore a 'protected person' under the WADA code? Did Kamila Valieva get caught doping?

Soon enough as always happens, there were leaks. Yes, it was Valieva, caught with trimetazidine from a sample at the Russian Nationals.

Into action swung the bureaucrats whose job it was to keep the sport running smoothly, with one horrible decision after another. RUSADA lifted Valieva's automatic suspension under the doping code immediately upon learning of the positive result. The IOC immediately appealed that transparently self-serving decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), who had the bare-minimum dignity to insist upon a hastily-called 5-hour hearing after which they agreed that yes, nothing must stand in the way of Kamila Valieva competing at the Olympics, positive drug tests and the strict-liability provisions of the WADA code notwithstanding. It would, they announced, cause Valieva 'irreparable harm' to be excluded from competition, forgetting apparently about the harm caused to all the athletes that hadn't tested positive, and about the harm to Valieva herself who would have to stay in Beijing for practices and hide from the press when her coaches abandoned her and skate in front of the world with everyone knowing that if she won, her victory would be illegitimate. The IOC declared that if Valieva was on the podium, there would simply be no medal ceremony for anyone.

Ah, these bureaucrats are such wise people and they deserve to make the important decisions!

Valieva at first managed not to crack under the pressure and (of course) was in first place after the short program. Then she finally cracked in the free skate with maybe only one clean jump, falling to the ice and stumbling around, a far cry from the brilliance she'd displayed earlier in the season. She ended up finishing fourth, off the podium, relieving the bureaucrats of the scrutiny for an absent medal ceremony and (some suggested) dimming the spotlight on the people actually responsible for Valieva's doping, Eteri Tutberidze and her collaborators at Sambo70.

Kamila Valieva

Trusova, meanwhile, fell again on her 3A in the short program and fiercely told everyone who questioned the wisdom of continuing to try for this jump that 'my 3A is not negotiable' and that she would always do it. She was about eight points out of the lead going into the free skate, where she managed to finally land all five quads and become the first woman to ever do that in an international competition. Unfortunately for Trusova, the quads came at a cost, as she visibly abandoned any pretense of doing anything skating-skills wise between her monster jumps, and botching a non-quad combo, leaving the door open for Anna Shcherbakova, who landed two quad flips and won the gold medal by about five points. Very close; and so far away.

Alexandra Trusova

Anna Shcherbakova

Meanwhile, Kaori Sakamoto of Japan skated the living shit out her programs and climbed onto the podium for the bronze with solid triple jumps, the best 2A in women's skating, and demonstrably superior skating skills. Which, in this day and age, is just about the highest one could possibly finish in women's skating without any of the big jumps (the triple axel or quads) known as 'ultra C' elements.

As is befitting the shit-show that our beloved skating bureaucrats had served up, the aftermath of the women's individual event was 'really something.' Sasha Trusova melted down just as fiercely as she skates, saying she hated Eteri and would 'never skate again' through tears, literally facing into a corner and having to be talked into settling down and heading out to the ice for the podium ceremony. Valieva was hustled away, and poor Anna Shcherbakova was left standing by herself, thoroughly ignored after having just won the gold medal. Kaori did her best to enjoy herself and hugged Wakaba and generally tried to be normal. I hope she was having a good time.

Kaori Sakamoto

#figure skating #kamila valieva #alexandra trusova #sasha trusova #beijing olympics #anna shcherbakova #eteri tutberidze #fuck eteri #wakaba higuchi #kaori sakamoto #doping

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brooklynmuseum · 4 years ago

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Join us for a virtual tour of Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party by Curator Carmen Hermo. An icon of twentieth-century art, a watershed moment in feminist art and thinking, and one of the most popular artworks in our collection, The Dinner Party celebrates the achievements of 1,038 women in Western culture, and sits at the heart of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. It’s also a perpetually popular destination for intergenerational family visits. We wish all mothers and caretakers a Happy Mothers Day!

Judy Chicago’s monumental The Dinner Party was created between 1974–79. The artwork takes the form of a meticulously executed banquet table set for 39 individual women; each woman is honored with a hand-painted and formed ceramic plate, and an elaborate needlework runner. On the hand-cast Heritage Floor, the names of 999 other women stream out in relation to those at the table, visually representing women’s vast contributions in nearly every aspect of history.

Before entering the installation, you are greeted—and guided— by six woven tapestries, decorated with abstract imagery that evoke motifs on The Dinner Party. They convey Chicago’s vision for an equitable world, where women’s histories and perspectives are valued.

“And She Gathered All before Her,

And She made for them A Sign to See,

And Lo They saw a Vision…”

The Entry Banners are the first thing you see, but were the final objects made for The Dinner Party, woven at the San Francisco Tapestry Workshop in a feminist adaptation of Renaissance techniques.

Photo: Donald Woodman, ARS

Entering The Dinner Party’s purpose-built gallery (designed to protect fragile textiles on long-term view), the striking, iridescent ceramics of the plates and Heritage Floor catch the eye— it’s immediately conveyed that this massive artwork is meant to elevate and honor women’s histories.

Image courtesy Through the Flower Archive and Judy Chicago

Judy Chicago recalls that her education, from childhood to grad school in the 1960s, both purposefully and passively conveyed to her that women did not contribute to civilization. Part of the project of The Dinner Party was an immense research effort, to provide accurate information and context about women in history. In this image, Chicago and other workers research some 3,000 women, informing the final selection of 1,038 in the artwork.

Chicago wanted to re-write the history that she was taught: The Dinner Party subverts the dominant narrative of Western civilization by re-telling it through women’s achievements.

Each woman’s unique place setting shares these components:

A hand-painted ceramic plate, featuring Chicago’s vulvar “central core imagery”

An embroidered runner, with historically accurate needleworking techniques from that woman’s era

And a golden ceramic chalice, lustrous cutlery, and napkin as accents.

Here, “historically accurate needlework” meant that The Dinner Party studio workers actually skinned a deer themselves, in a nod to prehistoric living!

Each wing features 13 women. The 8th place setting is dedicated to Hatshepsut, who was a Pharaoh of Egypt some 3500 years ago, and known as one of Ancient Egypt's most successful leaders, establishing vast trade networks and commissioning hundreds of buildings and monuments during her prosperous, peaceful reign.

Judy Chicago valued accuracy as well as visual symbolic meaning. Brooklyn Museum curators and Egyptologists Ed Bleiberg ad Yekaterina Barbash translate the embroidered hieroglyphics for us:

That first row reads “Effective One, Living One, Favored One of the City (Thebes).”

On the second wing, a place is set for the writer, philosopher, and mystic nun Hildegarde of Bingen, a 12th century polymath renowned to this day for her musical and lyrical chant compositions.

Judy Chicago drew on medieval art’s clarity of form, which educated illiterate believers about the Bible. The Dinner Party helps inform viewers who may not know women’s historical contributions.

Every element of The Dinner Party conveys a distinct detail about the woman represented, or a symbolic reference to all women’s oppression and erasure.

If you were standing in front of Hildegarde’s place setting, you wouldn’t be able to see this amazing embroidery on the back of the runner depicting her visionary drawing. Instead, you can only see it by moving around the table, and reading “through” and “across” history, alluding to how we all must work to question and expand our collective stories.

Personally, my favorite moment is the stunning runner for astronomer Caroline Herschel. Judy Chicago’s design, executed with lyrical skill in crewel embroidery by ecclesiastical embroiderer Marjorie Biggs, gives a spinning sense of Herschel’s telescopic view of our universe.

Curatorial assistant, Jenee Daria describes this place setting:

“Mary Wollstonecraft authored ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,’ 1792, considered the earliest and most important treatise advocating for equality and education for women. The butterfly and vulvar motif on Wollstonecraft's china-painted plate, and its multidimensionality, represent Wollstonecraft's will and intelligence which metaphorically undulate by the strength of such vibrant hues and the power of her testimony.”

“The embroidered runner incorporates meticulous needlework, petitpoint, embroidery, crochet, and stumpwork to create a visual narrative of Wollstonecraft's life and an embodiment of the limitations of her environment.” - Jenee Daria

Here, Wollstonecraft stands outside a schoolhouse where children are taught “The education of girls is a right not a privilege!” Her youngest, Mary Shelley, would go on to write the literary classic “Frankenstein.”

The 39th and final woman at The Dinner Party is artist Georgia O’Keeffe. The dramatic dimensionality of the plate symbolizes her artistic liberation, as well as her great success in the early 20th century amidst a hostile and male-dominated art world. Ending The Dinner Party with an artist with such a pivotal influence on feminist artists of her day, Judy Chicago emphasizes the importance of knowing one’s lineage.

Judy Chicago worked on The Dinner Party alone at first, and as the concept evolved into its truly epic scale, more than 400 collaborators worked to complete it, an undertaking that took five years. This detail is from one of three “Acknowledgement Panels” that traveled with The Dinner Party and are preserved at the Brooklyn Museum and available on our website.

Despite this, the scheduled museum tour was cancelled after a wave of dismissive reviews from art critics: some saw the work as “kitsch,” and even “pornographic” due to its vulvar motifs. This replicated the rejection women have faced across history, while proving how radical Chicago’s reclamation of vulvar forms really was— even for the presumably avant-garde art world.

Image caption: Brooklyn Museum Libraries and Archives

Here we see people lining up at Brooklyn Museum—we hosted The Dinner Party in 1980-81 thanks to local activism and fundraising efforts. It was so popular, it marked the first time we rolled out timed tickets!

In 2002, the Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation gifted The Dinner Party to the Brooklyn Museum, establishing a plan for the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, which opened to the public in 2007. We are so lucky to have this epic and important work on permanent view at the heart of our feminist galleries, and hope we can soon welcome you back to explore it in person for years to come.

Want to know more? Access the Brooklyn Museum’s rich online resource guide here. Including detailed entries on all 1,038 women featured in the work!

Thank you for joining us on our tour of Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party. Join us next week for another tour of our galleries!

Judy Chicago (American, born 1939). The Dinner Party, 1974–79. Ceramic, porcelain, textile installation. Brooklyn Museum; Gift of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation, 2002.10. © Judy Chicago/Artists Rights Society, NY. (Photo: Donald Woodman/ARS, NY)

#virtual tours #judy chicago #the dinner party #virtualtours #art #art museums #art history #brooklyn museum #contemporary art #feminist art #feminism #feminist #artist #nyc

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lo-55 · 4 years ago

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Revel Ch. 6

Factitious First Impressions

Tori was as good as her word. That night, when they went for bed, she drew the curtains and he snuffed the lights, leaving the pair of them in pitch and utter darkness. Tori climbed into her part of the bed and Katakuri his. There was space enough for another full grown man in the bed between them, and though she would have welcomed some contact Tori was smart enough to know that Katakuri, in his shyness, might panic.

So she kept her hands to herself and when the morning came she rose without him. She dressed herself in a simple lace robe over her long nightdress and left the room. No one would expect her to be in finery for breakfast.

She shut the door quietly, leaving Katakuri sleeping in their shared room, and made her way down the long hallway. The ancient floor was worn soft and cold under her thin slippers, and sunlight streamed in from skylights above her head. She walked into the Silver Hall with a halo of light floating across her sea-dark hair.

The Silver room was home to three long tables equipped with benches. One was for the staff, who had already had their breakfast, another for the soldier girls, who would eat later, and the third was reserved for the nobility.

For Tori and the other rich, high ranking women she had grown up with.

She was one of the last to arrive. She took her seat amongst the others, already chattering. It was all idle, easy gossip, nothing that would make its way into court or true intrigues. This was a place for eating, not a place for doing business.

Tori piled her plate with fruits, took a bowl for yogurt and a pair of hard boiled eggs. Most of the others were eating pastries. Someone handed her a cappuccino.

Tori joined the idle chatter. She alone did not stop when the door opened once more and Brulee walked in, sticking out like a sore thumb. Her clothes were plain, her face was scarred and her hair was a mess. Tori adored her.

“Everyone,” she spoke, “ I would like to introduce my sister-by-law, the Lady Charlotte Brulee.”

Brulee’s smile was somehow both awkward and unnerving. She took an empty seat, and started piling her plate without saying much to anyone.

“If that’s a Lady, I’m a cat,” Seline muttered, loud enough to be heard by everyone from Selbo to Tori herself. Brulee’s shoulders lifted and drew together and her smile spread wider and tensed. Tori stood up abruptly. She walked around the table, grabbing a bowl and a pitcher of milk. A strange anger possessed her, pushing her forwards.

She brought it over to set it in front of Seline, pushing her plate away.

“You,” she said as she poured milk into the bowl, “Are Seline Butelli. Your father is a duke, and you are not even a duchess, when you marry your brother with inherit and you will hope for the best . I , am Victoria di Imperia, crown princess and your future queen. And if I say that my friend is a lady well .”

She set the pitcher aside and nudged the bowl of milk towards a stunned Seline, “You had best start lapping kitty .”

Dead silence descended upon the women in the room. Tori had never been so aggressive, so uncivilized.

Yet now she stood, throwing her rank around in defense of a stranger who even Tori barely knew. But she would not tolerate it. She would not.

Satisfied with the mortified and red face Seline, and knowing that some form of retribution would come her way, Tori returned to her seat and continued on like nothing had happened to begin with.

Tori sucked in her stomach while Madelle laced up the back of her dress, pulling it taught. It pushed her tits up and gave her the illusion of not having organs. On top of the underdress and its laces draped a long length of blue as dark as magpie wings across her, falling straight down to the floor. On top of that she dropped a shorter length of imperial purple that fell only to Tori’s upper thighs. The edges were carefully embroidered in patterns, inlaid with fine, miniscule diamonds that shone when she moved like stars in the sky. It clasped at her shoulders with silver fibula adorned with a diamond skull. Rather grim, but befitting her new status.

“Beautiful, as always,” Madelle told her. She pulled her hair and piled it in tight ringlets atop Tori’s head before binding it with a thick ribbon encrusted with constellations.

“Of course,” Tori said absently, looking at herself in the mirror. She was a vision. She was beautiful and beloved by her people. It felt false. More so now than it had in a long, long time.

Tori slipped on her soft silk slippers. The sun was burning in the west, dipping towards the cradle of the sea.

Her mother lullaby came back to her again. She had learned it first in the Green Tongue, the one spoken in the forests.

Roll forth Ocean mother

Carry you children far

Shine bright moon hung o’er

Watch over their tepid flight

Bring with you, Great mother

The silver crashing mist

Protect your sons and daughters

Great Oars push to safety

The tide shall guard the night

Lift high sea walls honor

Shine under sunstones bright

Stand tall, brother-sister

Guard each truth and steel

Cradle those, earth protector,

Crowned in stone from their ordeal

Senten them moon sister

The sorrow of the earth

Tori hummed softly. She knew there were more verses, but Dolce had never shared the full song with her. She told her that the sorrow of the earth was too sad for a child, but when she grew up she would sing it to her.

She never got the chance.

After Gemma was born, Dolce got sick. A post partum depression, she stopped sleeping, didn’t eat as much as she used to, and she was left open to infection.

It had been common, in the first days of Imperia as its own nation, shortly after the Novara civil war eight hundred years ago. A disease that swept through the vulnerable, cultivated by dying on the battlefield it was given free reign, passed through blood and sweat and tears. Or perhaps the air, no one had known and still no one did. It killed within twenty four hours.

The dark spots appeared, and the children were taken away. Dolce was quanteened, and she died. Followed by five servants, all four her handmaidens, and three doctors that tried to help her. They were blessed than the disease had stopped there, and hadn’t destroyed the entire city. Blessed, people said, but Tori and Lucien had lost their mother and Gemma had never even gotten to see her.

Now, Tori was a grown woman, married already, and Dolce would never see it. Would never know the woman that she had grown to be. Beautiful, and the daughter-by-law of an empress. One day, as the eldest child, she would be queen.

Dolce would not see that either.

Lapa finished with her hair, spreading a silver net encrusted in diamonds across it while Varinia lay her lips on. At last, she was ready.

Tori turned to the door.

“Let’s get this party started,” she joked lightly. Madelle, dressed in fine sapphire, skirts, nodded her assent swiftly. Lapa and Varinia took their places beside her. Aelia and Daria were hidden in the walls, in identical dresses to switch places with her if need be.

The gaggle of girls walked out of the room and into the hall. Katakuri had been shooed away some time ago, to dress himself properly. If he showed up in anything other than leather, Tori would be privately amazed.

They turned down the hallway and descended the stairs, meeting up with Brulee as they reached the bottom. She was flanked by the rest of Tori’s handmaidens, who had dressed her up in fine a lavender gown the color of her hair that draped across her long body well, bordered in pale blue. They had painted her lips and sculpted her face, tamed her hair and braided it into a crown adorned with blue roses.

Tori offered Brulee, who was closer to her size but still taller by a good head, her arm. Brulee took it, looking at her with a new light and together the pair walked into the atrium. Long vines dripped down from the ceiling, covered in wisteria, bougainvillea, and honeysuckle. The impluvium was filled with false lilies that held candles in the center and glowed faintly as they floated.

Tori took Brulee to the edge of the water and sat with her while her handmaidens scattered. they had their own duties to attend to.

Tori could see her sister, dressed in her uniform, standing off near the door with her captains. Her brother was talking to a judge near the spread table of fruits, cheeses, and wine. Nothing that Tori couldn't eat, but with Katakuri expected to be in attendance she couldn't either way.

Unfortunate, but she’d eaten before hand. Tori was no fool.

She chatted idly with Brulee until the attention in the room moved to the staircase once more. She turned with the rest of the room to find Katakuri standing at the top. He was wearing an actual shirt that fit him well, dark and bordered in red to match his scarf. His pants were still leather and his boots were spiked, but he was missing the knee pads.

Tori stood and glided towards the stairs. A silence fell across the room, or perhaps she simply wasn’t paying attention. His eyes were on her, and for the first time in a long time she felt a longing pressing against her ribs.

For someone so large he walked with a shocking amount of grace. He descended the marble staircase and when Tori offered him her hand he took it in his. A smile pulled at her lips, threatening the false one layered over top with silver glitter.

Katakuri kept his eyes on her and she her eyes on him as she guided him to his sister. He sat, crossing his legs, and Tori stood at his side, tucking her arm in his.

The band started playing soft strings, a low hum that build beneath her bones. Tori let herself stand close to Katakuri, for once taller than him, but true to her word, she didn’t try to sneak a peek. His arm was strong and warm beneath her hand and she felt that heat in her ribs once more.

While they sat, she talked, pointing out courtesans, officials, and visitors scattered around the room.

“That one,” she said, gesturing to a man in the corner that dressed in what appeared to be plain street clothes, no more than a tunic and leggings “is Orso Orseolo. He is a long trusted friend of my brother, sister and I but he won’t take any lands we offer and so he’s not a real nobleman at all. He says titles give him hives,” she smiled like she was sharing a conspiracy, “because he’s not got a title or lands but still has our backing and speaks with our voice, the rest of the court is terrified of him.”

She moved on. “The woman in the green dress is Arcielda Severan. She has quite the scandal about her divorcing Pietro, the one with the red boots and the frown lines. Still, she’s a good person, reliable and loyal to a fault. Once stabbed Chealsea Pruili with a fork and proposed Oblivion for her and hers when she tried to imply that disfigured babies shouldn’t be kept. Chealsea is the one in the brown gown with the bear bracelet.“

“How do you keep track of all of these people?” Brulee asked her, peering up at Tori with her same eerie smile.

Tori shrugged. “It’s not very hard. I just do.”

She was surprised when Katakuri’s low voice reached her.

“You said that flowers mean things. Do those?” he looked towards the flowers that dripped down the walls in long lines of white, purple, and pink. Tori felt her heart lighten at the interest Katakuri paid, and perhaps a bit at the attention in general.

“Bougainvillea, the pink ones, are for ‘peace and free trade’. We have ambassadors from the other Novara islands here. The Honeysuckle is for affection, fraternal and devoted. Wisteria, the purple, is for love, sensuality, support, sensitivity, bliss and tenderness. They’re for us.”

She felt his pulse under her fingers. Felt his shoulders draw together.

She drew a slow circle across a silver scar that crossed his arm, soothing.

“What’s oblivion?” Brulee asked next. Tori’s eyes darted again to Arcielda, speaking quietly to Alton Izard.

“Oblivion is the greatest disgrace for an Imperian,” she told them quietly. “It’s to have your entire existence erased. From the hearts of men and the Hall of Records. Your name will never be spoken again and you will be lost to the sands of time. Made into nothing and no body.”

Tori’s voice grew soft as silk and quiet as the grave. She was well aware of the attention that the two foreigners were paying her, rapt in her words.

Arcielda broke away from Alton and came over to them as the music picked up. She took Brulee’s hand and tugged her to her feet, sweeping her away to dance. Tori was left with Katakuri, who didn’t seem the type to waltz.

Brûlée was about as graceful as a colt, new and ungainly on its long, long legs. Bit Arcielda didn’t seem to mind. Her son wasn’t present, still just a child, and in any case he hated crowds.

Without really thinking about it Tori traced the strong lines of Katakuri’s arm. She kept talking him, telling him about the people around them. Where they came from. The positions they held. Their influence. Their temperments, histories, old grudges and new ones.

“Some of them are like me,” she told him. “Charlotte Victoria di Imperia. The ‘di’ is just a place holder. It means ‘of’. If they have that in their name, they are as old as the island. If their family name is all their claim, they’re newer blood. There aren’t many ‘di’s left to us. It’s been too long. Mostly, it’s my family.”

His voice was low and deep beside her when he spoke.

“Your family is very small.”

Tori smiled. Small, showing now teeth. A grin was threatening a rude. “Yours is very large. And new, isn’t it?”

“Mama is the first,” he confirmed, but Tori already knew that. She hummed softly, her voice a quiet melody. The band picked a quicker tune and she watched Arcielda lead Brulee through a clumsy spin across the floor. Arcielda was a sweet woman, and a complete lesbian.

“And you are the second. Third?”

“Second son, third child.”

“That must be a lot of presure,” Tori mused. Katakuri shot her a look.

“You’re a princess .”

Tori smiled again, almost wide enough to split her false lips. “But I don’t have to work for that. My whole life has been presented on a silver plate. I don’t need to choose anything to get my future.”

Katakuri’s head tilted ever so slightly. Once more Tori found she couldn’t read the look in his eyes. She wanted, suddenly, impulsively, to steal him away. Drag him out into the gardens and sit him in the grass and unravel his scarf so she could see .

But Tori was more well behaved than that. She let herself lean against his shoulder instead. Arcielda dipped Brulee low, until her hair almost touched the floor before pulling her back to her feet. Katakuri never looked away from them.

“You’re very protective of her,” Tori commented idly. He stiffened minutely under her fingers. Tori repressed a wince of guilt. That was right. Brulee’s scar.

“She’s my sister,” he said simply. Tori didn’t respond. Her own relationship with Gemma was much less… good. Gemma was a fighter, a general, hungry for power and stubborn. She was vicious and able. Tori was none of those things. She wanted no power, she fought for nothing. She was no vicious, so long as she could help it. She had been an honors student, she had competed in S.T.E.M., she had won academic decathlons almost single handed.

She wanted none of those victories again. She had no ambition. She coudln’t. Ambitious people drew too much attention, had too many expectations placed upon her and here-

No one expected her to be anything but pretty here.

“She told me what you did this morning.”

Tori looked at him, brows pinching minutely. She’d almost forgotten what she’d done. “Oh. Seline? She’s never been a kind person…”

“You didn’t have to stick up for her,” Katakuri said. There was a note of suspicion in his voice that pained Tori.

“You forget,” she said quietly. “She is my sister now too.”

She patted his arm and released him, the magic broken, to go find Orso. Her friend caught her hand when she appeared at his side and kissed each cheek. Familiar, kind, with a hint of concern in his soft brown eyes. He talked to her about nothing. Court gossips, hail storms, his sister. The pair of them walked to find others that Tori had grown up with, just as painted and false as she was.

There were three genuine people in the room. She was not one of them.

#one piece #one piece fanfiction #katakuri #charlotte Katakuri #katakuri x oc #oc #victoria di Imperia

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quinnmorgendorffer · 5 years ago

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fanfic authors tag game!

Tagged by @bethecowgirl, thank you!!! I’m always up for one of these

I tag @gobbluthlesbian || @gobbluthbisexual || @theonewherelaurynhasablog || @whythinktoomuch || @redvanjie || @catty-words || @h-influenzae || @dollsome-does-tumblr || @pega-and-the-pen || @halles-comet || anyone else who feels like doing it! I just tried to tag people I know have fics/are still writing fics

AO3 name: xlessxthanx3x

Fandoms: From oldest to most recent: 13 fics for Glee, 1 fic for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and 10 fics for Arrested Development

Number of fics: 24 on AO3

Fic you spent the most time on: Obviously When You're the Best of Friends (wytbof), since I started that in 2011…and I’ll probably never finish it.

Fic you spent the least time on: Honestly probably One of Gob’s Better Parties. It’s one of my shorter works and since I’d written so much smut before, particular in RPs, it wasn’t as hard as some of the past ones I had written. I think I got that done in a day or two. In terms of multichapter fics, I wrote Take On Me in about a month.

Longest fic: Étude No. 3 in G-sharp minor, S. 141 AKA piano fic 2 (13 chapters and still longer than wytbof that has like 30 chapters. It’s uh…321,472 words)

Shortest fic: Red Lace, a glee one-shot smut fic (1,359 words)

Most hits: Surprising no one, Take a Bite of My Heart Tonight, which is probably my best glee smut fic, with 7,472 hits (imagine how much more I’d get if it was k/laine lmao).

Most kudos: I wasn’t surprised by the previous answer because I get kudo email alerts for Take a Bite of My Heart Tonight fairly often.

Most comment threads: Wytbof, of course, ‘cause it’s so long and has been going on for so long. Very proud to say that first piano fic is right under it. I know being multichapter helps and I have no other glee multichapter on AO3, but I’m still proud lol

Fave fic you wrote: I’ll always say that some of my best writing EVER was in Étude Op. 25, No. 2 in F minor (first piano fic). I’m also so proud of Take On Me, it’s just so freaking cute.

Fic you want to rewrite/expand on: I can’t imagine rewriting anything, though I’m technically rewriting Take On Me as a novel. Lots of character changes, and not just the names, but like a lot of different dynamics between characters and stuff. Expanding, though…I have a full idea of a big overarching plot for the In the beginning, there were lips series. And, being high on my own ego, I have started work on yet another piano fic, but this time it’s covering Tony’s early life and fill in gaps that we didn’t see in the 2nd piano fic due to time jumps. Not sure how interested people would be in it, though, even if I reigned in my word count lmao. In a similar vein, I started work on something I was calling Take Me On, which is Take On Me from Tony’s POV. Not sure I’ll finish it since I haven’t touched the doc in September, but I open it up sometimes and think about it lol

Share a bit of your WIP or share a story idea that you’re planning: BLULANDER AKA Zoolander AD AU. it might just be the STUPIDEST thing I could ever do, but that just makes me want to do it even mORE. I just don’t want it to be a complete re-telling with a different endgame, I want to find ways to make it my own, so I’m conflicted. I’ve managed to find that balance with You're Standing on My Neck, which is loosely based off Daria, but that’s easier when you have multiple episodes you rewrite with much more complex characters than Zoolander lol.

But anyways Blulander. I shared part of it a while ago, but here’s some more of what I wrote that I never shared on here. Gob is Zoolander (weird shift lol) and Sally is Matilda (because I might as well keep one actor the same). This is from her interviewing him at the beginning of the movie

“How am I supposed to forget that you’re Sally Stickwell?” Gob asked with a grin. Sally clenched her jaw but said nothing in response to that. There was no need to try to get the idea of professionalism through his thick head.

Instead, she asked, “So, when did you know you wanted to be a model?” She was pretty sure he didn’t know until he was discovered back in high school, but she was sure he had a different answer these days. His mother was the one who managed his career, after all, and Lucille Bluth would certainly make sure there was a polished, proper response.

And Sally’s instincts were right. “I guess I’ve always known. I always knew that I’m, like, really, really, ridiculously good looking. And I was sure there had to be a career for that, you know?”

“A career out of being good looking?”

“Utterly good looking.”

“And you never wanted to be anything else?”

“Nope.”

That was a lie, a bald face one. Sally raised an eyebrow and wrote down the response, biting back the urge to bring up how false that story was.

Well, at first. But then she figured, hey, if they wanted to use her due to her history with the Bluth family, why should she hold back from asking the right questions?

“So, you never wanted to run the Bluth Company?”

“No.”

“You were always okay with your younger brother, Michael, taking over?” Sally asked. “Since he has just been named as the successor to the CEO position, right?”

A muscle in Gob’s jaw twitched and Sally bit back a smirk. It was cruel of her and she knew it. Really, Gob, as much of a jerk as he could be, was really more of a harmless idiot than anything else these days and he didn’t deserve to be reminded of how he hadn’t gotten the position he had coveted since childhood—even if he didn’t do anything to try to actually earn that position. But, whatever. Maybe she could find a way to make this piece something more than a generic interview.

“He has, yes,” Gob said, his voice a bit stiffer than usual. “I’m very happy for him. He’s been working on it his whole life.” He let one of the make-up artists brush a powder over his nose before commenting, “Of course, you’d assume the position would go to me as I’m the matriarch of the family—”

“Matriarch?”

“Yeah, the oldest,” Gob said simply. He laughed for a moment, “I figured you’d know what that word meant, Stickwell.”

“Yes, Gob, I actually know what that word means,” she said, being sure to make a note of that particular word use.

#long post #my fanfiction #tag games

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adventures-in-poly · 8 years ago

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1.) I have too much of a complex around Not Being Enough to feel comfortable right now when I see my partners showing affection to my metamours.

2.) This is why I have such a deep seated fear of new metamours in particular.

3.) I don’t have anywhere as much of a fear of metamours who were around before I came in the picture, because by design they can’t put me face up with my fear of Not Being Enough. Their presence in my life does not make me feel replaced.

4.) I don’t in any way think that I have replaced my metamours who were around before me. With them, I know it doesn’t work that way. But I fully commit to my double standards and can simultaneously know that while I am not replacing them, newer people are replacing me.

5.) It’s not at all logical. Especially with M, I know we have a strong enough relationship that I would not be replaced. I know that I never once thought that Crow was replacing M or felt any resentment or anger towards M after I started dating Crow. But, as always, see point 4.

6.) When I have Not Being Enough shoved in my face as in point 1, I don’t crumble. I don’t cry. I don’t show hurt. I only release those emotions to people who have been Vetted (plus, apparently, to the entire internet), and then I have no trouble letting those emotions fly in full swing. But if you haven’t been Vetted, you don’t get to see that part of me, you haven’t earned it yet, you haven’t proven yourself trustworthy in very many senses of the word.

7.) So in place of not showing hurt, where on the inside I feel like my ego is crying and screaming and banging on the inner walls of my stomach demanding for the thing to Stop, I do the other trope. I turn to snark. I turn into Daria, or the canonical douchy Gryffindor, or Penny from The Magicians (show!Penny, not book!Penny), for the purposes of balancing everything out, of reminding people that they’re being ri-fucking-diculous, of calling attention to the fact that, no, I’m actually not 100% comfortable with this, I don’t find joy of seeing my partners snuggle or kiss someone else but also that I know I’m not allowed to admit that because it’s self indulgent and I should just let them have their fun.

8.) I can reign in the bitchiness well enough in a small group. When it’s just us, partners and metamours. When there is anyone else, when my friends are watching, when I feel like all eyes are checking my reaction to see if I’m okay with that, there’s nothing I can do, I’m Helpless (“and her eyes are just…”).

9.) I know that ultimately most of this is About Me, but please don’t expect me to undo 29 years of detrimental life lessons in a year, and please understand why I might feel a little off-put when I express to someone that I’m not 100% okay with poly and they ask “What’s behind that?”, as if we all understand and agree that not being 100% okay with poly means necessarily that you have some unresolved shit going on, and that if you were to just fix all your shit then suddenly you’d be able to live this poly utopia that apparently the asker is living, and I know that no one thinks they’re living a poly utopia but I want people to recognize that the question (while valid and interesting) can carry some patronizing implications that the asker might not intend but the listener might pick up on, because I’m already doing that work, I’m already carrying a heavy enough load, I already know that all of this is About Me, but that doesn’t mean that this is something I should go through without help or understanding, or that this isn’t something that is okay to feel or that the raw statement that I’m not 100% okay with poly should lead anyone to assume that I’ve got shit I’m working on.

10.) IT IS OKAY TO NOT FEEL 100% OKAY WITH POLY AND STILL CHOOSE A POLY DYNAMIC, fuckers.

11.) I'm actually nowhere near as upset right now as this post would suggest. I just had to get out some abstract feelings that were bouncing around in my head that I'm not actually feeling right now. Actually, most of the time I post, I'm not actually feeling the feeling that I appear to be feeling.

#poly #polyamory #non monogamy #nonmonogamy

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