( a visit to a museum is a search for beauty, truth, and meaning in our lives. )
in the G R E E K / R O M A N section - you are strangers who happen upon each other at the museum. what do you talk about? is it a debate about art or pure smalltalk? will you want to meet again?
a stop at the C A F E - all that wandering around art and history has made you hungry. how's the food here, dull or delicious? sit down and have a talk or see if you can smuggle a snack with you into the next exhibit without getting caught!
special E X H I B I T on the first floor - you've arranged to meet here! is it a romantic date or just a bit of a good time with friends or family? are you fascinated by what you see or already bored before you get started? under any circumstances, enjoy your outing together!
T O U R this way, follow along - you've signed up for the tour! are you alone or with someone? do you ask questions with interest or hang back and whisper among yourselves? are you actually more interested in your phone? do you maybe get lost on the way?
before "W O M A N with black S T O C K I N G S" - these paintings are rather raunchy and you're both suddenly feeling like a little round of public sex. well, this is your chance! who will see you behind that statue, that column or in that corner anyway?
E X I T, emergency only - is there a scenario that hasn't been covered or something else you'd like to do at the museum? this is your option!
How to play -
1. Comment with your character's name, fandom and preferences in the subject line.
2. Others comment to your top level with an option for a scenario and either leave a starter or ask you to start the scene.
The world isn't as impermeable as Ganymede might once have thought - not even time itself is - and sometimes people end up where and when they distinctly shouldn't be. Usually, though, they also end up back home, sooner or later.
So until then, is it so very selfish of him to be pleased to know the current one? He's done what he can, to help. He's not too sure the museum is the best place... or maybe, really, it is.
"See anyone you recognize?" Ganymede says, his tone partially teasing, but mostly quietly sympathetic as he comes up to stand beside Cleïs in front of a couple busts. Ending up so far in the future is jarring enough, but to be able to go around a place like this and see proof of what was (should still be) one's present presented as a distant past...
Ganymede lived through it all, and it sometimes feels jarring for him too.
The museum is the most calming space she has yet to encounter in the present (future, to her) world. Ganymede has been helpful in his introductions to the workings of modern life, he has fed her (burgers) and clothed her (a season-appropriate dress) and now, he has brought her here, to this space where hundreds upon hundreds of busts and statues stand gathered, taking up many rooms, many hallways, awakening in her a distinct feel of home, although the bronze has eroded in places and leaves its motif in parts. She has walked past statues that show the gods, philosophers and writers and kings... By some strange, divine magic, she has survived time and seemingly, so have they.
As Ganymede comes up next to her, she turns her head to look at him first, before returning her attention to the row of busts in front of them. Frowning slightly, she gestures to the one straight ahead, careful not to touch. Half the top of the head is gone, but the facial features are detailed and rich. They are also recognisable.
"A woman came to us. She brought few things with her, but this." Her fingers pause just out of reach of the sculptured woman's delicate face. "It was a bust made of her lover from Athens whom she was forced to leave behind when she fled." A pause, then in a soft, almost pained tone of voice: "To think it is simply known as Female Bust by Phidias now."
Blinking in surprise, Ganymede looks between the bust, head partially lopped off as it is, and Cleïs, filled with a certain sense of wonder at the coincidence. Or perhaps that is fate, but for whatever reason there'd be to weave such a tiny strand together to end here...
He doesn't know. Can anyone?
"What was her name? Both of them?" he asks quietly, also having to suppress a certain urge to reach out and touch. He always does, wandering about old statues that no one would have thought twice about touching when they were new, in their original place and time. "And while we can't give her bust her name, that it still exists at all is pretty amazing, isn't it?"
"Chloe," she replies after another long moment of watching the bust intently. "The woman who came to us was called Chloe, her lover..." A deep breath as she notes the faint lines around the one remaining eye of the bust. She was never invited to look at it while Chloe lived with them, it had been hidden away in her private chambers where no one came but Chloe herself, so she had never noticed it was a middle-aged woman. Chloe had been so young which was why she had had the chance to escape. She had yet to be married, she had yet to settle down. Perhaps her lover had not been so free. "I do not know her name, she never told and I never asked. It seemed a painful memory to her."
At his innocent smile, she cannot help but smile herself, nodding once while she turns away from the busts on display, looking towards the statues further ahead, deities in their various, always recognisable forms. She wonders if Ganymede's image is here as well. "It is as if a small part of their love has survived despite everything, for centuries, too. It is quite extraordinary and it warms my heart."
He nods, staring at the bust. Not so strange, perhaps, that it'd been a soft, probably painful part of her life. At least she'd had something very physical to remember her lover by. But where there'd been some structure in place (eventually, from his point of view) for a certain sort of relationship between men for a while, women... had not had the same allowances, not really. Not as wide-spread, anyway.
(Sometimes he wondered if the example of his life had been inspiration or justification, later, but it's impossible to know, isn't it?)
"She must have been very important to her, to have this made. Even better it survives, still, then." They may not know her name, but there's at least two of them, now, that knows why and how it came to exist. Turning away from it slightly, he looks down the hall - in the next room there's smaller artefacts on display, the minutiae of life and war.
"It surprises me sometimes both how much, but also how little, has survived..." Too quiet and serious, especially with how displaced Cleïs currently is. Ganymede shakes his head, the smile creeping back lopsided, a sparkle in his bright green eyes. "A lot of the rest in here are quite familiar as well, aren't they?"
And yes, there's at least two of him, if she asks. He always finds it amusing to go find any statue or painting portraying him.
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jamjarring2019-12-17 03:31 pm
cleïs | original | ota
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So until then, is it so very selfish of him to be pleased to know the current one? He's done what he can, to help. He's not too sure the museum is the best place... or maybe, really, it is.
"See anyone you recognize?" Ganymede says, his tone partially teasing, but mostly quietly sympathetic as he comes up to stand beside Cleïs in front of a couple busts. Ending up so far in the future is jarring enough, but to be able to go around a place like this and see proof of what was (should still be) one's present presented as a distant past...
Ganymede lived through it all, and it sometimes feels jarring for him too.
no subject
As Ganymede comes up next to her, she turns her head to look at him first, before returning her attention to the row of busts in front of them. Frowning slightly, she gestures to the one straight ahead, careful not to touch. Half the top of the head is gone, but the facial features are detailed and rich. They are also recognisable.
"A woman came to us. She brought few things with her, but this." Her fingers pause just out of reach of the sculptured woman's delicate face. "It was a bust made of her lover from Athens whom she was forced to leave behind when she fled." A pause, then in a soft, almost pained tone of voice: "To think it is simply known as Female Bust by Phidias now."
no subject
He doesn't know. Can anyone?
"What was her name? Both of them?" he asks quietly, also having to suppress a certain urge to reach out and touch. He always does, wandering about old statues that no one would have thought twice about touching when they were new, in their original place and time. "And while we can't give her bust her name, that it still exists at all is pretty amazing, isn't it?"
He smile is small, but sweetly earnest.
no subject
At his innocent smile, she cannot help but smile herself, nodding once while she turns away from the busts on display, looking towards the statues further ahead, deities in their various, always recognisable forms. She wonders if Ganymede's image is here as well. "It is as if a small part of their love has survived despite everything, for centuries, too. It is quite extraordinary and it warms my heart."
no subject
(Sometimes he wondered if the example of his life had been inspiration or justification, later, but it's impossible to know, isn't it?)
"She must have been very important to her, to have this made. Even better it survives, still, then." They may not know her name, but there's at least two of them, now, that knows why and how it came to exist. Turning away from it slightly, he looks down the hall - in the next room there's smaller artefacts on display, the minutiae of life and war.
"It surprises me sometimes both how much, but also how little, has survived..." Too quiet and serious, especially with how displaced Cleïs currently is. Ganymede shakes his head, the smile creeping back lopsided, a sparkle in his bright green eyes. "A lot of the rest in here are quite familiar as well, aren't they?"
And yes, there's at least two of him, if she asks. He always finds it amusing to go find any statue or painting portraying him.