I'm truly sorry for not responding to any of my last posts comments, or getting around to commenting on anyone else's blog the past couple of weeks. I was so miserable from allergies/sinus infection that I did not want to do anything. But I finally beat the allergies into submission, so life is good!
I've been busy working on a corset for my god-daughter to wear to Wondercon (She's going as Ariel from the Little Mermaid, but she'll be wearing the dress from the Kiss The Girl scene) so I haven't had much time to write this week. While I've made plenty of bodices, I have never done a corset before, so it's been quite the learning experience!
Anywho, on to WIPpet Wednesday!
Since today is April 16th, here is 12 lines from Between Two Worlds (4-16=12). This is a continuation of this scene. Today we finally find out who the mystery woman is, and what Domick thinks of certain piercings she has and what she's done to them (That sounds way more ominous than I meant it to!)
Norah’s jaw dropped. “Atiya?” The woman nodded. “You look so different! I didn’t recognize you at all!”Well, that ended up being a little more than 12 lines, but I swear it was 12 on my original document!
“It’s because I’m not all laced up and miserable like you are.” She giggled. “And the make up.” She gestured to the black dots and lines decorating her cheeks and chin, and the jewel pasted between her eyebrows.
“And the hair, and the earrings” Thick round wooden hoops with decorations carved into them hung from either earlobe, the skin stretched to go around it. “You’ve gone up a gauge haven’t you?”
“A couple, actually.”
“They’re pretty.”
“Thanks.” Atiya preened under her compliment.
Domick looked back and forth between the two women. Were they mad? No one in their right mind would willingly mar their body in such a way back on Pern. But then, should he be surprised? This wasn’t Pern, and the people here seemed to have more free time to spend on useless modifications. He had seen men walking around shirtless with drawings on their skin and women with piercings in their noses and lips and other odd places.
To check out more WIPpet Wednesday Posts go here!
Other odd places. *snork* I can just imagine. Poor Domick, what a culture shock!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm with Domick, that all sounds pretty atrocious! *g*
ReplyDeleteIt's fun to write him sometimes because he feels the exact opposite of what I do.
DeleteI actually have a couple of tattoos (some hurt, some didn't, one I almost fell asleep during - apparently I have a weird pain tolerance) and I'd like more. I've also stretched my ears so they're a bit bigger than your normal sized piercing - but nothing like what Atiya has. If I didn't work in an office, or if I was still at Blizzard, I might have gone larger.
However, scarification and certain piercings like dermal implants freak me out!
As for your comment, this one and the other ones did go through. However I have it set up where I have to approve comments before they're posted to prevent spam. Not like I get a lot of spam, but just in case. So if you make a comment and it doesn't show up right away, it's probably because it's waiting for me to push it through :)
Let's see if this comment goes through.
ReplyDeleteYep it did :)
DeleteYay! It went through. =0) It's all about perspective, isn't it? It may look weird to Domick and Ruth, but to various tribes from I-can't-remember-where-at-the-moment would think the piercings were quite becoming and feminine (or masculine).
ReplyDeleteYes, and nowadays, depending on your age and what group you hang out with, tattoos, multiple piercings, and stretched ears are perfectly acceptable :)
DeleteI'm not one for tats or piercings personally, but I don't get Domick's repulsion toward them. For me, it's a problem of permanence.... and lazy. It's kind of like another job maintaining makeup, so I rarely wear it, but when I do, I like to be able to change up my look... often. Henna, markers... body paints, yeah... there is an artistry to the work, and I love admiring the work of specific artists. The body is an excellent palette.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I have trouble imagining that there is no culture in Pern that makes use of body art. Especially since many of the people in our world that practice modification are some of the busiest people there are...
There has been a couple of discussions about this on the Anne McCaffrey messageboards, and I think the general consensus was that while ear piercing might be a thing, tattoos probably disappeared a long time ago.
DeleteI think when Pern was settled, there may have been people with tattoos, and people who were tattoo artists, but after thread arrived, the artform probably died out because people were more focused on survival. Then as the various plagues hit, it was just the final nail in the coffin. In addition to that, since technology disappeared around the second pass, if people wanted tattoos they had to go back to the old school ways of doing it - either with needles and thread pulling the ink under the skin, or with a needle being attached to a wooden pole and tapping the ink into the skin by hand. Both methods are extremely time consuming, and I don't think your average holder or craftsman would have the money to waste on it. In addition to that, there is mention of prisoners being marked, so I would assume that there is a stigma associated with tattoos - even if the ink used to dye the prisoners skin is probably closer to henna, and your typical tattoo would look nothing like what they would probably do to prisoners.
Once you consider all that, I don't think it's that unreasonable to assume that Domick is shocked by what us earthlings do to our bodies. I probably could have clarified this better, but I got caught up in the rush to finish the chapter and get it out there, because that means I would be one step closer to the fun stuff (next chapter has a bit of drama in it!) Thankfully I'm better about taking it slow in my original stories :)
Now, if Piemur was stuck on Earth instead of Domick though, I think he'd be all over that and probably would be begging Norah to take him to the nearest tattoo parlor...
PS, I suspect the pam problem isn't nearly as bad as you fear. Moderation though has it uses, since it means you aren't as likely to miss a comment since you hav eto approve each one.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I've only gotten one spam comment in all my years of blogging, but moderation is nice because, like you said, I don't miss a comment.
DeleteI liked this bit. I've never read Pern -at least not yet - so this is all fresh to me.
ReplyDeleteI do like explorations of cultural norms and biases. I'll be exploring that through fanfic myself next month, as T'Pol and Trip get all tangled up in the vagaries of Vulcan/human romance....