madame ( la ) sorelli

reculer, pour mieux sauter

[sorelli-lisette]

sebastianrenard:

“Don’t be like that, ángel,” Sebastian half-chuckled, half-pleaded, sparing a glance over at the still silent girl by his side before turning his attention even more fully to Lisette. He rubbed at the back of his neck in a sheepish manner, despite not feeling much remorse over his earlier actions. “I didn’t mean to come off so sharply – you know me,” he said. “Sometimes I lose my head over small things. I’ll make it up to you, I promise,” he said earnestly and lowly, leaning in, and reaching a gentle hand and resting it on her shoulder warmly, drawing a circle with his thumb as if they were familiar and not fighting.

He had a nice voice, and he knew this – it was why he was in the opera in the first place, and he was not above using it to his advantage, using the smooth baritone to both plead and insinuate and hopefully get Lisette to go along with this charade. He furrowed his brows in his best impression of a chagrined significant other, desperate for the forgiveness after a fight, eyes pleading.

Fleur and Gregory were always his number one priorities, and he was single-track minded in his pursuit to protect – and it was unfortunate that Lisette had come across as a threat. He was not inherently a vengeful or spiteful man, and he went into things with little to no judgement of moral character, given that he worked for the mafia and liked to hope that it didn’t affect snap judgements of him. He was a good Christian, after all, and was willing to turn the other cheek, so long as it didn’t involve, well, Fleur turning the other cheek.

On that issue, he was unwilling to budge.

“Excuse me,” the stranger butted in. “Are you not single? Why didn’t you say so earlier?” She asked, huffing and obviously annoyed.

And now he was touching her. Voice sultry and soft, fingers pressing into her blouse like they belonged there, like he hadn’t gone from nasty glowering antagonist to sweet flirty...love interest? in the span of a few days. Lisette’s brain was practically blank, except for the few miffed neurons firing trying to make sense of this whole situation. What the hell is going on?

No, she had no idea what kind of person he was. or what sort of arguments he chose to pick with people. She had no idea what he meant by “make it up” to her (although her imagination went immediately wild and she was growing flushed, pink in the cheeks and hot under the collar).

She’d opened her mouth and closed it again, and in her shock she’d taken a sip of her drink (stupid decision; she swallowed it and panicked, narrowing her eyes suspiciously at him, waiting for a visual cue that he was relieved or paying closer attention to her now, waiting for her to stumble or her vision to cloud over. Instead, she got an intercepting voice in her ear, a clearly irritated woman interjecting to complain at Sebastian.

Everything came together so clearly she was ashamed not to have picked up on it earlier. She was his way out--suddenly, his flirty familiarity clicked. Lisette’s eyes were wide, switching between the brunette and Sebastian, reading body language and re-interpreting his pleading tone of voice and limpid eyes. He needed her to play along so this obnoxious created left him alone.

Because Lisette was petty and because this suddenly felt like a competition, she played along--for her own sake, not Sebastian’s. She’d pieced together the bits of information he’d provided to pick up on the scenario. Lisette turned to face the girl, configuring a half-smile, a frosty expression intended to convey that she was not pleased but approachable.

“Oh, darling,” she began, placing a hand on the girl’s shoulder, commiserating. “He’s been trying to get under my skin. I’m so sorry he used you like this.” Lisette moved her hand from the girl to Sebastian, cupping his cheek gently with a smile full of razorblades. “You didn’t need to flirt with other girls to get my attention, mon petit.” Her pet names were not as exotic, but the way she moved in close to him would have to do.

[sorelli-lisette]

sebastianrenard:

location: a bar, not too far from the theatre date: july 10th, nighttime (if that doesn’t work, please know that time is a social construct) availability: @sorelli-lisette​

While not much could be said in defense of his parents, Sebastian had to acknowledge that his parents gave him the lasting gift of, well, above-average genes. He was a decently good looking man to say the very least, and he had never thought he’d live to see the day he’d regret being someone’s type, but the more the random beside him chattered on and on persistently, the closer he got to wishing he were less fortunate. He gave a half-hearted smile and stared down into the bottom of his drink, debating how offensive it would be to the poor stranger if he just up and left, ultimately deciding that he couldn’t possibly do that.

As someone pressed into his side to reach for a drink the bartender left in front of him near five drilling minutes later, he jumped at the chance to engage anyone else in a conversation and drive the random girl away. “God, I’m just so forgetful, cariño, here’s your drink,” he said, grin already set in place before he even turned to face – Lisette Sorelli. His heart (and grin) dropped for a brief moment as he recalled their less-than-friendly last encounter.

It just had to be her, didn’t it? He didn’t think he was in the wrong – no, rather, she had overstepped when she snapped at Fleur, and it simply was just natural brotherly instincts that had drawn him to tower over her and very seriously tell her to drop it. On second thought, he could see how his defense of his younger sister could have come across rather threatening, seeing as she stood over half a foot shorter and ten times daintier than he did. “And I’m sorry about earlier, ángel,” he said, grinning wider and offering the drink like a olive branch, hoping to build enough rapport to just discourage the other girl, who had mercifully stopped chattering to eye Lisette suspiciously.

Her mouth opened to address the man trying to talk to her, inappropriately, at the bar when all she wanted to do was grab her drink and go back to flirting with the man whose watch screamed recently-acquired wealth, but the face of said man made her jaw snap shut with such force she felt it radiate in her cheekbones. What the hell was Sebastian Renard, of the idiot Renards, doing talking to her like that?

She’d come here to get away from the opera folk--and she couldn’t, in recent memory, recall seeing Sebastian sans his sister. Fleur was too flighty for Lisette’s taste and keeping her in check required too much of her time. Realistically, she could leave Fleur to Giry’s tongue lashings, but if Giry had to snap at Fleur she would blame her second-in-command for not keeping the girl in check. So it hadn’t been Lisette’s fault that she’d had to turn on the Renard girl. Fleur should have kept her mouth shut and her hands at her side, as directed; flailing about demonstrating some nonsensical move was inappropriate during rehearsal. Lisette had only been protecting the art--and Fleur herself--shouldn’t she have been grateful that it was Lisette snapping at her, and not Madalene’s infamously cutting tongue?

But her words had died on her lips when Sebastian turned flashing dark eyes on her, looming above with brotherly force that made her shrink away in a barely-concealed huff. It was not her most dignified moment, and she’d been glaring at the eldest Renard (behind his back, of course) ever since.

Lisette was not very confrontational, not when she had a back way to achieve what she wanted. This was completely unprecedented: the person she’d most recently turned her ire on offering her a drink and words of endearment. Cariño? Was he serious?

She was so thrown off she completely missed the brunette staring, bemused, at the back of her head. She had the feeling that she was missing something here--what could Sebastian possibly be playing at?

Lisette took her drink from him slowly, eyeing him up and down, bewildered by his charming smile. Had she ever seen him smile before? Besides at Fleur? “Excuse me?” she asked, a little miffed at the situation he was putting her in. She sniffed her drink and didn’t lift it to her mouth yet--for all she knew he’d spiked it and was planning to drag her off into an alley later as some form of revenge.

[officerjacqueline-blog]

suspicious.

[sorelli-lisette]

officerjacqueline:

date: july 8 time: 10 pm location: the point of no return status: closed to @sorelli-lisette

Jacqueline leaned against the wall, holding her arm to her chest. The sling had come off yesterday, but after almost a month in it, the habit was hard to break. When she noticed herself doing it, she forced the arm back to her side. The sling was off, and that meant (at least as far as she was concerned) that she was back on the case. She had spent her month of “rest” pouring over the case files, taking into account every call and anonymous tip given about the robbery that fateful night. She had been waiting to come back here and scope out the scene. She had been seeing this place in her dreams.

But now that she was actually here, she had no idea what to do with herself. There was no one here she recognized. She kept thinking she saw people out of the corner of her eye, but when she turned, sure that she was about to face one of the gunmen who had taken two of her own, there was just some innocent patron. Or, well, as innocent as a patron of a gambling den could be. It was enough to make her feel a bit out of her head. There was a flash of blonde hair out of the corner of her eye – the exact same shade of the gentleman she had watched go down after she fired her gun – the boy she had killed – it was self-defense, blood had been dripping – her shoulder had been screaming, someone was screaming –

There was no screaming. And there was no boy. Just a blonde woman … but a blonde woman in a rather suspicious position. And, well, one of the anonymous tips had mentioned a blonde woman driving a getaway car. It had been marked as probably unreliable, but Jacqueline believed it. She wanted to believe it right now, anyways, and that amounted to about the same thing. She stalked to the woman confidently, one hand hovering near her hip but not touching. She was on edge, but she was still the good guy, and good guys didn’t pull out their concealed weapons for no reason. “Excuse me,” she said curtly.

Le Point was not, necessarily, Lisette’s favorite place to be. She considered it shady--and the recent violence here only convinced her more. It may be operated by the Chaneys, but gambling was on Lisette’s list of sins to judge and her opinion of the Point’s frequent customers was not exactly the most favorable.

But it was good for business, that she could not deny. Rich playboys and desperate men with too much cash in their pockets came by the Point for some relaxation, and Lisette was just another way to that goal--in the arms of a sweet ballerina, usually. She did not look like a typical madame, hovering over the most likely-looking prospective customers and shooting a few winks at the ones who knew her already, slipping business cards into hands and having mouth-to-ear conversations in a whispery, gentle tone. Lisette was careful; none of this could come across as anything too suspicious, especially given the increased police presence since the attack.

That said, she nearly had a heart attack when she turned away from a man making probing comments (trying, of course, to ascertain if she was what his friend claimed she was) and came face-to-face with an officer. It was impossible not to recognize her--face plastered on the papers as one of the injured, the hero who took down the bad guy, apparently not so worse for wear if she was hanging out here again.

Lisette recovered herself and plastered on a disinterested, mild look a second too late. Shit. “Yes?”

[sorelli-lisette]

( paris’ best pain perdu )

Date: 27 June 2017 Location: Lisette’s flat Availability: closed to @goldenraoul​

Today marked the fourth time she’d been wakened by the terror of something picking her lock. Barely 2 a.m. and she was wide awake, reaching for the nearest hard heavy object, slipping out from under the duvet with all the horror of a woman convinced she was about to be murdered--and finding Raoul Chaney stumbling into her kitchen, considerately re-locking her door behind him as he ambled through.

Today was, however, the sixth time she’d found Raoul Chaney drunk in her flat since meeting him for the first time months ago.

(The other two times involved a window and a hastily-arrested call to the police.)

Raoul seemed to have taken her offering up her address not as flirtation (back when she thought he was interested, which was before she’d decided he was gay--which was before she’d discovered he was not and had eyes for only one bitchy brunette) but as an invitation to crash whenever he was too drunk to find his way back home. Her flat was closer to the opera, not too far from Christine’s (unfortunately), and situated at a Raoul-optimized distance from his favorite bars.

She’d kicked him out the first three times but he kept coming back--picking the lock, using the window if she’d employed the deadbolt, and being generally so pathetic that she couldn’t not let him sleep it off on the couch. Lisette groaned and returned to bed, throwing a pillow at him as he fell face-first onto (and then off of) her couch. Raoul was the type to assume a familiarity early on in the relationship, and with Lisette he’d crossed into “trusted confidante” within a month. Showing up sloppy drunk begging her to let him stay the night--somehow too intoxicated to stand properly, but not enough to prevent him from scaling her fire escape and climbing through the window--had that effect.

This morning, she dragged herself back out of bed five hours after Raoul’s impromptu “visit” and swatted him on the head as she passed by his nest in the living room. She’d long since stopped being bothered that he saw her as such an easy sleepover location, knowing that rich pretty boys weren’t easily dissuaded. He rarely made a mess and always praised her pain perdu when she cooked for him, and sometimes he’d even send her flowers to apologize. It was more, really, than any romantic relationship she’d ever had.

Lisette busied herself preparing the French toast, knowing she had at least another two hours before anyone would expect her at the opera. Madalene’s emergencies, too, rarely happened before eight o’clock in the morning. Her makeup was complete, her outfit chosen but not donned, her hair neatly brushed and twisted up out of her way. Now she just had the matter of politely evicting her guest.

[sorelli-lisette]

( are you following me, monsieur? )

[sorelli-lisette]

philippechaney:

There was disdain in his footsteps as Philippe marched up the stone steps sullenly into the Théâtre de la Nuit. It was only in moments like these where Philippe resented his mother, being her carrier pigeon instead of her frontline soldier. It wasn’t even that particular notion that caused his features to be cold and unwavering as he slowly ascended, but the mere fact that he had to visit the damned theatre in the first place infuriated him. 

The hatred he felt towards the theatre was one of surprisingly unjustified defense. Philippe, for the life of him, could never wrap his head around his mother’s love for the arts. 

Ever since he was a boy, she always had records of famous Puccini operas in the background of every household conversation. They wailed about their sorrow and tragedies, making the hairs on the back of Philippe’s neck stand. He hated how drawn out their problems were, making more of a mess of situations by letting their emotions get the best of them instead of dealing with it head on. They would scream, they would cry, they would even go so far as kill themselves, wallowing in despair. He despised it.

Philippe had seen enough of actual people in his life let themselves be overcome with a singular, obsessive notion that would control their actions. Whether it was a lustful pursuit, paranoia over infidelity, or vengeful fixation, Philippe had seen it all. And he did not need to see it all being replayed on a stage.

Everything to him is black and white, no shades of grey. Everything is fixable, with a straight mind and resilience.

That is why he marched straight into the theatre, keeping his head down, marking a known path for himself to the destination he was ordered to go. He did not have time to see dancers preen over themselves, singers destroy his eardrums, or musicians frantically scrutinize new scores. He needed to get to Giry’s office, that was that.

Without even bothering to check with the secretary at her desk, he swiftly opened the door to Magdalene’s office. Seeing as it was vacant, Philippe let out an annoyed grumble as he made his way towards an empty chair. Fishing out his briefcase, he set it on his lap and began to fidget with the numbered lock. But then, a clambering of sounds from the door and a softly sweet voice met his ears, causing him to turn his head. He almost dropped his briefcase.

She was standing there, with a brilliantly scared look on her face, her eyes wide and her lips slightly parted. Philippe had seen her around as he made these listless visits to the theatre, but she always seemed to be in the background. Not necessarily a wallflower by any means, but just kept to herself. 

He’d noticed her before. But really, how could he not? Her beauty was breathtaking, untouchable, but there was something that made him crave for that touch. 

She had always been so quiet, but so had he. They had never needed to talk to one another, but Philippe wished that he had. It was just, there was never an opportunity to for him to speak. And even if there was, he would have trouble doing so in the light of her allure.

Clearing his throat, it took him a few moments to register that she had asked him a question. Doing a slight double take to his briefcase, he fumbled with his lock before opening it and pulling out a sealed folder. Why was she affecting him like this? “Er, I have this to give to Giry. I was sent to schedule a meeting time for Annabella and her to meet to discuss the matters of it. It’s a little ridiculous,” he added, “how many steps were needed to just have a face to face talk. But, that’s what I was sent to do.”

If she hadn’t made such an awkward start herself, she would have judged his stumble much more harshly. His fingers tripped on the lock after he took too long to respond, and she suppressed a suspiciously raised brow. She’d met Raoul enough times to have begun a general impression of his older brother; Lisette was inclined to dislike him based on the boy’d description. Stiff, cold, and disapproving, just like his mother. Not that she spent much time considering the lives of her indirect benefactors.

Philippe pulled out a sealed folder but did not immediately offer it to her, something that should have bothered her more. Lisette had been functioning as Giry’s right hand for long enough that she sometimes forgot her level of authority was not identical. Everyone from Madalene’s receptionist to her house cleaner answered to Lisette, and lately the dancers were under her jurisdiction as well. But her lawyers did not liaise with the executive assistant; Lisette had not yet found an opportunity to insert herself in that side of the business.

“Madame Giry,” emphasis on the title, gentle reminder of respect for the woman to whom Lisette owed her livelihood, “is in a meeting at the moment and cannot be disturbed.” The words fell off her lips easily because they were so rehearsed. It was an automatic response, an out-of-office email verbally delivered, Lisette’s role as the gatekeeper long since established. The practiced line made it easy to not trip over her words mid-sentence.

He was above her in every sense of the word--wealth, social status, height--but his passive aggressive slight towards the opera and Madalene herself had Lisette’s steel backbone restored. Mouthing off at the lawyer and an investor’s son was a terrible idea, but she bit back snappish retorts about the mazes one had to navigate to get a lawyer’s attention and the prohibitive paperwork involved.

Most of Giry’s schedule was in her memory anyway, so pursing her lips and checking the calendar was mostly for show. It afforded her the ability to step back slightly, an excuse to pull her eyes away from him and focus her attention on the keystrokes required to pull up the schedule on the computer. If Annabella Chaney wanted a face-to-face meeting, she should have sent the request herself instead of sending her son. A son, Lisette noted, who called his mother by her Christian name. Some sort of unusual go-between trapped in a business he clearly had no interest in.

“Next week,” she said finally, turning her eyes back on him and instantly regretting it when her stomach flipped again. “Thursday or Friday, perhaps--we will be in touch once I have spoken to Madame Giry.” Another step, closing the distance between them, wondering why it felt like stepping into a charged electric field. One hand open in a way that suggested it could be extended, stare expectant, waiting for him to hand her the sealed file (or perhaps something else, something more fitting for the intensity of his gaze, noticing slight cracks in his composure that reminded her of Raoul more than either brother would be comfortable knowing).

[sorelli-lisette]

( 🙆💃🙃 )

[sorelli-lisette]

starriingrole:

Christine looks up from her phone, suddenly wide-eyed, a selfie with some asinine animal filter displayed unabashedly on the screen. She looks at the door, then her phone, then back up to Lisette and blinks BLANKLY several times. When Madalene had stepped out, she had assumed that would be the end of her lesson and had taken the opportunity to sit down for a breather before packing up and retrieve her phone from the depths of her dance bag. And now Lisette thought she could come waltzing in here and ORDER her around? 

“Excuse me?” Now that she’s done processing the situation, Christine’s eyes NARROW in a kind of disbelief, head craning backwards on her neck. “Lisette, I’m in the chorus. This isn’t that deep.” Just the chorus, and now to add INSULT to injury, that apparently subjects her to being bossed around by botox blondes with a misplaced sense of authority. 

“I was just gonna go, honestly. I have plenty of time to learn my featured role in the Act Five ballet. I’m a quick learner,” she assures the other woman, though she expects they both know that to be a blatant LIE.

And this, as if she needed more reasons to add to her pile, is exactly why Christine did not belong in this opera house. She had no respect for the art itself--if it weren’t for Madalene she wouldn’t be here at all. A lack of talent was easier to remedy than a lack of dedication, and Christine had both: unremarkable ability and no desire to work. Chorus girls were not supposed to get private lessons yet Madalene had begun them with this thankless tart; it could only be because Christine was failing to learn her part and needed extra help to earn her keep.

Lisette boiled with subtle fury whenever Christine waltzed into view with flippant disrespect on her tongue. She had seen fame and fortune once, taken advantage of the avenues they opened to pursue her passion, only to have it spit her back out when she no longer served its purposes well enough. Christine was preening for anyone she thought could help her somehow and baring her teeth to everyone else. The lowly ones.

But she would be damned if she hadn’t dealt with more trying people than this washed-up orphan. Her eyes were cold as she smiled and clasped her hands. “Have you ever seen an opera with an untrained chorus?” Rhetorical. Lisette was fairly certain Christine was incapable of sitting through anything that wasn’t about herself for more than five minutes. “Absolute disaster. Destroys the entire cast. The ballet is the core of the opera, the heart; critics will eviscerate the show for one bad ballet.” Speaking from experience, this time, a veiled threat inherent in her statement: this theatre could fall before it even has a chance to rise.

“Madalene instructed me to continue your lesson. You may leave, if you don’t wish to learn.” And ruin the entire ballet, likely as not. Madalene was a brilliant teacher but she could only do so much with a gangly fawn like Christine. Ideally, she would lose patience some day and give the wide-eyed idiot the lashing she deserved.

[dailyfilmgifs]

[sorelli-lisette]

( are you following me, monsieur? )

Date: 11 June 2017 Location: the office of Madalene Giry Availability: closed to @philippechaney

She hadn’t paid attention to them before. They were rich and famous and running her life from lofty pedestals past the reach of Heaven itself; they were also not her clients and not her audience, and their money funded her minuscule existence at enough of a distance that their role only mattered when the Board made an unexpected visit. Rare, these days. Things ran more smoothly now.

The Chaneys, then, barely registered in her day-to-day routine.

(Unless Raoul was pushing his way into her peripherals, but he hardly factored in as a Chaney when he was mooning after darling Christine like that.)

The Chaneys were too far up the food chain in the opera for Lisette to take notice of their goings-on. Those she answered to were not under the control of the Chaney organization, so she had the freedom to stretch her legs, so to speak, in her own activities. She’d met them perhaps thrice in her life, mostly through a curtain of eyelashes as she backed her way out of the room. She’d been Giry’s assistant then, and not presentable enough to be introduced to the illustrious Chaneys.

And then she’d locked eyes with the older son and he was suddenly everywhere.

Every time she dropped by Firmin’s office to deliver Madalene’s notes or ferried documents between the opera’s heads to gather signatures, that particular Chaney was always crossing the doorway when she approached. Philippe--she knew his name; the Chaney matriarch’s spitting image. Raoul’s older brother even if she could hardly see the resemblance.

And that would have been fine if he didn’t have the uniquely frustrating ability to pull the breath right out of her lungs every time he brushed past her with dark eyes staring into her soul and time s l o w e d then sped up to double speed the instant he was gone because her heart was taking the place of oxygen and leaping up through her esophagus.

Lisette did not, frankly, enjoy this effect and sharply shoved her organs back into place before tackling her duties with brusque efficiency to make up for that strange emotional hiccup.

It was only a second, after all. Maybe that instant of feeling abruptly light-headed was because of the air conditioning being out on this side of the building this week or because she hadn’t eaten in several hours.

But maybe it was because Philippe Chaney was just her type of tall dark handsome and he looked at her with more transparent awe than any man she’d encountered who hadn’t already seen her naked. He was also her boss’s son as in the boss who owned half of her place of employment and therefore half of her and he was strictly, entirely, specifically off-limits in every sense of the term.

“How can I help, mons--oh!”

The call to cover for Madalene’s next appointment came last-minute. Lately, everything seemed to be last-minute. The composer was a fickle “genius,” André and Firmin were accustomed to prompt preferential treatment; Giry had the speed of a woman half her age running between them all to keep track. Walk-in visitors were rare, and this one--so she gathered from Madalene’s schedule--had only announced his intention of dropping by yesterday.

So Lisette scrambled--he was a legal representative, and Madalene had not left enough information for Lisette to figure out what he was here about, and she was stamping down whatever minor panic about the opera’s legal troubles she could possibly invent.

She’d entered the room with all the grace a lifelong dancer could muster but stopped short in her greeting when the stately visitor turned toward her and those eyes bored straight through her chest and left her feeling faint for a brief, passing instant. And then Lisette recovered herself, smoothed over her stammer of surprise, and attempted to pull her own eyes away from the unsettling effect Philippe Chaney’s presence was prompting to move to Madalene’s desk on the other side of the room.

(She felt the hairs on her arms raise as she moved past him and held her breath, lest this strange buzzing in her head be the result of his cologne.)

“Monsieur Chaney. I am sorry for the wait; Madalene was called into a meeting and is not able to get away just yet. How can I assist you?”

[lasylphidedubolchoi]

Ekaterina Krysanova and Igor Tsvirko for the Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema 2017-2018 trailer

Whoever directed this video is a genius; those contrasts between lust & sensuality and love are breathtaking

Click gifs for higher resolution

[sorelli-lisette]

( 🙆💃🙃 )

Date: 07 June 2017 Location: a classroom in the Nuit Availability: closed to @starriingrole

Whatever Madalene told her to do, Lisette followed orders dutifully. It was almost habit carried over from years of scraping by under the woman’s watchful eye, picking up any task suggested to justify her continued presence at the opera. So when Madalene stepped out of the classroom and instructed Lisette to take over her lesson, she nodded and obeyed, taking a moment to grab the correct shoes and braid her hair properly, assuming the proper appearance of an instructor with a barely-held level of authority over her pupils.

The brunette sitting in the classroom, making faces at her phone, paid her no notice as she entered and Lisette froze with an abrupt scowl. Of course it had to be Christine. The insufferable child whose head would explode if it inflated any more. Her fondness for Meg was not the only reason Lisette disliked Christine: the girl’s personality was enough to set her teeth on edge.

“Are you finished yet?” Lisette snapped, swinging her braid around in annoyance. “We don’t have all day.”

[sorelli-lisette]

Location: the steps of le Théâtre de Nuit Date: June 03 Availability: open

When dusk hit the roofs of Paris, a part of Lisette relaxed. The responsibilities of the day had passed, transitioning her into the relative tranquility of twilight. The knot between her shoulders had felt tense since her late teens, intensified by the stark sunlight and the work that came with it. Her fingers were already smudged with chalk from rehearsal all afternoon, her severe ponytail fallen loose with the sweat that gathered on her brow. Lisette was not, presently, pressed and pristine like she attempted to be most hours.

She re-gathered her hair, brushed it until it looked presentable once more and twisted it back more firmly; if Madalene came through, it would not do to look like just another out-of-breath ballerina. The theatre was becoming something important, everyone boasted, and Lisette--one must look the part.

Perhaps that her mother’s voice ringing in her ears, though, taking on the timbre of Madalene’s voice to sneak more closely into her brain. Pressured to be pretty, Lisette was too young to remember when those lessons had begun.

Her dusty hands closed around the brass handle and she stepped outside, shielding her eyes quickly with one cupped hand when the setting sun invaded her line of sight. The relatively cool air raised bumps along her arms and she rubbed them absently; something about being in the open like this always made her pause briefly. Reconsider her state of dress, contemplate her presentability, rearrange her expression into something pleasant and not distracted.

On her first step down, she made a fatal mistake: her heel slipped on the stone and she barely caught herself in time, arm lashing out to grip the railing. It was awkward, and uncomfortable, and utterly embarrassing--Lisette recovered herself and glanced around, praying nobody of import saw her misstep.

[sorelli-lisette]

American Gothic

AMERICAN GOTHIC: Would you like to lead a simple and happy life? Or do you prefer adventure?

“There’s always adventure in the opera,” she answers with practiced smoothness. “That’s why so many people still enjoy it.”

She’d spent her impressionable years pursuing adventure in the form of new venues, travel, full face of makeup in front of too-bright lights and fawning media every time she flashed a smile. Years spent building a reputation that flattened like a balloon when she stopped encouraging its inflation. Lisette was ready for simplicity–one opera, one home, one path.

[staedtlers-and-stabilos]

There are three rules.

1. If you do not go after what you want, you will never have it. 

2. If you do not ask, the answer will always be no. 

3. If you do not step forward, you will remain in the same place. 

[sorelli-lisette]

Artwork Asks

Mona Lisa: Do you like to look neat and orderly? How long does it take for you to get ready for the day?

Starry Night: Do you enjoy watching the sky and daydreaming?

The Scream: How easy/hard is it for someone to startle or make you lose focus?

The Persistence of Memory: Do some people consider you to be a weird or strange person?

Girl with a Pearl Earring: Do you like to wear jewelry? What are your favorite pieces of jewelry and approximately how much are they worth?

The Last Supper: Are you religious at all?

Guernica: Is the world "Black and White" to you?

American Gothic: Would you like to lead a simple and happy life? Or do you prefer adventure?

The Creation of Adam: What is your favorite story from Mythology? Do you have any favorite Fables or Fairytales?

The Birth of Venus: Do you like to be in the spotlight?

David: Are you the bold type? Do want your ideas and thoughts to be heard all around the world?

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte: Do you take time out of your day to kick back and relax? Where can people find you if so?

No. 5, 1948: Do you tend to break away from traditions and cultural norms? Are you the rebellious type?

Pietà: Name something that tugs at your heartstrings.

Venus De Milo: Do you believe that everyone deserves a second chance, no matter what they've been through in the past?

The Thinker: Do you often find yourself getting lost in thought? What is it usually about?

The Great Wave off Kanagawa: Do you like the Ocean?

Water Lily Pond: What are your favorite flowers?

Capitoline Wolf: What is your relationship with animals? Do you like them? What is your favorite animal?

Winged Victory of Samothrace: Do you strive to meet your goals and never give up on them?

Nighthawks: Are you a night owl or a early bird?

Lady with an Ermine: Do you have any pets? Would you like to have pets? If so, what would your dream pet be?

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog: Do you tend to get lost easily?

Napoleon Crossing the Alps: Are you a brave and daring individual? Would you fight for freedom if you had to?

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp: Do you value your ability to get an education?

Christina's World: Is there anything you long for?

Washington Crossing the Delaware: Do you want to make an impact on this world? What do you want to be remembered for?

[infernorp]

Congratulations, Caisey! You’ve been accepted for the role of Lisette Sorelli! A note from Admin Lux: Lisette was a harder decision than I think any of us were anticipating, but what it came down to was how well you captured her voice. Reading your interview for her, I could picture her moving around a very real space, hear her voice and almost just get the slightest whiff of her perfume. You turned her into a very real person, and it was intoxicating to read. I can’t wait to see where you take her — or, rather, knowing Lisette, where she takes you! Please look over our new member checklist and be in touch about sending your account in. Thank you so much for your interest, and welcome to Inferno!

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[flawlessbeautyqueens]

I love gritty drama. I’m passionate about films and drama that make you think - hard-hitting, gravelly characters.