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lavenderprose · 6 years

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Hello! I was wondering if you have anymore cisflip ficlets/headcanons in mind? Your writing is amazing and I still go back to read Firebird all the time!

AHH! I’m glad you like it so much!

Here’s part of something that might become bigger or might stand alone, the working title of which is “U-Haul: Moving Made Gayer”

In another world, in another time, Yuri Katsukiperhaps would have had a very different reaction to Viktoria Nikiforovastanding in front of her bedroom door, asking to have a sleepover. Viktoria isthe twenty-seven-year-old reigning figure skating champion for half a decade andshe’s wearing a designer camisole over a pair of silk sleeping shorts, but she’salso wearing poodle slippers that Yuuri is pretty sure you can buy online fortwelve dollars. Her make-up is gone and her face has lost some of its angles,some of its allure, but she smells like vanilla and there is a faint sheen ofwhat must be lipbalm on her mouth. She is a grown woman, graceful and refined,but there is something childlike about her standing there, clutching her pillowwith Makkachin at her feet.

Yuri Katsuki might have turned her down,because she’s intimidating. She represents everything Yuri wants to be andmight not ever achieve.

But Yuri is also a woman who loves woman, andshe loves Viktoria—she has for halfher life—and something about Viktoria, underneath that charm and lipstick andheight, feels a little broken. Feels a little bit like it needs the kind of careand reassurance that can only come from another woman, even just a friend.Perhaps especially a friend.

So she looks Viktoria up and down for amoment, from hair in a French plait against the side of her head to the eyes ofthe poodle slippers, then opens the door to her room.

“Alright,” she whispers then, standing back tolet Viktoria come in. She’s still a little nervous about this whole thing, andmaybe a little afraid of Viktoria in a way. But there is a fullness in herheart that can only be happiness, andshe knows herself well enough to understand that she wants Viktoria close to her.“It’s not very big, but—”

“That’s alright!” Viktoria, almostpathologically cheerful, slips past Yuri in a furtive movement like she’safraid Yuri will change her mind and slam the door in her face instead. Once inside,she drops her pillow onto the floor and sits down, folding her legs underherself and plopping onto the floor in one seamless movement. She glances aroundat the freshly-bare walls. The room feels at once bigger and smaller with theabsence of the posters now living underneath Yuri’s bed.

“You’re not going to sleep on the floor,”says Yuri, whose mother would personally set her adrift in the Sea of Japan ifshe thought Yuri was letting guests sleep on the floor. “I’ll get you a futon.Or you can sleep on my bed—”

“Alright,” Viktoria agrees, slightly tooeasily, and hurls her pillow atop the mattress.

“Okay,” Yuri says, nodding to herself. “Alright,good, I’m gonna—” she makes to open the door, but she grabs for the handleblind because Viktoria is rising now, more or less the same way she sat down,all of her limbs unfolding at once. Yuri’s fingers brush the doorjamb and notmuch else.

“Where are you going?” Viktoria asks,settling herself on the edge of Yuuri’s bed. Her legs are so long. She crossesthem and the toes of her upper leg almost brush the hardwood. It’s an elegantmovement that makes Yuri want to physically erupt.

“To get a futon,” says Yuri, gesturing ineffectuallyat the floor.

“For me?”

“For me,”says Yuri, still pawing around for the door handle. It has, apparently,migrated from the spot it has been occupying for twenty-three years, and Yurican no longer find it. “So that I can sleep—on the—” Her tongue twists in onitself as she watches Viktoria lay down lengthwise on her bed, feet curled up behindher thighs. She’s settled her pillow and head at the opposite end of the bed fromwhere Yuri typically does. “Fluh. Flurr. Floor.”

“Why?” Viktoria asks. “We can share your bed,right? I don’t want to kick you out.” She reaches out and Yuri, for some reasonunknown even to herself, steps away from the door and gives Viktoria her hand. Herfingers are long and slim, strong, and they tighten around Yuuri’s palm andpull her down until she’s sitting on the edge of the bed, settled in the regionof Viktoria’s hips. Viktoria Nikiforova is in her bed smelling like vanilla anddesigner fragrance, and Yuuri is wearing a T-shirt she stole from Phichit and apair of Pikachu pajama pants someone gave her in middle school, and a very oldpair of black cotton panties. She hasn’t washed her hair in three days.

This is not how she thought this would go inthose fantasies.

There’s also a dog here. Yuri isn’t surewhere dogs figured in. She always figured there would be one, but probably not watching.

“Are you sure?” Yuri asks, feeling condescendingand needy all at once. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable—”

“Why would I be uncomfortable?” Viktoriaseems to genuinely not understand Yuri’s concern, and Yuri thinks it must be a languagebarrier thing, or perhaps a culture clash thing, but even with being aware of itshe isn’t sure how to explain that, usually, two people who have just met don’tshare a tiny single bed unless under the most dire of circumstances.

Not that Yuri hasn’t had fantasies that involvethose circumstances, of course.

There’sa scheduling mistake at the Olympics and Viktoria Nikiforova and I have toshare a single bed in the Olympic village. Oops! Viktoria Nikiforova has broughtonly lingerie to wear. Viktoria Nikiforova braids my hair and I eat her out.

ViktoriaNikiforova and I somehow-it’s-not-important are trapped in a mountain cabinwhere there is only one bed and we must cuddle to conserve warmth! ViktoriaNikiforova braids my hair and I eat her out.

ViktoriaNikiforova and I are passengers on one of those old-timey sleeper cars going fromone side of Russia to the other SHUT UP PHICHIT IT’S A FANTASY and we have toshare one of those combination seat-and-bed things and by the time we get offthe train in Vladivostok, Viktoria Nikiforova has asked me to run away withher. Also, Viktoria Nikiforova braids my hair and I eat her out.

“Because you’re used to sleeping alone?” Yuriventures, and knows even as it’s exiting her mouth that she is fucking up. Assumingthat Viktoria usually sleeps alone, not to mention that even if she does it’s probably not something shewants to be reminded of, is so deeplyfucking tone-deaf that Yuuri briefly thinks she’s going to die right then andthere and some coroner is going to have to put foot obstructed airway leading to suffocation on her death certificate.

Viktoria, though, snorts delicately out ofher nose, leans her chin on hear hand and through a pout says, “That’s nottrue. Makkachin sleeps with me every night.”

Summoned by his name, Makkachin hops onto thebed and curls up behind Viktoria’s knees, where he is much too large to fit.His entire tail and one of his legs is draped across Viktoria’s belly. The bedcreaks alarmingly. It’s as old as Yuri and has never been expected to bear thiskind of weight.

“Oh, of course,” Yuri responds, and hearsherself saying it as though from a distance. Why can’t I be you, she’s busy asking Makkachin in her head, as shewatches him nose underneath Viktoria’s shirt and settle his head on her naval.

Then Viktoria reaches out to wrap a strand ofYuri’s hair around her finger, and Yuri can’t quite bring herself to think anything except some vague, amorphousscream in the back of her head.

“Can I braid your hair?”

Somehow, through sheer and unadulteratedpower of will, Yuri keeps herself from screeching. Instead, she stands up andbows deeply, mostly because she’s forsaken all motor control to the panicrising up within her but also because she feels like she should be thankingsomething, anything, for what is happening to her on this night.

“Yes, of course!” she says, too loudly. “I’llgo get my hairbrush!”

In the bathroom, she crouches down next tothe sink and shrieks into her own knees.

Viktoria does Yuri’s hair up into two tightplaits that each run down one side of her hair and onto her shoulders, thenfalls asleep clutching her pillow in one arm and Makkachin in the other. They don’ttalk very much, because braiding hair apparently takes a great deal of concentration,but Viktoria tells Yuri that she’s happy to be able to braid someone’s hairagain, because her only friend with long hair recently cut it, and her own hairis too short for it to be really satisfying to braid. She also, slow andcareful as she’s tying off the second of the two braids, admits that she doesn’thave a lot of female companionship.

“The other girls are all much younger,” Viktoriatells her, through the pink hairtie in her mouth. “Or have retired, and goneoff to get married and start families. It’s been a long time since I’ve had agirlfriend.”

Yuri doesn’t know what definition of the termgirlfriend Viktoria is using there.She isn’t sure it matters.

What does matter is that, as she’s fallingasleep, Viktoria stirs at the other side of the bed and touches Yuri’s leg.

“Yuri?” Viktoria murmurs.

“Huh?” Yuri asks, feigning drowsiness but infact startlingly, poignantly awake.

“Can we—do you—” Her hand tightens on Yuri’sankle. “Could we cuddle?”

Yuri sits up and looks at Viktoria, who lookschildlike again sitting amongst the flower-patterned sheets on Yuri’s childhoodbed, clutching her dog and a pillow, eyes huge as they try to suck up any lightin the dark room. For a moment, she isn’t five-time-champion ViktoriaNikiforova or even Yuri’s-longtime-crush Viktoria Nikiforova. She is a womanwho needs the love and reassurance that can only come from another woman.

“Yes,” Yuri says, patting the mattress besideherself. “We can cuddle.”

It’s a tight fit, with Yuri clinging to theedge of the mattress and Viktoria smooshed against the wall. The one who getsthe most area is probably Makkachin, sprawls out on his back and refuses to bemoved.

“He’s spoiled,” Viktoria chuckles, pattingthe curls on his belly. “We have such a big bed at home.”

Doyou want someone to share it with, Yuri doesn’tsay.

In the morning, Yuri tells Phichit that sheslept with Viktoria Nikiforova, and Phichit doesn’t even do her the decency of lookingsurprised.

“I mean, not slept with,” Yuri says quickly, overcorrecting because she thinksmaybe Phichit has gone catatonic with that announcement.

“Oh,” he says, now sounding disappointed of all the damned things. “Well,I guess I didn’t expect it to happen thatquickly.”

“Thatquickly?” Yuri demands. “What do you mean, thatquickly.”

“Yuri,” Phichit sighs, and Yuri sees him leanhis head on his hand. “I love you very much. But I know you as a person.”

“Are you saying I’m easy?”

“No, and I’m insulted that you would thinkthat’s what I was saying.” Phichit frowns at her, betrayed. “I’m just worriedabout you, is all, because I know how you feel about her and I’m worried about—aboutwhat that might make you do.”

Yuri thinks about denying it, but Phichit hasknown her for five very formative years of her life.

“I’m not saying it’s bad,” Phichit assuresher, waving a hand. “I’m not, I promise.I think it’s great. And Viktoria Nikiforova might be the kind of person whoneeds someone to love them like that. But I don’t know her, or what she mightdo to your heart.”

“I’ll be careful,” Yuri says, completelyunsure if it’s a promise she can keep—or, in fact, one that she hasn’t alreadybroken.

Phichit makes a face like there’s a lot he wantsto say to that, but in the end he just says, “Alright.”

#Maggie's Fic #Yuri on Ice #Victuuri #cisflip #Viktor Nikiforov #Yuuri Katsuki #Anonymous

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courtneytincher · 5 years

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The Politics of Russia's Primorsky Krai

Most nine-hour journeys from Moscow land you on the east coast of the United States. But that is assuming one is flying westward over the Atlantic or crossing the pond, as the Brits likely to fondly refer to transatlantic destinations. But a nine journey flying eastwards, over seven time-zones across the Urals and over Siberia, wouldn’t necessarily get you to Japan. It would get you close—right to the eastern border of Russia, the port city of Vladivostok.Vladivostok is a peculiar place for many reasons. As maritime expert Rockford Weitz reminds us, most people forget that Russia is a Pacific country until they visit the port city. Trade notwithstanding, the city is home to the Russian pacific fleet, a naval bastion whose importance was even more accentuated during the Soviet-era Cold War. Vladivostok is so strategically important that the city was closed to foreigners during the Soviet era; even Soviet citizens needed special permits to enter.Former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev visited Vladivostok in the 1950s and was besotted enough to genuinely want to work towards making it the Soviet San Francisco. The similarities were evident with both cities being on the Pacific coast and the gale across the ocean lent itself to similar climes. Khrushchev’s goal can be seen in the design of the Zolotoy Bridge and the Russky Island Bridge, closely, though not identically, resembling the structures of the iconic Golden Gate and the Bay Bridge in San Francisco. Communism perhaps precluded Vladivostok from achieving its own Silicon Valley and having an economy comparable to San Francisco. But the city certainly became a key venue for high power political discourse.The framework of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II) was discussed here in Vladivostok between former U.S. President Gerald Ford and the then-Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev. Russian President Vladimir Putin made a conscientious decision to host the APEC Summit here in 2012. The recent cherry on the cake was the high profile summit between Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un which was hosted at the cavernous and state-of-the-art campus of the Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU).While Vladivostok has been a key host to politics, the politics of the eastern region of Primorsky Krai are different from the political capital of Moscow and the cultural capital of St. Petersburg. Moscow’s concerns have long been the remnants of the Cold War era: The trust-deficit with the United States, that has only grown prominent since the annexation of Crimea in 2014; the simmering tensions with Ukraine as a result of Crimea and the Donbass region; NATO encirclement and enlargement into once-Soviet territories on its western border that continue to infuriate the Kremlin; and a relationship with the European Union that has never been quiet warm or convivial, given the hand-in-glove relationship between Brussels and Washington.The name Vladivostok translates to ruler of the east, and in a name, there is an identity. In this case, the eastern identity has formed. Ensconced so far east, the geographic and time difference translates to the political distance between Primorsky Krai and the politically and culturally affluent western Russia. The region is part of the Far East district; the name “far east” itself almost reminiscent of an anglophone era subtly indicating that the prosperous pastures belong in the west, whatever is your west (globally or locally).Primorsky Krai is the eastern most point of East Europe, so east at that point that it stops looking like Europe and starts looking like Asia. So far east, that one tour guide at the state museum of Primorsky Krai, described Vladivostok as the edge of the world, and if the flat earth theory held true, then we’d fall off if we went any further east.It’s one hundred kilometers from China’s northeastern border, with Harbin being the closest major Chinese city and just an hour flight away from Sapporo in Japan. Pyongyang is under 700 kilometers away and hence it’s no surprise that a lot of diaspora in the Russian Far East has Asian roots, with a huge population of Russian Koreans (so Russian, that some of them can’t speak Korean) and migrant labor from North Korea and China.Vladivostok is closer to Alaska and Hawaii than it is to Moscow. And Alaska and Hawaii serve as fitting examples for states that aren’t the quintessential red, white, and blue “all American” states. Asking residents of Primorsky Krai to gauge the pulse of Moscow, is akin to asking residents of Anchorage or Honolulu if they feel an intimate bond with Washington, DC or New York City.As FEFU academic Tamara Troyakova tells me over lunch in Vladivostok, “When we [residents of the Far East] wake up, they [Muscovites] fall asleep, and when they start work, we end work. So how can they think for us or feel what we feel?” Physical factors of geographic distance once influencing the intangible political distance.“We are so far away and they don’t even call us the Pacific capital of Russia” says Alexey Starichkov, director of the Primorsky Krai Department of International Cooperation. Local government officials see Primorsky Krai as a Russian outpost in the Asia-Pacific region. Starichkov confidently states that Primorsky Krai influences Russia’s Eastern & North Asia policy.Starichkov’s message is vindicated by the fact that Vladivostok has the most number of diplomatic missions after Moscow and St. Petersburg. Furthermore, six of the seven consulates operating in the region belong to Asian countries—China, India, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Vietnam—with the sole exception being the United States.The Primorsky Krai region has trade worth $700 billion. External trade and exports with Asian behemoths run into billions of dollars: $300 billion split between China, Japan and South Korea.Sino-Russia relations have seen the ebbs and flows from the days of Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin to a special friendship between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, who perhaps found common ground in being seen as threats to the United States’ position at the top of geopolitical totem pole. But officials in Primorsky Krai remind me that a lot of Russia’s relationship (half, to be specific) with China is a result of the eastern region.Both countries have major economic forums on either side. The Eastern Economic Forum, started in 2015, is Putin’s brainchild and is held every year in Vladivostok to foster closer economic cooperation between the Russian Far East and its Asian neighbours. Meanwhile, the summer Davos or Davos of the East goes to the port city of Tianjin in Northern China.Japanese diplomats at the consulate in Vladivostok remind me that Japan is another strong ally. This notwithstanding a natural historic bond with the United States. Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe has had over twenty meetings with Putin and attended the Eastern Economic Forum in 2018, while Putin returned the favor, by visiting Japan in June. Putin and Abe have agreed to rejig the council of governors which will increase interactions between governments (such as the Far East) of various districts and provinces in both countries. Timber trade between the two countries flows through Primorsky Krai with Japan being the major importer.What Japan exports, it makes up for in exports with a vast number of automobile imports to the Far East. The roads in the east are teeming with Mazdas, Toyotas, Hondas and Nissans; hailing from a practice of importing cheap second hand automobiles from Japan during the Cold War era. Back then, tense relations with the West precluded significant imports of American and other Western automobiles. While Russia, like so many non-commonwealth countries, drives on the right-hand side of the road, the prevalence of Japanese car models means that you have right-hand driven vehicles on the right side of the road. A peculiarity evinced in Vladivostok over its western counterparts.Ural Airlines has frequent flights to Hokkaido from Vladivostok. The Far East constitutes nearly ten percent of the total tourists visiting Russia, however Japanese tourists don’t exceed more than twenty-four thousand a year. Japanese diplomats at the consulate in Vladivostok tell me that it’s due to the lack of visa free access that exists between Japan and Russia.However, South Korea and Russia do share visa free access and flight connectivity between the Russian Far East and Seoul, seeing between ten to fifteen flights per day. There has been a tourism uptick in the Far East and on average South Koreans make up one hundred thousand in tourist arrivals.A short drive outside Vladivostok will take you to the small town of Ussuriysk, home to several Russian Koreans, which enhances the cultural link between the two countries.The elephant in the room is the other Korea. The two share a seventeen-kilometer border along the lower Tumen River, linked together by a bridge called the Friendship Bridge, alluding to the warm ties shared between Russia and the DPRK.Publicly, both Russia and North Korea are allies, a relationship which precedes the very founding of the Hermit Kingdom. North Korea was once under the rule of the Soviet Civil Administration from 1945 to 1948. The ties strengthened with Soviet involvement as an ally in the Korean War of 1950. Putin is credited for improving ties with Pyongyang, which had seen a lull following the collapse of the USSR. The Far East’s proximity to North Korea means there has been a steady stream of North Korean migrant workers and North Korean restaurants in the city. Even Pyongyang’s cargo jets get refueled at Vladivostok International Airport.However, U.S. sanctions on North Korea have affected the livelihoods of several North Korean migrant laborers, and Alexander Efremov, CEO of Dobroflot, a large fishing company, says he has had to let go of a lot of his migrant workforce. His quota of Chinese workers too has been reduced. Efremov foresees these geopolitical tensions having headwinds for the fisheries, a prominent industry in the region.Apart from fisheries and the naval base, it’s tourism, transport and logistics, trade and agriculture that are the revenue generators for the Primorsky Krai coffers. Fishing and fisheries are integral to Primorsky Krai, so much so that at the Department of International Cooperation, Starichkov confidently states that “Muscovites are mainland people—The culture of eating fish and fishing isn’t even there,” accentuating regional heterogeneity. “Moscow doesn’t understand the Vladivostok region,” says one of my colleagues at FEFU, a university whose international relations program specializes in understanding its Asian neighborhood. As we strolled through the streets of Vladivostok, past Yul Brynner’s childhood home, we reach the train station.“Is this where the vaunted Trans-Siberian train ends?” I ask the local tour guide. “Actually, we, the local residents, would like to think that this is where the Trans-Siberian starts. After all, the sun does rise in the east!”Akshobh Giridharadas is a former broadcast reporter covering business and international relations with Channel NewsAsia in Singapore. He has regularly published with outlets such as The Diplomat, the Observer Research Foundation, Inside Sources, and FirstPost on geopolitics, business and sports.Image: Reuters

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