𝒇𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆.

as family legend had it, her first steps were ballet moves across the floor. whereas most children take a few awkward and stumbling steps, she did a petit pas de chat. DELYSIA DUBOIS.

[delysias]

𝐈𝐒 𝐒𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑-𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐃? 𝐖𝐄𝐋𝐋, 𝐒𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒 𝐈𝐓’𝐒 𝐂𝐑𝐔𝐄𝐋 𝐓𝐎 𝐃𝐈𝐏 𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐌𝐀𝐋 𝐂𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐇𝐎𝐓 𝐂𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐄𝐄.

𝒊. 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝒊𝒊. 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝒊𝒊𝒊. 𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭

[notlikethemoviess]

Psychout For Murder (1969)

[petticoat]

Surface became everything, surface became my substance. I clung to inanimate objects and gave my allegiance to things. I made secret pacts with my toys; the tiger that served as my teddy bear would always protect me, and I would always protect him. I knew that dolls had souls.

Joan Juliet Buck, The Price of Illusion (via spindleprick)

[stars-bean]

“Just because you’re beautiful, doesn’t mean you can treat people like they don’t matter.”

10 Things I Hate About You (1999) dir. Gil Junger

[the-library-and-step-on-it]

““The trouble with emergencies is,” she said, “that I always put on my finest underwear and then nothing happens.””

— Save Me The Waltz, Zelda Fitzgerald.

[classicfilmsource]

I know they have fleas, but I don’t care. I’ve wanted one all my life!

Easy Living 1937 dir. Mitchell Leisen

[litterae-ignotae]

Martha Rhodes, ‘Inside Father’s Pockets’, from At the Gate

[midsommars-deactivated20201109]

A Dinner Date With Barbara Palvin & Dylan Sprouse | British Vogue

[fawnvelveteen]

Meryl Streep in ‘She-Devil’, 1989.

[filmgifs]

This Property Is Condemned (1966) dir. Sydney Pollack

[thebellekeys]

She has an intensely romantic character, which is fatal for a woman. And also what makes her so completely irresistible.

- from The Pursuit of Love (2021)

[vermcuth]

Closed Starter for : @delysias​ Location : The Reception Room  Timestamp : 11pm, Saturday 27th September 1924

He had been looking for her all night, but for such a bright star of a girl, Delysia Dubois had been remarkable difficult to find. The times where he had glimpsed her, she had not been alone, and so Etienne had kept a respectable distance. Normally, he wouldn’t think much of approaching her even in a crowd and requesting a moment of her time, but things had hardly been - well, usual between them lately. He didn’t want to tarnish her evening, and so, he had kept his distance. 

It wasn’t until later in the evening when he finally saw his opening, Delysia perched on a chair at one of the tables at the edge of the room, alone at last. Etienne grabbed two glasses of champagne from the tray of a nearby waiter, and made his approach, cautiously, like a man walking into the lair of a hibernating bear. 

“Your entourage appears to have deserted you,” his tone is light, but laden with things left unsaid. Are you all right? Do you forgive me? “All the more better for me. I have been hoping for a moment of your time all evening.” He holds out one of the glasses, brows raised in question, and sets the one he nabbed for himself on the table. “A drink?” he queries, and he stretches out his now-empty spare hand to her, an offer for her to take it. “Or a dance? The choice is yours, my dear.”

[delysias]

when she’d been a child, delysia’s mother had taken quickly to saying that she had a problem with placement: a girl who only ever wanted to sit in the middle, but could never stand to one side. when it came to her surroundings young delysia had always wanted to be smothered, nestling herself in between the arms of both parents and into the center of every photo, finding some sort of misplaced peace when all parts of her were brushing up against someone else. when it came to interaction with the world, she was the opposite, with no ability to find middle ground — she ate sweets until she was sick, ran until her legs gave out, loved stuffed animals until they were in tattered ruins. twenty-something years later, and not all that much has changed: she feels safest surrounded by others, and knows nothing of moderation. that’s why it’s so alarming to find her here, alone, in the middle of a party.

something happens to a girl like that if she’s left alone too long in a room full of people. maybe that’s why etienne toussaint shows up to rectify it — a doctor can tell when a hearts in jeopardy.

he says your entourage appears to have deserted you, and delysia can’t help the way something small crumbles off on the wall of her heart, a well-meant witticism moving like a fingernail against already flaking paint. “they’re probably looking for me,” she answers, resisting both the impulse to ask him if he thinks it’s true and the urge to look at him for a little too long. “i just needed to rest my feet, is all. but you can — ” lashes flit downward against carefully rouged cheeks as she places the extended drink against the table, turning the coupe slowly on its stem. “you can still stay, if you like.”

[inochi-wa-utau]

Psychout for murder, 1969

[flowerytale]

T. S. Eliot — Portrait of a Lady

[lvciano]

when: 27 september 1924 where: the vincelli mansion - the reception room who: @delysias​

it might be unfair of him to enable whatever crush delysia might or might not still have for him, but it boosts his ego - regardless of whether or not it needs one - and that’s worthwhile enough. were she older, she might have ended up married to him. it’s probably for the best she didn’t. but she never turns down a dance with him and, his ego aside, he likes spending time with delysia. she’s practically family and a far more tolerable addition than his actual younger siblings. “don’t tell me you’ve outgrown having me at the top of your dance card, del.”

[delysias]

“why luciano vincelli,” he can’t help it, she supposes — being there as soon as she arrives, as if the house couldn’t hold up without him. same as she can’t help the way her mouth splits open, no less natural than a flower curling reflexively into the sun. “ma rosa would box your ears if she heard you askin’ if i’ve put on an inch!” it’s delysia’s great talent, mishandling information: she’s spent so long being told that she just doesn’t understand that she’s learned to purposefully read every alternative meaning, picking the most exciting one. “and if she don’t, i will.” her lithe little fingers curl into the top of his shirt and tug. it’s a girlish, brief little affection, and the same kind she’s been decorating him with since she was a child. “you tell me, luci —” the turn she does next and the body it presents is, definitively, all woman — as is the coy look that flashes after. “i look like i’ve outgrown anything?”

[zophistication]

when: 27 september 1924 where: the vincelli - the hallway who: @delysias​

“delysia darling, i truly need to be on my best behavior tonight,” zosia says, linking one arm with her friend’s while her dates trail after them. in her other dangles the flute of champagne ‘gifted’ to her by vera. she’s not wholly unconvinced vera hasnt slipped poison or something else otherwise unpleasant in it just for her. she passes it off to a server and snags another and takes a healthy swig. bubbly and refreshing and too much will certainly have her not acting on her best behavior. “promise me you won’t let me join in with all the boys for a bit of gambling. god knows there’s more fun to be had elsewhere in this place.”

[delysias]

“two dates trailing behind you like hound dogs, and you want to make me the chaperone,” she giggles, watching as zosia passes off a perfectly good coupe and wondering briefly if it’s an idiosyncrasy of the cosmopolitan. the room does not seem to be full of other native new yorkers exchanging full glasses for their twin, but she takes her next sip cautiously, trying to taste something she’s never learned. she leans her side into zosia’s to lower her voice, ribs slotting against ribs until it’s hard to believe adam ever tried to claim any of them. “how did you even come by them?” she whispers, laced through with the silvery refrain of a stifled giggle. “and do you have a favourite?”

[delysias]

if you run into a new yorker, vera vincelli had said at that cafe table, be nice to them for me, would you? It would be good for them to see the brighter parts of the city.

it hadn’t been easy, figuring out how to drag the best parts of new orleans to the vincelli estate without scuffing the floors. the mardi gras floats wouldn’t fit through the door, and the sprawling bald cypresses remained firmly and stubbornly rooted in the earth. god had taken six days to make the world, and while delysia had been left with the same, there was far more to do — girl as god is resounding detail oriented. and so it is: a gown in silk the colour of dawn over the bayou, a lip shade deep as the bordeaux wine you’ll find hidden in basements (once sipped plentifully on the patios of bourbon street), and in her hair a collection of the state flower — fragrant white magnolias skimmed from the dubois garden — so fresh you could swear you hear them yawning open as she passes by. a personal touch in the the fattest strand of saltwater pearls this side of the 20th century has ever seen, delysia’s pride and joy, roped around her neck and left hanging ornamentally behind her shoulders. to keep them from getting lonely, innumerous more decorate her collarbone and shoulders in the form of crushed powder, a dusting of muted sparkle she likes to think of as icing sugar swept from the tops of dubois spires: a faint nod to beignets you’ll find on every street corner.