A DISCERNING EYE.

dissection, + distraction, + diagnosis, + distinction

[diagnosin]

                       𝐊𝐎𝐖𝐀𝐋𝐒𝐊𝐀.          𝐋𝐔𝐗𝐎𝐕𝐀.          𝐓𝐀𝐎.          𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐃𝐀𝐘.

                                                                     𝒃𝒚 𝒊𝒗𝒚

ｉ．   ＴＨＥ ＭＯＤＥＲＮ  ＢＬＡＣＫＳＭＩＴＨ． olga kowalska,  aged thirty - three,  heiress and chief operations officer of the massive and long - established mechanical engineering conglomerate:  BLACKIRON INDUSTRIES.  as an innovative leader and a brilliant inventor,  olga is,  in every way which matters,  the head of a old empire.    they tell her she is not as cruel as she looks,  and for this, she is glad.                                                           face - claim:   Anja Rubik;  genre:   drama and crime.

ｉｉ．    ＴＨＥ ＤＲＡＣＯＮＩＡＮ   ＷＯＭＡＮ．        elsa luxova,  the second eldest in a family of four girls,  neurologist and professor in the faculty of medicine in a college on the east coast of america.    known as a strict,  discerning,  and highly principled woman,  elsa is both feared and respected by patients,  students,  and superiors alike.  I do not believe in Fate for Fate obviously does not believe in me.                                                            face - claim:  Evelyne Brochu;  genre:  realism drama.

ｉｉｉ．   ＴＨＥ ＬＡＲＣＥＮＹ ＭＡＥＳＴＲＯ． jade tao,  presumed dead years ago at the age of twenty - nine,  master thief and fledgling criminal mastermind based in an old city.  especially adept at escape artistry, orchestrating chaos, and improvising the impossible, jade is a scholar by nature and thievery is her preferred medium of creation.  she takes those thin lines between right and wrong,  kind and cruel,  into her hands like string.                                                            face - claim:   Sui He;  genre:  crime and mystery.

ｉｖ．   ＴＨＥ ＣＵＲＩＯＳＩＴＹ  ＣＡＳＥ．                  ava j. monday,  aging as expected, scientist whose eccentric research interests and immoral methods have led to a revoked Phd and an academic red notice.            hell - bent on discovering the biological mechanism behind immortality,     ava is adamant about the advances her studies can make in radical medical treatment, physiology, and conservation.        fuck off, academia!   I’m doing this my way.                            face - claim:  Aubrey Plaza;  genre:  science - fiction and mystery.

[hellwizards]

c'est quand l'enterrement? il ya trois mois.

[diagnosin]

ACATAELEPSIE.

solid pressure weighed down upon them like a cloak,  taut with tension and nerves.      there was hardly any sound at all around them  [ or maybe he was simply impervious to everything that was not viviane,  jade,  or the guards above ].      he heard not the gust of wind or the hiss of the sea that surrounded the island.      instead,  his ears focused on the distinct clank of the harness unhooking from the rope,  the subtle growl of a discontented cat,  and on the gasp that his songbird inhaled sharply upon seeing her extractor essentially vaulting herself out the tower window.      matteo tore his gaze away in favor of draping his coat around viviane’s shoulders,  then hastily knelt down to tighten the knots on the woman’s shoes.      “ you must keep your head down,  keep your footing,  and make sure you follow close behind us,  passerotta.      we only have a minute to get to cover before they realize you’re no longer in your room. ”

dazed,  viviane nodded as matteo rose to his feet and squeezed her shoulders as if he was trying to impart some of his strength into her body and she did feel a little calmer.      WHAT HAPPENS AFTER WE FIND COVER?      she swallowed hard and smiled nervously at her extractor,  who despite having nearly skinned her hands raw,  was as confident as ever.      for a brief moment she wondered how such a partnership had developed between these two rivals,  but she was jarred from her thoughts by the distinct tug on her arm.      “ where are we running to? ”   was all she could manage before dashing towards the thicket of trees.      a spare glance over her shoulders and she could see the lights coming on in her room  –  a blurry shadow standing at her bedroom door as if stunned – before it called more to appear at its side and the whole estate lit up like a diamond in the dead of night.

ᴶᴬᴰᴱ.          her smiling eyes did not need to stare as he shot off into the heart of the darkness with his prize,  for she could feel how the air had changed around and how in that moment,        HE LOOKED MORE LIKE A THIEF THAN HE MIGHT CARE TO EVER REALIZE.      𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐯𝐮𝐥𝐠𝐚𝐫!   𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐮𝐧𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝.    in a motion that betrayed a long - taught elegance,  she turned back towards the wall, whirling the rope to send a ripple up along its length  and neatly unhook the grappling hook from where it still faithfully clung to the window - frame.   the hook came loose and began its rapid descent just as the guard entered the room inside,  the moonlight glinting off the metal like a farewell wink.  by the time the guard made it to the window and looked down,  jade was nothing more than a lithe shadow,  dashing off into that abyss,  with that the rope winding itself around and around her torso as if by the work of magic.

to the pages that know me best,  whose flesh I’ve marked over and over with my doubts and fears,  who I have driven my pen into more times that I’ve bloodied blades,  it is a pleasantly cool night on a date in the middle of spring.     as voices sounded in my ear,  I think to myself,  why,  if I were ever to begin hallucinating,  I don’t think I would realize it for the longest time!                            matteo spoke first,  his voice steady,  but breathless,  and she could hear the essence of it,  trailing after him like rose petals strewn as he ran ahead of her.   then,  there was sinclair’s response,  her voice paradoxically sharp yet dull to jade’s ear,  much like a blade,  brand - new,  but left waiting in its sheath then allowed to sing in a skilled hand.  VOICES ALSO SOUNDED OUTSIDE OF HER EAR.   these were coarse and pitched with an embarrassing panic.    jade tao bared her teeth at the sound of these men scrambling to retrieve what they hoped was still at the tips of their fingers,  but what she knew to be as good as gone.

running alone,  she easily caught up with giordano and the desmarais girl,  bringing her smile along with her as more of those oddly pitched shouts sounded from ahead of them on the other side of this darkness.      DID THEY DARE ENTER?       there was no telling what awaited them inside this small sliver of wood, what awful tricks that these monsters who deigned to steal the princess had prepared for them.  𝙲𝙾𝚅𝙴𝚁 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝚃𝚁𝙴𝙴𝙻𝙸𝙽𝙴!  𝚃𝙷𝙴𝚈 𝙷𝙰𝚅𝙴 𝚃𝙾 𝙶𝙴𝚃 𝙾𝚄𝚃 𝙰𝚃 𝚂𝙾𝙼𝙴 𝙿𝙾𝙸𝙽𝚃,  barked one guard and he wasn’t wrong.   but that didn’t mean he was right.    true,  they could not stay inside the safety of darkness’ cloak forever.   after all,  they were not monsters and like everyone else,  they needed to get home.    as they neared the far edge of the woods,  jade slowed and crouched down,  her back against the trunk of a young birch.

looking at matteo,  her mouth seemed to rest somewhere between a smile and breathless contentment.  then she met viviane’s eyes,  as wide and beautiful as this whole world,  and tapped her ear twice before pointing to the right where the ocean moaned quietly and a boat motor could be heard buzzing,  closing the distance.

[diagnosin]

𝐋𝐈𝐀𝐌.          there must have been a moment where we could’ve say “no.”          the neurons of the mind were funny creatures for even at a time like this,  their own demise hardly a thing of a past,  they languidly twisted themselves into the lines of a play.       as if this was some play,  some fantasy.          liam dragged in breath after breath,  his chest heaving and his light linen shirt soaked through with sweat,  yet he could not taste any of the air.          none of it did any good to ameliorate the tireless fire that raged along the sinuous lines of his muscles and the all too smooth surfaces of his organs,  he was sure.          in a streak of admittedly dramatic - feeling,  liam wanted to shout,  scream,  and curse,  if only his lungs would permit such forceful action.          he wanted to rant endlessly about the awfulness of this life,  but his body would not allow it.          where his mind had no inclination towards self - preservation,  it seemed,  at the very least,  his body did mean to see this through with his survival.          SO BE IT.

AND SO WE RUN.          he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment,  sweat and dirt and grim gathered painfully there in the corners and folds of his skin.          he ran,  hating every moment of it,  kicking up the dirt as though he hated the earth.             he ran until it seemed that his breath was only ever leaving him,  emptying out,  leaving nothing but anger inside to polish him into automatism.   LEFT,  I’M GOING LEFT.  and where you go,  I will follow without a second thought.          he turned in tandem with viviane and headed for the sunlight,  the open air that would serve well as a stage for their final moments if luck were to so cruelly leave now.

he did not notice the pain that was slowly working up his leg,  free to bite and settled inside his the bone without eve so much as a wince from the man.          there it will fester and make itself at home,  there it will wait comfortably for its turn to cause grievances.          AND SO HE RAN,  ran as hard as he could,  sure death on his heels and at the back of his mind,  pressed to the skull like the barrel of a gun.    he ran and did not notice just how slow he’d been moving until he realize that viviane was metres ahead,  swallowed by the sunlight and then,  in a blink,  gone.     for a moment,  he thought he’d begun to roar with his frustration,  but that sound was not him.    viviane was gone and in her place was full - bodied commotion of high - speed traffic.      NO.    the word resounded in his mind like a church bell.          

rising on the balls of his feet and feeling his muscles bunch,  liam pushed himself to close the distance between him and viviane.     his feet were scraped raw as soon as he hit the asphalt at a hurtling speed,  but he did not stop.    where you go,  I’ll follow without a second thought,  not to the place,  not to the time,  not to the truly horrendous odds standing in the sliver of space between us and the polished front of that car.      liam shot forward and tackled viviane towards the centre of the road,  the both of them lifting off the ground with the force of his shove,  and landed in the next lane where the next car mercifully had enough time to screech to a swerving halt,  its driver screaming loud enough to be heard even over the rush of blood in his ears.                  /          @acataelepsie     ❤

[diagnosin]

𝙾𝙻𝙶𝙰.            we have never been beggars.     it is simply not in our nature and neither is it in our capabilities.       my mouth does not know how to form these desperate shapes,  my tongue at an even worse loss to carve words that did not sound like an order,   ᴀɴ ᴀʙꜱᴏʟᴜᴛᴇ ꜰᴀᴄᴛ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛᴀɴɢɪʙʟᴇ ᴜɴɪᴠᴇʀꜱᴇ.       IT IS FASCINATING,  really,  the way my throat fills with howls to match those of the waves,  invisible in the abyssal nothing.     no gentle sound could survive in that ragged column of flesh and blood upon which sat my head,  but how could I bear to scream at her any longer?

élisabeth is nothing more than a glimmer of false light in the pitch darkness,  some ways ahead of me,  moving sporadically like a dust mote in the wind.       every now and then I catch the glint of a jewel or a speck of glitter on her skin;     EVEN IN THIS VACUUM,  SHE SHINES.      that is who she is,  but what of myself?       𝐅𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑, 𝐖𝐇𝐎 𝐀𝐌 𝐈?       I am someone else’s pride,  a mind and a set of machinations.      I am a firm handshake and a cold visage.       𝐌𝐘 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋,  𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐔𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄.         I look ahead and only ahead.    they certainly say that hindsight is twenty - twenty,  but what good is hindsight to someone whose eyes would sooner roll back in unconsciousness than do something as useless as search the past.     I look ahead and only ahead while my regrets sleep inside me like hidden time bombs,  waiting,  I’m sure.

the world darkens with each passing second and I can feel myself sinking into the sand beneath my heels.       to the left is the ocean,  unseen yet powerful all the same,  and to the right is the bustling traffic of an eternal night,  cars and pedestrians remaining in the light.    I am as still as a dense shadow,  unchanging even as whatever scant light that does manage to pierce our arena shines off the dull flaxen shine of my hair.      only my eyes move and they do so with precision,  just as always,  to track élisabeth as she paces and stalks like a spectre stuck in a loop.      LUCIE,  MY LOVE,  MY LIGHT,  CAN YOU ESCAPE THE MEMORY?     think of something else,  anything else,  besides the sight of me as the devil,  offering my hand as though it were a guillotine descending.       ᴀɴᴅ ɪꜱ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴀɴ ᴏʀᴅᴇʀ,  ᴍᴀ'ᴀᴍ?       I grit my teeth and draw a breath in between the bone,  seething even against my own will.       

“   THE TIDE WILL COME IN SOON,   ”    I announce,  speaking in absolutes once more,  my voice disappointingly dead - like yet still so commanding;   I suppose that if I could not look behind me,  then history would have to speak through me itself.  “  COME ON,  LUCIE,  I CAN SEE THAT YOU WANT TO YELL AT ME,  SO COME HERE AND YELL.   ”        /       @ouorboros   ❤

[idiocie]

“     the fact is,  the Time Traveller was one of those men who are too clever to be believed:     you never felt that you saw all round him;     you always suspected some subtle reserve,  some ingenuity in ambush,  behind his lucid frankness.          [   …   ]          but the Time Traveller has more than a touch of whim among his elements,   and we distrusted him.     ”

from  the  time  machine  by  h. g.  wells

[hellwatermelon]

[absencesrepetees]

saint laurent (bertrand bonello, 2014)

[diagnosin]

𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐄𝐋𝐒𝐀,   what on earth do you think you are doing?        you’ve come before the gilded gates of a stranger’s home,  all in the hopes of viewing a treasure now kept within it.        A TREASURE,  I’LL REMIND YOU,  THAT NEVER BELONGED TO YOU.  what right do you have to love it so?          oh,  and here comes a most draconian and punishing wind,  it tears at your fair and delicate skin,  it curls itself into your hair like a vicious hand and tugs cruelly.          you are a woman,  standing alone on this ridiculous road,  in this ridiculous wind that promises to bring only a cold lifelessness to your bones.       GO HOME,  DEAREST ELSA,  IS THIS REALLY WORTH THE HUMILIATION,  THE DESPAIR?       you already know how this will go and to insist regardless is a foolish act.         dearest elsa,  𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐀 𝐅𝐎𝐎𝐋?

the reply:     PERHAPS.     yet,  what is so wrong with being a fool?      this was for love and nothing could bring greater clarity to the woman standing alone,  waiting patiently in the wind for someone to proceed down the pathway.     like a shy child,  the sun had hidden itself behind the dense grey fabric of a wintery sky,  leaving elsa standing in the sharp relief of the cold,  but this cold,   SHE READILY WELCOMED.      in fact,  as she stood,  she breathed the biting air in deeply,  taking the frost into her lungs,  not allowing either her mind or senses to dull even for a moment.        𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐁𝐄𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐘 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐃𝐈𝐃 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐖𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐒𝐅𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐀𝐍 𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍.        of course not,  for she knew too well what sort of atrocities went on behind the most beautiful,  ornate doors.       she has seen it all before:   silks and furs,   pearls and diamonds,  stained and flecked with blood.

yet,  it was not something as useless as sympathy that she felt towards these people.    simply,  an awareness that there was no life that was exempt for potential pathos.      and truly,  what did she know about these people specifically?       an irresponsible young man,  a solemn young woman,  a missing matriarch,  and a faceless,  nameless father.        elsa did not wish to jump to any conclusion and indeed,  her mind was plenty disciplined enough to not do so,  but her heart was not so steeled against dangers.    DANGERS LIKE HOPE.   perhaps it was the impending holidays that made her feel so alighted with wonder and dreams,  with hopes for the best and the near - perfect.    but as it goes,  the greater the wish,  the greater the fall.       elsa drew in another deep breath of winter air.

she stood so still that if one were to look at her,  what with the endless grey skies behind her,  and the consistent wind keeping her long hair in a fixed,  windblown fashion,  you might think you were gazing at a painting.          𝐀 𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍 𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐈𝐍 𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑.          why is she alone and for who does she wait for with an air that was both maturely patient and sharply impatient?  with those eyes that were almost like a child’s in their largeness and absolutely like a child’s in their watchfulness,   what does she see that we cannot?     enter:   𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐘 𝐎𝐅 𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅.          /          @siybl      ❤          /         “     Miss Tatischeva,   hello.     ”

[gaysie]

scalped by this quote from one of my class readings

[modedamour]

Deveaux