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@juvenescxnt
If anyone is wondering where I've been, I have a number of new blogs that I've been giving my attention to recently.
I haven't had a chance to reread The Picture of Dorian Gray in a while, and so this muse just hasn't been that strong for me lately. I'm not closing this account, but I am announcing a semi-hiatus. I will be here from time to time, but most of my attention will be going to these three blogs.
viindicate
rejuvenative
xthegooddoctor
❝ That works. That more than works.❞
’Perhaps she ought not to stare so much.’
Accusations against her were already stacking up, and the last thing Misa needed was to have any suspicious behaviour added to the mound of evidence. Light had told her that it was in her best interest to stay shy of the spotlight when she could.
So she would do just that, then…
All she had to do was act casual, and be herself- the self which wasn’t aiding and abetting a recognized criminal, that is.
❝You flatter me too much, Dorian-san…❞ She said, feigning modesty and smiling at the ground below. ❝…Erm, yes, I do have a suffix, if you’re interested. “Amane”. Although it’s not necessary. Just Misa is good…But enough with silly formailities? A bit tiresome, don’t you agree?❞
"True enough," he agrees.
He decides not to correct her about the difference between a suffix and a surname. The mix up is surprisingly endearing. She comes across as naive, and he cannot help but to be reminded of another naive young woman -- an actress he had once intended to marry.
Nothing stirs in him when he looks at Misa, for he does not see in her the Genius that he saw in his fiance. Still, she serves as a nice reminder, he supposes, of the time he once loved someone more dearly than he loved himself, no matter how briefly. He decides he is not quite ready to end this conversation.
"And what do you prefer, then, over silly formalities?"
“Yeah— get high and say mean things to people to see just what they’ll do in response. It’s great.”
As if to make a point, House pulls the bottle from his coat pocket and pushes the lid off, popping a pill past his lips. This boy is interesting. House has seen him in the hospital, and while he’s never bothered to remember his name, he does remember that face. He remembers his face because it never changes— because for all the years House has worked here, that boy has looked e x a c t l y the same.
“—With a face like yours, it’s hard to imagine you get bored. You’re an adult, I’m sure, so I don’t have to pretend like I care if I’m being a bad influence by telling you you could get all the sex and drugs you wanted. So why the hell are you roaming around some boring hospital instead?”
"With a face like mine, I do get all the sex and drugs I want," Dorian answers easily, just as unashamed of his own habits and vices as House. "And I'm still bored."
He chooses not to bring up his appearance. He knows that House recognizes him -- House must recognize him, because he recognizes House, and between the two of them, Dorian's face is the one that draws the most attention. (Although he must admit that House is impressively rude -- something like he imagines Henry would be, were he a pessimist instead of a lover of aestheticism.) He knows that, being a doctor -- and more importantly, being a man of curiosity -- the older man must have questions. Dorian will open no avenues for him. If the doctor wishes to sate his curiosity, he will have to bring it up on his own.
"So I'm sitting in a hospital and hoping something exciting will happen."
Send my muse cheesy pick-up lines for their reaction
Send in a ❝❞ ...
…and my muse will tell you one of the following after a random number generation.
MIX OF FLUFF, ANGST, NSFW, LYRICS AS PHRASES, ETC.
1-139
The original post was missing so I just went and found a bunch of sentences and posted them under the cut because of reasons.
Read More
D R A F T S C O M P L E T E ! ! !
At long last. ; u ; I've been sick for the past couple of days, so my head has been too muddy to write anything decent, but I've finally gotten it done!
He’s a deer caught in headlights at the words, his eyes wide and eyebrows furrow slightly. Sweet, nervous Jehan, staring at the man before him, like Michelangelo’s best work, a cherub grown into nothing short of sculpted art. He glances away for a moment, as if any other person might turn up and help him, but they don’t, and he’s forced to look back at him again. Him very much the angel, very much the sunflower, and very much the subject of most of his work over the last week or two.
’I would want you to like it, but I would not like it to be bad, thought I can’t imagine you’d like it if it were bad. So, I suppose, in that case, I would rather you were indifferent, so that it, and I, can be neither good nor bad, and be a general curiosity.’ He sucks his cheeks in, biting at the insides of them. He doesn’t find himself terribly fascinating, though some would argue, and so he settles. And plus, who was he to tell Dorian what to think?
"Indifference," he repeats, considering the poet for a moment without expressing what thoughts he might have.
"Clever of you," he finally admits, dropping his hand from his cheek and sitting back. "And something I rather think I can manage, if that's really what you want. Indifference on both accounts. Though I'm curious to know whether or not you intend to go back and change my mind, or if that's enough to satisfy you."
After a pause, he grins lightly. "Don't worry though -- I won't think on it for too long. I did promise indifference, after all."
He didn’t believe her? Wasn’t she always like this though? A lady would never lie. Sunako’s eyes were wide with wonder as she watched Dorian. The gears in his head were turning; he didn’t believe her.
As their noses were about to touch, she stood still, peering straight into his face. What is he doing? "Dorian, is everything alright?" Out of instinct (or so it seemed) she went ahead and booped her nose against his. "Is this what you wanted?"
" . . . "
So she wasn't faking. Honestly, to hear her call him by his name would have been enough to convince him she was different, or at least trying to be. Feeling the tip of her nose brush against his own cemented it completely. She wasn't panicking; she wasn't bleeding.
She wasn't herself.
"And if I agree to make you pretty, what will you do then?" he asked. He did not bother to try to pet her with the promise that he thought she was already beautiful. It wouldn't be gentlemanly to lie.
There was a sniffle, followed by a hesitant nod. Why was everyone treating her differently? She prayed Dorian would at least offer some sort of comfort. Breaking a tea cup while doing her duties in the kitchen? Absurd!
He took the broken cup from her hands. Sunako gave him a grateful bow. The four others must never catch scent of what was happening between the two!
"Thank you… but— but what if they notice a cup is missing? Oh! I can’t have that happen!"
"Not to worry -- I'm very good at keeping secrets," he told her kindly.
His sincerity was false. The gentle expression he offered her in solace was merely a byproduct of the cursed portrait he'd kept carefully hidden away. The only thing he offered genuinely was his curiosity. He wanted to know what had changed Sunako so drastically. He didn't know what good it might do him. He would probably gain nothing.
Then again, he would once have thought that locking one's soul into a painting was impossible, and yet it had graced him with eternal youth and beauty. If this were some other impossible thing, wasn't it worth it to investigate? Didn't he owe it to himself at this point?
"Why don't we go shopping and see if we can replace the cup? Then no one will know that the first one is gone."
❝ — - I have a weird feeling that the word ‘idiot’ was on the tip of my tongue, but I suppose the two will go hand in hand. ❞
House shifted his weight, leaning more heavily on his cane and pausing momentarily to turn his gaze over the rather… immaculate youth. Rich, and in a clinic. Peculiar, but not unheard of. He shut the door to the room and leaned his cane against the wall, opting now to limp to the chair just before the patient.
❝ Rumors aren’t any fun unless they lead somewhere… Or unless you know the truth. I might be awful or brilliant. Are you sure you want me treating you? I wouldn’t. ❞
He's entertained, and he takes no pains to hide it. Why should he? House's efforts to put him off might have worked, were he a proper patient, but he isn't. He's not here to be cured of an illness. He's only come to present the clever doctor with an unsolvable mystery, and then he intends to sit back and watch it unfold.
"I'm not worried about you treating me; there's nothing to treat. I'm in perfect health -- always have been. I'll leave right now if you can open that file and tell me what about it doesn't make sense."
███▓▒░░ ❅ ————
{Elsa deliberates on her answer, wondering if the trade were so far as he made it out to be, but her curiosity would always win out in the end, so she gives him the shadow of a smile and a light nod, casting her eyes around them as if to make sure no one else was listening. “Sσυη∂ѕ ƒαιя тσ мє——α ѕєcяєт for a secret——you go first then.” She wonders what she will tell him, if she will tell him anything at all——}
He debates within himself whether or not he trusts her. It's an easy decision -- he doesn't. He has no reason to. If he would have trusted anyone with this, it would have been Basil, and when it had come to it, he hadn't trusted him either.
Dorian knows that to continue would be foolish. Perhaps he is tired of caution. Paranoia has plagued him for far too long, and his weary mind heaves against it now. So it is foolish! He has lived these past decades and done every foolish thing to ever suit his fancy, and why should he stop here, now?
"You'll have to take me at my word -- being where I am, I have no proof," he warns. "Do you believe a person can live without a soul?"
xntheshadows juvenescxnt
███ ⊰☼⊱ ; ❝ Would you, perhaps, like some tea? It hasn’t got arsenic in it; Hatter tells me people don’t like that much. ❞
" -- Yes, well, arsenic-free is typically how I enjoy my tea."
"And what exactly does it have in it?"
Blood rushed to her cheeks, which were now tinged with pink.
❝ Oh, no! Misa is just fine, Dorian-san! You may call me whatever, really.❞
It was hard not to be entranced by this man. The way he carried himself was hypnotic. Yet, she had to resist this magnetic pull. She was an impressionable young girl, but an impressionable young girl in love. Her heart was invested in another-the man who would be king.
‘No, Misa Amane will not be swept away in the undertow on this day’
It was in that moment that something truly alarming struck her. How had she missed this? Had she truly been so overwhelmed by his beauty and charisma that she missed the most important detail of them all?
’Oh, dumb Misa, dumb!’
She couldn’t see when this man would die.
"Well if I can call you anything I like, I think I'll just use your name. Misa is a nice name -- it suits you, I think," he told her. "A pretty name for a pretty girl."
He wore no hint of apology for his comment, forward though it may have been. Dorian was not a modest man by any means, and he had learned that beauty is often grounds for absolution. He did not worry that he might have offended her. Instead he continued on, entirely unaware of the observation this girl had just made.
"And you haven't got to bother with a suffix, unless you're simple more comfortable that way. We haven't got them in England."
The severity of the juxtaposition was painfully apparent even to the Being’s perception, dulled though his faculties were by the oppressive haze of misery. He couldn’t bring himself to gaze upon the boy for more than a moment at a time, so great and terrible was the beauty; comparing the features to his own odious countenance, and sickening at the comparison, the Being was forced to swallow down the bitter sting of bile. How hideous he was! how horribly, unbearably hideous!
”I am—”
The sentence died on his lips, unfinished. What was he? A fiend; a wretch; an abortion; an abomination; a monster; a corpse beast. None of these appellations seemed able to shove their way past his lips to serve as an identifier; all of them appeared, to the Being’s frantic mind, far too mild. There was no word in the French or English languages to describe the horror that he was.
“—I am a creature without name.”
And that would have to suffice, for he could offer no more. Sitting back on his heels and wrapping shriveled arms loosely around his waist, the Being drew a deep, shuddering breath into his lungs and held it there for several long moments. This was more than he could bear; were he not convinced that the boy would pursue and attack him, he would flee now without another word.
In truth, this reply left Dorian painfully dissatisfied. A frown thinned his lips and puckered his brow, and even this could not sour his beauty. There were times that, for this, he considered a soul a small price to pay, although there were other times -- these not so frequent -- when he had worried for himself, and he had wondered how different his life would be now.
Would he have married Sibyl Vane? Would he have spared Basil Hallward his life?
These were not thoughts he liked to let linger, and as he looked over this beast who spoke like a man, he craved answers more strongly than ever. Dorian was a man consumed with self-admiration, and it had driven him to cruelty, and it had led him to what he believed to be misery.
Would his life have been so different if he had instead been cursed with a hideous visage and been instead consumed with self-loathing? Who better to ask than this nameless creature? Dorian was certain he must have hated himself -- no one who looked this way could feel otherwise, he was sure.
"Why are you in the woods?" he asked suddenly.
"If you were in a town, I'd have believed you to be a very good-hearted man." Looking as he did, he would have to be. "Out here, I have to think there is a reason. Either you are a kind man who has been horribly misunderstood, or you are simply horrible. I can't imagine anyone wants to be completely alone."
Dr. Jekyll’s evening at the crush passed pleasantly enough. The wine was quite to his taste, as was the company with which he was surrounded; and where the wine and the company are good, Dr. Jekyll may always be found in high spirits. He drifted aimlessly all night between the chattering groups of men and women, delivering a smile here and a word or two there, drinking greedily from the ready goblet of society.
When his social thirst was finally satisfied to his liking, the doctor said his cordial goodbyes, shook the hands of those who stopped him as he passed, and hastened to don his hat and cloak before departing out into the night. Briefly, as he strode to a hansom, he dwelt on the notion of shedding his customary self and seeking the guise of Hyde for the remainder of the night; but, becoming quickly aware of his weariness, he dismissed the thought from his mind. There would be ample time enough for him to don his second self in the next few weeks, in any case.
On the appointed day set by Mr. Gray, Dr. Jekyll was to be found at the music hall several minutes before the agreed time, humming absently to himself and casting a wandering gaze about in search of his acquaintance. It did not take long for his eyes to settle upon the familiar young face; with a brightening countenance, the doctor approached Mr. Gray and greeted him warmly.
“My dear Mr. Gray, how very good of you to invite me! You’ve been well, I hope, since our last meeting?”
"I think you'll find I'm always well, doctor, but I do appreciate the sentiment," Dorian answered, just as cocky as he was playful. He didn't see fit to bother with playing at humility. Any great number of mysteries might have surrounded the young man, but his pride was no secret to anyone. He'd always had some degree of vanity, even when his innocence had been more than just perception.
On any other occasion, he might have lingered at the doctor's side for a time, making polite conversation and being just as positively charming as he pleased. Tonight, however, there was a sort of electric excitement within him which lit his young face and leant energy to his steps. He felt every bit as boyish as his appearance might suggest. Without bothering with any further chat, he turned from Jekyll and seated himself at the piano, stroking the keys and tapping out a small, simplistic melody to warm up.
It had been such a long time since he had played for anyone new!
Remembering not to get ahead of himself, he looked down to his singular audience. His fingers continued to skip from key to key with an careless familiarity and a thinly suppressed sense of impatience.
"Is there anything in particular you'd like to hear, Dr. Jekyll?" he asked, managing to remember his manners despite his own eager fingers.
”You’re a character in a book. Or at least, you look like him. What’s your name?” She asked slowly.
" ... I take it you're aware that fictional characters are, in fact, fictional, miss?"
He doesn't bother to wait for an answer. He only sighs and humors her, pushing his hands into his pockets before answering, "Dorian. Dorian Gray."
ɴ ɪ ᴄ ᴏ ᴛ ɪ ɴ ᴇ || ʀᴇɪɴᴄᴀʀɴᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ᴀᴜ
" -- What's the worst nightmare you've ever had?"
The question is sudden, breaking the silence the way a rock disturbs still water, his voice a smattering of sound in the quiet room. He's only been silent because Basil has been silent, just as he always is when he's painting. Normally Dorian leaves it be -- he doesn't like it, but there is typically nothing for it. Any conversation he starts will fall flat as the artist sinks into his work. He knows this by now.
Secretly, this is the very reason Dorian has chosen this exact moment to ask his question. Part of him doesn't want an answer. He doesn't want to share what's been weighing on both his mind and his stomach.
Just yesterday, Dorian had agreed to allow Basil to paint a portrait of him. He has no interest in owning a painting of himself, but it had seemed important to his friend at the time, and so he had allowed it. Already he regrets it. Dorian has yet to even sit for him, but he no longer wants to. Just after making the agreement, he'd dreamt horribly. In his dream, he'd seen the finished picture, elegant, beautiful, everything he might have wanted it to be, and then he'd watched it rot before him -- not the canvas, not the paint. Those had stayed in perfect condition. No, he had watched his own visage sour and sicken.
He feels ill just thinking about it.
