— run on gasoline.

magdalena ❝  lena ❞  rossi. thirty. professional photographer.

[youthlessdrugs]

[lucky-nagisa-deactivated2019011]

[ilhadevibs]

[lenarcssi-blog]

BRILLIANT SOLITARY STARS — @rchans

she lies sprawled on rohan’s couch, legs swung over the arm of it, head propped up with pillows. in her hands, and scattered across the floor by her feet, are dozens of developed photographs; she flicks through them with slender fingers, elegantly setting a few aside while carelessly discarding others. between her teeth is a lit cigarette, the smoke rising in thin tendrils before her. slowly, she stretches, turning around so that she can cast a glance back at the man whose apartment she currently lazes in.

“rohan?” she calls, plucking two photograph sheets out from her pile. she sets the rest aside and flips onto her stomach, bringing the cigarette away from her lips as she asks, “first, second or neither?” in her loose grip, she holds two black and white pictures: one a view of skyscrapers, shot straight upward, the other of a bird sleeping in the bushes, taken at ground level. she’s working on a portfolio; a common enough activity for her to be doing in his company.

she’s grown used to this, over time. she’s grown used to late afternoons spent with rohan, going through her pieces while he works on his own. it’s one of the better parts of her week, she thinks — the few hours set aside to indulge in art and idle conversation.

[vanessacarlysle]

Asshole!

[lenarcssi-blog]

kamilnvk:

He saw her come, and there was a silence where his eyes were yearning; he glanced away, watching only her reflection in the glass of the door. He had to elude her gaze, pray for the cold and the distance to flood between them. Yet, when she spoke, he couldn’t help but watch her lips - noticed how the words fell, how they used to fall and feed him a world where he was not drowned in anxiety and worry, where he was not ashamed for wanting to hold her.

He stared at those lips, for a moment, but he buried that wanting. (His own lips were sewn shut, but he craved a language where he could say the words he wasn’t saying.)

He breathed in deep, head ducking low in embarrassment. “You’ll always be Her Majesty, Magdalena; you know that,” he answered, small smile plucking at his lips. Already, he had started turning toward the door and began heading out. He tried not to recall how the name had come about - and how she used to laugh each time he used it.

The night sky was full with scattered stars, and he let them distract him, for a moment. Then, he said, “Do you… have a route you want to go? Or do you just want to walk?” Like we used to, he didn’t add.

she doesn’t understand this craving. though lena has always been one to overindulge, she’s always seen herself to be capable of control. she doesn’t comprehend how she could want something she shouldn’t want, how she would want something she’d chosen to leave behind. her mind is alive with worry, but all she shows kamil is a casual smile and a flick of her wrist as she follows him out the building.

“whatever you say, peasant,” she jokes, rolling her eyes. she tries to ignore the way her heart protests.

the night is dark, and it’ll be a challenge to find something worthy of photographing well, but it’s one of the things she likes best about these walks. (these walks, she says in her head, as though she and kamil have always done this, as if they’d never stopped. she doesn’t bother to correct herself.) “we can just walk,” she tells him, easily, lazily turning and choosing the direction once both her feet land steadily against the ground.

she heads north, casting a careless glance back, expecting him to follow. it’s always been a flaw of hers, truth be told; she doesn’t command respect nor attention, yet she seems to expect it all the same. she lets herself stride halfway across the street before the next words fall from her lips, hesitant and forceful all in one as she cranes her neck to face him, “so — what have you been up to these days, kam?”

[lenarcssi-blog]

jacwilkins:

In the sadness of Jac’s heart, in the deepness and in the ugliness of it, she knew that the woman on the other end of the line was not named Anna. Such was a random name, and she really only said it because she did not want to drop the call. Perhaps, she thought, that if she prolonged this conversation, she might gain more courage and thus speak out about how Leo was her boyfriend and not this woman’s whatever he was to her. She thought that if she could say that, if she could stand her ground, then maybe the conversation would not be a waste. She thought that if she could somehow, somehow, even just make a little note of how she was the girlfriend, then she could somehow consider herself the winner.

But there were too much tears on Jac’s end to think coherently. There were too much tears on her end to even be able to process the words that she needed to hear. All her brain could muster was the thought that Leo was cheating on her, which thus led to more tears, which of course traveled back up into that train of thought again like a vicious cycle. As the woman on the phone spoke, Jac sniffled and wiped her nose with her free hand. She wiped her hand on the hems of her shirt, much like a child. She listened. Jac was good at listening, and she was good at taking notes.

The note that she understood from the woman’s voice now was the fact that she did not want to speak to Jac. To a certain extent, Jac understood; she would not want to talk to a crying woman on the phone either. However, the irrationality in Jac’s mind made her angry, for she thought that the woman should instead be projecting fear at the thought that she’d been caught red-handed with somebody else’s boyfriend. This was a fleeting thought, though; the woman said her name, and Jac stopped crying for about two seconds before she began sobbing again.

Lena. The woman’s name was Lena.

Jac took to sitting on the couch at the information given her. Still, even with this new detail, she could not play the role of the angry, vengeful girlfriend; she could only be the kind who cried on the phone when talking to strangers. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Lena,” she said, managing to say the name without spite. “Thank you for talking to me. I do have the wrong number, though. Sorry.”

confused isn’t quite the right word to describe it. it isn’t the right word to describe the strange sensation that furrows her brows when her name silences the caller on the end. the voice from her phone is quiet, for a moment, though it isn’t long before the sounds of incoherent sobbing return. lena has to stop herself from heaving a sigh; she does, however, roll her eyes. somewhere in the back of her head, the transaction strikes her as odd — but she can only deduce that her name, in what she thought might be unexpected wrongness, was what further upset the woman on the line.

(for how could she, even with her shrewdness, pick up on the real reason for this call?)

with a quiet puff of her cigarette, lena shrugs at the following words — even though the other obviously would not see the gesture. “s’alright, it happens,” she says bluntly, tongue pressing loosely against the side of her cheek, her tone not quite matching the words. nothing about lena’s lethargic disdain implies alright, and she makes little move to conceal that. she hums, expecting, agreeing with the statement. just a wrong number, that’s all.

had there been more understanding of the situation, there is so much, in this moment, that could be said. had lena known what had spawned this call, she would find so many things to talk about. so many things that the two of them could argue on, or clear up. so many potential mistakes to make, so many potential mistakes to fix. had she really thought about it, lena might’ve asked, prodded, interrogated. but there, alone on her balcony, half-dazed and certainly not in the mood for a game of twenty questions, she doesn’t ask anything of the sort at all.

all she does, in the end, is roll back her shoulders, interest lost — her finger already sliding to the ‘end call’ button before the last words leave her mouth. “no worries, sniffy. see ya.” 

and that would be that.

[lenarcssi-blog]

devsampat:

“the fact that you used swell to describe yourself is all the answer i need.” he shook his head. “finally - someone recognises my genius.” dev shook his head, “but nope, according to certain others i am still a danger to when it comes to picking up women. i should find better friends.”

lena pretends to scoff, mock offended, as though saying what’s wrong with the word swell? her expression breaks soon enough, however, flitting back to a lopsided grin at dev’s next words. “danger? like, ‘he’ll pick up too many women, so i have to make sure he doesn’t do it or i won’t have a show’ danger? or, ‘if he approaches any single one of them they’re probably all going to leave’ danger?” lena teases, raising a brow. “but you’ll keep me, right? you won’t get much better than that.”

[lenarcssi-blog]

kamilnvk:

Even as she approached, his hands were clasped around his video camera, resting safely behind his back. He reminded himself of their distance, of all the ways they only led to ruin, of all the ways they couldn’t and shouldn’t be. Back in his error, in his desire for her, her hands had always provoked him with the promise of warmth. She had gentle hands and delicate fingers. When she traced his shoulders, when she pushed back her hair. Where he should see darkness, he only saw light.

Tonight, he resolved not to touch her.

When he first saw her again, those few days ago, he couldn’t believe how long they’d been living so close - he supposed it was the fault of their schedules. Months of residing in the same apartment building, and yet he’d never once seen her, never once known she was here. He couldn’t understand the sight of her, that evening, and could only stumble through their reunion with awkward stutters and old memories threatening to bubble to the surface.

He didn’t know what possessed him to say yes when she asked him out, this morning. He couldn’t fathom it, and yet he’d accepted all the same. Now, he must follow through.

“Hey, Maj,” he called to her as she came within earshot, the use of the old nickname a simple slip, his hands still looped together tightly behind him.

in her younger years, in the times of university and forgotten ambition, lena had wanted to break hearts. she had wanted to be beautiful, bitter; hollow. she wanted to be devastating. but her time in higher education had left her shattered and shamefaced: she wasn’t devastating — she was a disaster, and soon she sheds all that in favour of reform.

lena has changed herself, since then, but when she sees kamil in the hallway that day, her bones weigh heavy with the life she thought she’d left behind. all at once, there is a buzzing beneath her skin; her tongue tastes like gin and soil, and she thinks about his presence in her apartment building — their apartment building (?) — for days before she gathers the courage to ask to meet up.

she cannot do this, she thinks. she cannot live quietly under this roof knowing she shares it with him.

and so she asks him, early this morning, to accompany her later in the evening for a night session — just like old times, she’d told him, her with her camera and him with his own. a late walk under the shared light of stars and electric bronze lamps, when the city sleeps and the shadows fall against the swollen streets.

she meets him at the entrance; lena approaches with a deep breath, wearing her customary, crooked grin. “kamil,” she greets, her camera in hand, though his choice of name has her amusedly raising a brow, “are you really still going to call me that?”

[lenarcssi-blog]

jcsephines:

her own grin pulled on her face, as lopsided as the other’s, and although she was generally above the idea of bribery - she didn’t exactly consider it that. more so, she would have given it to the woman even if she hadn’t mentioned it earlier - out of thanks. “you figure?” a quirk of her eyebrow. “never done this welcoming thing before have you?” yet her voice was entirely joyful and joking, the laugh pushing past her lips indicating the fact further. “room number 5,” josie eventually answered, following in the woman’s footsteps with her own box in hand, “and thank you.”

she shrugs, grinning. “that obvious, huh? nope, not really.” she doesn’t offer an explanation, though by her tone, it’s easy enough to deduce that she’s never done this before because she’s never quite cared to. in the time since she moved into this apartment building, and even in her residences before this one, lena was far too preoccupied with herself to really make an effort to welcome each new tenant. once the room number is given, she starts to head off in that direction, though her footsteps halt at the thanks. “uh, you’re welcome? i mean, you did offer me wine,” she says, “also, christ, having to move all these boxes yourself would not be fun.”

[lenarcssi-blog]

jacwilkins:

It made sense. It made sense. There was a sharp intake of breath — and then, clarity.

These were the facts, after all: Jac was no longer lovable; whatever she and Leo had was just an illusion that things were fine; and things would never be okay. No one told her these, no. No one had outright gone up to Jac and said that she could not be loved, but she knew by the way that Leo looked at her, and she knew by the way she looked at herself that this was true. Unlovable women did not have relationships that could stand; unlovable women did not have relationships with good men like Leo. Whatever they had, whatever they were holding on to, was a goddamned illusion of the past. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t unreal, either; but god knew that they were barely holding on. And god, that would never be okay! That would never be okay! How could it be? How could Jac live with this fact and say that it was all right?

It made sense, then, that Leo was cheating on her. It made sense; Jac didn’t fight this. If she were in the same position as he, with an unlovable woman and an illusion of the past, she would cheat on herself, too.

But despite the clarity, there was no peace. There was no peace, and so Jac took another intake of breath as the tears began to roll down her cheeks. Maybe there would never be peace. Maybe there would never be anything but clarity. But, just like how her relationship with Leo wasn’t all right, she’d learn to live with this. She’d lie beside him at night with her back turned to his direction, and she’d cry — but that would be fine because that was what she did. All the time.

She’d cry just like she cried now: with her eyes closed, and her ears searching for some consolation.

Now, there was nothing. (Later, there’d be nothing too.) There was only the woman’s voice, and a small sniff that came from Jac. “I— I— I’m sorry,” she said after a quick beat once the woman had spoken. “Who— Who am I speaking to? Is this not, um”—Jac said the first random name that came to her mind—“Anna? Is this not Anna?”

She knew her answer.

lena, truth be told, is not a person of great patience. as perceptive as she may be, as astute and clever and sharp when the times call for it, she doesn’t care much for any real sort of consideration. she doesn’t care for thinking things through, for seeing things from other people’s perspectives. from her point of view, a stranger has just called her out of the blue — possibly crying on the other end — when all she wants is to take time to herself and breathe.

it does not test her patience well.

so when the voice asks, quite hesitantly, if this is anna on the receiving end of the line, lena sighs — an audible, low thing, sounding almost gravelly from the ash in her throat and in her lungs. almost a scoff, but not quite so cold. not yet. “no, this is not anna, and neither does this even know an anna, so. very clearly a wrong number.”

she wants to hang up now, she knows. part of her itches and twitches to slip the phone from her ear and press her thumb against the red circle — to cut the call with the ease of a single gesture. it’s what she wants, and perhaps it’s the smarter thing to do (the thing she should do, too), but lena’s had experience with accidental wrong numbers — more relevant to this conversation than she knows — and she supposes she should at least give the girl on the other end a nudge.

in the end, she decides to add, “‘this’ is actually lena, so if you were trying to reach anna, i suggest you try another number, sweetheart. maybe anna can help with whatever it is you’re going through, with the sniffling and all, hey?” she lets her name slip without much thought — a piece of information that, perhaps, she should have kept more closely.

[lenarcssi-blog]

edwardsleo:

“i hate to drop such a bombshell on you, but yeah - yeah i do. you’re queen bitch number 3, if we’re being technical.” leo grinned, even despite the fact she couldn’t see it. settling into his deemed half of the couch, leo wonders, idly, why in the heck he keeps doing this, before dismissing the thought entirely. there wasn’t a point, or a need or anything of the sort. thinking of it was just pulling at a thread that wasn’t ready to be unravelled yet. “does that mean i should have waited to pick up the phone?” he teased. “waited for five rings, instead of three, to show i really didn’t care about you either?” he snorted, before pausing for the merest of moments. “so what’s up?”

“ouch. clearly, i need to step up my game,” lena scoffs, chuckling. at this time, she doesn’t quite know what effect their calls are having; only that it’s nice for her to have someone she can talk to, someone whose name and face she doesn’t know and doesn’t have to worry about. it’s an easy confidentiality, she thinks. “five rings? wow, you really don’t care.” she laughs, a low, amused sound, before finally settling down into the purpose of her call. “other than my consistent need to bother you, daisy? work is being whine-worthy, and i need someone to rant at without actually ranting about it. that... made more sense before i said it out loud.” there’s a rustling sound as she shakes her head. “distract me? tell me about something fun?”

[lenarcssi-blog]

devsampat:

dev paused, frowning. “i worry about you sometimes lena. i genuinely do.” shaking his head, he fights a grin playing across his lips. “the candy isle is better, actually. much easier to strike a conversation up over whether allens is a better lolly maker than say, the national confectionary company, than it is over melons. everyone likes red frogs anyway.“

“worry about me? oh, don’t need to do that — i’m doin’ swell.” she peers at him with a silly smirk, catching onto the expression he tries to fight against. “the candy isle? that’s... huh, actually pretty clever. can even learn what type of chocolates they like even before the first date. you’re just a natural casanova, aren’t you?” she wiggles her brows, suppressing a playful snort.

[lenarcssi-blog]

jacwilkins:

Trust that Jac didn’t want to think it. Jac didn’t want to think what she thought. There was a part of Jac that believed she trusted Leo, a part of her that believed she could get past this without acting irrational, a part of her that believed Leo to be a good man despite his feelings. And good men didn’t cheat. Whether or not they loved their partners. Whether or not they were still in love with their partners. Whether or not they cared at all. Good men did not cheat. Good men did not cheat. Good men did not cheat.

But, the thought cross her mind the moment she’d heard the voice on the other end of the line. What else was there to think, after all? What else was there to think when your boyfriend received a call from a number saved under Queen Bitch with a goddamned crown emoji next to it? Not just once! But five times, for god’s sake! What was Jac supposed to do? What was Jac supposed to think?

So, the thought came. The thought said, Oh my god. He’s cheating on me.

Guilt came with the thought, of course. Guilt came as it was supposed to, and Jac’s inside turned and twisted with it. With the guilt came shame as an afterthought. Shame for the fact that she felt guilt at all. Shame for the fact that she had done what she’d done. Shame and guilt and the thought. The thought and guilt and shame. It was a party in her head, and she was the only one who didn’t enjoy it.

Jac was as Jac was though, and thus began the tears in her eyes. No matter who Leo was, no matter who Leo had become, Jac was as Jac was. And the truth of Jac was that she loved him. The truth of Jac was that she would continue loving him. Despite this. Despite her, the woman on the other end of the line. Despite herself. So, the tears began to fall — because this was the truth and this was Jac —, though Jac did manage a croaky greeting into the phone. She said nothing but, “He—Hello?”

her eyes trace the traffic flowing down the streets below as she awaits the response; her hand holds loosely onto the phone, not quite pressed to her ear — but when the voice finally speaks, and she catches the nuances of the sound, lena’s brows furrow. she slips herself off her perch on the railing, hopping back down onto her balcony and leaning against the barrier as she tries to discern what she believes she’d just heard.

what the fuck.

even on her worst of days, lena considers herself fairly perceptive: clever enough to determine a situation, sharp enough to find the best shot. it’s a trait she needs, truly, and one that serves her well, most times. it is not, however, always pleasant; for ignorance would be bliss — especially now, she thinks, when she hears the croak in the caller’s voice and wonders, appalled, if whoever it is on the other end of the line is crying — or, at the very least, extremely close to it.

“uh,” she manages, brow arching slowly over one eye, cigarette hovering inches from her mouth. the lit end burns, but she doesn’t take a huff. “okay? hi.” her mind struggles for explanations; theories, conclusions. why on earth was there someone calling her, and why did they sound minutes away from a potential breakdown? the first and most obvious reason comes to her within seconds.

“yeah, hey, sorry lady, but i think you’ve got the wrong number?” her words are slow, slightly irritated in her uncertainty, and she staves off her confusion with a deep inhale of the cigarette between her fingers. had she understood, in truth, the situation that had led to this call, perhaps she would react differently — perhaps she would have added more tact, or perhaps she would forsake it entirely. but her mind can’t piece together the broken puzzle on the other end, and there is a silence that stretches across all the words she doesn’t have.

[lenarcssi-blog]

jacwilkins:

ON THE OTHER END OF THE LINE / JAC & LENA — @lenarcssi

There was a certain distance between Jac and Leo these days that went beyond physical. It was distance that did not allow them to be in the same room, yes, but also distance that did not let them feel each other’s heart. It was thick distance, and Jac should have gotten used to it; but, she woke up every single day wishing it would go away. Sometimes, she’d almost do something to try and break it. Sometimes, she’d almost reach out, almost go closer, almost break the wall. Almost was the keyword, though; she never did any such thing in the end.

Yet, here she was now, with a number in her phone that she had taken from Leo’s.

A part of her knew: this wasn’t supposed to be. She wasn’t supposed to be snooping around; and she wasn’t supposed to be taking numbers from her boyfriend’s phone. Once, they might have shared such a thing, but not anymore. However, his phone had rang five times in a row. His phone had buzzed and buzzed and buzzed, and so Jac had done the natural thing and looked at who could be calling him.

Queen Bitch, crown emoji included.

At the face of it, Jac became irrational. She became jealous, insecure — more so than she usually was. She became hateful of herself, never of Leo. She became the woman she was now as she pressed saved the number on her phone and dialled. And waited.

Could anyone blame her? (She could.)

on any regular day, lena is happy to call herself a harbinger of chaos.

she is the girl with the crooked smile, perched atop the railing of her balcony by the corner room. fingers jump around her knee, tap-tap-tapping the ashes from her cigarette. she is electric; always moving, with a trace of a laugh on her twisted mouth, slender hands dancing in the air.

she’d call out to you in the dark, sitting cross-legged and leaning over the edge of her balcony. she holds her own private parties, up there against her railing, up there inside the well of her own mind. she’d wait to see who’d dare climb up to find her, to join her company of one.

on any normal day, lena is happy to indulge in trouble in the same easy way she breathes by the flame of her light — but even she can’t anticipate what’s about to come; a product of no more than an accidental wrong number and the hours of calls that followed.

her phone rings in her left pocket, and with a lethargic stretch, she reaches down to pluck it out. the caller on the screen is wholly unfamiliar to her — she doesn’t expect anyone to be contacting her, now, and she squints at the number curiously before pressing her thumb firmly against the green answer button, voice rough from the smoke in her throat.

“hello?” she drawls into the phone, tone lazy, craning around to flick ash into the tray atop the table behind her.

[lenarcssi-blog]

aragambca:

A small chuckle left Ara’s lips at the woman’s comment, even if it did make her a little bit uncomfortable. Anyone who called her children little terrors made her uncomfortable, but that was just the motherly side within her taking over. To a point, Ara understood that not everybody could handle children; what she did not understand was calling them terrors. Thankfully, though, none of the children heard what the photographer had to say. If that had happened, this would have been a whole other story. This time, though, she just gave a smile and a little nod of her head. “Don’t let any one of them hear you say that! They’ll take it to heart, and then we’ll never know what they’ll grow up to be.”

Though the woman’s smile disappeared, Ara’s remained. Yet, there was a certain sternness to it. A certain protectiveness. It was not one that dared the woman to say something more, but rather one that showed that she would protect the children to a fault should the woman say something more. Thankfully, no other words were said other than instructions, so Ara turned around and began to relay the instructions to the children.

Just as she asked of them, the children moved according to place: girls kneeling in the front, and boys standing in the back. Guidance was, of course, necessary, but that was to be expected; Ara did not mind. Soon, everyone was in their place — Ara included —, and so she said, “Okay! We’re ready! Smile, everybody!”

at the woman’s words, lena supposes, in the back of her head, that she should have been a little more tactful with her words, especially in the presence of the kids — but she is nothing if not careless, and so the phrase little terrors (directed at all children in general, truth be told) tumbles out past her lips with absolutely no resistance. still, she answers, “consider my mouth sealed?” lena’s never cared much about how her words might affect or influence others, including children, but she manages a half-apologetic shrug nonetheless.

as she sets up the shot, lena once more lets her attention wander to ara and the students. it’s an interesting sight, if nothing else; to see the older woman settle them down long enough to get them posed. lena’s never commanded that sort of respect, for many obvious reasons (and some a little more obscure), and she’s almost envious.

the second they’re all in position, lena gives the children a smile — only a little strained, considering her lack of affinity for them — and she makes a gesture toward the camera to gain their attention. “smile!” she repeats after ara, snapping the photograph once, then again. quickly, she checks the images over, then flashes a thumbs up over at the group. “alright, perfect. ya’ll look great.” the words sound slightly unnatural, coming from her, but oddly enough, she means them.

with her next question, she tries to force herself to address the children directly, just as much as she directs the question to ara, “ready for a little fun, now?”

[lenarcssi-blog]

MAGDALENA ROSSI; AN INTRODUCTORY MOODBOARD.

she’s the girl with those fancy cameras held in the same hand as burnt-out cigarettes — the woman who took fate in her palms and squeezed until her skin was soaked in red. sin and redemption; violence and vitality. she has lost, she has found and she has won, but there’s blood on her hands and black on her heart, and neither will ever quite wash off.