VITA  STANDS  AS  ANOTHER  victim  of  californian  suburbia,  with  days  brimming  with  speaking  engagements  &  choosing  which  pair  of  manolo  blahnik’s  to  adorn  at  that  evening’s  get  together,  the  concept  of  time  was  something  both  fragile  and  finite  in  her  palms.  at  any  notice,  vi  would  make  the  time  for  the  things  and  those  for  whom  she  cared,  and  nonoko  and  her  daughter  were  very  much  included  in  such.  “  always  a  pleasure,  the  little  one  keeps  me  on  my  toes.  ”  vi  stands  on  the  other  end  of  the  doorframe,  fingers  twilled  around  the  stem  of  a  par - full  wine  glass,  a  flicker  of  amusement  washing  her  over  as  maya  ran  over  to  her  terribly  missed  mother.  “  poor  freddie  ought’  to  watch  out  for  maya  then,  hm  ?  ”  it’s  all  in  jest,  vi  may  not  have  children  of  her  own  (  and  well  awaited  them  in  the  future  ),  but  she  was  well - versed  in  maya’s  fiery  talltales  in  her  time  apart  from  her  mother  &  may  or  may  not  have  developed  a  slight  inclination  for  her  reasoning.  “  but  seriously,  how  are  you  --  not  working  yourself  too  hard,  i  hope  ?  ”

@undecadent

It's strange. There was nothing she wanted less than this life. Nonoko was done struggling, done grifting, ready to just settle in. However, she still had to pinch herself when she went to pick up Maya from Vita freaking Winslet. Somehow, she'd gotten used to famous creatives, but literal aristocrats were still beyond her comprehension. "Thank you so much for doing this last minute." She always hid her star-struck nervousness around Vita with the huff and puff of being a working mother. Exhaling because she'd just driven so fast to see her daughter again. Needing to lean against because she'd been working with equipment at a funny angle. "She's picking up some really nasty stuff from pre-school. You think terrible twos and then suddenly, hey mom can I fight Freddie?"

THERE’S  PALPABLE  SILENCE  begging  to  be  filled  on  either  end,   so  vita  does  as  she  always  has  &  transversed  from  one  big,   cold  house  to  another  if  it  meant  good  company.   “  isn’t  he  ?  ”   there’s  a  startling  presence  of  girlish  informality:   just  two  women  lunching  in  the  sun,   and  for  just  a  moment  vi  allows  herself  to  relish  in  cool  spring  eton  days  where  she’d  managed  to  duck  off  with  a  few  friends  with  the  negation  of  public  scrutiny.   “  oh,  goodness  --  i  don’t  know.  ”   there’s  a  faint  simper  as  vita  forks  through  her kale  salad,   “  perhaps  i  need  to  be  reinvigorated.   everything  has  just  been  so  gauche  lately,   i  haven’t  had  much  time  to  consider  my  own  endeavors.  ”

@undecadent  /  yesenia + vita

12:36PM, Yesenia’s Beverly Hills home

Her personal chef had prepared lunch of the day, and while her kids were at their father’s she felt that her home was getting a bit quiet, and a bit cold. And what better way to fill that than invite over a friend. While she was working with Anton, she had actually come to know his wife from before their business partnership, and she liked Vita, and respected her for the life she chose.

Now, she was sitting across from her and the two of them with their lunches set out in front of them. “Anton is always up to something new an exciting.” She says off-handedly. “What about you? Anything I should keep my eyes on from your direction?”

           ODE  TO  WOMEN  /  SOFT  LIKE  A  DIAMONDS.

                                            VITA  WINSLET.

ZODIAC   cancer AGE  /  D.O.B.   thirty3,  june  23rd. PLACE  OF  BIRTH   london,  uk. GENDER  /  PRONOUNS   cis  woman,  she / her ORIENTATION   bisexual  biromantic OCCUPATION   art  curator  &  socialite

                                                    VICTORIA.

you  are  but  a  precious  petal,  your  mother’s  whole  world  and  then  some. you  were  crafted  in  her  image  afterall:  an  echo  of  what  once  was. a  legacy  meant  to  be  kept  close  to  a  heart  that  you  oft  doubt  was  there  to  begin  with. you  are  loved  with  a  love  that  isn’t  quite  love,  but  mother  assures  you  that  you  are  the  only  one  she  loves,  the  one  she  will  pour  her  heart,  her  effort,  her  youth,  the  next  however  many  years  of  her  life  into. she  is  your  mother,  and  you  are  forever  in  her  debt.

 your  name  is  victoria,  meaning  victory. it’s  a  telling  of  your  destiny  before  you  enter  worldly  fruition,  every  aspect  of  your  life  written  and  annotated  before  you  could  have  your  say. but  it’s  almost  as  cruel  as  the  weight  you  carry  on  your  shoulders. don’t  run,  you’ll  trip  and  hurt  yourself!  don’t  go  out  in  the  rain,  you’ll  catch  a  cold!  oh,  how  you  despise  the  cold. if  only  your  lungs  were  a  little  stronger,  a  little  less  asthmatic. wouldn’t  it  be  nice?  but  darling,  you  were  trapped  from  the  day  you  were  born. if  not  by  the  overprotective  hands  of  your  mother,  then  by  your  own  lungs,  the  pair  of  organs  granting  you  life,  the  ones  responsible  for  that  first  breath  of  air  that  caused  you  to  cry  out  loud  the  moment  you  were  brought  into  this  world. home  may  be  a  prison,  but  your  body  is  a  cage. isn’t  it  terrible?  doesn’t  it  make  you  mad? 

 your  parents  marriage  is  a  farce  made  out  of  convenience  and  you  are  a  product  of  such. two  royals  who  saw  baring  an  are  as  the  final  bastion  to  cross,  it’s  no  wonder  you  grew  up  sideways. they  would  approach  child-rearing  with  the  precision  of  mass  reviews,  as  journalists  do  with  great  disasters,  until  it  had  the  featherweight  touch  of  a  quantitative  analysis:  a  rulebook  to  be  followed  to  the  letter. they  did  all  they  were  supposed  to,  adjusted  you  according  to  this  litmus  test. doctor  visits,  international  curriculum,  language  exchanges  &  debate  clubs  overseeing  genovese  lakes. they  provided  the  bare  essentials  for  this  aluminum  blueprint;  anything  superfluous,  of  course,  would  skew  the  results. you  were  the  experiment  they  invested  in,  a  uniform  whole,  rather  than  a  sum  of  parts. if  you  judge  it  by  any  other  name,  the  trial  was  a  success. you  are  but  a  prototype  but  with  your  siblings  comes  a  certain  progression.

 you  were  an  angry,  frilly  little  girl  clad  in  pink  and  velvet,  a  furious  expression  over  some  elaborate  stuffed  animal. you  loathed  the  intense  femininity  of  your  upbringing;  resented  the  sweet  role  you  were  supposed  to  play. but  no  one  saw  that  side,  you  would  not  permit  it  –  not  yet. rather,  your  parents  only  see  what  they  want. to  the  onlooker,  you  had  become  the  best  version  you  could’ve  ever  been,  all  things  considered. what  if  it  was  hollow,  as  all  polished  shells  are?  it  was  light  enough  to  float. given  the  haphazard  turns  of  your  mind,  the  way  it  led  itself  to  a  fool’s  gold  chase  that  could’ve  ruined  you  long  ago—yes,  given  all  these  fatal  flaws,  your  parents  tempered  as  much  as  they  could. to  say  that  you  found  an  escape  in  history  &  fairytales  was  wrong;  almost  as  wrong  as  to  say  a  composer  finds  refuge,  rather  than  creates  it. victoria  was  lonely;  but  magic,  she  thought,  magic  was  lonely  too.

 it  was  a  twisted  environment  to  live  in,  both  the  scion’s  and  the  scholar’s;  a  microcosm  of  academic  renown,  foreign  dignitaries,  elizabethan  plays  instead  of  bedtime  prayers. wealth,  of  course,  and  diplomacy  went  hand  in  hand,  their  fingers  threaded  together  like  the  tails  of  small  monsters. it  was  a  world  illuminated,  but  sterile—incandescent  for  all  the  wrong  reasons. to  your  parents,  everything  remote  required  undiverted  attention,  even  as  it  took  place  on  the  other  side  of  the  world;  everything  human  grew  tepid  within  seconds. you  learned  to  speak  two,  then  three  languages,  and  moved  deftly  between  their  unspoken  rules—even  as  the  deeper  meaning  eluded  you.

                                                        VITA.

no,  you  never  protested  most  things—to  you,  feelings  were  best  tasted  in  dreams,  and  even  then  they  had  to  wear  the  face  of  others. you  exude  a  strange,  stoical  calm. there  is  authority,  but  there  was  also  an  ominous  fire. as  if  you  saw  what  might  happen,  and  steeled  yourself  throughout  it  all,  even  as  your  mind  shied  &  sheathed  back  into  itself. it  was  this  air  that  got  you  through  most  of  the  situations  where  she  had  something  to  prove;  that  made  up  for  your  real,  mercurial  nature,  which  no  one  could  even  begin  to  guess  at. it  was  this  which  acted  as  ransom,  as  a  guarantee  and  bid  others  to  follow  you. an  air  of  bravery  that  surpassed  girlhood,  and  of  wisdom  which  surpassed  even  will. above  all,  you  learned  to  spin  the  narrative  so  that  you  are  always  turning. you’d  suffer  a  thousand  deaths  if  it  meant  you  could  be  reborn  as  who  you  were  truly  meant  to  be. not  just  some  royal  pawn  shuffled  across  the  board  when  most  necessary,  but  yourself,  in  the  most  utterly  horrifying  yet  human  way. victoria  was  just  the  young,  terribly  lanky  thing  destined  for  the  crown  but  vita  is  far  more  becoming. it  is  not  just  a  nickname  but  an  identity,  a  fresh  start  that  you  find  fits  snug  around  the  new  life  you’ve  carved  out  for  yourself. you  are  just  a  woman,  no  longer  an  object  to  be  worshipped. victoria  never  had  that. vita  belongs–or  tries  to. you  have  people  who  care  about  you  in  ways  your  mother  can’t. won’t. your  home  was  a  trap  and  your  body  was  a  cage,  but  when  your  partner  is  around,  you  can  almost  taste  sweet  freedom. and  for  you,  that  will  be  enough.

IS IT NOT ENOUGH for two men to sit across from eachother, utterly deranged ? and more - so, why did cesar continue to oblige these meetings when he more than frankly had no interest in being here. the answer in it's plainest form was this: familiarity in displeasure. it was easier to carry on with their bi - monthly charade & to grin and bare the weight of it all, rather than denying the other's existence entirely. afterall, if you've never kept the company of someone you may dislike how could you ever know true pleasure without them? " i think i've lost my propensity for it, " caffine he means, denoted as cesar draws a sip from his own steaming mug of chai. " speaking of variety, how's business? " it's a gauche topic & cesar knows it; in - part a pass at conversation but also a motion to poke the sleeping bear. " haven't heard my assistant babbling about your latest write - up feature, i was beginning to suspect you've suffered your first l.a. icarian fall. "

@undecadent

There was an element of one-upmanship with anton's background, even his wife only knew the barebones of his origins. Whenever in a room with Cesar de Estrada present, Anton wanted to curse, the old fashioned way with clenched fists and jaw. Anton reasoned he was the better enigma. That was the game though, wasn't it? To not be tempted to reveal? This was not something Anton could attempt to bring to surface. The intensity of these emotions were not on display as the men sat in peace at Cafe Dumont. Anton received his espresso and he gingerly took a sip. Iit'll never beat Milan," he remarked. "It's nice to be somewhere without a dozen varieties of syrup on tap."

DELIGHT TAKES FORM IN AN EVENING spent trapaising the length of his estate tucked well into the shoulder of holmby hills. cesar had yearned for this sort of party for ages now. and yet, something within him still hungers. a monstrous appetite that flourishes within and simply cannot be appeased. not by alcohol and worthless socialization, anyhow. and so, ces retreats to the balcony that stretched east along the side of the junior suite — large french doors capturing wind & coursing it into the bedroom with brief billows when the other welcomed himself to his company. " tilman, " tone is flat though the line between his brows harshens when one quirks. hardly a gaze over his shoulder in recognition before the other joins his side. ( if you are to disturb your host, at least pour him a drink first, ) empty glass is canted expectedly in tilman's direction " how odd that you always lurch where you're not invited. who did you latch onto this time to get a foot in the door ? "

@undecadent  /  tilman + cesar

Tilman hated going to Cesar’s parties, but he’d rather be caught dead than pass the opportunity. He usually was on the arm of some friend, as he hadn’t received  an invitation in over a decade. But he’d complain most of the time, about how drab and boring the whole thing, even if it looked like every single attendee was enjoying themselves. But those facts never mattered to John Tilman.

He was sneaking away from all the noise and joy to find some solitude, and a new drink, when he came upon the very host. Look well-trimmed and dapper, which only seemed to annoy him even more. “Hello, Cesar.” He greets as he grabs a bottle of wine. “Happy to see your hairline continues to recede.” His digs were always very shallow.”

                                            ODE  TO  THE  MAN  OVERLY INVESTED IN                                            THE  PERSONAL  LIVES OF  STRANGERS.

GENERAL DETAILS.

BIRTH  NAME:  unknown. LEGAL  NAME:  cesar  de  estrada NICKNAME(S):  ces,  juli AGE:  forty  three ETHNICITY:  guatemalan GENDER:  cis  man PRONOUNS:  he/him ORIENTATION:  bisexual OCCUPATION:  horror - mystery novelist SPEAKING VOICE AND ACCENT:  somewhat  raspy,  with  a  southern  lilt. SPOKEN LANGUAGES:  spanish,  english,  french,  conversational  german

PERSONALITY.

LABEL(S):  the  lothario.  the  incompetent  sleuth.  the  oddball.  the  gatsby. POSITIVE TRAITS:  gregarious,  devoted,  observant,  self - assured,  acute NEGATIVE TRAITS:  enigmatic,  obsessive,  apathetic,  sardonic,  rapacious VICES:  greed,  gluttony,  anger VIRTUES:  fortitude,  charity INSPIRATION:   hercule peirot,  jay  gatsby  ( great  gatsby ),  officer  k  ( blade  runner  2049 ),  tony  wendice  ( dial  m  for  murder ),  benoit  blanc  ( knives  out )

SPARKNOTES                                              INT  –  OUR FATHER WHO ART IN HEAVEN

the  dusty  nowhere  surrounding  ohio  is  where  cesar  grew  up,  a  wooded  edge  that  kisses  right  up  against  town  and  teeters  on  county  lines.  he  was  an  odd  child,  born  to  a  peculiar  family  that  lived  in  a  little  yellow  house  on  the  edge  of  a  bluebonnet  field.  for  years,  these  hues  of  pallid  yellow  and  lavender  paint  his  life━though  they  only  paled  as  the  years  marched  onward.  his  hometown  is  one  that’s  never  felt  quite  new,  rather,  there’s  always  been  a  tinge  of  the  past.  like  this  old  mining  town,  ces  was  run  down  sooner  than  he  knew.

the  sacred  walls  of  his  little  yellow  house  are  where  he’d  tell  his  first  lies.  crosses  nailed  in  each  room,  wallpaper  cracking  with  temperature  and  peeling  away  at  the  edges.  he  spent  his  childhood  wondering  if  it  was  always  like  this.  soil-covered  hands  pressed  together,  he  would  pray  for  the  unfortunate  children  down  the  road  who’d  just  lost  their  gran.  god,  ces  would  say,  but  he  knew  he  was  speaking  to  his  father.  the  shadow  in  the  door  frame  that  stood  in  that  small  creak  of  light,  a  lean  figure  stretches  out  as  if  he  did  not  see  him  there.  oh,  please  bring  them  good  graces  in  this  time.  let  him  take  the  pain  from  their  shoulders.  learning  to  be  a  ghost  in  his  own  home.

taught  to  behave  like  a  young  man  ought  to,  taught  to  take  the  deer  by  the  antlers  but  not  to  look  it  in  the  eyes.  ces  knew  only  to  pray  for  others,  only  to  care  for  the  world  around  him,  rather  than  the  bruises  on  his  back,  or  the  grazes  on  his  knees━or  his  mother  who  left  when  he  was  too  young  to  know.  the  woman  who  now  lives  with  her  new  husband,  and  kids━leaving  ces  and  his  siblings  with  him.

he’s  just  a  child  that  first  time  pa  takes  ces  and  he  watches  him  wash  the  sinners  clean.  he  watched  them  cry  out  hallelujah  and  praise  jesus,  praise  his  pa.  it  was  his  pa’s  hands  on  them,  not  god’s.  pa  tells  him  that  god  is  in  him  too,  and  this  will  be  the  first  and  last  time  a  reflection  he  recognizes  ripples  across  the  water.  

                                          EXT  –  OUR FATHER WHO ART BURIED IN THE YARD

god  is  in  you,  boy.  so  cesar  let  pa  take  him  to  the  water’s  edge  again  once  he  was  a  bit  older.  he  can  still  hear  the  hum  of  the  hymnals  even  now.  do  you  hear  the  word  of  god?  have  you  believed  another  gospel?  ces  looked  just  like  the  woman  his  pa  hated  most,  and  this  would  be  his  downfall.  so  pa  plunges  him,  washes  cesar  of  the  sins  not  committed  at  his  hand,  but  rather,  those  of  his  mother.  because  if  she  could  not  be  here,  he  would  take  her  place.  shoved  beneath  the  frigid  surface  by  the  hands  of  his  pa,  under  the  guise  that  god  made  him  do  it,  sending  his  own  son  thrashing  like  some  wild  thing  his  pa  once  claimed  he  could  tame.

pa  considers  it  only  a  miracle  of  god  that  ces  hadn’t  drowned  that  day.  he  returned  to  his  siblings,  sopping  wet  on  the  porch  of  the  little  yellow  house  with  the  peeling  wallpaper.  ces  began  to  pick  at  it  when  no  one  was  looking,  chipping  away  the  watery  gray  floral  print  to  unveil  the  wood  paneling  beneath  it.  life  is  stolen  of  its  color  but  at  least  he’s  not  alone  in  his  suffering.  not  that  it  makes  it  any  better  that  his  siblings  are  subject  to  his  father’s  delusions.  ces  still  spat  out  his  morning  prayers,  but  he  started  spending  more  time  sitting  on  the  roof  with  the  boy  from  across  the  way  when  everyone  else  had  gone  to  bed.  it  doesn’t  matter  if  the  sky  is  starless,  so  long  as  ces  doesn’t  have  to  feel  so  alone  in  his  existence.

it  stays  like  this  for  a  long  while.  seeing  his  little  sister  off  to  the  schoolhouse  each  morning,  and  making  a  point  of  not  eyeing  the  brown  and  green  glass  bottles  that  she  strings  up  on  the  tree  in  the  front  yard  like  liquor  store  wind  chimes.  his  father  isn’t  the  man  ces  thought  him  to  be.  he  considers  that  maybe  he  was  always  like  this  and  that  ces  was  the  last  to  realize,  the  last  one  to  find  complacency  in  his  disillusionment.  and  that  only  makes  it  worse  so  he  pledges  that  one  day,  he’d  leave  that  little  yellow  house.  that  ces  would  rebuild  himself  like  an  old  factory  town  and  come  back  two  times  better  than  before.  had  only  he’d  known  he  would  always  be  that  odd  little  boy,  with  the  odd  family  in  the  yellow  house  on  the  edge  of  town.

he  would  plead  for  the  forgiveness  of  sins  not  yet  committed  &  ask  pa  to  give  him  mercy  in  all  his  cruelty.  ces  asked  him  to  look  him  in  the  eyes.  and  yet,  time  could not  rob  ces  of  one  thing.  he  may  be  a  bastard  but  he  was  his  mother’s  child.  and  much  like  her,  ces  would curdle  like  old  milk  in  the  sun.  it  needn’t  matter  that  his  brother  is  the  first  to  witness  the  cracks  in  ces’s  foundation.  ces loved  him  enough  to  dig  a  grave  for  the  both  of  them.  he  was  his  sacrifice.  but  the  very  moment  ces  set  foot  in  the  limelight,  he  fractured  ---  cracked  a  fine,  ugly  shade.  he’s  better  a  shadow  than  he  is  a  person  so  ces  retreated  into  it,  embraced  this  darkness  as  a  familial  right.  a  black  sheep,  in  part  of  his  own  making.  except  ces  is  no  sheep,  he  merely  wears  the  skin  of  one.  

HEADCANONS

critically  acclaimed  fictional  horror - mystery  writer  taking  inspiration  from  the  works  of  agatha  christie,  he’s  a  novelist  most  proficient  in  the  murder  mystery  genre. 

culminated  a  bunch  of  fuckin  lies  about  himself,  a  lot  of  the  ‘truths’  about  himself  are  fabrications.  srry  not  srry 

worked  briefly  as  a  privately  contracted  sleuth  in  up  until  a  case  that  would  inevitably  end  his  career  in  his  early  thirties;  he  couldn’t  solve  the  mystery  and  as  it  turns  out,  he’s  far  better  at  writing  them. 

common  arthouse  and  matinee  enjoyer.  going  to  see  a  north  by  north  west  showing  at  9:30 am  type  vibe. 

gatsby  if  he  was  a  short  king;  a  myth  of  a  man,  you  might  not  know  his  face  but  you  certainly  know  his  name  and  that  much  will  suffice.

to  sum  up  his  immense  family  trauma,  cesar  is  the  product  of  a  ( later divulged )  affair,  his  father  may  or  may  not  have  killed  his  mother  because  of  it  and  instead  convinced  cesar  and  his  siblings  that  she  moved  away  to  live  with  her ‘ new  family ’.  was  raised  very  southern  evangelical  christian  which  is  ofc  a  demonstrated  theme  in  his  fictional  works.

no  one  really  knows  how  ces  got  his  start  in  writing,  nor  how  he  came  to  achieve  such  great  success  but  some  theorize  and  others  know  that  he  got  his  start  as  an  avid  diarist  ━  chronicaling  his  day  to  day  as  an  nyu  student. his  first  published  work  is  meant  to  be  a  commentary  akin  to  the  work  of  evelyn  waugh,  but  it  rapidly  spiraled  into  a  thinly - veiled  version  of  his  world  with  a  melancholy  tinge: the  foibles  of  the  inner  circle  that  was  never  quite  his  own.  nonetheless,  the  book  was  an  overnight  sucess  and  the  rest  is  history.

OSCAR ISAAC THE BOURNE LEGACY (2012) dir. Tony Gilroy

#UNDECADENT  :   dependent  original  characters,   cesar  de  estrada   &   vita  winslet,   for  starstruckrpg.   ᵗʰⁱˢ  ⁱˢ  ᵃ  ˢᵗᵘᵈʸ  ⁱⁿ  :   the  sacrafices  made  for  the  ultimate  desire,  the  utter  horror  in  the  ordinary,  love  as  an  all - consuming  thing,  &  past  self  as  something  to  be  harbored  —  not  known.   as  written  by  kay,  twenty2,  she/her.

                                                   vita  winslet

                   DOSSIER   •   MUSINGS •   THREADS   •  PINTEREST

                                                 cesar  de  estrada

                   DOSSIER   •   MUSINGS •   THREADS   •  PINTEREST

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Elizabeth Debicki photographed by Anya Holdstock for Stella (October 2018)

High Society (1956) dir. Charles Walters

Monot | Spring/Summer 2022

La donna del lago (Luigi Bazzoni & Franco Rossellini, 1965)

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I know I’m like a ghost. I have nothing but myself.

Daul Kim, from I Like to Fork Myself (via virginiewoolf)