#like the italian style kitchen and the crucifix on his wall

[dudefrommywesterns]

there are some little details about ricco that tell the viewer a bit more about him

[maggotmouth]

     hullo it nora, back for more mess. this unhinged little nightmare is cecily who i first birthed around 3 years ago and i am so excited to finally be playing her again. feral wolf girl who loves silk babydoll dresses and bubblegum but would also cut your femoral artery if she was bored. is the eptome of that “somethin dangerous about the boredom of teenage girls” trope. amma crellin meets harley quinn meets addy hanlon.  ( pinterest )

APP.

( nora. 22. gmt. she / her. ) it might be HER FRESHMAN year but I still think CECILY DE ROSA looks exactly like FREYA MAVOR and sometimes I think the FEMALE is actually them. Of course I’m wrong, as they’re 19 and studying THEATRE while living in FIDELIS here at Lockwood. The GEMINI can be rather PUCKISH and CANDID, but also kind of SELF-CENTRED and HYSTERICAL. Their most played song on Spotify was CELL BLOCK TANGO by CATHERINE ZETA JONES AND THE COMPANY OF CHICAGO, so I think that says a lot.

BACKGROUND.

tw death suicide murder proceed w caution

born as ‘lamia romana’ in italy to catholic parents. her father was a struggling alcoholic and incredibly depressed. when cece was 4, and her brother was 3 her father fed the gas pipe through the back of their car whilst they prepared to go on their family holiday because he knew suicide would leave his wife and children penniless so he decided the most selfless thing would be to take them with him

cecily (lamia) and her brother luc by some miracle survived the accident, but were left orphaned. they were sent to a convent where they were raised by nuns. cece was incredibly religious. it became her whole life. she was devoted to god completely, almost crazed, because in the absence of parents she transferred the need for a guider and protector onto this spiritual other evoked by her religious beliefs.

she always had a strained relationship w her brother because she believed he wasn’t as devoted to catholicism as she was. when she was 13 he claimed that god wasn’t real and that she was a freak, and in a violent rage cecily thrust a crucifix through his throat. it was completely out of character for her. she screamed until her throat went dry. eventually,  when the nuns managed to tear her away from her brother’s body, she was taken to a psychiatric hospital in manhattan where she stayed for two years. driven to madness, she convinced herself that she had been possessed by the devil the moment she killed her brother, and soon she began to accept her fate, as not holy, like she had anticipated, but in fact it’s ungoldy antithesis

when she was released, she was adopted by an american distant aunt and uncle and sent to a manhattan boarding school under the new name ‘cecily de rosa’. see also: st. trinnians. lifted of any religious obligation, cecily grew wild. she delighted in acting up, cheeking her superiors, causing havoc and chaos, terrifying the other girls. sex became her weapon – she would seduce the boys from the local comprehensive and drop them like flies. to her, it was merely a game. 

uses sex as a weapon, a way in which to manipulate men, having filmed sexual liasons with both a former acting coach and a TA to use for the purposes of blackmail. 

 her expulsion from school was threatened after she streaked the school naked and doused in pig blood, but her academic prowess was an asset to the school, so they learnt to put up with her antics. she applied for yale but didn’t get in.

 she atended juliard for a year but was thrown out for indecency

theatre-wise, one of Cecily’s most commendable traits is her sheer tenacity and lack of inhibition – she is willing to do whatever it takes to climb to the top, and kick as many other people down as necessary on her way there. tthis unhinged hunger for success was evidenced when, in her breakout role, cecily played Tamora in Titus Andronicus. feeling the presentation of one of shakespeare’s most terrifying women was ‘pussy-footed’ and dulled down for a male audience, cecily took matters into her own hands, and during the famous banquet scene where Tamora is fed her own sons, she ate a pig’s heart live on stage – receiving both awestruck and horrified press reviews for her performance -- and getting expelled from her drama school. (thats why she is now at lockwood)

she is in a sorority house n the gymnastic squad. she speaks fluently in four languages. the kind f sociopathic lana del rey writes songs about. 

was raised Roman Catholic, and although she is now estranged from religion, it’s still an integral part of her identity. She holds it partially responsible for the need to repress emotion she still experiences. The only time she allows herself to truly feel, without perceiving it as a weakness, is when she’s performing

cecily was raised with dual-nationality and is multi-lingual. Her parents frequently spoke both Italian and English around the house, leading cecily to do the same. She is also somewhat familiar with Latin, having studied it alongside Literature, Contemporary Dance and Theatre at a manhattan-based performing arts boarding school.

ethereal wood elf. plays flute and does ballet. her favourite tv shows are making a murderer and dance moms. she is big on Tchaikovsky and Bukowski. poetry to cecily is soup of the soul, despite the fact that the only things she really feels are apathy and mild disgust. her poems mostly centre around the beauty of violence -- writing about it often prevents her from committing violent acts -- and also her cat.

loves gettin fucked up. always high on sometin -- cocaine, ecstasy, love, her own ego.

had her first taste of alcohol at 15 and has stayed fond of spirits ever since. likes literature of the macabre, isn’t fond of social media, and loves knee high socks and glitter. she bites her nails, will only take cold showers, and doesn’t drink coffee. loves cats. is vegan.

she sleeps like a cat, regularly but short amounts of time, and is usually found awake at night stalking the streets in the pursuit of self-destruction. she views herself as pansexual because she is attracted to people rather than genders but she thinks men are trash. probably biromantic or homoromantic. she loves the chase. she likes meaningless sexual liasons, but if hearts are broken in the process, even better. hearts are breakable and she believes those who have them are foolish.

aesthetic:  peroxide hair in a bathtub, bleach, glittery socks under spaghetti strap heels, silk slip dresses, glitter smeared beneath eyes, split knuckles, nose bleeds, a bubble of blue gum snapped against cherry flavoured lips, orange peel, knee-high socks, tartan two-piece skirt and blazers, kate moss posters ripped out of vogue, littering a bedroom wall, yearbook photos tacked together with red thread, clip in highlights, stick on earrings, french music humming from a crackly gramophone, a hip flask covered with hello kitty stickers

PLOTS.

i currently have NO PLOTS for her so everything is open. if you want a cousin / ex-lover / friend with benefits  / bully, or are dying for a specific connection, let me know or like this post and i will msg you!! LOVE U ALL xoxo

more plots all of these are plagiarised:

“you were drunk and you climbed in through my apartment window and I’m not really sure how you managed it because not only is the fire escape broken but you are really fucking plastered wtf please, teach me your skills?”

“i set your kitchen on fire ‘by accident’ because i hate your guts, and you know it was me but you have no evidence”

“we’re in a breakfast club style all day detention”

“you came over for ‘help studying’ and my roommate came home five minutes after we were done hooking up and you got roped into a conversation about her dogs and everyone is uncomfortable”

“we’re friends but it’s a really toxic relationship made up of trying to one up each other all the time”

“I caught you writing gay porn in the library and now you’re terrified i’ll tell everyone, but really i’m just waiting for the next instalment”

“i asked you to help me sneak my cat into my dorm but we got caught by the janitor and now we’re both in the principal’s office”

“you saw me come back to my apartment covered in blood one night, but you’ve never asked about it because you’re scared that yours might be the next blood i’m covered in”

“you broke into my apartment while I was out for whatever reason and when I came home I knocked you out and now you’re unconscious on my floor and idk what to do?”

“i just decked you in the face because i’m drunk and you were pissing me off but ow my hand really fucking hurts i think i might have broke it and oh look your nose is bleeding and now we’re both sitting awkwardly in the hospital while i glare at you from across the room. but wait are you giving me sex eyes?? stop that i’m supposed to mad at you??”

“you keep dragging suspicious sacks up to and down from your apartment and I don’t know what your deal is or why I still wanna bone you”

“we’re in the same rocky horror troupe”

“i stayed over at your house and woke you up in the middle of the night to have sex while your roommate is asleep and every time, your room mate yells “STOP FUCKING, JESUS CHRIST” right when we’re about to finish”

“we used to have a thing but  now we hate each others guts and can’t be in the same room without yelling at one another”

“i had a drunk one night stand with your brother last year and i threw up in your room, and now we’re in a class together and it’s really awkward.”

[buttramnyc]

Italy Part II

Italy, Part II

Drive back to Florence, turn in the rental car (make the requisite wrong turn twice). Catch a cab and we’re off to the swell digs in Firenze: FLORENCE!

Greeted by “Laura (?)” at Palazzo Antellesi on the Piazza Santa Croce. A handsome young man carries our luggage to the second floor. The spacious apartment has been renovated (Taylor does not approve!) but it’s light and bright. There is a wall hanging above the sofa.  Taylor, “It is the Laocoon, an ancient Greek work unearthed in Rome in 1506 and considered the most intense icon of human suffering and agony in western secular art--Laocoon and his sons being devoured by sea serpents. An odd choice of decor to hang above your apartment sofa--particularly in an apartment named Paradiso.” But there were doors opening up on the Piazza and comfortable beds and HOT water. The edifice has frescos that survived the flood of 1966. (When the Arno flooded. 101 people lost.) There was also a computerized electric stove with a steam oven. Good luck!

I take off to explore. Deborah and Mary set off for groceries and Taylor… not sure. I take a wrong turn but there are no wrong turns in Florence. I happen upon the Piazza del Duomo and the Baptistry. Beautiful! If this is the “off” season in Florence, it’s much like midtown Manhattan in the summer. Lines! How can this city become more crowded? I am suffering from my cold so I stay home in the evening and watch the Piazza Santa Croce at night, endless entertainment. Germans! Many Germans!

A solid night’s sleep makes all the difference (and Italian cough meds). The next day, Taylor gives me a quick tour and I explore solo, but, again, wrong turns. Florence is rather like Amsterdam and Manhattan’s West Village. Defined by the Arno River, I am shaky on directions (North, South, East, West), and, oh, boy, do I get lost! Searching for a church S. Miniato Al Monte, I go so far afield, I cannot see Florence! Finally, there’s a hiker (woman about my age) and in French, she gets me back to Via Michelangelo and home. Six hour hike, my “dogs” are barking. Tricky hills! Uneven stone steps go up and then, they go down! (I follow a snooty French couple, they don’t know where they are going either!)

Taylor takes a train to a village with a “chestnut” festival. Mary and Deborah enjoy the shopping and revisit favorite settings. I buy an 85 euro ticket to tour all the museums I can over 78 hours (and the museums open early). I’m grateful for the advice from my fellow travelers, all who have visited Florence many times. Armed with maps and guide books, I take on the Uffizi, Duomo Santa Croce, the Baptistry, Galleria Accademia, Museo Galileo, Museo Duomo, Palazzo Vecchi, Palazzo Pitti (including a special tour of the kitchen!), the Boboli Gardens, Museo Bargello, Chapel Medici, S. Miniato Al Monte and its mammoth and eerie graveyard. (I lose my Firenze card map and list and my good sunglasses. Taylor’s camera is stolen. Mary is gouged by a money exchanger. Deborah loses her grey shawl). The costs of traveling!

[Side note on Palazzo Pitti: It’s enormous and “not happening.” No matter how much great art you hang on your walls, you are destined to spend your life in silence! The loneliness must have been depressing. Course, you have lots of children and servants but I’m thinking the kitchen workers probably had a better time of it. At least they were busy! The royals pack up and flee to the countryside to enjoy “nature” or drive through the city streets where the rabble kick up their heels. Life span of the poor, not good. Life span of the rich, not good either. The black plague gets everyone! The Hapsburg’s had 11 children. Poor mother!]

Taylor and I travel to Fiesole (via public bus), outside Florence to walk the Etruscan/Roman ruins--Fourth century B.C., or earlier. We have a tasty lunch overlooking Florence and stroll through our second Roman theater/baths. Fiesole could have been a “contender” for “best city” but the jealous Firenze horde conquered it in 1125. We get a bit lost walking down the hill to catch the bus! Nothing drastic, there’s that brief moment of panic. “Lost in Italy” theme rises up. Major traffic jam on the way home!

Sunday morning, a “Battle of two Brass Bands” in front of Palazzo Medici. Fantastic. I attend St. Mark’s English Church and it was a staid but welcoming service in English. Taylor took us by St. Mark’s to see the Pre-Rafaelite art. So, I return, curious about the congregation, the music, and I had heard someone practicing piano upstairs. The church’s musical director, very young woman, gives a concert on Tuesday night. I attend. Her program is Beethoven’s Sonata Op. #8, Pathetique, (the “Adagio” is the melody of DeKalb Texas High School’s anthem!), and Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” playing a Bosendorfer piano (forte sound). She has gifted, strong fingers!

I hear from the USA, Chuck Wilson, musician extraordinaire, is now playing in the big band in the sky. To celebrate the passing of my friend, I go to hear a second concert, a chamber orchestra play Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” at Sano Stefano at Ponte Firenze. All maestros! After the concert ends, the musicians leave the stage but the audience does not move. Alas, there is no encore.

So many chiesas! All exceptional, holy places. I return to Santo Spirito, home to Michelangelo’s early sculpture. (This from Wikipedia: Michelangelo Buonarroti, when he was 17 years old, was allowed to make anatomical studies on the corpses coming from the convent's hospital; in exchange, he sculpted a wooden crucifix to be placed over the high altar. It’s now in the sacristy.) Awesome internship!

Note on the plethora of pacifiers in Italian babies’ mouths! WHY? You can’t see their beautiful faces!

After some consideration of the tonality of the chiming bells of Florence, I believe they are set in intervals of fourths!

Excellent weather, crystal clear skies. Sun on the Arno creates sparkling diamonds. Because my groovy sunglasses are definitely lost, I go to an H&M and replace them for five Euros with an inferior but usable substitute.

Great dogs in Florence but their owners are not into tourists’ admiring glances! I spot an “Ann Bradley lookalike.” Spitting image of my cantankerous old friend, dead 15 years. But the same physical carriage, the same style, is Ann reborn in Florence? But this lady is a dog walker, Ann was a cat person.

Rowers on the Arno. Taylor quotes Mark Twain: "It is popular to admire the Arno. It is a great historical creek with four feet in the channel and some scows floating around. It would be a very plausible river if they would pump some water into it. They all call it a river, and they honestly think it is a river, do these dark and bloody Florentines. They even help out the delusion by building bridges over it. I do not see why they are too good to wade."

The great thing about traveling with Taylor, he shares these jewels of entertaining lore, and out-of-the-way locales. I shop for a gold bracelet for Lori. Lots of gold. All expensive. Hand-made belt for Kim. They are co-feeding my cats back in NYC.

S. San Marco. I make ALL of the Sunday night Mass. There is an exceptional mezzo soprano leading the small choir. She wears a black headdress, pallid skin. I’m far back but I swear she wears clown white. She holds her hands above her head and sings to the massive dome covered with frescos of angels, flying up to Christ. Her voice soars through the air, no vibrato, rich and strong. Her expression is ethereal. I can’t understand the language but it’s clear what she is saying, she believes! Comforting to sit through Mass with working class Florence folks. They are very nice. A husband adjusts his wife’s hanging bag strap, easing its pull on her shoulder. Thoughtful, loving gesture. Outside, raindrops. Voices in the distance, singing. Every single life, individual.

Palazzo Antellesi, the computerized electric stove is a nightmare. Taylor drops an uncooked egg on the kitchen floor. We push endless buttons, trying to find “on.” On the streets, I am always lost, struggling to get my bearings back to Piazza S. Croce. Night time cough meds brings more dreams, “John the Baptist,” “Page,” “David Letterman and Steve Martin.”

Galleria Accademia: Michelangelo’s DAVID.

Of course, trying to capture his magnificence in a cellphone picture, impossible. Everyone tries! What great lighting! Stunning and powerful. Carved from a block of marble that other artists thought flawed. David is gigantic. The spirit of revolution, and independent spirit.

Trans singer outside Basilica Medici. Gorgeous, defiant, large voice featuring Italy’s greatest hits, sustained notes, shoulder-length hair, short skirt, high heels and designer handbag to collect Euros. I will see and hear her several times around the major tourist sites. I worry for her welfare. The locals (male workers) do not approve. Not friendly.

Here and there, I see the ultra-stylish Florence ladies and gentlemen. Impeccably dressed with accessories that scream wealth. Passing Ponte Vecchio last night, blonde beauty with short mink jacket (urgh!), and boots with black leggings. Perfection clicking along the stone steps. Closer look, I’m thinking 60! Yet, she walks the cobble stones with us commoners. Probably not going far, but a bit. You can walk Florence. Much like getting around Manhattan, but no subway. They do have busses!

So many reliquaries. (I’m haunted by the news from Turkey. Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi murdered, cut up in pieces and dissolved in acid. He worked for the Washington Post. Really?)

The last morning in Florence, I hike quickly to the San Marco Monastery to see Fra Angelico’s painting. Mesmerizing. What the monks would do (in my opinion) is stare so long at these beautiful art covering the monk’s cells that they hallucinate, see visions of Jesus, Virgin Mary or Saint Paul, then go tap on another monk’s door to discuss. Possibly, a tryst follows, and joyous release!

The day after we figure out how to work the computerized stove and the “steam” oven, it’s time to say “Arrivederci Florence,” head back to the Rental Car location (via taxi) and take off for Cortona.

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