#also renaissance because why not

[ruensroad]

my take on an old otp. feeling nostalgic

[stil-lindigo]

a non-comprehensive guide to my favourite characters in claymore, the best manga you've never read (more under the cut)

don't know what I'm talking about? here's a crashcourse.

[sforzesco]

some sketches of Lorenzo de Medici and Galeazzo Maria Sforza :)

⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app / tip jar!

[thyfore]

I made a Claude frollo cosplay but didn’t make a wig or figure out the makeup so I instead just wore a fursuit

[maddie-grove]

My toxic trait is that I think I could actually write a really good thinly veiled Reylo romance novel. If I had world enough and time.

[persephoneflouwers]

Louis posing in Caravaggio-esque lights and posing like a Renaissance painting is my aesthetic

[effervescentvampire]

Kind of weird rereading twilight after almost ten years and realizing the story is fucked up on so many more levels than I was previously aware of

[astriiformes]

Finally managed to talk to another professor about serving as my faculty mentor for an undergraduate research project, which means that now I have less than a week for formulate my actual proposal if I want to get it funded for the fall

Cue just a little bit of internal screaming

[fuckmeyer]

oooh bestie i just read your jasper gift-as-curse analysis (agree 100%!!! it fucks severely!!!!) and in your tags you mention thinking of all of the cullen "gifts" as curses and...i am going actively insane thinking about rosalie in that frame. like? her beauty carries over! and it's a curse in that people see that first and her second and assume that she's shallow...but also that was true in her human life as well and becoming a vampire seems like it maybe allowed her to transcend that and realize what was fucked up about her human experience??? WILD

Rosalie's gift is also a curse, but unlike Jasper's, i find it heartbreaking

it's a curse in that people see that first and her second and assume that she's shallow

VERY true. but the consequences of extreme beauty go beyond people chalking her up as shallow.

part of Rosalie's curse is that there are many aspects of her life where her looks play a role. & going through life requires either a degree of illusion or a degree of doubt.

for example: how many times as she been given— or been overlooked for— opportunities or merit because of her attractiveness? how many relationships has she tried to make, only to find the foundation of said connection was built on— or marred by— her looks? if Edward bothered to see past what he perceives as Rosalie's vanity, would they be closer as siblings? or, put another way:

In the first second that Emmett saw Rosalie, he saw a goddess whom he had worshiped without cease ever since. (Midnight Sun, Ch 6)

i'm not saying Emmett's love isn't real. but it's also clear he's immediately attracted to Rose physically; even decades later, their love is described as "intensely physical" (Ch 7). worshiping implies a degree of separation; there's a pedestal, a blindness, in the kind of love Emmett shows her. if she was average-looking, would he love her as she is, as an equal, without worship? would he even give her a second glance?

part of the curse is never knowing what's real. either she lives with a degree of doubt, or she lives with a degree of illusion.

another part of Rosalie's curse is that she also falls into the trap of seeing her face first and herself second. now, do i think Rosalie is vapid & a "stagnant pool of few surprises" (Ch 1)? no. she has a personality, she has hobbies outside of tending to or enhancing her beauty. but we do see her mesmerized with herself:

She’d caught sight of her profile in the reflection off someone’s glasses, and she was mulling over her own perfection. No one else’s hair was closer to true gold, no one else’s shape was quite so perfectly an hourglass, no one else’s face was such a flawless, symmetrical oval.

& we also see her play up her beauty in the vehicle she drives & the clothes she wears. she cannot look away from herself.

however, this is where i think we see yet another facet of Rosalie's curse. that is, being the most gorgeous vampire of the Cullens, there is a degree of intense scrutiny that comes with Rosalie's beauty. for all the illusion/doubt it brings her, she must be constantly aware of it. because this scrutiny is two-fold:

1) unlike someone like Alice who can pass as androgynous & is overlooked physically, Rose does not have the luxury of breaking traditional gender expectations lest she draw even more attention to the coven. in a sense, Rosalie is under more pressure to flawlessly perform the rituals of gender conformity because anything outside of the norm will be noticed more easily.

2) beyond that, the degree of attention she receives means she must constantly perform in a human sense, too: twitching, blinking, moving, behaving, etc. in this way, her looks become a hindrance to her vegetarian lifestyle.

so, she is cursed in that she's the face of the Cullen family & under pressure by the coven & society to perform. even if she wanted to escape her beauty, she cannot.

becoming a vampire seems like it maybe allowed her to transcend [her beauty] and realize what was fucked up about her human experience

but it kinda...didn't?

don't get me wrong, it did in some sense. as mentioned, Rose has picked up hobbies, dreams, & a personality. we do see her transcend her appearance; however, her beauty still traps her for the reasons above.

& to be honest with you bestie, it wasn't vampirism that allowed her to transcend her beauty. because if she had been turned, say, the day she got engaged, what kind of vampire would we see? her final days, her looks gave her everything she wanted, & now she ends up as the most ravishing creature on earth in the socioeconomic class she wanted. Rosalie wins. i'm not saying she would have wanted vampirism if she had been turned in better circumstances. but she would certainly be more divorced from reality, & i doubt she would find it as necessary to transcend her beauty since it got her what she wanted & confirmed her worldview.

it wasn't the vampirism that allowed her to transcend her beauty. it was the rape.

the rape tears the curtain back. the rape shows her all that glitters isn't gold. the rape teaches her that in the end, her beauty couldn't, & would never, save her. the rape tells her what a woman's place is in her world. the rape forces her to realize: for all Rosalie's beauty, she is awarded nothing, she is entitled to nothing, she can do everything right & still lose. the rape is what necessitated a change in Rosalie's beliefs.

i find Rosalie's curse heartbreaking because i do not doubt she has thought about this when she looks in the mirror.

she's more attractive now than ever, but that is what put her in that position in the first place. she's come to this horrific realization at an even more horrific cost. & everyone around her compliments how beautiful she is; everyone dreams about how wonderful their lives would be if only they could be so beautiful; everyone wishes they could be as beautiful as Rosalie Hale...

meanwhile, Rosalie sits with the uncomfortable idea that the thing that gave her everything she wanted is the same thing that led her to her rape, to her death— hell, Carlisle figured she'd make a good wife for Edward, so even her turning was a result of her beauty— & is now the very thing that traps her in a life she never wanted, performing eternally in a spotlight that will never dim.

[kingofmyborrowedheart]

I don’t really get dunking on a fellow artist that helped open doors for you and has only been kind towards you but that could just be me.

[blujayonthewing]

big shoutout to my middle school music teacher whose contribution to my truly obnoxious Obsessed With Ocarina Phase was to teach me how to double-tongue

[iguessitsjustme]

Ren Faire closing weekend with @heretherebedork

I am now simultaneously sweaty and dusty

I only have a few pics of myself from today but I don’t post my face on tumblr so you get these instead

[oldkamelle]

like a renaissance painting this is.

[sudokuplayer]

i've watched only a few scenes of the movie WALL-E and i hate it so much 😮‍💨 and i also dislike all the Pixar movies released after that one. they really peaked with Ratatouille in my eyes

[montanamp3]

this post was made in remembrance of scheherazade!remy and her dubiously canonical murderous 1970s nepotism baby slay

[wakeofvultures]

In honor of posting Chapter 15 of Cracks in the Crypt and getting jumpscared by this in my drafts, here is a doodle that turned into more than a doodle of Caius and Myrtis, set probably a year or so after Myrtis first joins the Volturi. I finished this months ago. I was experimenting with certain ways of rendering.

They're in a meeting, and Myrtis is very excited to be useful (or something).

Caius is like "something is wrong with her" (affectionate).