#my last duchess

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

So fun fact My Last Duchess (Robert Browning) is one my favourite poems and I am currently reading The Marriage Portrait (Maggie O’Farrel) and quickly falling in love with it and one of my favourite songs is Portrait of a Dead Girl (The Last Dinner Party) and I don’t think you understand how I can never recommend enough times that if you love one of these things individually you should check out the others and if you don’t know any of them you should introduce yourself to them because *screams*

(Btw for added context The Marriage Portrait and My Last Duchess are both inspired by the same historical figures Duke Alfonso II d’Este (fifth Duke of Ferrara) and Duchess Lucretia do Cosimo d’Este (née de’ Medici). Lucretia was much younger than him and died at 16, within the first year of their marriage. Her official cause of death was putrid fever but it has been popular theorised that Alfonso poisoned her. My Last Duchess describes the painting that Alfonso had commissioned of her, known as her marriage portrait. I included Portrait of a Dead Girl in this because the themes are very similar and it makes me think of her when I listen to it. ALSO: I’m not classing this as spoilers for the book because it is real history and the book tells you what happens to Lucretia all the way through the beginning including in the epigraph, but if anyone thinks I should tag this as spoilers let me know and I’ll add it)

[the-final-sentence]

'More than all right.'

Eloisa James, from My Last Duchess

[swash0067]

“My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,

Looking as if she were alive. I call

That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf’s hands

Worked busily a day, and there she stands.

Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said

“Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read

Strangers like you that pictured countenance,

The depth and passion of its earnest glance,

But to myself they turned (since none puts by

The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)

And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,

How such a glance came there; so, not the first

Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not

Her husband’s presence only, called that spot

Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek; perhaps

Fra Pandolf chanced to say, “Her mantle laps

Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint

Must never hope to reproduce the faint

Half-flush that dies along her throat.” Such stuff

Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough

For calling up that spot of joy. She had

A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad,

Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er

She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.

Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast,

The dropping of the daylight in the West,

The bough of cherries some officious fool

Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule

She rode with round the terrace—all and each

Would draw from her alike the approving speech,

Or blush, at least. She thanked men—good! but thanked

Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name

With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame

This sort of trifling? Even had you skill

In speech—which I have not—to make your will

Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this

Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,

Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let

Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set

Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse—

E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose

Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,

Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without

Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;

Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands

As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet

The company below, then. I repeat,

The Count your master’s known munificence

Is ample warrant that no just pretense

Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;

Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed

At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go

Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,

Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,

Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

[dreamofmourning]

[ambivalens999]

just me or is this giving My Last Duchess….

(husband kills his wife and immortalizes her in art so that she only smiles for *him*…which, in retrospect, is very tomarry of him)

Another draw your ship meme except I’m crying trying to do the frame

(original under the cut)

[thehammyyammy]

[mrmackquack]

too close for comfort

there it is / the whisper, the cloud / not for them to see but / see it they must / the light dazzling on the radiant neck of this last duchess / duke / now no longer radiant / not by this hand but by this object / useful and terrible / so close were we and yet / how far / to go / there is no hope for you but your / memory / a thing easily forgotten by others / it seems / I remember / you / here comes the curtain (but I dare not hold it) / the soothing music as you are / whisked away / but all I see is the pain that is not / your fault /

too close for comfort.

[nenoname]

stan twins the canon cptsd brothers i will always think about all your unaddressed issues that would make perfect plot fuel for your spinoff

and also the whole 'stan getting that poem by bill via a website which contrasts with bill getting one from the axolotl via a website' foreshadowing thing

like idk i would love something like su future but like more optimistic, aka not an accumulated breakdown that has to be mostly resolved off screen at the end :/// but something thats being kinda addressed throughout? (although would love to see one of them turn into a monster thats always fun lol)

stan having severe issues from his dad and those years of being homeless that we keep on getting more info on but never really getting confronted on (the drifter catalogue and tijuana incident...), him being completely alone for like twenty years when running the shack before soos comes along to the point that 1998 is noted as his low point, and him not really learning about bill+what he did to ford until ages after he killed him if he ever did get the full context

while i think amnesia and everyone seeing him as a hero actually helped with stan's 'i'm a worse version of my brother' thing its still a lingering issue too and we now got him being insecure over his own hands

ford being immediately thrown from 'being tortured by bill' to 'being stuck in the multiverse and being chased by bounty hunters constantly', him fully expecting himself to die when destroying bill, and him only now being safe for the first time in 30 years ....relatively safe, he's still in constant danger because of course he is

idk in the end the series wants them to be happy and they deserve it, its why i wasn't too worried about the book being like 'ooh bill is back!! and the book is haunting ford' thing cos i knew they'll be ok

[xbomboi]

dumping a bunch of misc. ever after high stuff i’ve drawn in the past few months on here.

excuse the quality of these, they’re the oldest ones. i have a handful. the more recent ones are a lot better.

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

So, erm, I finished reading The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell. Erm. Oh my goodness. Five stars. Possibly my favourite book of this year so far. I think I’m really gonna need a minute to let this settle oh my goodness. Historical fiction isn’t usually my go to but this really really just… I don’t even have the words it was just beautiful. This was my introduction to Maggie O’Farrell and I definitely see myself reading more of her work. Erm. Wow. Highly recommended

[king-alfred]

Happy birthday David Dawson (b. 7 September 1982)! 👑

[who-do-i-know-this-man]

⚠️Vote for whomever YOU DO NOT KNOW⚠️‼️

[the-last-tsar]

"It is for me to thank you, my darling, for coming here all the way with our girlies and bringing here life and sunshine notwithstanding the rainy weather. Of course, as usual, I did not tell you half the things I had intended to say, because when we meet after a long separation, somehow I get stupidly shy and sit and gaze at you - which already is a joy for me!"

Letter from Nicholas II to Alexandra, where he thanks the visit that she made together with their daughters to the Stavka headquarters, where Nicholas was with Alexei. July 13, 1916.

A lifelong passion | Andrei Maylunas & Sergei Mironenko

[csswingandeasy]

KING RICHARD II. Act I, Scene ii. [1/?]

[sergeantpixie]

I love marina to!!! who do you ship her with?

Yay! My girl deserves all the love tbh.

My Marina Ships:

Colin/Marina - Very basic I know but I think it says a lot about what she thought of him that she picked him to be her baby daddy (and it says so much about him that he said he would've gladly married her if she told him the truth, I'm inclined to believe him.) and I'm a sucker okay.

Daphne/Marina - Mostly because they are character foils but also because they are pretty and also because both of them deserved more friends. I like to think they at least write letters to each other still!

Simon/Marina - This is my big reach but I just can absolutely see Simon being absolutely okay with another man's kid inheriting his estate as a big fuck you to his dad. And again, they'd be soooo pretty together.