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orwell:

I believe that the beauty in places is
evident—however, in people it is a lot more hidden. The great attraction
of human beings, is that this beauty manifests itself in fleeting
moments and thunders. Exterior beauty is ephemeral, it comes and goes.
But true beauty is connected to other feelings, such as joy and
tenderness. These are feelings that have nothing to do with exterior
appearances, and are hidden deeper inside things and people.

Paolo Sorrentino on “The Great Beauty”

tdp-ra:

knittedeevee:

bubbletea290mermaid:

“Brown eyes are so plain and ugly you can’t even compare them to gems like emerald and saph-”

Stop.

Carnelian

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Cairngorm

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Cassiterite

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Smoky Quartz

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Zircon (brown)

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Citrine

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Diaspore

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Dravite

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Enstatite

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Hessonite

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That’s not even all of GORGEOUS BROWN GEMS THAT EXIST IN THIS WORLD. Just like there are a lot of beautiful brown gems they’re a lot of BEAUTIFUL BROWN EYES. BROWN IS A GORGEOUS COLOR. Start treating it like one. 

I am so glad someone did this.

if you don’t want someone to have brown eyes because you can’t compare them to a gem then you’re a bad writer

muirin007:

Do you ever see people whose faces echo another era?

I’ve seen women with the round faces, sparse brows and high foreheads of medieval illuminated manuscripts.

Men with dark brows that meet in the middle, olive skin, strong noses and jaws–Byzantine men, ghosts of Constantine, reanimated faces from the Fayum Mummy Portraits.

Women with soft figures and the large eyes and prim, petaled mouths of the 19th century.

Grizzled men whose brows predicate their gaze, whose wrinkles track into their thick beards and read like topographical maps of hardship and intensity–the wanderer, the poet; Whitman, Tolstoy, Carlyle. 

Faces sculpted into the perfect, deified symmetry of the pharaohs–almond eyes, full lips, self-assurance 3,000 years in the making staring at you at a stoplight.  

Plump, curved white wrists curled over purse handles in the waiting room and you think Versailles, Madame Pompadour, Marie Antoinette, Catherine the Great. Wide cheek bones, courage and sorrow in the scrunched face of the old man in line behind you and it’s Geronimo, Sitting Bull, Tecumseh. Reddened skin, thick forearms, hair and beard and brows burned by the cold into a reddish corn silk and you think Odin, the forge and the hammer and skin stinging from the salt of the ocean.

Virginia Woolf’s quiet brand of gaunt frankness surveys you in passing in the parking lot. Queen Victoria’s heavy-lidded stare and beaked nose are firmly, uncannily fixed on a sixth-grade classmate’s face.

Renaissance voluptuousness on the boardwalk by the beach. Boticelli’s caramel androgyny in a youth smoking on a bench outside the mall.

Jazz age looseness spurs the tripping gait of the man who watches you paint with his hands in his pockets, and he smiles a Sammy Davis Jr. smile and tells you that you look familiar, that he’s sure he’s seen you somewhere before, but he doesn’t know where or when.

Gallery

goforthandthrash:

from electric blossom by torkil gudnason

“I looked down at the ground and saw flowers of complete perfection;
flowers that were the flowers that our flowers of the world
might become! … I was unsure
suddenly that our spectrum was even involved. 

I mean, I don’t think our spectrum of color was the limit! I think
there was some other set of rules. Or it was merely an expansion, a
gift of being able to see combinations of color which are not visible
chemically on earth…

“Sapphirine!” I cried out suddenly, trying to identify the greenish
blue of the great leaves surrounding us and gently waving to and fro,
and Memnoch smiled and nodded as if in approval, reaching again to
stop me from touching Heaven, from trying to grab some of the
magnificence I saw.”
– Lestat, Memnoch the Devil

I hope there wasn’t such a question before. So, about vampire biology, we know that when emacieted person became a vampire (Gabrielle or Mona), they gain mass while transforming but how about fat person? Like, they lose their unhealthy fat and became a thin vampire? Or at least chubby?

There was a similar sort of question before but I don’t mind revisiting questions, sometimes my headcanons have changed, sometimes I consider a different angle on things, as I’m doing now ;]

Short answer: for Ricean vampires, in my opinion, a fat person would not lose their weight and become a thin person. Vampirism might tighten them up a little, but they will have the same body they had before. For ETERNITY.

There are non-Ricean fat vampires, thoHere’s Deacon from What We Do in the Shadows, and while I wouldn’t call him FAT, I wouldn’t call him SLIM either. Nor is he attractive to everyone even tho he thinks he is

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So the factors involved with making *~chubby~* vampires are:

1. Who the maker chooses. This is based on different factors, but Beauty is typically one of them. In some societies, bigger is beautiful! An “unhealthy” weight by one society’s standards during one time period is desirable in others: [X]

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^Personally, I prefer Tiziano’s “Venere di Urbino” in its original form, which is clearly the point Italian artist/actress Anna Utopia Giordano was making when she ‘shopped a whole bunch of these classical paintings ;D

Hit the jump for moar.


2. The vampiric parasite’s prime directive is to make its host into an efficient and attractive killing machine for the sake of its own survival. The parasite doesn’t know what society’s current ideal weight is, but it learns everything about the host body it goes into, and tries to enhance that body to suit its own goal (*1).

  • It’s hard to explain why Gabrielle and Mona’s bodies were inflated up to a “healthy” weight (so to speak). I’d say it’s bc the vampiric parasite transforms the insides of its host to more of a spongey material to increase the liquid capacity (*2). That spongey material could end up slightly inflating areas that had withered due to age or malnutrition.

3. Post-turning, the vampire body cannot exercise off any poundage, or gain any weight in the manner that mortals do. They CAN overfeed, and there is one example of that in canon. I can’t think of anywhere that post-turning weight gain is mentioned. Overfeeding will still not create fat as we understand it:

“Glutted with the feast he was, plump and heated with it as she had seldom ever seen an immortal become.” Pandora describing Azim, Queen of the Damned


*1. I think the vampiric parasite (Amel) analyzes the blueprint of the host’s body when it’s installed and it then immediately uninstalls the features it doesn’t need (e.g. internal reproductive organs). It then starts converting all the organic matter of the host body into its own substance to “perfect it” into the pure supernatural killing machine that it wants to be. In that sense, that initial blueprint probably indicates length of hair, beard growth, muscle shape and position, etc., at time of death, and those are elements that the vampiric parasite program respects and wants to maintain as it continues to “update” its host body. The external appearance of the host body will affect its ability to hunt, and thus, preserve itself. It’s in the parasite’s interest for the host to continue to survive so that it can, too.

*2. The human body can only hold a limited amount of liquid, and the volume of blood they drink as fledglings (according to Lestat’s math, and I’m working on another post about that) would far exceed that limit. The fact is that there would be a lot of blood (like at least 2 gallons) that would have nowhere to go unless the insides of the body were more like a sponge and could store more of it than a mortal body can.

A Note on #VC Casting

That feel when you’d rather answer questions all day in a state of weird and pleasurable natural – albeit caffeinated – high rather than attempt to do any real productive Work for your Job. 

I just want to mention, and please take this completely w/o attitude bc I do not intend any attitude here: I get a number of VC Casting ideas on a regular basis, and I do enjoy them a lot! But if you don’t see an answer for yours it’s either bc:

  1. I haven’t had a chance to research the actor yet; 
  2. I researched the actor and they don’t reeeally work for me and I’m trying to come up with another role for them so I can still answer publicly; or,
  3. I researched the actor and they don’t work for me and I can’t think of another role for them, so I might have to let it go unanswered or just delete it. 

If you haven’t seen your Ask answered, and it’s been a long time, it may have been a #3 sacrifice. Not every male violinist can be the illustrious Nicolas de Lenfent! But you are more than welcome to post your own casting ideas, and tag them #VC Casting, and I will be tracking that tag so I might reblog from your blog ;D

(I’m only talking about casting in terms of the physical attributes of the actors and their acting abilities, not their personal lives.)

As we all know, casting is highly subjective, and “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” What a terribly boring world it would be if we all fell for the exact same faces! 

The whole thing stirs up beauty as a concept. We argue whether Louis’s hair is long and straight, and chestnut in color, like in movie!IWTV, or that it’s shoulder-length, wavy and raven black as described in canon. In some fanart it’s drawn just long and black and silky straight, in some, it’s short and curly! 

In considering VC Casting, we will have to make compromises, it’s unlikely that whoever is cast will look or be styled sufficiently to please everyone. I have my own subjective ideals for beauty and how the characters should look, don’t take any of my opinions personally (unless you want to agree with me!), I would never want to cause anyone discomfort simply because I disagree with their choice.

Whoever is finally cast, let’s try to give the actors a chance to do their jobs and try to keep in mind that these are fictional characters, and the movie people want us to enjoy their product, and buy the BluRay of it, and make a cult classic out of it, and all that jazz.

More on beauty under the cut.


My 8 year old cousin just told me on Saturday night, right in the middle of a lovely collage session in which we were cutting up models from Seventeen and making fashion plates, that she wished she had “straight blonde hair.” She said curly hair was ugly. Her hair is perfect Louis de Pointe du Lac hair to me, brunette and maybe a little lighter than his, but silky and slightly wavy to her shoulders, then descending like a little bubbling waterfall into the most perfect little shining curls for about 4 inches. Oooh purple prose! But I had to paint a picture since I can’t post one here, so let me be briefly flowery just for the sake of description, ok?

I knew I didn’t have a satisfactory answer for her concern, because telling her “But you have beautiful French girl hair!” “But mine is just like yours! Is mine ugly?” would have meant nothing in the face of a culture that forces certain ideals of beauty at us from such an early age. She said “I wish my hair was straight and blonde,” as if that would solve all her major problems, so that she could then go on to tackle the important ones. 

She then followed it up with “- like my dance teacher Lilly.” Ah! Now it was clear! She wanted to look like someone she deeply respects and appreciates! Hopefully that’s really where it’s coming from and not the mass media trying to convince us all from an early age that our inadequacies are many and can only be overcome with dye, paint, etc. I admit that I wear makeup, but for me, it’s more like war paint, and bc I enjoy the art of it.

I told her anyway, “My best friend has straight black hair, and she told me that many girls like her get their hair professionally curled, they pay a lot of money to try to get their hair curly like yours.”

“Really?” said my 8 year old cousin.

“Really.” I said.

She seemed somewhat pleased with this factoid and we went back to our art project, but still… It just brought up this whole beauty topic. It’s not resolved, the conversation is far from over, but at least we started it. 

Every time I look at your art I get so depressed because I know I will never be that good.

:

Noooooooooo. 😦

Can I tell you a secret, though? My favorite style of art isn’t mine. It isn’t realism.

I like what I make because it feels the most like me. And I like lots of kinds of art, but my favorite styles that I like looking at the most are probably not what you’d expect from a photorealist. I like things like animated gifs and fan art and street art and vaporwave and amateur comics. I like selfies and cosplay and little kinky cartoons and monsters and cats in space. You know why that stuff is my favorite? Because it’s not about being “good.” Or being realistic or whatever. It’s about being yourself. To me, “good” art is when you can see the artist in the art. My favorite style of art is the artist.

And everyone is already themselves, you know? Everyone has opinions about what is pretty or what inspires them. Everyone has an artist in them. You just gotta figure out how to show it, which you will. All it takes is time and practice.

I already think you’re good. ❤

ask-lafayette:

deadbyshawn:

deadbyshawn:

appreciate brown eyes more bc the people with brown eyes are grown up forcing to believe fuckin blue and green and grey are beautiful and either detest or get incredibly happy when someone compliments their eye color stop letting this happen

there are people with brown eyes reblogging this and theyre talking about still being sad with their eye color and this is exactly why we need hype about brown eyes

OKAY LET ME TALK ABOUT BROWN EYES. THEY ARE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL FUCKING THING OKAY. FROM THE LIGHT BROWN ALL THE WAY TO THE BROWN THAT IS SO DARK IT LOOKS LIKE APART OF THE PUPIL. FUCKING GORGEOUS. YOU EVER SEE BROWN EYES IN THE LIGHT? IT SHOWS ALL OF THE BEAUTIFUL SHADES IN IT AND ITS FUCKKKKK ITS SO BEAUTIFUL. PLUS THE DARKER THE MORE SMOLDERY AND JESUS ITS GREAT. I JUST REALLY LOVE BROWN EYES IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH IT COME FUCK WITH ME.

Why does everyone consider you the more beautiful, I am as young and as pretty as you are!

amadeo-child-of-the-renaissance:

“I admit there were some mean replies sitting on the tip of my tongue… but I promised Marius I would be good, so: do they?
I can’t recall any description of me that includes the words ‘more beautiful than’ (there was the sentence ‘pretty as a girl’ for which somebody got rightfully punched).
This question sounds like a petulant child’s, so I’m guessing Rose?
On another note: my beauty has to compensate for my character. Why do you think I’m literally getting away with murder? I’m most certainly glad my sadism doesn’t show. So maybe the ‘innocence’ so many seem to see in my face (let’s be honest: I had 5 centuries to perfect that look) is enhanced when they notice what horrors I’m capable of? They see me and they think of a young boy, because my age doesn’t show and then they witness me being cruel and the shock of the discovery makes them wonder how my features don’t reflect it because people still link ‘evil’ to ‘ugly’ (at least now they don’t burn you on the stake for looking like a hag), so the discrepancy enhances certain perceptions?
That was a little philosophical, so let’s get to the ‘being nice’ part. I can feel Marius looking at me… Have you considered that each of us might simply possess their own kind of beauty? Personal preference exists and sometimes has little to do with age or being pretty. However- I advice you to ditch the person that told you to your face they find another more pretty than you are, since it was either them telling you they’re not interested or them being plainly mean. Unhealthy for your self-esteem in both cases, I’d say. If you ended up with that conclusion by yourself you should ask yourself why it is so important to you what others think of you.”