Reuben

Mostly amrev & Aaron Burr • pagan, chronically ill artist • UVA history '27 • He/They, 20, afro-latine, 🖇️🏳️‍⚧️

[reueslee]

About Reu

"So then,"

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

Name: Reuben (or Reu)

Pronouns: He/They

Age: 20

Timezone: EDT (UTC-04:00)

Welcome to my blog! I mostly post art and my history shenanigans on here, but I hope to start posting historical research, rants, and whatnot. I mostly draw amrev stuff but you'll see my other interests sprinkled around here and there as well.

Most common tags: #reu's art (my art), #amrev (my main interest), #Aaron Burr

A little bit about me...

I am a full time undergraduate double majoring history and studio art. I'm also a university guide and love rambling about our university's past – I focus on our 19th century history. I am currently an Educator and Visitor Programs historical interpreter at Monticello.

I've researched the founding era of the US for almost 6 years now, and I've extensively researched Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson (note, I hate Thomas Jefferson. I hate him because of my extensive knowledge on him, not in spite of it).

I also focus my research on:

John Marshall

James Madison

John Pierre Burr

Luther Martin

Thomas Paine

Marquis de Lafayette

Richard Montgomery

The Hemings and others enslaved at Monticello and UVA

Virginia regional history

History of enslaved people

And goodness, so, so much more. You'll notice that I draw Burr the most though. He's my go-to person to draw. Many say that I am quite normal about Burr (I am not).

Academic interests: 1770's-1830's U.S history (special interest), astronomy, abnormal psychology, developmental psychology, theoretical physics, biology, religious philosophy, and more 📖

My favorite amrev media: 1776 The Musical, HBO: John Adams, TURN: Washington's Spies, I Made America (Does anyone know what IMA is... Anyone..please..), and more

Other interests: Witchcraft/paganism (I am pagan), ttrpgs, Project Sekai, Vocaloid (Kikuo, Iyowa, Maretu, etc), Arcane, Spiderverse, Bojack Horseman, J-Pop (Ado, Tatsuya Kitani, etc), BBC & CBS Ghosts, Will Wood, Mitski, MLP, Steven Universe, Good Omens, The Owl House, animation, Hadestown, Falsettos, singing, and more

My user is reueslee pretty much everywhere, if you'd like to find me elsewhere. I'm most active on here and Instagram.

Heigh-Ho! 💁🏽

. ݁₊⊹. ݁˖ .

"we'll be okay."

[reueslee]

Been oh so very busy! Just dropping a couple Burr family pieces

[reueslee]

Burr interest got a little too strong, I now have admin powers for the Aaron Burr Association website and am trying to fix the website design nightmare it is

[christopherballot]

SSR [Forward Ho!!!] Richard Henry Lee

[reueslee]

"Crossfire" Québec, 31 December 1775

[reueslee]

Love in parting

Painted them for my water based painting class

This will not last, I know it cannot. Let me behold you once more before we must part

[kinglua]

The official Monticello ig account posted this

[reueslee]

hi its monticello simmer anon again 🙏 i have a small and stupid question but what is the floor made of in the like,,, its one of the porticos. not the greenhouse one but idk if thats east or west im really bad at directions but the open air one. i cant tell if its stone or wood and theres no good photos 🥀

thank u for ur service king i owe u my first born

Hi friend! I think you may be referring to the Tea Porch, or North Piazza.

Pitifully, I have no photos of this either. I will be up at Monticello next Sunday and can get clearer photos then, but if my memory doesn't fail me, it's brick (much similar to the brick of the walls). Each outside wing of the house has wooden walkways.

The opposing side where the greenhouse is has grey cut stone (oh hey! I do have mundane photos!)

Each portico, the east portico (where you enter on tours, doors to entrance hall) and west portico (faces the west lawn, doors to parlor), has a grey stone ground.

If you (or anyone else) has specific photos they need of the house, feel free to ask and I'll see what I can gather when I'm at work in a week. Happy to help!

[lanfykins]

Burr: "I leave my actions to speak for themselves"

Also Burr: Acts in the most confusing and inexplicable ways

New theory about the Election of 1800 and The Burr Conspiracy: He Just Did It To Annoy Me Personally.

[reueslee]

I love staring at Burr's papers for 4+ hours at a time just to find nothing of substance and not a trace of anything that could possibly make sense to anyone

I study Burr and I learn nothing. It's grand

[reueslee]

forgive me if im wrong, are you the person who works at monticello? if so, would it be too much to ask if you happen to have a map/are able to draw a rough layout of the 2nd and 3rd floors? im. embarrasingly making it in the sims and the 1st floor is easy bc i have the architecture maps but the 2nd and 3rd floors only have a handful of rooms visible on the virtual tour :( i just have 0 clue how these hallways are working. ignore this if youre not the person !!! i cant remember handles :(

Hello! I am in fact that person! I have been in their education and visitor programs department since May 2025. Shockingly, I can find no maps of the second or third floors (or crossroads, the technical basement level)! :(

Fortunately, I love Monticello, and I've already started sketching out a map. I'm responding to this ask right now because I want to make that map + photo resources of Monticello into a larger post, and that is going to take a few days due to school. Don't want you to think I didn't see this :)

If you or anyone else has any other Monticello + Jeffersonian studies questions, feel free to throw em at me. I may end up making a huge masterpost and share a lot of my personal resources.

I also understand the build... I tried to make Monticello in Minecraft when I was in high school, but couldn't find the best source photos for it to work well. Funny how I've ended up here now.

I'll get the rough map finished when I can, and it will be no work of art as I'm no Jefferson or Palladio or architect at all. But I do hope it helps when I finish it. Happy building!

[reueslee]

AmRev no. 3 — Aaron Burr

The third installation for my year-long series. My 7th year drawing him on his birthday. Happy 270th birthday, Aaron Burr.

Ironically, I study him the most yet have the least to say of him. Aaron Burr is a historical figure who did so much in his life, is misconstrued so often, and sometimes sounds so baffling. Burr was born on February 6th, 1756 in Newark, NJ. He graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) when he was 16, and eventually became a Colonel during the American Revolution, participating in various battles such as Quebec and Monmouth.

Burr's life holds a lot of legacies. Lawyer, politician, advocate for education, the arts, and immigration among many things. Consistently anti-slavery in politics, though enslaving around 15 people throughout his lifetime. Many adopted and some biological children, and one who gave generously to people in his private life. Irrational yet logical, tragic yet optimistic.

“I leave to my actions to speak for themselves, and to my character to confound the fictions of slander.” - A.B

If a majority of his archives weren't in the ocean or lost to time, perhaps we'd all be able to make more sense of him. Perhaps we would know of his actions to better judge his character.

"Perhaps. As Washington Irving said of Burr, shortly before the essayist died, “Burr was full of petty mystery. He made a mystery of everything.”" - Peter Charles Hoffer, The Treason Trials of Aaron Burr, p. 193.

[retquits]

so don't get too comfortable.

high resolution free to download [ here ]

[reueslee]

He's living on a cork board at the Monticello offices now

[reueslee]

Thomas Jefferson survives

[culperscomet]

BIG fan of referring to historical figures by their first name like we’re actually long time friends

[beggars-opera]

Rest in power, Claudette Colvin 1939 - 2026

[birdytaste]

A comic for Alexander Hamilton.

I imagined many things he might have thought of in the last ten seconds. I drew them all. And yet, when I finished, I began to feel that perhaps, in those ten seconds, he thought of nothing but the sun was too bright.

Wish you guys enjoy it :)

[reueslee]

AmRev 250 no. 2 — Alexander Hamilton

First secretary of the U.S. Treasury, military leader in the Continental Army, accomplished lawyer and Broadway famous. Alexander Hamilton needs little introduction, and as January 11th is his birthday, I determined he would be next in this series.

During the American Revolutionary War, Hamilton fought in several key battles, such as the battles of Trenton, Princeton, and Yorktown. I've tried to picture him in Princeton, which took place in January of 1777, though it could be interpreted as any barren backdrop.

The fun thing about his birthday is that he was either born in 1755 or 1757 – records are unreliable, historians are uncertain, and perhaps we'll never know how old he actually was. At the very least, people are mostly certain on that Jan. 11th day.

Hamilton was known for being deeply opinionated, ambitious, and stubborn, and prolific. There was rarely a dull moment in Hamilton's life, and for both good and bad, he deeply impacted the early U.S.

🦁