dex.

yup

[madgirlscosm-deactivated2025051]

(excerpted from Leila Chatti's poem: "Tea", published in Missouri Review)

[liefst]

i must live my life the way i would if i believed i was pretty

[singing-bowl]

i have such a clear vision of an alternate life that is only a few decisions away... where i only use a flip phone and have a hands on job and check my emails at the library. i live in a smaller city with or close by to my friends, and go on adventures on my days off, i live frugally and diy everything that i can, and don't think about what my body looks like because i'm too busy living in it. i journal and draw and make art like its second nature and i cycle everywhere and have my car set up to sleep in it easily. i'm constantly reading and have clear thoughts that i'm actually able to get out of my head and i practice guitar and write songs and am building the confidence to share them.

[vegaofthelyre]

from I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better: A Woman’s Guide to Coping with Life by Monica Heisey

[vegaofthelyre]

For the Gardener’s Daughter by Alyssa Wong

[vegaofthelyre]

I went through your rec tag and couldn't find anything, but apologies if you've answered this before! Book recs for War of the Roses (fiction and non-fiction)? There has to be more to life than Philippa Gregory!

The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman. Full stop. Best book on the Wars of the Roses (and I’ve read, like, most of them), look no further. My fiction recs are sparse, because most of them that I’ve read (Gregory, obviously, but also The Stolen Crown, The King’s Daughter, A Rose for the Crown etc etc etc) are at best okay, but unremarkable. I DID like

The Adventures of Alienore Audley, by Brian Wainwright

The Founding, by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey (well, you really MUST read it to round things out, it’s a classic, but–well, mixed feelings)

As for nonfiction (and I would like to state here that I don’t necessarily subscribe to the interpretation of each of these, but they’re decent reads):

Blood Sisters: The Women Behind the Wars of the Roses, by Sarah Gristwood

Royal Blood: Richard III and the Mystery of the Princes, by Bertram Fields

Richard III: The Maligned King, by Annette Carson

Elizabeth Wydeville, the Slandered Queen, by Arlene Naylor Okerlund 

Winter King: Henry VII and the Dawn of Tudor England, by Thomas Penn

Blood and Roses: One Family’s Struggle and Triumph During the Tumultuous Wars of the Roses, by Helen Castor

Stay away from Weir. And Plaidy. (General rule-of-thumb for LIFE, but especially relevant here.)

[olosta-deactivated20220417]

[valeriebastille]

From In Powder and Crinoline : old fairy tales retold. By Arthur Quiller-Couch; illustrated by Kay Nielsen

[ex0skeletal]

Lucifer - Gustave Doré

[senseitive]

who cares, do better, move on

[rosauradelagarza-deactivated201]

what is this why is this

I had a dream last night where I was talking to my future daughter and she was crying because she was having a really hard time at school, teen angsting etc

me: you know, when I was in high school I didn’t have many friends

daughter: …that’s not…very comforting. What did you do for fun if you didn’t have a lot of friends?

me: well I’d come home and watch movies and tv and then I’d blog about my feelings on tumblr

daughter: …tumblr?? you mean that old website that got banned by The Leader?

me: wat

And then I looked around in slow motion and realized that we were living in this Utopian future where tumblr is banned and no one has free access to the internet

daughter: all hail our Dark Lord, Protector of the Nation.

Then I look up, horrified, to the spot where my daughter turned to, and it’s a framed picture of Cillian Murphy wearing a dark suit and looking down at everyone condescendingly, sort of like this:

so then I ran around the house, flailing like a horrified seal, and every frame had the same picture…

then suddenly I was at the Louvre and this happened…

I woke up gasping for air and with dry tears on my cheeks

[therealcillianmurphy-deactivate]

oh my god

[escapismsworld]

Unicorn Renaissance Ring, made in Germany or Italy, c.1550.

[lovecrumbss]

Stag with Herb Branch Mounted as a Ring, 1567, Art Institute of Chicago: Arms, Armor, Medieval, and Renaissance

[sea-mists]

literally though if you feel like your life is slipping through your fingers and every day goes too fast… try doing hard things, not just taking the easy route, like reading and making art and exercising and cooking a meal from scratch and journaling, doing these things without distraction, without being absorbed on a screen… the time will stretch and you’ll be reminded that life is long and beautiful if you make it so.

[afronerdism]

Saw a post that said “Not every person you dislike is a narcissist and not every unpleasant experience is trauma” and a lot of you needed to hear that.

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

Not all conflict is abuse.

[tutta-mia]

anaïs nin, from a diary entry featured in linotte: the early diary of anaïs nin 1914-1920

[valtsv]

new tarot card "fuck your entire life" and its a guy being attacked by devils and flaming skulls and wild animals and screaming and fire everywhere

[inthefallofasparrow]

[fulladeroure]

It's always "spill the tea" and never "tell me quickly what's the story, who saw what and why and where, let him give a full description, let him answer to Javert!"