#also for tudors week i never got around to doing the edit for my favorite tudor rivarly/siblings. i would have picked them

[fideidefenswhore]

"She was a ruthless woman who injured many, myself and my sainted mother included. She was quite capable of playing the King false, I promise you. My advice to you, Sister, is to forget you ever had a mother like that." Elizabeth caught the note of obsessive grievance in Mary's voice. She knew instinctively that it would be unwise to provoke her further by arguing with her. "Forgive me, Sister, but I had heard otherwise," she said simply. "Then you heard wrongly. She had me sent to wait upon you when you were a baby, and she told those that had charge of me to beat me for the little bastard I had become. How could you think such a one innocent?" "I am very sorry for your afflictions, Sister," Elizabeth whispered, aware more of the need to be diplomatic than of the desire to defend her mother. "They were not of my making, nor my desire." "How could you think her innocent?" "I heard things," she answered, then grew a touch defiant. "The whole world does not think my mother guilty."

The Lady Elizabeth [Chapter 8: 1544], Alison Weir

[safflowerseason]

Since you have good taste in tv shows imo, do you have any book recs (fiction or nonfiction)?

Hmm…I wouldn’t necessarily describe myself as a particularly voracious reader. Like with television, my habit is to find something I *love* and then reread approximately forty more times, instead of always reading new books. So I’m never reading what’s “newest” or “hottest” because I’m busy rereading Emily of New Moon or whatever. 

Anyway, here are some of my reliable favorites.

One of my favorite authors is Laurie Frankel, a Seattle-based writer. Her first book, Atlas of Love, is my favorite, but her most recent novel, This Is How It Always Is was featured in Reese Witherspoon’s book club. I also really love Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad series, and have read most of them multiple times. The Secret Place is one of the best books about teenage girls I’ve ever read. 

A few weeks ago I read a romance novel by Mhairi McFarlane and actually enjoyed it quite a bit, If I Never Met You. I can't speak for her other books, and I’m pretty picky about romance novels, but this one sucked me in. I’d like to read another one of her books if I can get my hands on one. Eligible, by Curtis Sittenfeld, is a modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice that I quite enjoyed. 

The Power, by Naomi Alderman, was one of the most fascinating novels I’ve read in the past half-decade, and I talk about it all the time. 

In terms of memoirs/non-fiction writing, I really love Mindy Kaling’s two books. One of my favorite essayists is Sloane Crosley - I own her first two essay collections, How Did You Get This Number and I Was Told There’d Be Cake. Everyone should read Michelle Obama’s Becoming, obviously, and I finally got around to reading Tara Westover’s Educated, which I 1000% recommend. It made me feel a lot of feelings and frankly sort of helped me better understand what we’re dealing with in terms of the increasing polarization in American politics. 

One of my favorite historical biographies is Antonia Fraser’s The Wives of Henry VIII. There are many, many books written about the Tudors, but this is the original groundbreaking work on the six wives of Henry VIII, and it remains one of the best in my opinion. If you’re looking for a diverting and sensational historical biography that also requires some commitment to get through, The Romanovs by Simon Sebag Montefiore is like 700 pages long and full of Russian royals doing Game-of-Thrones-like shit such as throwing their enemies off ledges onto spikes and orchestrating coups every few decades. (The last quarter of the book is about the Russian Revolution, which is more depressing considering the fate of the last Romanov emperor and his family, but before that it’s a very fun read). 

This summer I read Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? (2017 edition), which I really recommend to any White person interested in the psychology of race and racial-ethnic-cultural identity formation (of course, any reader of any race might be interested in this book, but one of the author’s main points is that White people are generally socialized to not think about whiteness as race because of white supremacy). Next up in my anti-racist education is Ijeoma Oluo’s So You Want to Talk About Race. 

In terms of books I want to read but haven’t yet been able to lay my hands on a copy: The Heir Affair, by the Fug Girls, and One to Watch, by Kate Stayman London. I also just bought Circe when it was on super-sale through Kindle, and look forward to reading that. 

[thestagthatlovedthewolf]

Tagged by @house-arya :) Thank you so much for the tag :D Also thank you to @atimeofwhichwehavenoknowledge​ :)

-> What made you sign up to Tumblr? wanting to be more invloved in the FRIENDS and Scream movies fandom

-> What did your blog start off as being? always a fandom blog, like I said it started with FRIENDS and Scream

-> Have you ever received any creepy asks, and if so, what did they say? no, I don’t think so...

-> Have you ever had a bad experience on tumblr? no, I don’t think soo...

-> If you had to pick a favourite English monarch, who would you pick? Henry VIII - years ago I started reading about him, and since then I’ve been really interested in his life

-> Do you prefer hot or cold? cold - I can always put on another sweater or jacket, while I can’t and don’t want to walk around naked

-> Do you have a special skill or talent? I don’t think so...

-> Do you have a phobia of anything? death

-> If you had to pick a favourite real life villain from history, who would you pick? I have no idea. I don’t usually like villains, even less when they are real. Maybe most of the socialists/communists during the ‘Estado Novo’ in Portugal, they were seen as villains, but they gave us democracy again... or maybe Martin Luther (and other protestants leaders) - he was seen as a villain of the church - but I’m glad they opened talks about Christianity again, I’m not religious but I like that period of story... Really none of these figures are still seen as villains, I think, they were only villains in their time

-> Do you have any dark traits? I don’t think so

-> If you could do anything, literally anything, like fly on a unicorn or something, what would it be? anything...  maybe travel, read whatever I want, study history, actual walk through the classical ruins in Italy and Greece

-> What is the scale of the worst argument you’ve ever had? bad. I try to not get mad, so I hold up stuff in, and then I explode... so probably bad...

-> What is your favourite slush flavour? I don’t really drink slushies... but maybe strawberry

-> If you could bring back any food or drink from your childhood that has been discontinued, what would it be? I don’t remember many things that have been discontinued, but this weekend I was talking about pez - those have been discontinued, at least here. Also chocolate cigarettes - they were prohibited when I was like 6 or 7, but I think I saw some last year or something

-> What is your favourite and most vivid childhood memory? I don’t know... I luckily have many happy memories, but I always love the memories of  playing with my cousins

-> If you could bring anyone back from the dead who would it be? I don’t know... bringing someone from the dead can be so dangerous so I don’t know

-> If you could go back to any time period and live there for a week, which period would it be and why? If I have to stay in Portugal, during Roman occupation. If not Greece, during the 5th century b.C.

-> If you could visit any abandoned place to take pictures, where would it be? ancient ruins, during the day. I’m not going to abandoned places at night...

> Do you have any particular, peculiar interests? no, I don’t think so... pretty normal interests

-> Do you have a creepy/scary experience that has happened to you, and what was it? not really scary/creepy thing... I think... I may have blocked it out

-> Do you like/read creepypasta stories? If so, what’s your favourite story? no, I really don’t like to read that type of stuff

-> If you were in the Wars of the Roses, would you be a Lancastrian, or a Yorkist? maybe Lancastrian, mostly because it starts the Tudor dynasty

-> What is your recurring nightmare? I don’t really have recurring nightmares, but they are all around kidnapping, deaths, and stuff like that, but I normally can pull myself out of it, with having characters I like saving me or whoever is being hurt (I remember when I was 11/12 having Peter Pan and the Disney Princess saving me from being kidnapped in a parking lot, it’s not really the Princess saving me anymore, but it’s similar). The only recurring nightmare I remember was from when I was 4 or 5, I dreamed quite often of a witch and a crocodile tying my pre-school teacher to a rocket and sending her to space...

-> Have you ever had a lucid dream? I don’t think so, unless this thing about working good characters into my nightmares...

-> If you could go to another planet, which would it be? any of them, Uranus. It had been my favorite planet since I was a kid, because I’ve always LOVED Haruka (Sailor Uranus)

->What is your religion, if any? None

-> Have you ever got so drunk, that you did something really embarrassing, and if so, what did you do? no, I don’t drink often. And when I do, it’s just a glass with a meal

-> Mike, Dustin, Lucas, or Will? Dustin or Lucas -  I’m always changing my mind about the two

-> Do you like Marina and the Diamonds? the name was familiar from the radio, but I had to check the songs. And yeah, I think I like it...

-> Charli XCX? this one I have never heard about

-> Tag a blog that you’ve seen, and you love their posts, but have never told them, and would like to talk to them. I don’t know... I follow so many people, and I feel like the blogs I really love and check very often, the people know because I’ve probably liked or reblogged aalmost every post. But I’ll give a shout out to a blog I just followed last week and really liked - @lovelunarchron - which led me to fanfic and it’s related to The Lunar Chronicles, so a lot of fun!!!

-> Pick one thing you like/love from the 80s. STAR WARS!!!!

-> What year were you born, and name something cool from that year. 1996. A Game of Thrones!! It came out in the same month as I was born. The book in the beginning of August, and me at the end

-> What was your blog name originally? (If you had another blog name) veridissima. The name I use for everything else

-> Do you follow any blogs that you know the user in real life? Yeah, a few friends from high school and middle school, but none are really fandom blogs, mostly music and pretty pictures, so I few of them have unfollowed me by now. And the other day when I met with two of my friends that created their tumblr around the time I did (they created it a bit earlier), and they really come here anymore

-> If you are in the ST fandom, which is your favourite song off the ST soundtrack? what is ST? I was thinking it was Star Trek, but the soundtrack thing makes me confused...But I’m not in the Star Trek fandom, so I wouldn’t answer this either way. EDIT: Wait... is it Stranger Things? If yes, I do LOVE the entire soundtrack, but I really like the main theme 

-> Finally, give your opinion on the person who tagged you! ✨ You’re AWESOME!!! And such a GREAT addition to the Gendrya family!!!

Tagging: @xv12, @indigoraysoflight, @cloudsinmycoffee9, @clevercloudpoetry, @myownsuperintendent, @sandyd94, @justwinginoverthings, @starkfish