#I WISH I WAS ABLE TO SAVE HIM

[bibleofficial]

i literally have the pigeon corpse in my freezer

[codenameregnar]

So maybe this is all just cope and the real answer really is just homophobia, but I think the whole Garak/Ziyal thing actually makes so much sense.

When Ziyal first came to the station, Garak was especially lonely, this is around the time him and Julian had started growing apart, and there was finally someone on the station who was at least partially Cardassian. Someone who could remind him of home, even just a little. I think he genuinely set out to just be a friend and a bit of a father figure to her, especially since her actual father sucks so bad. But Ziyal is young and impressionable and shes never really had anyone just be nice to her with no ulterior motive (other than Kira, different hc tho lol) so when you combine that with her weird and mixed up feelings about Dukat, of course she ended up wanting to be more than friends with Garak. And initially I think he’s kinda creeped out by it (I mean he’s 30 years older than her after all) if flattered. Not only does he sincerely believe that he’s not deserving of any sort of intimacy, but shes so young that surely she has no idea what shes signing herself up for. But christ, he is so utterly lonely. And one thing about Garak is he is absolutely incapable of not devouring every scrap of softness and comfort that he’s given, even if he hates himself for it. And he also realizes that she needs that comfort just as much as he does. That shes in a very similar position to his. They both have no one. And in that way she makes him feel so much less alone. The cherry on top of all of this being that he now has a new way to piss Dukat off. So he allows a relationship to form between them. Because he genuinely cares about her, and he needs her.

Idk, I just think they work really well together actually. They’re just two people cast adrift in the middle of the ocean, holding on to each other so as not to drown. And I think they did love each other if only for that shared experience of loneliness and the respite from it that they provided for one another. Whenever I see posts about how he only ever viewed their relationship as a familial one, I can’t help but think that thats not the whole picture.

[hyunpic]

🩷💓💗💞💕💞💘💖

[waspgrave]

now there was no reason for lucanis to be given purple johnny silverhand as a plot point and then never have the purple johnny silverhand utilized except for maybe 3 or 4 times in the game (if you saved Treviso, otherwise it's twice) and dialogue. Dialogue where he pretty much just says weird and funny things and occasionally gets scolded like a dog which is entertaining sure but there is Literally A Demon In One Of The Companions Why Is This Not A Bigger Deal

[skunkes]

the bad: i have been raised without much warmth from my parents in childhood, but also pressured to conform to familial authority, doubt myself always, and value familial connections above all else (<- failed at this, and feel guilt about it.)

but also in experiencing this i have been so isolated from the entire rest of the world and others, that it will be nearly impossible to create my own "family" -> find safety and comfort in anybody else once my family is Gone. despite dis i find it really difficult to break away from the familiar, disobey and disappoint, because, well, why are my wishes more important than anybody else's. why would I cause upset and distress in anybody, and exert so much effort into my doubt filled half decisions, for my meaningless little Wishes. being away would also mean less time with these people who I'll never see again once they're gone. being raised this way is definitely paying off for those who did so.

the good: yaaaay adjacent inspiration for writing talon lore

[multishipper-baby]

Not publishing the ask yet because I want to reply with the playlist but I have to comment on it because

Anon. You just gave the biggest neuron activation.

IT'S 2 AM. BUT HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO SLEEP WHEN I'M THINKING ABOUT THEM.

[anastacialy]

y'know, i keep making a habit of swinging my bat at hornets nests, but i have to say i'm getting so, so tired of people complaining about shows not making perfect sense when they aren't even close to done. we're four episodes into this season of doctor who. we're four episodes into this season of bridgerton. and yet in both fandoms i keep seeing people whine that such and such didn't make sense or it wasn't explained all the way and by god you guys i think maybe explanations might come later in the season. this is something most viewers will recognize as being called a 'plot.'

[capisback]

I think it's interesting that they went in different directions for Movie vs Book Boromir. Because from a story-writing stand-point I can understand why the movie did was it did, since Boromir's fall needed to make sense and they did not have the luxury of time and insight that the book does. But it's also interesting that Boromir's demise in the movie is painted as something inevitable, as something that is because he was not as pure of heart as the others are - while the book tells us the opposite. He fell because his heart was good. He fell because he loved too much. And love is strong, and Boromir was strong because of it - and the Ring corrupts those who have strength

[aelswiths]

this shot haunts me

[wonder-worker]

Queen Margaret (of Anjou) had written to the Common Council in November when the news of the Duke of York's coup was proclaimed. The letter from the queen was published in modernised English by M.A.E. Wood in 1846, and she dated it to February 1461 because of its opening sentence: ‘And whereas the late Duke of N [York]...." However the rest of the letter, and that of the prince, is in the present tense and clearly indicates that the Duke of York is still alive. The reference to the ‘late duke’ is not to his demise but to the attainder of 1459 when he was stripped of his titles as well as of his lands. If the queen’s letter dates to November 1460, and not February 1461, it make perfect sense. Margaret declared the Duke of York had ‘upon an untrue pretense, feigned a title to my lord’s crown’ and in so doing had broken his oath of fealty. She thanked the Londoners for their loyalty in rejecting his claim. She knew of the rumours, that we and my lords sayd sone and owrs shuld newly drawe toward yow with an vnsome [uncounted] powere of strangars, disposed to robbe and to dispoyle yow of yowr goods and havours, we will that ye knowe for certeyne that . . . . [y]e, nor none of yow, shalbe robbed, dispoyled nor wronged by any parson that at that tyme we or owr sayd sone shalbe accompanied with She entrusted the king's person to the care of the citizens ‘so that thrwghe malice of his sayde enemye he be no more trowbled vexed ne jeoparded.’ In other words the queen was well informed in November 1460 of the propaganda in London concerning the threat posed by a Lancastrian military challenge to the illegal Yorkist proceedings. Margaret assured the Common Council that no harm would come to the citizenry or to their property. Because the letter was initially misdated, it has been assumed that the queen wrote it after she realised the harm her marauding troops were doing to her cause, and to lull London into a false sense of security. This is not the case, and it is a typical example of historians accepting without question Margaret’s character as depicted in Yorkist propaganda. Margaret’s letter was a true statement of her intentions but it made no impact at the time and has made none since. How many people heard of it? The Yorkist council under the Earl of Warwick, in collusion with the Common Council of the city, was in an ideal position to suppress any wide dissemination of the letter, or of its content.

... When Margaret joined the Lancastrian lords it is unlikely that she had Scottish troops with her. It is possible that Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, sent men from Wales but there was no compelling reason why he should, he needed all the forces at his disposal to face Edward Earl of March, now Duke of York following his father’s death at Wakefield, who, in fact, defeated Pembroke at Mortimer’s Cross on 2 February just as the Lancastrian army was marching south. The oft repeated statement that the Lancastrian army was composed of a motley array of Scots, Welsh, other foreigners (French by implication, for it had not been forgotten that René of Anjou, Queen Margaret’s father, had served with the French forces in Nomandy when the English were expelled from the duchy, nor that King Charles VII was her uncle) as well as northern men is based on a single chronicle, the Brief Notes written mainly in Latin in the monastery of Ely, and ending in 1470. It is a compilation of gossip and rumour, some of it wildly inaccurate, but including information not found in any other contemporary source, which accounts for the credence accorded to it. The Dukes of Somerset and Exeter and the Earl of Devon brought men from the south and west. The Earl of Northumberland was not solely reliant on his northern estates; as Lord Poynings he had extensive holdings in the south. The northerners were tenants and retainers of Northumberland, Clifford, Dacre, the Westmorland Nevilles, and Fitzhugh, and accustomed to the discipline of border defence. The continuator of Gregory’s Chronicle, probably our best witness, is emphatic that the second battle of St Albans was won by the ‘howseholde men and feyd men.” Camp followers and auxiliaries of undesirables there undoubtedly were, as there are on the fringes of any army, but the motley rabble the queen is supposed to have loosed on peaceful England owes more to the imagination of Yorkist propagandists than to the actual composition of the Lancastrian army.

... Two differing accounts of the Lancastrian march on London are generally accepted. One is that a large army, moving down the Great North Road, was made up of such disparate and unruly elements that the queen and her commanders were powerless to control it.” Alternatively, Queen Margaret did not wish to curb her army, but encouraged it to ravage all lands south of the Trent, either from sheet spite or because it was the only way she could pay her troops.” Many epithets have been applied to the queen, few of them complimentary, but no one has as yet called her stupid. It would have been an act of crass stupidity wilfully to encourage her forces to loot the very land she was trying to restore to an acceptance of Lancastrian rule, with her son as heir to the throne. On reaching St Albans, so the story goes, the Lancastrian army suddenly became a disciplined force which, by a series of complicated manoeuvres, including a night march and a flank attack, won the second battle of St Albans, even though the Yorkists were commanded by the redoubtable Earl of Warwick. The explanation offered is that the rabble element, loaded down with plunder, had descended before the battle and only the household men remained. Then the rabble reappeared, and London was threatened. To avert a sack of the city the queen decided to withdraw the army, either on her own initiative or urged by the peace-loving King Henry; as it departed it pillaged the Abbey of St Albans, with the king and queen in residence, and retired north, plundering as it went. Nevertheless, it was sufficiently intact a month later to meet and nearly defeat the Yorkist forces at Towton, the bloodiest and hardest fought battle of the civil war thus far. The ‘facts’ as stated make little sense, because they are seen through the distorting glass of Yorkist propaganda.

The ravages allegedly committed by the Lancastrian army are extensively documented in the chronicles, written after the event and under a Yorkist king. They are strong on rhetoric but short on detail. The two accounts most often quoted are by the Croyland Chronicle and Abbott Whethamstede. There is no doubting the note of genuine hysterical fear in both. The inhabitants of the abbey of Crowland were thoroughly frightened by what they believed would happen as the Lancastrians swept south. ‘What do you suppose must have been our fears . . . [w]hen every day rumours of this sad nature were reaching our ears.’ Especially alarming was the threat to church property. The northern men ‘irreverently rushed, in their unbridled and frantic rage into churches . . . [a]nd most nefariously plundered them.’ If anyone resisted ‘they cruelly slaughtered them in the very churches or churchyards.’ People sought shelter for themselves and their goods in the abbey,“ but there is not a single report of refugees seeking succour in the wake of the passage of the army after their homes had been burned and their possessions stolen. The Lancastrians were looting, according to the Crowland Chronicle, on a front thirty miles wide ‘like so many locusts.“ Why, then, did they come within six miles but bypass Crowland? The account as a whole makes it obvious that it was written considerably later than the events it so graphically describes.

The claim that Stamford was subject to a sack from which it did not recover is based on the Tudor antiquary John Leland. His attribution of the damage is speculation; by the time he wrote stories of Lancastrian ravages were well established, but outside living memory. His statement was embellished by the romantic historian Francis Peck in the early eighteenth century. Peck gives a spirited account of Wakefield and the Lancastrian march, influenced by Tudor as well as Yorkist historiography. … As late as 12 February when Warwick moved his troops to St Albans it is claimed that he did not know the whereabouts of the Lancastrians, an odd lack of military intelligence about an army that was supposed to be leaving havoc in its wake. The Lancastrians apparently swerved to the west after passing Royston which has puzzled military historians because they accept that it came down the Great North Road, but on the evidence we have it is impossible to affirm this. If it came from York via Grantham, Leicester, Market Harborough, Northampton and Stony Stratford to Dunstable, where the first engagement took place, there was no necessity to make an inexplicable swerve westwards because its line of march brought it to Dunstable and then to St Albans. The Lancastrians defeated Warwick’s army on 17 February 1461 and Warwick fled the field. In an echo of Wakefield there is a suggestion of treachery. An English Chronicle tells the story of one Thomas Lovelace, a captain of Kent in the Yorkist ranks, who also appears in Waurin. Lovelace, it is claimed, was captured at Wakefield and promised Queen Margaret that he would join Warwick and then betray and desert him, in return for his freedom.

Lt. Colonel Bume, in a rare spirit of chivalry, credits Margaret with the tactical plan that won the victory, although only because it was so unorthodox that it must have been devised by a woman. But there is no evidence that Margaret had any military flair, let alone experience. A more likely candidate is the veteran captain Andrew Trolloppe who served with Warwick when the latter was Captain of Calais, but he refused to fight under the Yorkist banner against his king at Ludford in 1459 when Warwick brought over a contingent of Calais men to defy King Henry in the field. It was Trolloppe’s ‘desertion’ at Ludford, it is claimed, that forced the Yorkists to flee. The most objective and detailed account of the battle of St Albans is by the unknown continuator of Gregory’s Chronicle. The chronicle ends in 1469 and by that time it was safe to criticise Warwick, who was then out of favour. The continuator was a London citizen who may have fought in the Yorkist ranks. He had an interest in military matters and recorded the gathering of the Lancastrian army at Hull, before Wakefield, and the detail that the troops wore the Prince of Wales’ colours and ostrich feathers on their livery together with the insignia of their lords. He had heard the rumours of a large ill-disciplined army, but because he saw only the household men he concluded that the northerners ran away before the battle. Abbot Whethamstede wrote a longer though far less circumstantial account, in which he carefully made no mention of the Earl of Warwick. … Margaret of Anjou had won the battle but she proceeded to lose the war. London lay open to her and she made a fatal political blunder in retreating from St Albans instead of taking possession of the capital.' Although mistaken, her reasons for doing so were cogent. The focus of contemporary accounts is the threat to London from the Lancastrian army. This is repeated in all the standard histories, and even those who credit Margaret with deliberately turning away from London do so for the wrong reasons.

... The uncertainties and delays, as well as the hostility of some citizens, served to reinforce Margaret’s belief that entry to London could be dangerous. It was not what London had to fear from her but what she had to fear from London that made her hesitate. Had she made a show of riding in state into the city with her husband and son in a colourful procession she might have accomplished a Lancastrian restoration, but Margaret had never courted popularity with the Londoners, as Warwick had, and she had kept the court away from the capital for several years in the late 1450s, a move that was naturally resented. Warwick’s propaganda had tarnished her image, associating her irrevocably with the dreaded northern men. There was also the danger that if Warwick and Edward of March reached London with a substantial force she could be trapped inside a hostile city, and she cannot have doubted that once she and Prince Edward were taken prisoner the Lancastrian dynasty would come to an end. Understandably, at the critical moment, Margaret lost her nerve. ... Queen Margaret did not march south in 1461 in order to take possession of London, but to recover the person of the king. She underestimated the importance of the capital to her cause." Although she had attempted to establish the court away from London, the Yorkist lords did not oppose her for taking the government out of the capital, but for excluding them from participation in it. Nevertheless London became the natural and lucrative base for the Yorkists, of which they took full advantage. The author of the Annales was in no doubt that it was Margaret’s failure to enter London that ensured the doom of the Lancastrian dynasty. A view shared, of course, by the continuator of Gregory’s Chronicle, a devoted Londoner:

He that had Londyn for sake Wolde no more to hem take The king, queen and prince had been in residence at the Abbey of St Albans since the Lancastrian victory. Abbot Whethamstede, at his most obscure, conveys a strong impression that St Albans was devastated because the Lancastrian leaders, including Queen Margaret, encouraged plundering south of the Trent in lieu of wages. There must have been some pillaging by an army which had been kept in a state of uncertainty for a week, but whether it was as widespread or as devastating as the good abbot, and later chroniclers, assert is by no means certain. Whethamstede is so admirably obtuse that his rhetoric confuses both the chronology and the facts. So convoluted and uncircumstantial is his account that the eighteenth century historian of the abbey, the Reverend Peter Newcome, was trapped into saying: ‘These followers of the Earl of March were looked on as monsters in barbarity.’ He is echoed by Antonia Gransden who has ‘the conflict between the southemers of Henry’s army and the nonherners of Edward’s. The abbey was not pillaged, but Whethamstede blackened Queen Margaret’s reputation by a vague accusation that she appropriated one of the abbey’s valuable possessions before leaving for the north. This is quite likely, not in a spirit of plunder or avarice, but as a contribution to the Lancastrian war effort, just as she had extorted, or so he later claimed, a loan from the prior of Durham earlier in the year. The majority of the chroniclers content themselves with the laconic statement that the queen and her army withdrew to the north, they are more concerned to record in rapturous detail the reception of Edward IV by ‘his’ people. An English Chronicle, hostile to the last, reports that the Lancastrian army plundered its way north as remorselessly as it had on its journey south. One can only assume that it took a different route. The Lancastrian march ended where it began, in the city of York. Edward of March had himself proclaimed King Edward IV in the capital the queen had abandoned, and advanced north to win the battle of Towton on 29 March. The bid to unseat the government of the Yorkist lords had failed, and that failure brought a new dynasty into being. The Duke of York was dead, but his son was King of England whilst King Henry, Queen Margaret and Prince Edward sought shelter at the Scottish court. The Lancastrian march on London had vindicated its stated purpose, to recover the person of the king so that the crown would not continue to be a pawn in the hands of rebels and traitors, but ultimately it had failed because the Lancastrian leaders, including Queen Margaret, simply did not envisage that Edward of March would have the courage or the capacity to declare himself king. Edward IV had all the attributes that King Henry (and Queen Margaret) lacked: he was young, ruthless, charming, and the best general of his day; and in the end he out-thought as well as out-manoeuvred them.

It cannot be argued that no damage was done by the Lancastrian army. It was mid-winter, when supplies of any kind would have been short, so pillaging, petty theft, and unpaid foraging were inevitable. It kept the field for over a month and, and, as it stayed longest at Dunstable and in the environs of St Albans, both towns suffered from its presence. But the army did not indulge in systematic devastation of the countryside, either on its own account or at the behest of the queen. Nor did it contain contingents of England’s enemies, the Scots and the French, as claimed by Yorkist propaganda. Other armies were on the march that winter: a large Yorkist force moved from London to Towton and back again. There are no records of damage done by it, but equally, it cannot be claimed that there was none.

-B.M Cron, "Margaret of Anjou and the Lancastrian March on London, 1461"

[orcelito]

I think I cried harder today over my dad's jackets than I did at his deathbed. That was a miserable time of course, a memory that will likely be seared into my brain until I die, but I cried... I think a normal amount, all things considered. More than I ever usually do of course, but I typically don't cry At All. All this free crying is certainly surreal.

The jackets, though. I was put in charge of doing his laundry, because we don't want to pack up dirty clothes. I was expecting it to be unpleasant bc my dad's dirty clothes - gross. But really, it was much more unpleasant in that... those were his. It felt wrong to touch them. Felt wrong to treat his jackets as gross. Because they were just his jackets. They weren't even in the hamper. And then I was remembering him wearing them, and then I was crying. Again. And again. Weeping over these damn jackets.

Then I found a shirt on his bed that still smelled like him. It smelled like a Hug From Dad. And that set me off crying even harder.

In total, I think I cried like 6 times within 40 minutes. It took me that long to finish sorting the damn clothes bc I just. Was a wreck. Like, what are you supposed to do when you're living life like normal, vaguely hopeful bc you're taking steps to secure your own happiness, and then 4 days later you're sorting your dad's laundry because he fucking died. Suddenly. Without a goodbye.

And you have to worry about his lack of a will (even under an ideal situation, only 2 heirs and no conflicts between us, probate's a fucking Bitch), and arranging the funeral, and prepping his obituary, and picking out pictures, and writing a speech bc you want to talk at his funeral, of Course you want to talk at his funeral, but even just thinking about anecdotes you could share has you crying yet again.

I've cried more times in the past 3 days than likely the entirety of last YEAR. And that's WITH my cat, and uncle, and family friend dying. Those all hurt, my uncle most of all, & I was real fucked up over it. But this? This was my Dad. Likely the person I'd have named 2nd closest to me in my life, second only to my sister. He wasn't perfect, but he did so much for me throughout my entire life. All he wanted was to raise us to be happy and independent. And he accomplished it, we're getting by without him, but we still wanted several more decades with him. He was only 57. We should've gotten several more decades with him.

But here we are now. Playing investigators to his life, digging into all his shit, trying to find documents and take inventory of all his things, and learning Many things about him in the process. In his lockbox of sensitive documents, like his SSN and birth certificate and all that stuff, we found an old letter. About a decade old now, written in my hand. Right at the very top, we found that he'd kept the letter I wrote to him telling him frankly about my struggles and the things I wanted him to do better. He kept it. He tried to take it to heart. He looked at it again, sometime more recently than all the rest of the documents. That was on top.

His love for us is evident everywhere. The pictures he has hanging up all over the place, majority of them with us in them. The old fathers day cards placed on display in his bedroom bookshelf. The gifts we gave him, even stupid little knick knacks, placed around his apartment with pride. I wish we'd taken more videos of him. I don't want to forget the sound of his voice. I don't want to forget his smell either, the smell of a Hug From Dad, but I still tossed that shirt into the wash even though it felt like saying yet another goodbye.

It's the suddenness that hurts the most, I think. We were planning on having him help me finally get my license this year. My final words to him, the last thing he would've seen from me, were messages asking up on whether he'd called his car insurance company to make sure there wouldn't be problems. I should've called him more. I don't know if I'm going to learn from this.

I cut my 2 weeks off early to have time to grieve and to work on things for the funeral and settling the estate. The last thing I'd wanna do right now is selling fucking bubble tea in a job I already decided to leave. So here I am without a job, though with potentially two life insurance policy payouts to come. Inheriting half his 401k. Inheriting couches, knickknacks, keepsakes, paintings, art pieces, maybe even his guitar and other furniture if we can figure out what to do about space (I don't have room for this furniture, I don't know if I even have room for the couches, but God do I want to keep so much of this furniture). It has me even considering keeping one of his guns, just one. A tiny little revolver, it sits so comfortably in my hand. I don't even want to use it for anything. I just want to have it, keep it stored in a drawer with its ammo kept separate. I don't like guns, but this is a part of him. He loved collecting guns. He was about as responsible with them as someone can be, keeping them locked in a lockbox and impressing upon his children the importance of gun safety (I've known the basic gun safety rules ever since I was a little kid. Of course, of course, of course.) It reminds me of him. It's horrifically easy to have a gun in Indiana. I apparently don't even need a permit to carry anymore. (I have no intention to ever carry this in public.)

It's all a cycle. Business, grief, thoughts about my future. Round and round, like the most nauseating carousel in existence. I don't know how I'm still so functional. My skills with compartmentalization have been my lifesaver.

And im just thinking about the story my dad's best friend shared today. About a friend of theirs who lost her father. She reached out after hearing about my dad to share his words with her: "it's okay to grieve, but don't make his death your life".

He explicitly referenced himself in this, saying if he were to die suddenly that he wouldn't want us to define ourselves by it. Grief is expected, but he wants us to be able to move on. He's always wanted us to establish ourselves and make ourselves happy. He wouldn't want to be a weight holding us back from that.

So every time I start to feel guilty for thinking about having nicer furniture or using his life insurance payout to fund the rest of my college, I remind myself of that. Thinking about the material isn't a bad thing. I'm only human. And in the end, he'd Want me to be thinking about it. He never intended to die, certainly not without warning like this, so he would've only encouraged me being pragmatic about it all.

He only ever wanted us to be happy. So I need to do what I can to live up to that.

I love him. I miss him already.

[sunnwalker]

hii heres a doo doo dogshit colored pencil sketch of a very special he/they (body double oc that i have been sitting on and thinking about for a while ). Their name is Thomas ( i ❤️ biblical names)

annnnnnd this song fits him well i think :)

[astral-catastrophe]

me and the generic extra strong Tylenol and the pure rage in my system

[lightblueminecraftorchid]

annoyed with my roommate >:(

[skunkes]

if life is categorized by Before Loss and After Loss then I exist in the before but with a countdown to the after. and the countdown is always always present and debilitating. the loss will be debilitating too but i cant help myself. i will always suffer twice.

[primus-why]

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