#decision-making errors

[chalkrub]

my thingy for @bowelfly's ambitious and groundbreaking HYDRAPHONE.......honoured and delighted to close out for team cayden

[nachobsns]

Hello - I was impressed and extremely relieved by what you wrote in the post about the cult mentality of the Left RE Israel and accusations of genocide. You mentioned that you bought into the mindset until recently. If it's all right for me to ask, what was it that helped you break out of it? (Please feel free to delete/ignore if you'd rather not answer!)

thank you!! and no worries about asking— i think i put something in my pinned post about how people are welcome to send asks about this stuff, although my story isn’t super interesting. i fell down the typical online rabbithole, a couple weeks after october 7; i knew what had happened, at least vaguely, but the posts trickling onto my dash were all about the (undeniably tragic) loss of life in gaza, with little to no acknowledgment of the hamas atrocities that had started the war, so my narrative was pretty one-sided from the beginning. it just continued to snowball as the months went on and people became more radicalized, calling into question the reality of the 10/7 attacks and the humanity of all israelis. i never went all the way down the pipeline to full-on endorsing hamas or justifying their attacks, at least on a personal level, thank god, but i would reblog other people’s posts referring to hamas as a “resistance movement” and calls to boycott starbucks and mcdonald’s and condemnation of the “zionist media” etc etc etc. what pulled me out of it wasn’t any one thing— if someone had directly called me on my flawed logic and antisemitic biases while i was in this mindset, i doubt it would have done much, just reinforced my belief that i was on the “right side of history” and zionists were aggressors who couldn’t be reasoned with. it was mostly just passive observance and a slow exposure to other perspectives. i’m pretty sure the first post that led me to question my thinking was an ask on jewish-vents, which popped up on my dash in like, late july. this led me down another rabbithole, first scouring every single post on jewish-vents, then moving on to more popular jewish blogs that i had seen on “zionist blocklists” (applesauce42069, xclowniex, and spacelazarwolf were probably some of the blogs that influenced me the most, though i told myself i was just hate-scrolling at first, lol). i felt incredibly guilty seeing all the harm the movement i was a part of had caused to random jews and israelis just trying to live their lives and i realized how it went against everything i believed about how minority groups should be treated. from there, the aspect of actually undoing my thinking and changing my behavior for the better still took several weeks. denial of jewish indigenity to the levant in the face of tantamount archeological and cultural evidence was the first to go, as well as any ambiguity in my feelings about hamas. after that, it’s mostly been a slow process of redefining the idf’s actions from a “genocide” to a “war.” i still believe that what’s happening in gaza is unconscionable and horrific, and that too many innocent civilians have died, but i also understand how difficult it is to fight against a terrorist group that systematically embeds itself in civilian populations, and that the ratio of militant to civilian deaths is incredibly low compared to most urban warfare. i quietly deleted my old blog in early august— if i had directly engaged in harassment against jews, i likely would have kept it to make amends to the harmed parties and put a face to my actions, but as was, i had just contributed to the larger atmosphere of antisemitism on this site, and i felt uncomfortable knowing that i had a blog full of sentiments that no longer matched my values and beliefs. i decided i would be better if i took my endorsement out of the equation entirely, because when you’re looking through the notes of a post, it obviously doesn’t matter if someone who’s reblogged it no longer agrees with what was said— their notes still count as tacit approval, and i did not want approval of this “activism” attached to my online presence. i still have unwanted kneejerk reactions that crop up sometimes, particularly around the fundraiser posts from people “in gaza”; even though i know logically that they have all the markers of scams, there is still a part of me that really wants to believe i could help.

[ari-cuno]

They went to go visit Axel after the incident, but someone's still bothered by the past.

Aim belongs @zu-is-here

[isagrimorie]

Star Trek Voyager 5x11 - Latent Image

Janeway: I've made a command decision for your own benefit and the welfare of this entire crew. I'm not willing to debate it. EMH: How would you like it if I operated on you without your consent or without your knowledge? Janeway: If the operation saved my life? I could live with it. EMH: I don't believe you. You'd feel as violated as I do right now. Janeway: Whether you believe me or not is beside the point. A year and a half ago the only solution was to rewrite your program. I have to perform that same procedure now. EMH: That isn't fair. Janeway: You're malfunctioning, and you need to be repaired.

Latent Image Gifset series Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

[thatswhatsushesaid]

related to my tags on my last reblog: being corrected when you are wrong really does help your brain retain and make use of the correct information better. we are hardwired as a species to learn from mistakes specifically. yes, sometimes certain mistakes are so big that they can seriously fuck things up for you and for other people when you make them... but those mistakes are the exception rather than the rule, and in the meantime, making lower stakes mistakes helps you develop the resiliency to endure those mistakes. ("'resiliency to endure' what does that even mean ray" it's a fancy way of saying that you just get used to being wrong about things, shrug it off when it happens, and make use of the correct information you now have at your disposal. this is how you win, even when you lose.)

however. unless you've gotten into the habit of learning through making mistakes and correcting them, when you encounter a mistake with big ramifications and consequences, you're not going to be able to fall back on that resiliency to help you get through it. because you haven't put in the work to develop that resiliency, or to solve the problems that resulted from making a mistake.

[ancha-aus]

RealAgeAU Drabble - Curious Sight

What is this?! Two Drabbles?! @spotaus It is more likely than you think.

Mostly because i was REAL impressed you guys managed to keep it equal. like how? Also because i really wanted to do both so here you go! both!

This one is a lot shorter though hihi

First Drabble Prev Drabble Next Drabble

*--------------------*

Just his luck.

Why did he have to have a favourite pie in a whole other universe?

The Toriel looks very apologetic “I am very sorry. They just sold out very quickly this time. I will have new ones tomorrow morning!”

Blue smiles as he pushes down the disappointment “It is okay! I can always try again later.”

Toriel smiles before motioning towards the other goods she has for sale “Anything else? The cupcakes are amazing today.” she smiles.

Blue shakes his skull “No that is alright. Thank you so much for checking!” he waves and leaves the small bakery.

He sighs as he stands outside.

Damnit.

His luck sucks today. He had hoped he could cheer himself up with some nice pie but it seems like they are out after all. Ugh. Then again, maybe it is his own fault for liking things outside his own universe so much.

Blue looks from side to side. Maybe he can look around a bit? See if there is another bakery. He doubts it because the town, and well this very universe, is very small and he hadn’t seen it when he visited this place with the Stars all that time ago.

But well. He doesn’t really have anything planned today.

He looks left and right and decides to go right for now. He wanders down the street and waves at people along the way.

Okay. So he can’t get the cherry hazelnut pie he wanted. Which is a shame. But he can do something else to cheer him up!

It had just been rough in his underground. Alphys had been very distrusting of the human this time around and it had been exhausting to get her to at least try to get to know them. That is not even the multiverse mess.

At least people don’t demand his help at every turn anymore. Sure he loves helping others but before it got so bad. Back when Dream was still doing the positive guardian thing. People had also demanded help of Blue. And Blue loves to help! But there had been the fear that if he said no it would reflect badly on Dream and Ink.

There is a reason he hardly travelled the multiverse alone before. It was just easier to give himself rest that way.

But now with Dream officially having a new god goal and Ink still being MIA it means people stopped bothering Blue all the time!

Blue tries to ignore the hurt that thinking about Ink brings. He had done so much to help Ink and had thought they had been friends! That Blue meant something to the other! Apparently not. Seeing as Ink hasn’t even shown his face anywhere yet, aside from meetings but Blue doesn’t really count that. They don’t even hang out afterwards. Ink just leaves again.

Blue shakes his skull and keeps walking. It is fine. Ink is also a god and probably busy with god stuff. Reaper was going to talk with Error and Ink about their godhood after all. Ink is probably just busy.

Blue just… he hopes Ink didn’t just… forget him…

Blue shakes his skull and pats his own cheeks twice. Come on Blue! Snap out of it! You got this! No need to dwell on the negatives. Especially if you don’t know what Ink’s reason is! There is no reason to worry or feel sad about things you don’t even know yet!

Blue sighs as he grabs his phone. His phalange hovering over Dream’s icon. No. Dream is dealing with enough. And asking him to track down Ink just so Blue can ask him why he doesn’t want to hang out anymore is just… a lot.

Blue scrolls through his contacts and pauses when he sees Red’s name. Huh. It has been a while since he hang out with Red. Maybe the two of them can go to some motorcross universe and drive a set of bikes around? Just go fast and have fun with a friend? He taps a message and sends it.

Blue grins at his phone as he waits. Oh this is going to be great. Just him and a friend having fun and talking about motorcycles!

A ping and Blue grins before it falls. Red says he can’t at the moment. Bad run going on in his universe and that his brother is very stressed. Apparently the last reset had gone very badly and Red had died and apparently Edge had gotten somekind of memory or dream about it and is hovering a lot more than usual.

Blue sighs but types back that he gets it and if he needs help just to let him know. Red answers with a thumbs up and a thanks.

Blue sighs and just looks up. Huh. He recognises these streets but can’t quite remember where from. Maybe all these areas just look alike? Blue shrugs and looks back at his phone.

Maybe he can ask Sans, or whatever everyone decides to call him. Sans is a bit… strange. No one is quite sure why, Sans least of all. It is just weird how everyone just decided that no nickname really fit him. They tried Comic and Classic. But in the end everyone just ends up referring to him with Sans.

Which is weird as fuck with all of them originally being Sans. Yet Sans is the most Sans.

It is hard to explain.

He finds the number and grins as he is typing a message.

A moment later he answers that he is down to hang out.

Blue grins as he starts typing, not really paying attention to where he is going. He texts his friend about maybe going to Outertale to just hang out at the café. Or even to try and find a new universe.

Sans says he is down and asks if he wants to meet wherever he is now to travel together or to meet at Outertale and search for each other there.

Blue thinks and is about to type for Sans to come to him as he looks up for a reference for Sans to teleport to. Only to freeze.

That is the Cuddly Cat.

More importantly.

That is the back of Killer’s jacket leaving around the side of the building.

Blue doesn’t even answer the text as he runs towards the other road.

He gets there just in time to see the portal melt shut. Blue searches for the right app on his phone and holds it near the slowly fully closing rift. Praying he was fast enough to manage and get there in time.

It takes a moment and the signal the app is picking up disappears. But it is still loading and Blue stares at the program as it slowly slowly loads.

Then it pops up with coordinates to an universe!

Blue stares in shock before seeing another message of Sans appear at the top. He quickly texts him that he is very sorry but that he just spotted the gang out and about.

Sans’s reply is mostly confused. Asking why it matters as Sans thought that was all already solved? So why try and track their movement?

Blue is thorn. Does he share that Dream doesn’t actually know if Nightmare is dead? That Dream is actually looking for Nightmare?

Blue ends up typing that Dream still wants to personally apologise for the gang and Sans says he gets it and just let him know when he got time to hang.

Blue sighs as he opens the right chat window and starts to type. But then removes the message as he tries to type one again.

Over and over as he struggles over what to exactly say before he settles on a message.

“I saw the gang. I know to which universe they went. We got a lead if you want to check it out?”

And he waits.

His phone pings.

“Please.”

Seems like he got plans after all.

*--------------------*

First Drabble Prev Drabble Next Drabble

[yourfavouritefighter]

Normie is Holt AU? so in this au holt would be the main personality with Jackson being the alter ego, I haven’t decided on much else but let me know if you have any ideas or want to see more of the au

[zondearts]

How do you go about character design? You seem really good at it so I thought asking you would be a good idea

Oh that's really nice of you :3

Altho I usually don't think much during my design process. I just spit out a good enough first design with base ideas like "this is a optimistic bat with a star motive" and then draw that thing over and over again until I figure out which elements work and which need to be adjusted. I am loosely aware of basic principles, like shape language and negative space, and I do have some experience from drawing various critters my entire life, but I mostly work on instinct

[langfield]

Hi. So although I’m starting to understand more about Safi as a character, there’s still something I can’t get over and wondered how you saw it. Seeing as Safi knows first hand the pain of a parents’ divorce, and was furious with Yasmin for keeping her dad out of her life, how could she do what she did to Robbie? Like I get that she wanted to hurt Lucas in the most extreme way possible but to use his child against him, a child who she was fairly close to as well, is crossing a line into making her unlikable for me. I would argue it ended up hurting Robbie more than Lucas since Lucas knows it’s not true that it was Robbie’s fault but Robbie will have to grapple with wondering if it’s true maybe for years to come. Apparently Lucas said that was the least bad thing that was said to Robbie? I get Safi was acting irrationally but she could have idk made him pee his pants on stage or something? When Max points out how wrong what she did was she still doesn’t seem to have much remorse either. Just my two cents. I know it’s just a game but yeah, that plot point touched a nerve with me and it doesn't bode well for her future power squad leadership. Just wondered how you saw this? thanks

ah, yes, the robbie thing. i will say off the bat that i do view this action of hers negatively : in the sense that i cannot sympathize with it in particular. while i understand hurting gwen and lucas ( both of whom did betray her -- especially gwen, despite all her good intentions ) i don’t give safi any slack for harming a child in the process. my max always allows lucas to file a restraining order against her, and though she bites her tongue about robbie during their talk, she doesn’t approve nor necessarily understands safi’s reasoning for it. her ‘cold, but i get it’ is a vague affirmation she doesn’t really mean, but is willing to say in order not to trigger safi further. at this point max can overlook it because safi is still a flight risk and she is notorious for setting side her own morals to agree with her best friend’s choices ( the handicap fund in lis1 jumps to mind immediately, a choice max hated making and did not agree with, but did so for chloe’s safety ). however, i believe safi hurting robbie was an intentional line the game drew. while anyone could easily get behind safi’s revenge narrative against those who actually wronged her, not many would be down to see innocents hurt in the crossfire … in many ways, robbie’s situation is supposed to show that safi’s vicious nature can easily get out of hand, and that ( perhaps! ) her view on things isn’t so clear at all. a point that’s further made, i think, in how fast her emotions change in episode five! even unintentionally, those actions she makes in anger does indeed hurt everyone around her, from the guilty to the innocent. for example, moses gets caught in the storm and is subjected to being overruled by safi herself, despite the fact moses isn’t subjected to the torment lucas and gwen recieve. he describes his experience like being locked in a sarcophagus, with him being locked away inside his own body. it’s clear that the part of safi within him did this to protect him in some way ( from the storm, from herself? ) but this hurts him in the end regardless due to the events she still set in motion. safi isn’t just capable of hurting those deserving, she is also prone to hurting those she cares for via carelessness and a narrow view. so her hurting robbie, despite probably caring for him, isn’t the shocking part. it’s the deliberateness of it. it’s the fact he is a child and she’s an adult. it’s about her knowing the pains of divorce as a child and pressing into that wound anyway. perhaps even creating it.

frankly, i can see many reasons why she would. perhaps it’s one or the other, or a messy concoction of every single one. though the most important thing to remember here is a.) this is definitely not a forgivable act, and the game wants you to look at safi differently for this choice, and b.) i do think safi is supposed to grow from this decision she made. my personal belief is that being away from caledon and her mother and vinh will help shape her with a bit more compassion than she has … she is in no condition to lead or teach, and in many ways is just as naive and new to this like diamond is. i honestly believe she’ll learn more from daniel and alex than they could ever learn from her. i believe this trip is supposed to give safi the breathing room and connections she so desperately needs in order to become better, or begin that road to closure and healing. she is most definitely not a leader! alex, daniel, nor max need a leader. to me, finding other people like her is more about self discovery than anything else, but i digress.

to touch upon something i mentioned earlier, safiya’s view of things has been warped and bent by her anger, which in turn thwarts any logical thinking. she has become selfish in her pain, wallowing in it and refusing to move on for four plus years -- repeatedly picking at that wound over and over again to keep those feelings fresh, and to remind herself of maya, and the book, and the betrayals that followed. her inability to talk about it also makes it easier to get lost in, since she has no anchor that grounds her in reality, nor any outside help besides gwen’s encouragement to put those feelings into poetry. safiya felt silenced by others and therefore silenced herself, and i’m sure many people know how easy it is to become self obsessed with all the trauma you’ve mounted in your head … how easily one can grow entitled or righteous when the only voice you’re ever hearing is your own. things become simple and clear even when they’re not, things become digestible, they become problems that can be simplified and excused. i don’t think safiya shows remorse for what she did to robbie because, in her eyes, there isn’t anything to be sorry for. whatever feelings of disgust or shame she initially had has long since been rationlized to her, to the point where it makes complete sense and was a necessary evil for a bigger plan. maybe safi was able to convince herself that the cruel things she told robbie ( while wearing his father’s face ) were honest truths the kid had to hear now rather than later? maybe safi convinced herself that robbie, just like she had been, was the reason for the divorce, and that she was being rather kind in telling him that horrific truth when everyone else would’ve lied to him. or maybe safi didn’t care ; perhaps she looked upon this kid who still had contact with both of his parents and was filled with a sickening envy, one that choked all the air from her lungs, a greenish feeling that made her so mad she just spoke and spoke until she couldn’t anymore and that was that. safi is prone to misconstruing people in her head to fit her narratives, to justify her anger, to hide from the fact that she hates herself just as much as everyone else. she’s the same person who claims that vinh doesn’t regret bending to caledon despite doing the same thing herself and confessing to such regret to max. despite vinh consistently beating himself up over what he did to maya as well, just like her. again, she is nothing but tunnel vision after her book deal is cancelled, and when left without a proper target to channel that anger into, those feelings sort of explode everywhere instead. all while she justifies it to herself and believes everyone to be guilty … always on the lookout for the slightest hint of betrayal so that she may retaliate first. safiya might appear very poised, intelligent, and strong during most of her scenes ( and she is all three of these things! ) yet her behavior is erratic, scared, a little more than paranoid and exhausting.

if she cannot see past her own hurt, why would she feel any particular way about hurting robbie? if this is a world that guts everyone anyway ( a world that sells them for parts ), what’s the point of sparing this child? it’s an immature world view, although an understandable one. nothing saved maya. nothing’s gonna save safi. this is how the world works, with the people you love most dying or betraying you … maybe robbie would be wise to learn that sooner than later, especially considering the absolute monster his father is. or, perhaps, it’s all about lucas : maybe safi knew there was no other way to destroy him, not when caledon covered for him before, so she went where it’d hurt and dug in as deep as she could to ensure there was no sweeping things under the rug anymore. maybe lucas was so evil and vile in her mind, that all of his kin was rendered revolting by extension? sins of the father and all that?

regardless, the brutal truth of it all is that safiya does not care for the people around her at this point in time. i mean, she does deeply love moses and max, but she does not care for them, if that makes sense? she doesn’t even care for herself, as evident by the suicidality she reveals during the storm, via this brainwashed person and the plaque on the science department’s roof :

i do not mean to imply that safi is at all evil or wrong for these feelings of apathy, because they’re rather understandable feelings to have during this intense time. when i say she doesn’t care for robbie, i mostly mean that she’s too tired and too angry to properly empathize with others ; it isn’t a conscious decision, she did not just flip her compassionate and empathy off, safi has just merely shut down beneath the ever growing weight of her own emotions, which are far too powerful for her to withstand alone. we see how she physically breaks apart into ‘tiny pieces’ at the very end of episode four … she shatters, completely, until there is no more safi left. mainly because safi has neglected herself in this quest for vengeance, mainly because safi has never existed, or so she thinks, mainly because safi has spent four years relating everything back to maya okada and desperately wanting to lay down and die over how that emptiness made her feel. this doesn’t excuse her callousness towards robbie or for using him as a pawn -- though i find the action to be realistic and, while fucked up, understandable and tragic in it’s own way. robbie is the face of a much bigger problem safi possesses, a problem the game starts with him, and then ends with the storm : where we see the extent of her apathy ( like we see with vinh, someone who safi used to be close to as well ) and general discontent with the world around her, how safi is always grouping everyone in her life together rather than acknowledging them as seperate entities. her thinking is very black and white in that way. i will say that i do think safi regrets the robbie thing, at least momentarily, in the same way she regrets everything she’s done … when safi demands max to kill her, she claims it’ll fix everything, that she deserves it for hurting so many people. robbie isn’t mentioned specifically, but i do think this is one of those things she is able to feel the weight of in that specific moment, before all that anger piles up again. it’s not enough, although it is something i keep in mind. at safi’s core, she doesn’t like hurting people. this is the same girl who was known by her dad and mom as desperately trying to save a cat from a tree, breaking her arm over it, and then crying on the way to the hospital about if the cat was okay or not. this is the same girl who feels so guilty for not helping her soulmate, she has dedicated her entire life to her as penance. this is the same girl who, despite yasmin covering up what lucas did and despite their constantly turbulent relationship, forgave her mom and tried her best to make it work. it is very easy to remember safi as how she is during double exposure, a deeply angry person who is unfairly dragging everyone down with her, but she isn’t some bloodsucking monster who delights in that pain she’s causing per se. she is hurt, and highly emotional, and does awful things because of it -- things like toss a kid into a personal hell all because of a plan, all because she’s desperate to get lucas in a way that’ll stick, all because she thought herself as the cause of her parents divorce and so robbie has to be too.

again, it’s not a choice of hers that is easy to digest! it is meant to show a darker side to safi’s need for revenge, her tunnel vision, the extent of her obsession with this. i’m actually glad it touched a nerve with you because i think it’s supposed to make the player feel a certain type of way about her. however, i do hope i shed some light on safi’s decision to do this, and that this helped you understand her somewhat, even if you never agree with her ( as you shouldn’t! ). thank you so much for this question by the way, i absolutely adore getting these sorts of asks where i can analyze the characters more in depth. or at least attempt to! safi is so infinitely complex and reserved that there are many reasonings you could find behind her actions, making her fun to dissect, even if all her inner workings are mostly wounds and a deep seated mood instability.

[aleatoryw]

every time I forget to take my meds it's like. this can NOT be the brain that got me through college. but somehow it is D:

[gnomewithalaptop]

What is cue the sun? 👀

I need you to know I am kissing you on the mouth rn (platonically) -- I've been rotating this plot in the microwave since like. mid-august.

It's transcendence au (obvi) but here's the basic hook:

The year is 7098. The last Mizar (Fang Wu -- and shoutout to aba_daba_do for making a kickass OC) has been dead for four years now, and Alcor has been MIA for about the same amount of time. In their absence, the North American continent has broken out into a full-on, cross-continental war, with the main players being the Greater Austinian Monopoly (formerly known as Texas) and the Alaskadian Collective (Alaska, plus some parts of Canada and north-eastern Russia).

In a last-ditch effort to find some long-forgotten piece of magical information that could win the war, Alaskadian scientist Fatima Tursynbekova (an r!Ford) is sent to the abandoned site of what used to be Gravity Falls, accompanied by her troubled teenage daughter Olya (an r!Gideon). They're expecting to find little more than scant remnants of a town that was razed to the ground over thirty years before -- not much better than an archaeological expedition if anything.

However, what they find instead is a thriving small town -- the inhabitants of which are all completely and utterly convinced that it's the year 2016 (feat. the OG Mystery Twins and an extremely sus Stan Pines).

Anyways blah blah blah romance, secrecy, interpersonal drama but COME LOOK AT THE MAP I MADE I spent entirely too much time on it and I've been dying to share:

(Plus better quality image link for if tumblr steals all my pixels)

[wonder-worker]

"Among their complaints [in 1460, the Yorkists] specifically blamed the earls of Wiltshire and Shrewsbury and Viscount Beaumont for ‘stirring’ the king [Henry VI] to hold a parliament at Coventry that would attaint them and for keeping them from the king’s presence and likely mercy, asserting that this was done against [the king's] will. To this they added the charge that these evil counselors were also tyrannizing other true men* without the king’s knowledge. Such claims of malfeasance obliquely raised the question of Henry’s fitness as a king, for how could he be deemed competent if such things happened without his knowledge and against his wishes? They also tied in rumors circulating somewhat earlier in the southern counties and likely to have originated in Calais that Henry was really ‘good and gracious Lord to the [Yorkists] since, it was alleged, he had not known of or assented to their attainders. On 11 June the king was compelled to issue a proclamation stating that they were indeed traitors and that assertions to the contrary were to be ignored."

— Helen Maurer, Margaret of Anjou: "Queenship and Power in Late Medieval England

Three things that we can surmise from this:

We know where the "Henry was an innocent helpless king being controlled and manipulated by his Evil™ advisors" rhetoric came from**.

The Yorkists were deliberately trying to downplay Henry VI's actual role and involvement in politics and the Wars of the Roses. They cast him as a "statue of a king", blamed all royal policies and decisions on others*** (claiming that Henry wasn't even aware of them), and framed themselves as righteous and misunderstood counselors who remained loyal to the crown. We should keep this in mind when we look at chronicles' comments of Henry's alleged passivity and the so-called "role reversal" between him and Margaret.

Henry VI's actual agency and involvement is nevertheless proven by his own actions. We know what he thought of the Yorkists, and we know he took the effort to publicly counter their claims through a proclamation of his own. That speaks louder than the politically motivated narrative of his enemies, don't you think?

*There was some truth to these criticisms. For example, Wiltshire (ie: one of the men named in the pamphlet) was reportedly involved in a horrible situation in June which included hangings and imprisonments for tax resistance in Newbury. The best propagandists always contain a degree of truth, etc. **I've seen some theories on why Margaret of Anjou wasn't mentioned in these pamphlets alongside the others even though she was clearly being vilified during that time as well, and honestly, I think those speculations are mostly unnecessary. Margaret was absent because it was regarded as very unseemly to target queens in such an officially public manner. We see a similar situation a decade later: Elizabeth Woodville was vilified and her whole family - popularly and administratively known as "the queen's kin" - was disparaged in Warwick and Clarence's pamphlets. This would have inevitably associated her with their official complaints far more than Margaret had been, but she was also not directly mentioned. It was simply not considered appropriate. ***This narrative was begun by the Duke of York & Warwick and was - demonstrably - already widespread by the end of 1460. When Edward IV came to power, there seems to have been a slight shift in how he spoke of Henry (he referred to Henry as their "great enemy and adversary"; his envoys were clearly willing to acknowledge Henry's role in Lancastrian resistance to Yorkist rule; etc), but he nevertheless continued the former narrative for the most part. I think this was because 1) it was already well-established and widespread by his father, and 2) downplaying Henry's authority would have served to emphasize Edward's own kingship, which was probably advantageous for a usurper whose deposed rival was still alive and out of reach. In some sense, the Lancastrians did the same thing with their own propaganda across the 1460s, which was clearly not as effective in terms of garnering support and is too long to get into right now, but was still very relevant when it came to emphasizing their own right to the throne while disparaging the Yorkists' claim.

[alackofghosts]

thinking. pondering, even.

[bklynmusicnerd]

Oh, and as for my thoughts on the post-strike stockpile firing of Chris and Dan as head writers

[cultivating-wildflowers]

it's a good thing I started this sweater project in February, because at this rate I'll be lucky to finish by Christmas

[drowninginthoughts27]

opening line tag game

sry i’m like two weeks late to this but thx sm for the tag @angel-daydreams <33

It had been months since james met regulus and he hadn’t seen or for that matter heard anything from him since.

He’d shot his shot, leaving a note in hopes that Regulus felt that spark between them too. Swearing up and down that even some of had to be real, and not entirely unrequited. The ball was now in Regulus’ court so to speak but nothing had come of it and James had given up pretty much all hope.

That’s not to say he’d forgot about Regulus. As a matter of fact he had quite the opposite predicament. The man still filled his thoughts, far more than any one person should, especially someone he’d only spent a mere 8 hours with, never to see again.

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