i've decided that my new tumblr niche is going to be pretending to woobify richard the third until that somehow catches on (note to self: find out how to become viral) and this hellsite fills up with wars of the roses discourse and epically long posts about who really killed those kids and actually no if you weren't an ABLEIST SHITLORD you would appreciate him like we do over here on the moral high ground.

“This is now a Henry V hateblog, Lancastrians DNI” - Walter Bower in the Scotichronicon, Book 15

yooooooo medievalblr is fuckin insane man i just saw a blog that had ‘ric/rdians dni’ in the bio. im losing my minddddd

Richard III may have killed those two nephews of his but he did leave that other nephew for Henry VII to kill so you can't say he wasn't generous about sharing the nephew-murdering with even his worst enemies.

"No," I insist vehemently to the haters, "Richard really did just suddenly find out that Edward's marriage was bigamous and so those kids were actually illegitimate, and that is the ONLY reason he took the throne himself. It's what was best for England, he'd never have done it otherwise. George would have done it for one of the many other reasons that make the same or more sense, but Richard? Never! Richard was hot loyal and Edward was less hot betrayed that loyalty!"

"And where did those illegitimate nephews vanish to anyway?" asks someone, reblogging my dissertation to add HATE and INTOLERANCE.

"Fuck off," I respond, not because I can't answer that one but because if I did that would just be creating the impression that the question is even worth asking. Like it's the King of England's fault if some kids who were in his care in one of his castles decided to disappear without a trace? Like the bae Richard had anything at all to gain by getting rid of the only male Yorks with a better claim to the crown than his own? Fuck off! FUCK OFFFF!!!!!

I might make an exception to my "Lancastrians DNI" stance for Margaret of Anjou stans because so far in this book I'm reading she's pretty great. Obviously this is a terrible betrayal of King Blorbo and the Yorkist cause but she's having to fill in as king due her husband's intermittent catatonia* and her son being a literal child so as a wise man once asked "who you gonna call?" History will not be keen on her because - shock! horror! - she's if anything a bit too good at being a mediaeval king. (God forbid a woman well I'm sure you know the rest of that sentence by now.)

So while the kingdom's problems would indeed be solved by kinging** the duke of York they could also be solved by him and all the other men calming the fuck down about women in positions of power.

Obviously I don't want her to win because then history would be robbed of everyone's Problematic Disabled Fave but at the same time I do a bit think that she deserves to win. But only if her winning means she gets the throne in her own right, which was never gonna happen because monarchies are not meritocracies and she is both female and French. And we all know that those are dreadful crimes on the level of treason or being the wrong kind of Christian.

So far my DNI is working as I have not been Interacted with by any Tumblr Lancastrians but I am of course concerned that if I add any exceptions the magical power of the letters will be compromised and I will be attacked by trolls and fans of Henry VII (as if those were not the same thing!)

*no, not the Welsh indie band. what are you like eh?

**I've decided that's a verb now