Here Have The Book 1 Reread Doodle Dump. Who Does It Like Them

Interspecies lesbianism

Honestly, one of my favorite things about GRRM's writing in asoiaf is how it turns the reader's bloodthirstiness against them.

Take Theon in ACOK, you are cheering in his final chapter because finally! Just desserts for that arrogant foolish bastard!

You read how the Bolton's have him captured in ASOS and say "Heh, good riddance".

And then... you read Reek chapters and with growing horror, you realize who is the person narrating. And suddenly, this need for payback, for him to face justice, doesn't feel that righteous anymore. No person should go through this.

The same goes for Cersei, her blaze of cruelty and scheming catches up to her when the sparrows imprison her. FINALLY, justice! and... you can only stare in horror and disgust at the walk of atonement scene. There is no vindication to be found here.

A Pangolin reacts happily to a human grooming it in places it could not reach or take care of it by itself. There are many benefits to humans having opposable thumbs. 

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I always wondered why the Western Zodiac and the Chinese Zodiac were both called zodiacs if one was associated w astronomy and the other w time in general. Like what defines a zodiac that the word is only used to describe these two things? Looking up the word “zodiac” in the dictionary didnt help bc it only talked about the western one.

Well, I decided to look up the etymology for zodiac and it turns out it comes from the Greek for “circle of little animals.” I love humans

Can’t believe hooty invented gay people

when you think about it tho pliny the elder is kind of the funniest guy in the world like. he wrote all these books about natural history that he was wrong about where he confidently claims things like “some animals only have blood during certain parts of the year” and then when mt. vesuvius erupted and destroyed pompeii and herculaneum he said “oh mt vesuvius is exploding? let me go check it out” and then he died

the HtN exchange between harrow and ortus leaves me weeping because. ortus was only a child during the creche massacre. he was left with no peers, no friends, with an abusive father pushing him to fulfil a role he was never going to be able to fill. and he grew up into an adult who did nothing as two children were hurt, beaten, poisoned, starved. 

and harrow was a child deprived of nothing a child needs to live but everything they need to thrive. deprived of love, and care, and warmth and touch; born into a blood debt she can never hope to repay. it’s no suprise then that she grew into an angry and cruel creature who hurt others just because she could. 

and their exchange abt this in HtN just gets me because. like.

ortus tells her he is sorry, because he was an adult and they were defenseless children, and he knows his parallel suffering cannot absolve him of his inaction. he knows he cannot change the past but he can stand for her now, and maybe that can still count for something. and harrow apologizes to ortus, because she realizes nothing, not even the hell of her childhood, will never excuse how she treated him. but she can honor him now, defend him now, belive him now.

im just. idk. something abt two people who were hurt, who are hurting, who hurt each other, coming together and saying that they will stop. that the cycle will not continue. even though nothing they do now can fix the cruelty of the past, even though they both know that whatever they do now could never even begin to tip any kind of cosmic scales; despite all of this, they will do right by each other now, even though it is too late. even in death and after it. weeping.

My rationale for House planets is as follows:

First: Earth. Only planet with water, birthplace of humanity.

Second: Mars. The military core of the empire, Ares/Mars is a war god.

Third: Neptune. Tridentarii, Neptune/Poseidon had a trident.

Fourth: Saturn. Mostly process of elimination, but makes sense to be close to the Fifth.

Fifth: Jupiter. Described as the house with the greatest size and metaphorical gravity. Magnus quotes Fifth poetry describing a great red spot.

Sixth: Mercury. The Sixth is closest to Dominicus (the sun).

Seventh: Venus. Cytherea is the birthplace of Aphrodite, Greek counterpart to Venus.

Eighth: Uranus. Also mostly process of elimination, but the objectively funniest planet for the Eighth house to center on.

Ninth: Pluto. The most distant house, a house that was never meant to exist on a dwarf planet kicked out of the formerly nine planets.

I love that we’re inventing historical guys now