dhwty-writes

[dhwty-writes]

if your dom is older you call him daddy, but what if he’s younger? what am i supposed to call a hot attractive dom who is younger than me?

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(via)

[dhwty-writes]

I wish more than anything that we could have nuanced discussions about Dany and Mirri because it’s one of the most interesting, most pivotal moments in the entire series and boiling it down to “badass moment where Dany justly executes the woman who killed her child and does blood magic and reawakens dragons” or to “evil Dany moment where future destroyer of worlds burns her slave to death to acquire weapons of mass destruction” does it such an injustice.

It’s a moment of pain, delusion, hypocrisy, grief, magic, and rebirth. A teenage girl has lost, to her knowledge, her last blood relative and has been told she will never have another. She’s full of postpartum hormones. She has to cope with the fact that she traded her last relative for the life of the man she had to convince herself to love, her abuser and rapist, and it didn’t work. And it didn’t work by any fault of her own—it was Jorah’s. And she knows it was his fault but he’s her fucked up security blanket. Her only link to Westeros, the place she has been groomed to believe is her birthright and destiny.

She is 14. She is prepared to die. Fire cannot hurt a dragon, and she has been told her whole life she is the blood of the dragon, that she is better than the others. She must find out the truth. She condemns Mirri to a terrible, cruel death. But she is also willing to face that death. She tempts the gods to strike her down. If she lives, she is the blood of the dragon, she really must be destined to rule, and thus the execution, in her mind, would be justified. And if she dies, then perhaps she was wrong, and as punishment, she suffers the same cruel death as Mirri.

But she lives. More than just lives. She weds the fire. She awakens dragons from fossils. She puts her own life at stake to ask the universe if she really is the chosen one and the answer she hears is yes. So now she must live with that answer—even if she comes to find she does not like it. It weighs heavy on her. “This could be my home if I were not the blood of the dragon,” she thinks wistfully. She does not want to rule Westeros, but how could she turn back now? She bargained with her life and she was spared. She traded everything to receive this magic, this purpose, how could she ever go back? She can tell herself now that everything she does is justified because the universe told her so by allowing her to be reborn in fire with three baby dragons. If she looks back, if she stops her quest, what was it all for? What did she suffer being raped for? What did her brother die for? What did her baby die for? What did she execute Mirri for? What did she sack those cities for? What did the people of her armies give their lives for? How could she ever stop?

But it doesn’t change the fact that she condemned a slave to a painful death, violating her own principles. Mirri’s death was likely one of the most painful deaths that happens on page in the series. Mirri would not strictly have known that Dany was sold to Drogo at 13. All she knows is that her home was destroyed, her place of worship burned, her people raped and killed, and the survivors kept as slaves. And yet, even so, for all we know, she did try to help Dany. Drogo did not follow the instructions to treat his wound. Whether or not it’s fair to say she deceived Dany about the “life for life” and Rhaego is hard for me to say. Mirri didn’t want to do it. She did make it clear that it was a dark ritual. She was solemn. She warned Dany that Drogo’s death would be cleaner. Mirri never goaded Dany into saving Drogo. Mirri would have been perfectly content to let Drogo die and Rhaego live. She even offered to help make Drogo’s death as painless as possible—the very man who owned her as a slave, who ordered the sack of her village. Dany insisted.

Whether it was fair for Mirri to assume this 14 year old understood the cost, I can’t say. But it is worth noting that Mirri didn’t want to do it. She was not in a position to refuse. Dany even offered to free her, which, to Mirri, would highlight Dany’s power. It says to her that Dany has the ability to free her (which, in all fairness, if Drogo was alive and well, I don’t think she would’ve had that power, but that’s speculation and Mirri wouldn’t have known that). Even after this, Mirri still warns her. And I do believe based on that text that Dany truly thought the horse was the cost. But that’s just my speculation. What might have happened to the baby had Jorah not taken her into the tent? She thought to herself that Jorah had killed her child by bringing her in the tent, but after that, Mirri’s comments make it seem as though Rhaego would have died regardless. But perhaps it is the same as Tyrion telling Jaime he killed Joffrey. A lie meant to sting. Mirri was told that if she did the ritual, she would be set free. And the ritual was interrupted, and there she was, not freed, and then condemned to die.

Dany could not see things from Mirri’s perspective. She could not see the cruelty in her actions. How could she? She lost nearly everything. Her husband, her child, most of the khal, the survivors like Eroeh she had tried to protect. But Mirri was a slave, a slave Dany herself had claimed, who tried to help her. She did as she was asked and she did it with a kind attitude towards Dany. Mirri would have let Dany and Rhaego live. Mirri warned her. Dany insisted.

The fever dream Dany has when she’s sick after Rhaego’s stillbirth tells it best.

She’s running. She’s afraid of waking the dragon. Those are the words that haunt her as she runs. She’s trying in all her futility to run from the dragon. To the only thing she really wants. Home. Love. Warmth. Security. Peace. And it only gets further and further away as she runs towards it. She sees Drogo, now lost. The dragon will wake. Jorah tells her of Rhaegar, the last dragon, now lost. The dragon will wake. She sees Viserys, declaring himself the dragon, now lost. The dragon will wake. She sees her son, who would have been a dragon, now lost. The dragon will wake. She sees her ancestors, dragons of the past, now gone. The dragon will wake and she’s so terrified. She’s running from the inevitable. She feels the wings burst through the skin of her back. She sees the world, “and all that lived and breathed fled in terror from the shadow of her wings.” The dragon, the dragon is waking. She throws the door open and there before her is the last dragon. It is her.

Daenerys Targaryen wakes.

[dhwty-writes]

not to bring this up again but I find it so dishonest when people act like dany killing the slavers of astapor is purely an act of punishment / righteous fury. of course that’s a part of her reasoning (and rightfully so), but it’s also clearly an attempt to just…end the astapori slave market. in her mind, to kill the slavers is to assure that there’s nobody left to create more unsullied once she leaves the city. and obviously dany eventually learns that ending slavery also involves the reconstruction of slaver’s bay, but to reduce her initial actions to mindless “fire and blood” is such a disservice to her character.

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hot take possibly? but i actually think it’s okay for things to be marketed for adults. it’s literally okay if things aren’t suitable for children. i feel like we are losing the plot

[dhwty-writes]

Story time: In which my coworkers thought I was cheating on my partner…with my partner

Ok so B and I are very tactile people. We mostly work from home, spend 90% of our days together, and touch each other all the time in a deeply habitual way.

We also work in the same industry, which means sometimes we go to the same in-person trainings/conferences/events.

We were at one such event yesterday and while a couple folks in attendance knew we were married to each other, most did not. Though, importantly, they did know that we each were married. We both wear rings. We regularly mention our spouses.

So, we arrived together and walked holding hands through the parking lot and, yes, had a smooch while alone in the elevator before we had to be on our professional best behavior (he was wearing a suit, kissing was unavoidable).

When the doors opened we were still a bit close together and got some looks. But I didn’t really clock them until later. We also checked in with each other a couple times through the evening and stepped out for a quiet moment here and there, which some people likely noticed.

So toward the end of the night, I was chatting with some peers and B came to stand next to me with some of his peers and without thinking I reached over to pull a bit of debris out of his hair and without pausing in his conversation, he reached over to squeeze the back of my neck and run his knuckles down my shoulder/arm in thanks.

There was a sudden lull in the conversation and I realized multiple people were looking at us with obvious discomfort. I rewound the last few seconds, considered some earlier indicators, and then hastily said, “we’re married! To each other! He’s my partner!”

And everyone let out a relieved exhale, had a laugh about it, and we continued on.

Whoops.

[dhwty-writes]

i went to "mad at me" island expecting to find people i knew, something i understood. but when my boat landed, standing upon the shore were a million empty husks wearing my own face. every foot of the island was occupied, and everywhere i went, they watched me with contempt. they never spoke, never breathed. they simply watched. no matter how i grovelled and begged, snarled and cursed, tried to hide or kicked and hit, they simply stared. the hatred in their gaze was inescapable, but i could hardly return it, knowing that their doomed existence was of my own creation. knowing that the hatred was nobody's but my own. in the end i just wept, unable to stand the relentless gaze of my own infinite glare.

the guy who i accidentally cut off in traffic last week was there also

[dhwty-writes]

hi gang. reminder that we are some of the best sweaters in the animal kingdom (second only to equines) allowing us to stay cool and keep moving in hot weather. we have 10 times the density of sweat glands compared to other great apes.

we are ALSO insanely good at smelling rain (specifically geosmin, found in the soil and activated by rain) with the ability to smell 10 parts per trillion. this is speculated to have helped our ancestors survive!

we ALSO have absolutely batshit diets compared to most other animals. caffeine and chocolate are completely toxic to most animals but we can eat it without even feeling sick. even avocados are severely toxic to many animals to the point where it can be fatal to eat, but humans love it!!!

we are ALSO the best endurance runners ON EARTH out of ANY other species. we beat horses in endurance running. you know, the animals that gradually evolved away most of their toes in order to be the best runners?? yeahhh.

and to top it all off. our lifespan is unusually long for our species' weight/mass. typically, the bigger a species is, the longer its average lifespan (e.g. domestic mice live for 1-3 years, whales can live over 200) but we're very small for how long our average lifespan is. big cats like tigers live around 14-15 years, brown bears 25 years, yet here we are expected to live around 75-85 years. that is NUTS.

humans as a species are so extremely cool. it's not just our intellect that makes us amazing. we may not be the fastest or the strongest in the animal kingdom but we're super cool in many other ways. next time you sweat you can go wow!!! humans are so cool I'm able to keep moving because of my absolutely insane number of sweat glands! thank you evolution!

[dhwty-writes]

The Swedish History Museum is running an exhibition on Medieval Fashion. Here are some of the outfits on display. Get the details on our website.

[dhwty-writes]

Cop shows are cringe and they're NOT the same as detective shows and people should stop conflating them. I didn't come here to watch half an hour of police propaganda, I just wanna see an eccentric little weirdo use logic to solve a fun riddle and then he gathers all the suspects in a room and explains his thinking as he accuses the culprit

[dhwty-writes]

i don’t even remember who said that lysa and hoster were convinced that jaime was gay but it remains one of my favorite tidbits from the whole series. you are lysa arryn, 15, fully prepared to be this gay guy‘s pretend wife while he is ACTIVELY having sex with his twin sister. and then he joins a holy celibacy boyband and you get married to westerosi joe biden. sucks to suck ig sorry lysa.

[dhwty-writes]

reincarnation au where some people keep falling into old habits is so funny because let them kiss each other's hands or mouth. Everyone still stops talking when the king walks into the room. Some knights are very excited about color-theming with their old heralds and there are way more shades of color now so they can make their outfits more or less ugly depending on preference. Old lovers who meet after 1500 years of separation and the knight drops to his knees in the middle of home depot

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trust us bro.

[dhwty-writes]

I gave up on dreaming Spanish for a while because I was at the point where the beginner videos were boring me but the intermediate videos tired me out but then I saw someone on the reddit give an answer to my problem that’s so obvious I’m mad I didn’t think of it.

The solution is to just watch the beginner videos at 1.25x and the intermediate videos at .75x.

And just like that my problem was solved. I’m watching videos in Spanish again.

[dhwty-writes]

developed a real fondness lately for characters who experience a horrific act of violence and come out the other side saying "ah. I don't think I get to be me anymore. they took out the part that was me, killed it, and put something else back in its place, and now I'm whoever the hell that is." love it when someone becomes a corpse and replaces themself <3

[dhwty-writes]

there is nothing more attractive than a competent woman with a sword who has devoted her entire life to protecting you, especially if she's a knight and looks good soaked in blood

[dhwty-writes]

i walk a fine line between “i’m asexual and i hate how much the world revolves around sex” and “sex is way too stigmatized and people should be able to be more open about it if they want to”