#geopolitical events meaning

[sharemarketinsider]

Understanding the Influence of Geopolitical Events on the Stock Market

[havatabanca]

[medicinemane]

Really really don't get why so many people seem to have this burning hatred for Ukraine where they'll just... bring them up randomly purely to drag them through the mud and it's like... ok... but... do you actually know a single thing about Ukraine or what's been happening there?

Do you for instance remember when a major dam was destroyed by russia causing massive ecological damage?

Like I'm dead serious here, can you tell me a single thing that's happened in Ukraine in the last 2 years? Can you in any way demonstrate any basic understanding of the situation?

Cause if not... why do you think you should have an opinion on it, especially if your opinion is gonna be how awful people getting bombed are?

Just legit bothers me and... even more so bothers me the number of smart and caring people I see doing this. Basically I'm not even trying to be rude here, I'm trying to remind you to pay attention and remember that not everything you read on the internet is true, a tumblr post isn't a source unless they're giving you a reputable source

Cause like me? I can go track you down articles about the Nova Kakhovka dam being destroyed, and I can talk about all the reason why it's pretty clear that russia destroyed it

Can you do the same for me? Can you back up your claim about Ukraine with something concrete?

In many ways I'm not even asking you to support Ukraine, I get we have a limit to how much we can focus on, it's ok if you focus on your cause and I focus on mine and... both of us giving our undivided attention, maybe we both make some small impact on the world

What I'm asking is you don't be an asshole for no reason. You don't need to throw Ukraine under the bus. Don't you think your cause stands up on it's own two feet?

And again I'm not Ukrainian, I don't know as well as someone there, though... I spare you a lot of the stuff that crosses my dash because I don't want to burn people out with horrible stuff, but please understand it's worse than you probably think

So no, not Ukrainian, but I'll tell you why I'm still worth listening to: I've followed this every day since the invasion began. I keep my ear to the ground. I do know a fair bit and again can back what I have to say up

Anyway, my plea is to just not be a dick to people for no reason. The correct number of bombed civilians is zero, that's my stance

[aiura-stan]

tbh i think it’s so funny that if Kusuo were real, he’d be a year older than me

[oscartwofoxtrot]

Dude I relate to your bio so hard. Sometimes I’m like ‘why does nobody talk about this show wtf!!’ and then I remember that the show came out 15 years ago and the events happened literally 20 years ago in march lmao

So yeah it’s definitely a product of its time and obv won’t be as relevant anymore today, but I only watched it for the first time a few months ago and I’m still depressed over the end scene with Johnny cash playing :(

[pisscreant]

me and my brain cells trying to read along with all the political discourse both in Disco Elysium and irl

[avi-on-jumblr]

awful tweet warning:

Before I describe everything that's wrong with this tweet, let me transcribe Stephen Fry's words:

I am Stephen Fry, and I am a Jew. The great Irish thinker and writer Conor Cruise O'Brien once said that antisemitism is a light sleeper. Well, it seems to have woken up of late. The horrendous events of October 7th, and the Israeli response, seem to have stirred up this ancient hatred. It's agonizing to see all violence and destruction that is unfolding, and the terrible loss of life on both sides brings me an overwhelming sadness and heartache. But whatever our opinions on what is happening, there can be no excuse for the behaviour of some of our citizens. Since October the 7th, there have been 50 separate reported incidents of antisemitism every single day in London alone, an increase of 1350%, according to the Metropolitan police. Shop windows smashed, stars of David and swastikas daubed on walls of Jewish properties, synagogues, and cemeteries. Jewish schools have been forced to close. There is real fear stalking the Jewish neighbourhoods of Britain. Jewish people here are becoming fearful of showing themselves, in Britain, in 2023.

(Then it cuts off.)

For those who still don't know why this tweet was ignorant and inane, let me explain.

"To hear him conflate antiZionism with antisemitism has shocked me."

Guess how many times Stephen Fry mentions zionism? Zero! Guess how many times he mentions the country of Israel? Zero! (Unless you count "the Israeli response" which is unrelated to the existence of the country, or Zionism at all.) What this person is saying, is that they consider the smashing of shop windows, and the vandalism and marking of Jewish property, to be anti-Zionism. Considering they are an anti-Zionist, by following their logic, we can conclude that they not only believe this destruction and harassment is acceptable, but they believe it is ethical.

Further, they accuse him of showing no care for the Palestinians, even though he explicitly states that the loss of life on both sides brings him overwhelming sadness.

Finally, they accuse him of "[Centring] people in this country". It is disturbing that this person believes one cannot be concerned over two issues at a time. It perpetuates the idea that we can only talk about the "worst oppression" and talking about anything else means you are complicit in "silencing" someone else. If this were true, we would not be allowed to talk about Gaza either, or Ukraine, or police brutality, racism, islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and so on and so on, because clearly there are other issues with hundreds of thousands more deaths, and millions more displacements, so why bring attention to it ever?

Unfortunately, people are not talking about those countries, like Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia, Congo, and more, and anyone who does is spammed with "free Palestine" comments. In fact, the most I've heard people talking about Sudan is when these TikTok geopolitical experts attempt to spam the Palestinian flag and get it wrong.

This is not new. This is obviously not new. I have seen tweets like these every single day in the hundreds for the last 80 days. It is not surprising that people think smashing windows is "anti-zionism", nor that they think it good. It is not surprising that they hear a Jew speak, and experience shock and disgust, regardless of what we say.

I do wonder if they would regard anything short of a second Holocaust as antisemitism.

[histrionics-and-haloperidol]

My hottest hot take is that George R R Martin has no obligation to finish the Song of Ice and Fire series.

Bro let his whole adult life be consumed by SEVEN thousand-page semi-historical-fiction books with a cast of near thirty well-developed, well set-up, well-characterized characters, and a complex and realistic geopolitical enviroment just because he thought a specific historical event should be better known. He deserves to enjoy the money he made in peace, and a lot of people (hell, a lot of WRITERS) whose only knowledge of writing is barely thought-out fanfiction populated by characters whose whole personality is to be horny for the character the author thirsts over, will jump at his throat and scream about how selfish he is just because he is taking time to develop HIS OWN GODDAMN NOVEL????????????

I know its frustrating. Believe me, I have no life, my only reason to wake up in the morning is that George MIGHT finish the series. But it's HIS intellectual property. HIS book. HIS characters. It came from HIS mind. If he wants to chill and just maladaptive daydream about it for the next decade than that is his right and he doesn't deserve the hate he gets just because ya'll can't accept the fact your favorite fictional war criminal who already has seven novels worth of content isn't getting an end? Well, welcome the plights of fiction fandoms. Sometimes, it's good enough just to not fix what isn't broken.

I'm sure plenty of writers here in tumblr can sympathise with the hope to not be harassed over when the next chapter for your story is coming. Sometimes we don't know. People have lives. Struggles. Health issues. Other interests. THEY ARE NOT YOUR FAITHFUL AI SERVANT. THEY DON’T PULL STORIES OUT OF THEIR ARSES. THEY HAVE TO THINK IT, THEN MAKE IT, THE EDIT IT, THEN SEE IF THEY LIKE IT. ITS A WHOLE PROCESS.

We are so used to immediate consuption that we cannot concieve of people taking time to perfect a craft that's meant to be enjoyable to them. And if we're honest, Martin has weathered a lot of fucking bullshit in silence. From fans, to editors, to bosses, to showmakers, he has had his fair share. Much more than its ok to take in silence. Please realize that just because something is out for the public to consume it doesn’t mean that it belongs to you.

[mswyrr]

One of the most important bits of dialogue in hotd is from Viserys in 1x01:

"The idea that we control the dragons is an illusion. They're a power man should never have trifled with. One that brought Valyria its doom. If we don't mind our own histories, it will do the same to us."

This is a man who bonded with Balerion, The Black Dread, the oldest dragon who had actually hatched in Old Valyria. This was the same dragon who flew Princess Aerea, a 12-year-old girl who bonded with him, back to Valyria against her will - sickening and killing her in the process (Fire & Blood, p 263). The little girl was away from her home at the time and probably feeling "I want to go home" but what Balerion did with that feeling killed her. His will was strong and his memory was *deep*.

Viserys only rode him one time, his inaugural flight, and then never again. IMO he experienced something bonding with that ancient beast that--in addition to studying the family's history and Valyrian lore--convinced him of the danger and fundamentally uncontrollable nature of dragons.

It is totally in keeping with canon events that Vhagar, in the current timeline the most ancient dragon alive--a dragon who drank deep of bloodshed and war with Visenya during the Conquest and *likes* war--translated Aemond's anger at Lucerys into murder of the boy and his small dragon. It is perfectly in keeping with what the show has been saying since episode 1.

An ancient, powerful and wilful dragon overcoming the will of its rider is *literally canon*. Princess Aerea must have been terrified during the whole, long flight to Valyria, and yet all her protests couldn't stop the dragon she'd bonded to.

I would also say that the Valyrians turned magical creatures, dragons, into weapons of warfare - that the dragons, in that sense, represent war. And the show is imo fundamentally antiwar - so here war is something you cannot control. GRRM has said the dragons are "nukes," which fits with this reading:

“Dragons are the nuclear deterrent, and only [Daenerys Targaryen, one of the series’ heroines] has them, which in some ways makes her the most powerful person in the world,” Martin said in 2011. “But is that sufficient? These are the kind of issues I’m trying to explore. The United States right now has the ability to destroy the world with our nuclear arsenal, but that doesn’t mean we can achieve specific geopolitical goals. Power is more subtle than that. You can have the power to destroy, but it doesn’t give you the power to reform, or improve, or build.” (source)

War and nukes - you cannot aim them only at the guilty, only at those you hate; you cannot prevent them from consuming the innocent as well. They a raging fire that consumes, that is all. And so, on that level, I just adore what they're doing and how it all fits together.

Aemond's domestic violence fits too - boys go to war thinking it will be honorable and manly and they'll protect "their women" but instead come home and hurt those very women. This thing burns and burns until it is exhausted, and it doesn't stay contained, not within you or outside you. "So it goes," to steal a phrase from antiwar writer Kurt Vonnegut.

The reason I keep coming back to my antiwar reading of the show is that things that people dismiss as "bad" or mock actually come together beautifully if you don't expect to war to be glorious and masterful and heroic. If you take the text seriously, in terms of what the dragons are metaphorically and what characters have outright said about their fundamentally uncontrollable nature. The lore supports what Vhagar did! That she could overcome a teenaged human's will with her century old bloodlust.

[seafoamreadings]

big things that are coming

here are the next few astrological events i would consider extra serious, in case you like to mark your calendars or be otherwise prepared.

lunar eclipse in pisces - eclipse season kicks off in mid-september with a full moon in pisces. this can be an emotionally fraught period and can also include insomnia or strange/vivid/lucid dreams or nightmares. settle things a bit by establishing healthy daily routines without sacrificing the magic inherent in daily life. stick to those rituals at least until eclipse season wraps up, but you might find you like them so much they become permanent. if you already have such routines, also consider overhauling them around this time.

solar eclipse in libra - the volatility of eclipse season continues into early october with this new moon. you can set intentions here like you can for any new moon but don't expect them to follow the plan you lay out for them. and whatever intentions you do or do not set, relationships (and your relationship with yourself) are at center stage. and they are not meant to be easy, simple, or flowing in this scenario. but that doesn't mean they won't work out for the best.

jupiter retrograde - this retrograde is not like the other retrogrades. this is a benevolent retrograde. in libra season just after the eclipse in libra, gemini jupiter in its station may flare up appetites for the luxurious and pleasureful. you don't have to overindulge; it's a choice. but it's wise to make sure you are enjoying things in this time!

pluto direct - these things really do happen in a chain or a cascade. this station is just a couple days after the retrograde of jupiter begins. tumult occurs mostly on a global or geopolitical scale, but you may also notice some destruction (for better or worse) in your personal life in the window of a few days around this. then pluto heads back for aquarius for the last time.

saturn direct - the next retrograde ending is not for another month after pluto heads for aquarius. but stuck projects, goals, desires, and dreams start to get a little bit unstuck, even if really only a little bit. plans, disciipline, and patience are auspicious; attempting forceful maneuvers will backfire.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The CHIPS Act treats the symptoms, but not the causes

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/07/farewell-mr-chips/#we-used-to-make-things

There's this great throwaway line in 1992's Sneakers, where Dan Aykroyd, playing a conspiracy-addled hacker/con-man, is feverishly telling Sydney Poitier (playing an ex-CIA spook) about a 1958 meeting Eisenhower had with aliens where Ike said, "hey, look, give us your technology, and we'll give you all the cow lips you want."

Poitier dismisses Aykroyd ("Don't listen to this man. He's certifiable"). We're meant to be on Poitier's side here, but I've always harbored some sympathy for Aykroyd in this scene.

That's because I often hear echoes of Aykroyd's theory in my own explanations of the esoteric bargains and plots that produced the world we're living in today. Of course, in my world, it's not presidents bargaining for alien technology in exchange for cow-lips – it's the world's wealthy nations bargaining to drop trade restrictions on the Global South in exchange for IP laws.

These bargains – which started as a series of bilateral and then multilateral agreements like NAFTA, and culminated in the WTO agreement of 1999 – were the most important step in the reordering of the world's economy around rent-extraction, cheap labor exploitation, and a brittle supply chain that is increasingly endangered by the polycrisis of climate and its handmaidens, like zoonotic plagues, water wars, and mass refugee migration.

Prior to the advent of "free trade," the world's rich countries fashioned debt into a whip-hand over poor, post-colonial nations. These countries had been bankrupted by their previous colonial owners, and the price of their freedom was punishing debts to the IMF and other rich-world institutions in exchange for loans to help these countries "develop."

Like all poor debtors, these countries were said to have gotten into their predicament through moral failure – they'd "lived beyond their means."

(When rich people get into debt, bankruptcy steps in to give them space to "restructure" according to their own plans. When poor people get into debt, bankruptcy strips them of nearly everything that might help them recover, brands them with a permanent scarlet letter, and subjects them to humiliating micro-management whose explicit message is that they are not competent to manage their own affairs):

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/07/hr-4193/#shoppers-choice

So the poor debtor nations were ordered to "deregulate." They had to sell off their state assets, run their central banks according to the dictates of rich-world finance authorities, and reorient their production around supplying raw materials to rich countries, who would process these materials into finished goods for export back to the poor world.

Naturally, poor countries were not allowed to erect "trade barriers" that might erode the capacity of this North-South transfer of high-margin goods, but this was not the era of free trade. It wasn't the free trade era because, while the North-South transfer was largely unrestricted, the South-North transfer was subject to tight regulation in the rich world.

In other words, poor countries were expected to export, say, raw ore to the USA and reimport high-tech goods, with low tariffs in both directions. But if a poor country processed that ore domestically and made its own finished goods, the US would block those goods at the border, slapping them with high tariffs that made them more expensive than Made-in-the-USA equivalents.

The argument for this unidirectional trade was that the US – and other rich countries – had a strategic need to maintain their manufacturing industries as a hedge against future geopolitical events (war, but also pandemics, extreme weather) that might leave the rich world unable to provide for itself. This rationale had a key advantage: it was true.

A country that manages its own central bank can create as much of its own currency as it wants, and use that money to buy anything for sale in its own currency.

This may not be crucial while global markets are operating to the country's advantage (say, while the rest of the world is "willingly" pricing its raw materials in your country's currency), but when things go wrong – war, plague, weather – a country that can't make things is at the rest of the world's mercy.

If you had to choose between being a poor post-colonial nation that couldn't supply its own technological needs except by exporting raw materials to rich countries, and being a rich country that had both domestic manufacturing capacity and a steady supply of other countries' raw materials, you would choose the second, every time.

What's not to like?

Here's what.

The problem – from the perspective of America's ultra-wealthy – was that this arrangement gave the US workforce a lot of power. As US workers unionized, they were able to extract direct concessions from their employers through collective bargaining, and they could effectively lobby for universal worker protections, including a robust welfare state – in both state and federal legislatures. The US was better off as a whole, but the richest ten percent were much poorer than they could be if only they could smash worker power.

That's where free trade comes in. Notwithstanding racist nonsense about "primitive" countries, there's no intrinsic defect that stops the global south from doing high-tech manufacturing. If the rich world's corporate leaders were given free rein to sideline America's national security in favor of their own profits, they could certainly engineer the circumstances whereby poor countries would build sophisticated factories to replace the manufacturing facilities that sat behind the north's high tariff walls.

These poor-country factories could produce goods ever bit as valuable as the rich world's shops, but without the labor, environmental and financial regulations that constrained their owners' profits. They slavered for a business environment that let them kill workers; poison the air, land and water; and cheat the tax authorities with impunity.

For this plan to work, the wealthy needed to engineer changes in both the rich world and the poor world. Obviously, they would have to get rid of the rich world's tariff walls, which made it impossible to competitively import goods made in the global south, no matter how cheaply they were made.

But free trade wasn't just about deregulation in the north – it also required a whole slew of new, extremely onerous regulations in the global south. Corporations that relocated their manufacturing to poor – but nominally sovereign – countries needed to be sure that those countries wouldn't try to replicate the American plan of becoming actually sovereign, by exerting control over the means of production within their borders.

Recall that the American Revolution was inspired in large part by fury over the requirement to ship raw materials back to Mother England and then buy them back at huge markups after they'd been processed by English workers, to the enrichment of English aristocrats. Post-colonial America created new regulations (tariffs on goods from England), and – crucially – they also deregulated.

Specifically, post-revolutionary America abolished copyrights and patents for English persons and firms. That way, American manufacturers could produce sophisticated finished goods without paying rent to England's wealthy making those goods cheaper for American buyers, and American publishers could subsidize their editions of American authors' books by publishing English authors on the cheap, without the obligation to share profits with English publishers or English writers.

The surplus produced by ignoring the patents and copyrights of the English was divided (unequally) among American capitalists, workers, and shoppers. Wealthy Americans got richer, even as they paid their workers more and charged less for their products. This incubated a made-in-the-USA edition of the industrial revolution. It was so successful that the rest of the world – especially England – began importing American goods and literature, and then American publishers and manufacturers started to lean on their government to "respect" English claims, in order to secure bilateral protections for their inventions and books in English markets.

This was good for America, but it was terrible for English manufacturers. The US – a primitive, agricultural society – "stole" their inventions until they gained so much manufacturing capacity that the English public started to prefer American goods to English ones.

This was the thing that rich-world industrialists feared about free trade. Once you build your high-tech factories in the global south, what's to stop those people from simply copying your plans – or worse, seizing your factories! – and competing with you on a global scale? Some of these countries had nominally socialist governments that claimed to explicitly elevate the public good over the interests of the wealthy. And all of these countries had the same sprinkling of sociopaths who'd gladly see a million children maimed or the land poisoned for a buck – and these "entrepreneurs" had unbeatable advantages with their countries' political classes.

For globalization to work, it wasn't enough to deregulate the rich world – capitalists also had to regulate the poor world. Specifically, they had to get the poor world to adopt "IP" laws that would force them to willingly pay rent on things they could get for free: patents and other IP, even though it was in the short-term, medium-term, and long-term interests of both the nation and its politicians and its businesspeople.

Thus, the bargain that makes me sympathetic to Dan Aykroyd: not cow lips for alien tech; but free trade for IP law. When the WTO was steaming towards passage in the late 1990s, there was (rightly) a lot of emphasis on its deregulatory provisions: weakening of labor, environmental and financial laws in the poor world, and of tariffs in the rich world.

But in hindsight, we all kind of missed the main event: the TRIPS (Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights). This actually started before the WTO treaty (it was part of the GATT, a predecessor to the WTO), but the WTO spread it to countries all over the world. Under the TRIPS, poor countries are required to honor the IP claims of rich countries, on pain of global sanction.

That was the plan: instead of paying American workers to make Apple computers, say, Apple could export the "IP" for Macs and iPhones to countries like China, and these countries would produce Apple products that were "designed in California, assembled in China." China would allow Apple to treat Chinese workers so badly that they routinely committed suicide, and would lock up or kill workers who tried to unionize. China would accept vast shipments of immortal, toxic e-waste. And China wouldn't let its entrepreneurs copy Apple's designs, be they software, schematics or trademarks.

Apple isn't the only company that pursued this strategy, but no company has executed it as successfully. It's not for nothing that Steve Jobs's hand-picked successor was Tim Cook, who oversaw the transfer of even the most exacting elements of Apple manufacturing to Chinese facilities, striking bargains with contractors like Foxconn that guaranteed that workers would be heavily – lethally! – surveilled and controlled to prevent the twin horrors of unionization and leaks.

For the first two decades of the WTO era, the most obvious problems with this arrangement was wage erosion (for American workers) and leakage (for the rich). China's "socialist" government was only too happy to help Foxconn imprison workers who demanded better wages and working conditions, but they were far more relaxed about knockoffs, be they fake iPods sold in market stalls or US trade secrets working their way into Huawei products.

These were problems for the American aristocracy, whose investments depended on China disciplining both Chinese workers and Chinese businesses. For the American people, leakage was a nothingburger. Apple's profits weren't shared with its workforce beyond the relatively small number of tech workers at its headquarters. The vast majority of Apple employees, who flogged iPhones and scrubbed the tilework in gleaming white stores across the nation, would get the same minimal (or even minimum) wage no matter how profitable Apple grew.

It wasn't until the pandemic that the other shoe dropped for the American public. The WTO arrangement – cow lips for alien technology – had produced a global system brittle supply chains composed entirely of weakest links. A pandemic, a war, a ship stuck in the Suez Canal or Houthi paramilitaries can cripple the entire system, perhaps indefinitely.

For two decades, we fought over globalization's effect on wages. We let our corporate masters trick us into thinking that China's "cheating" on IP was a problem for the average person. But the implications of globalization for American sovereignty and security were banished to the xenophobic right fringe, where they were mixed into the froth of Cold War 2.0 nonsense. The pandemic changed that, creating a coalition that is motivated by a complex and contradictory stew of racism, environmentalism, xenophobia, labor advocacy, patriotism, pragmatism, fear and hope.

Out of that stew emerged a new American political tendency, mostly associated with Bidenomics, but also claimed in various guises by the American right, through its America First wing. That tendency's most visible artifact is the CHIPS Act, through which the US government proposes to use policy and subsidies to bring high-tech manufacturing back to America's shores.

This week, the American Economic Liberties Project published "Reshoring and Restoring: CHIPS Implementation for a Competitive Semiconductor Industry," a fascinating, beautifully researched and detailed analysis of the CHIPS Act and the global high-tech manufacturing market, written by Todd Achilles, Erik Peinert and Daniel Rangel:

https://www.economicliberties.us/our-work/reshoring-and-restoring-chips-implementation-for-a-competitive-semiconductor-industry/#

Crucially, the report lays out the role that the weakening of antitrust, the dismantling of tariffs and the strengthening of IP played in the history of the current moment. The failure to enforce antitrust law allowed for monopolization at every stage of the semiconductor industry's supply-chain. The strengthening of IP and the weakening of tariffs encouraged the resulting monopolies to chase cheap labor overseas, confident that the US government would punish host countries that allowed their domestic entrepreneurs to use American designs without permission.

The result is a financialized, "capital light" semiconductor industry that has put all its eggs in one basket. For the most advanced chips ("leading-edge logic"), production works like this: American firms design a chip and send the design to Taiwan where TSMC foundry turns it into a chip. The chip is then shipped to one of a small number of companies in the poor world where they are assembled, packaged and tested (AMP) and sent to China to be integrated into a product.

Obsolete foundries get a second life in the commodity chip ("mature-node chips") market – these are the cheap chips that are shoveled into our cars and appliances and industrial systems.

Both of these systems are fundamentally broken. The advanced, "leading-edge" chips rely on geopolitically uncertain, heavily concentrated foundries. These foundries can be fully captured by their customers – as when Apple prepurchases the entire production capacity of the most advanced chips, denying both domestic and offshore competitors access to the newest computation.

Meanwhile, the less powerful, "mature node" chips command minuscule margins, and are often dumped into the market below cost, thanks to subsidies from countries hoping to protect their corner of the high-tech sector. This makes investment in low-power chips uncertain, leading to wild swings in cost, quality and availability of these workhorse chips.

The leading-edge chipmakers – Nvidia, Broadcom, Qualcomm, AMD, etc – have fully captured their markets. They like the status quo, and the CHIPS Act won't convince them to invest in onshore production. Why would they?

2022 was Broadcom's best year ever, not in spite of its supply-chain problems, but because of them. Those problems let Broadcom raise prices for a captive audience of customers, who the company strong-armed into exclusivity deals that ensured they had nowhere to turn. Qualcomm also profited handsomely from shortages, because its customers end up paying Qualcomm no matter where they buy, thanks to Qualcomm ensuring that its patents are integrated into global 4G and 5G standards.

That means that all standards-conforming products generate royalties for Qualcomm, and it also means that Qualcomm can decide which companies are allowed to compete with it, and which ones will be denied licenses to its patents. Both companies are under orders from the FTC to cut this out, and both companies ignore the FTC.

The brittleness of mature-node and leading-edge chips is not inevitable. Advanced memory chips (DRAM) roughly comparable in complexity to leading-edge chips, while analog-to-digital chips are as easily commodified as mature-node chips, and yet each has a robust and competitive supply chain, with both onshore and offshore producers. In contrast with leading-edge manufacturers (who have been visibly indifferent to the CHIPS incentives), memory chip manufacturers responded to the CHIPS Act by committing hundreds of billions of dollars to new on-shore production facilities.

Intel is a curious case: in a world of fabless leading-edge manufacturers, Intel stands out for making its own chips. But Intel is in a lot of trouble. Its advanced manufacturing plans keep foundering on cost overruns and delays. The company keeps losing money. But until recently, its management kept handing its shareholders billions in dividends and buybacks – a sign that Intel bosses assume that the US public will bail out its "national champion." It's not clear whether the CHIPS Act can save Intel, or whether financialization will continue to hollow out a once-dominant pioneer.

The CHIPS Act won't undo the concentration – and financialization – of the semiconductor industry. The industry has been awash in cheap money since the 2008 bailouts, and in just the past five years, US semiconductor monopolists have paid out $239b to shareholders in buybacks and dividends, enough to fund the CHIPS Act five times over. If you include Apple in that figure, the amount US corporations spent on shareholder returns instead of investing in capacity rises to $698b. Apple doesn't want a competitive market for chips. If Apple builds its own foundry, that just frees up capacity at TSMC that its competitors can use to improve their products.

The report has an enormous amount of accessible, well-organized detail on these markets, and it makes a set of key recommendations for improving the CHIPS Act and passing related legislation to ensure that the US can once again make its own microchips. These run a gamut from funding four new onshore foundries to requiring companies receiving CHIPS Act money to "dual-source" their foundries. They call for NIST and the CPO to ensure open licensing of key patents, and for aggressive policing of anti-dumping rules for cheap chips. They also seek a new law creating an "American Semiconductor Supply Chain Resiliency Fee" – a tariff on chips made offshore.

Fundamentally, these recommendations seek to end the outsourcing made possible by restrictive IP regimes, to undercut Wall Street's power to demand savings from offshoring, and to smash the market power of companies like Apple that make the brittleness of chip manufacturing into a feature, rather than a bug. This would include a return to previous antitrust rules, which limited companies' ability to leverage patents into standards, and to previous IP rules, which limited exclusive rights chip topography and design ("mask rights").

All of this will is likely to remove the constraints that stop poor countries from doing to America the same things that postcolonial America did to England – that is, it will usher in an era in which lots of countries make their own chips and other high-tech goods without paying rent to American companies. This is good! It's good for poor countries, who will have more autonomy to control their own technical destiny. It's also good for the world, creating resiliency in the high-tech manufacturing sector that we'll need as the polycrisis overwhelms various places with fire and flood and disease and war. Electrifying, solarizing and adapting the world for climate resilience is fundamentally incompatible with a brittle, highly concentrated tech sector.

Pluralizing high-tech production will make America less vulnerable to the gamesmanship of other countries – and it will also make the rest of the world less vulnerable to American bullying. As Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman describe so beautifully in their 2023 book Underground Empire, the American political establishment is keenly aware of how its chokepoints over global finance and manufacturing can be leveraged to advantage the US at the rest of the world's expense:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/10/weaponized-interdependence/#the-other-swifties

Look, I know that Eisenhower didn't trade cow-lips for alien technology – but our political and commercial elites really did trade national resiliency away for IP laws, and it's a bargain that screwed everyone, except the one percenters whose power and wealth have metastasized into a deadly cancer that threatens the country and the planet.

Image: Mickael Courtiade (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/197739384@N07/52703936652/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[cregan-starks]

Flames of Deceit

Summary: Aemond and Visenya reunite amidst the Dance of the Dragons.

Words: 13,005

Pairings: Aemond Targaryen x OC, Cregan Stark x OC

Warnings: canon-typical incest (Aemond and Visenya are cousins, as well as uncle and niece), book and show spoilers, Westerosi geopolitics, mentions of imperialism and slavery, canon-typical violence, war, blood and gore, fire and burning, mass death, mention of amputation, mentions of torture and captivity, mentions and threats of execution and physical harm, mentions of poverty and starvation, parental neglect, food and eating, alcohol and drinking, sexism, victim blaming, slut-shaming, ableist language, explicit language, nudity, smut (vaginal sex in flashbacks), unresolved sexual tension, grief/mourning, trauma, angst, hurt/comfort, survivor guilt, mutual pining, emotional/psychological abuse, verbal abuse, mentions of pregnancy, childbirth, miscarriage, and death in childbirth, mentions of child/infant death, mentions of infidelity. If I missed any warnings, please let me know! Under no circumstances can you copy, plagiarize, steal my work, or post it somewhere else!

Notes: This totally didn’t take me almost 7 months to write. Cregan Stark is the protagonist of Fire & Blood. Rise, Cregan nation. My OC Visenya is Rhaenyra’s and Daemon’s daughter, and Jace’s older twin. Superfecundation, baby. Visenya and Jace are born in 111 AC, not 114 AC. The Battle in the Gullet still occurs in 130 AC, soon after the events of this one-shot. Reblogs and comments are encouraged and immensely appreciated. If this does well, I’ll post a reader version.

Credits: Huge thank you to my betas @maharani-radha-writes 💛 @aereth 💖 and @shewhomustbecalledking 🩶, and to @haystack-boy @lavendertales @buttercup--bee @agirllovespancakes and @oloreaa for their constant patience and support. It means a lot, and I’m immensely grateful. Apart from my OC Visenya, all characters belong to George R.R. Martin. Gif by @aemondtargaryensource (x)

Ao3 | Masterlist | Next

EARLY 130 AC

HARRENHAL, THE RIVERLANDS

          The sheer immensity of Harrenhal had provoked dizziness in Visenya. She had heard the story innumerable times. For four decades, King Harren Hoare had built greedily and obsessively, sacrificing thousands of slaves, and beggaring the riverlands and the Iron Islands. The indestructible construction had been no match for Balerion, whose fire had consumed the tyrant and his sons inside it, ending their line. Most Westerosi believed that the phantoms of the Hoares wandered the castle halls. The fortress is costly to maintain, and it devours its possessors. Qoherys, Harroway, Towers… All extinct. Whether cursed or not, Harrenhal remained a strategic location – the largest castle in the Seven Kingdoms.

          The current castellan – Larys Clubfoot’s great-uncle – Ser Simon Strong had recently surrendered Harrenhal to Daemon Targaryen. The presence of Caraxes might have contributed to his hasty decision. Following the victory at the Burning Mill and the subsequent submission of Stone Hedge – terminating Green strength in the riverlands – Queen Rhaenyra’s allies had commenced their gathering at Harrenhal, in accordance with the Prince Consort’s stratagem.

          Visenya had departed Dragonstone on the same night that Daemon had summoned her, having been granted safe passage by the Velaryon ships patrolling the Gullet. At the outbreak of the war, the Sea Snake’s fleet had closed off Blackwater Bay, choking trade to and from the capital.

          As soon as she had dismounted her dragon in the castle yard, she had sensed the eerie ambience that had haunted Harrenhal’s colossal curtain walls and fissured, melted towers. Formidable and dreadful. Harren’s monument and tomb. Blackwing had responded to Caraxes’ fervent shriek with her own, flapping her wings at him. Happy to be reunited.

          Her father had offered her a warm welcome and a tight embrace, had even insisted that she sit on his war council, wherein she had befriended Alysanne Blackwood, whom she had grown quite fond of.

          At last, Visenya had thought, on the morning that Daemon had sent for her. Though she loved him dearly, her father hadn’t invited her there because he had missed his daughter. Visenya had met with Daemon alone, in the Hall of the Hundred Hearths – she had counted thirty-five – grander than the throne room in King’s Landing, the discolored ceiling looming loftily above them. Her father had donned his chain mail over his crimson tunic.

          Does he sleep in that? Or am I the threat?

          ‘Ser Crispin and the Kinslayer are marching on Harrenhal,’ Daemon had informed her, instead of “good morrow”, pressing a rolled parchment into her palm, ‘They mean to join forces with the Lannisters’, at Stoney Sept.’

          Her heart had jolted at the mere mention of his title. Aemond… At the Usurper’s farce of a coronation that the Hightowers had compelled her to attend – dressed in green – Visenya had kissed him farewell, forsaking any glimmer of hope for a future with him. I have demonstrated where my loyalties lie. I have chosen my family.

          Her lilac eyes had skimmed over the scrawled message on the sheepskin, the wax sigil foreign to her. The White Worm?

          ‘You are strangely poised,’ Visenya had observed, suspicious, studying her father’s amused expression.

          ‘I’ve been waiting for this,’ he had confirmed, smirking wickedly, curling his hand around the hilt of sheathed Dark Sister. Another one of his traps… and he’s pulling me into it. Daemon had gently cradled her cheek, purring, ‘I have a mission for you, sweetling.’

EARLY 130 AC

STONEY SEPT, THE RIVERLANDS

          Her host had encamped half a day’s ride from the town, with sufficient provisions for a fortnight. The arduous advance and the muddy soil had wearied men and horses alike, so Visenya had relied on the Greens’ tardiness to provide them with the respite that they had needed.

          Her dragon had brazenly exploited that ploy – napping during the day and hunting at night, increasing the risk of being discovered. Surpassed by Vhagar in age and size, Blackwing had never been ridden before a seven-year-old Visenya had claimed her. They shared a temper, a wildness, and a fierce devotion to each other. My twin in dragon flesh, Jace would jest.

          ‘You have become too spoiled,’ she had reproved, affectionately, tapping Blackwing’s dark scales, heated to the touch.

          The beast had objected, idly, releasing a guttural noise, smoke rising from its nostrils.

          For five days, her spies had reported nothing of enemy activity. Her anxieties had continued to fester and to gnaw at her. What if I fail? What if I die? I would condemn my people in vain. And Aemond… What am I to do about him?

          On the sixth day, the scouts had burst into her tent, blurting that the Greens had arrived at Stoney Sept. The maester had quickly dispatched a raven to Prince Daemon, at Harrenhal.

          ‘We attack at dawn,’ Visenya had declared, resolute.

          I’ll do my best, father.

          The fray had been gruesome, stretching for hours upon hours. A thick mist had settled over the Blackwater Rush, impairing visibility. Visenya had been the surprise element, concealing herself to deceive her foes, and striking unexpectedly, in the midst of battle. She had flown on her daunting Blackwing, laying waste to men and reserves indiscriminately, amongst the sounds of steel clashing with steel, shields splintering, arrows whistling, and soldiers screaming as they fought, suffered wounds, and perished. Hundreds of Greens had been engulfed in her dragon’s flames.

          Aemond had been slow to deter the princess. Afraid to face me? Visenya and Blackwing had used the fog to their advantage, climbing higher and higher into the sky – the Kinslayer chasing after them on hoary Vhagar.

          ‘Dracarys!’, she had ordered, and Blackwing had descended on Vhagar, unleashing a cloud of fire that had only incensed the latter.

          The dragons had spun, locked in a vicious struggle of claws and fangs, wings thrashing, until Aemond had suddenly swiveled Vhagar, slamming her into Blackwing. Their deafening roars had pierced the air. The collision had knocked Visenya from her saddle – the searing flames licking at her arm – and had sent her plummeting towards the Blackwater below. Having crashed into the Rush, she had surfaced seconds later, her hefty armor and the river’s currents hindering her endeavors to stay afloat. Visenya had looked up, able to distinguish a faint form lunging at another – the beasts’ screeches reverberating far above.

          Blackwing will not be coming to my rescue.

          Her tribulations hadn’t stopped there. A glimpse at the golden dragon banner of the Pretender, and she had realised that the currents had pushed her in the wrong direction… too late. She had already been spotted by the scouts on the shore, who had alerted their captain. They had aimed their crossbows at her, waiting for the Blackwater to present her to them on a gilded platter. I think not.

          Visenya had bitten into the hand of the man who had dragged her out of the water, then she had tossed him into the Rush.

          ‘Cunt!’, the next attacker had bellowed, charging at her.

          Slowed down by her injuries, her movements had been clumsy. Visenya had ducked under his first blow, stumbling to retain her balance. She had unsheathed her sword to parry his second blow, and had driven her blade through his breastplate. She had slashed a guard’s belly, his entrails spilling out. A soldier’s glove had caught her weapon, yanking it from her grasp. Disoriented by a swift welt to the side of her head, Visenya had been tackled to the ground – the impact rendering her breathless. Two fists had savagely pummeled her face, again and again and again – a massive weight crushing her. She had desperately fumbled for her scabbard, had withdrawn her dagger, and had slit her aggressor’s throat. Hot blood had spurted out, blinding her. She had been hoisted to her feet, her dirk wrenched away. Howling with rage and frustration, Visenya had scratched at the man’s eyes with her nails, had kneed another in the groin, and had torn off an archer’s ear with her teeth.

          Alas, she had been one enfeebled person against all of the odds… and a dozen Greens. Her apprehension had been inevitable.

          The capture of the commander had prompted the capitulation of her army. Visenya had been delivered to Ser Crispin in chains, covered in blood, dirt, and grass, braids disheveled, dragonscale armor soaked, body aching, left arm throbbing. I will not quail. Those traitors will receive no such satisfaction from me.

          Attired in the white garments of the Kingsguard, Ser Crispin had been the living depiction of virtue and chivalry. Lickspittle. He had immediately discarded courtesy, referring to her as a “bitch in dragon’s clothing.” In retaliation, Visenya had dubbed him a “sheep in sheep’s clothing”, earning herself a cuff across the face from his steeled gauntlet. Blood had flooded her mouth, her cheek stinging sharply.

          Ser Crispin had further commented that her men had been rather committed to her, alluding that she had fucked them to obtain their service. Every woman is an image of the Mother, to be spoken of with reverence.

          ‘It’s not as high of an honor as warming the Dowager Queen’s bed,’ Visenya had admitted, slyly, and had spat on his boots, ‘Hand of the Usurper. Does he wipe his ass with you?’

          Crispin would have hit her again, had the Prince Regent not intervened. Wary, she had surveyed her surroundings for Vhagar – not in evidence. I might wind up her supper.

          ‘Enough, Cole,’ Aemond had interrupted, solemn, causing Visenya to tense, drawing their attention to where he had been standing, imposing, smeared with ashes and smoke, ‘She may be our prisoner, but she is still a princess, and shall be treated as befits her station.’

          Any shred of scorn had abandoned her, ousted by fear and uncertainty. Her father had foreseen this. If you bend, you will break. Remember who you are. She had inhaled deeply, striving to even her respiration. I am the blood of the dragon, daughter of Queen Rhaenyra and Prince Daemon, and heir to the Iron Throne. I will not cringe for them.

          Aemond had instructed the maids to prepare her a bath and a warm meal, and to fetch her dry clothes. Visenya had grinned, baring her bloody teeth at Ser Crispin, as the guards had led her away. She had been escorted along the smoldering ruins of houses, inns, and brothels, trampling charred corpses – mindful of her step. Carrion crows had circled above, the timid sun peeking from grey clouds. The foul, stifling stench had twisted her stomach, tears needling her eyes. Mine and Aemond’s handiwork. Only the sept, the square, and the trout-shaped fountain had remained intact. When dragons flew to war, everything burned, her mother had warned at the Black Council. What have the people of Stoney Sept done to merit this devastation? What power do they have over their lives? We play our grisly game of thrones, and the commonfolk bear the immeasurable cost.

          The encampment had spread interminably – miles of pavilions, armories, forges, stables, latrines, wagons, and baggage trains – crawling with Greens cussing, mocking, and shouting at captives, pages distributing letters, squires polishing armor, honing weapons, feeding, watering, and combing horses, patrols walking to their posts, smiths hammering boisterously, cooks chopping vegetables, skinning rabbits, disemboweling deer, and roasting boars, giggling washerwomen hurrying by, and maesters ministering to the wounded. The turmoil had imbued Visenya’s senses. Mesmerised, she had watched a wailing, writhing man have his leg amputated, until one of her assigned guardians had shoved her forward.

          She had assumed that Blackwing had flown away… but, having escaped the battle unscathed, and always loyal to a fault, her dragon had landed in the enemy’s camp, razing barracks and roaring ferociously, seeking its rider. After it had mauled the Greens who had attempted to approach it and shackle it, Aemond had begrudgingly permitted Visenya to comfort her feral companion. Blackwing had nuzzled its snout against her, coiling its tail around her, protectively, while Visenya had murmured “lykirī”, caressing its scales – her taut restraints impeding the action. Her chest had constricted agonisingly when the traitors had forcibly separated them. I will return for you, I promise.

          She had been ushered into a vacated chamber, where the maids had obediently unchained her wrists, had removed her armor, had unbraided her hair, and had helped her undress for her bath, evading her glare and her nakedness – scarcely addressing her. What grim tales have they been told about me? Under the ewerers’ supervision, Visenya had washed herself – her uninjured arm vigorously scrubbing her skin with a bar of soap – and had dried off on her own, using cloths and rags. They have taken away my gear. Her indignation dwindling, she had slipped on the plain shirt, brown breeches, pelts, and a pair of flat shoes that they had brought her – tucking her salvaged brooch in her pocket. Is this meant to humble me?

          She had sluggishly eaten her bland yet nourishing food, on a bench, by a candle, goggled at by blushing serving lads.

          Aemond had summoned her to his tent, along with the maesters, who had cleansed her burns, had applied a poultice that had reeked of lavender and vinegar, had bandaged her arm, and had rubbed balms on her cuts, bruises, and split lip. Visenya had endured their ministrations in utter silence, grinding her teeth and clenching her fists. She and Aemond hadn’t exchanged a single word.

          The pavilion had been modest for the Prince Regent, consisting of a firepit, an oaken war table – stripped of its tomes, maps, scrolls, ink, and wax – chairs, rugs, and a featherbed, with books scattered atop it. The colors red and black dominated the tent of a proud and eminent Green, who carried the golden banner of the Pretender. Aemond cannot deny his Targaryen heritage. Had Otto Hightower dyed his locks silver-white and ridden a dragon, he could have sat his ass on the Iron Throne and ruled in his own name. Instead, he urged the King to make my mother his heir, coerced his daughter to seduce him, and installed his grandson on the throne. Puppets upon puppets, plots within plots.

          With the maesters dismissed, Visenya finally had the opportunity to regard Aemond. He hadn’t changed much since she had last seen him, at his brother’s false coronation. In the fire’s light, he had been a sight to behold; the flames illuminating his attractive, distinctive features, his mouth seemingly lodged in a permanent smirk, his eyepatch obscuring his missing eye, his tresses cascading down his back. Aemond had cleaned himself up, shedding his armor – now resting on a rack – for his usual black leather tunic, fastened with a belt that had his sheathed dagger attached to it, and a lengthy coat sewn with fur around the neck. He cast a tall shadow in the pavilion, his posture impeccable. Half dragon, half feline.

          ‘There’s a lack of dresses,’ informs Aemond, obdurately calm, retrieving a flagon of wine and two cups from the servant at the tent’s entrance, ‘And we had to find clothes that would suit you.’

          ‘I gather that there’s some poor stable boy currently running around naked,’ quips Visenya, tugging the pelts around herself.

          Aemond huffs through his nose, amused, and sets one of the goblets on the table, proceeding to fill it with Arbor Red for her. The war evidently hasn’t affected the Usurper’s notorious love of drinking. Lord Redwyne smelled profit, and pledged his support to the Greens, to ensure that their wine supply never dries. An onerous task. The Pretender has ample ambition in that respect.

          ‘Don’t fret,’ assures Aemond, upon heeding Visenya’s skeptical, arched eyebrow, ‘It’s not poisoned.’

          ‘Surely someone spat in it,’ she guesses, convivial, swirling the liquid in her cup.

          Aemond smiles, drinking his wine. Visenya tentatively lifts her goblet to her lips, and sips. Delectable flavors invade her mouth, soothing her nerves – albeit a little. She mulls over her next words… half carefully.

          ‘I reckoned that you and Ser Crispin would share a pavilion,’ she confides, lewdly, crossing one leg over the other, ‘Though your prides would not fit together.’

          Aemond’s gaze darkens, his mouth subtly pressing into a thin line. His disposition could make Mushroom miserable... and it has.

          ‘You could lose your tongue for such insolence,’ he cautions, sternly.

          ‘Stale news,’ suspires an indifferent Visenya, ‘I can write this down as well.’ She pauses to take a swig, then demands, bluntly, ‘Where is Blackwing? And my men?’

          ‘The dragonkeepers are tending her,’ explains Aemond, irritation in his tone, leaving his empty cup on the table, ‘Your men are being questioned.’

          Good fortune. They know nothing. The laughter and singing outside contradict Aemond’s claim. Drunk on victory. A weakness that she could later exploit. If I could reach Blackwing… lest they harm her.

          ‘Blackwing was your companion prior to Vhagar,’ she mentions, heatedly, flexing and unflexing her hand, ‘If you touch her–’

          ‘You are in no position to launch threats, Visenya,’ chastises Aemond, coldly, prodding at the logs with a poker, the wood crackling in the fire, ‘Your treatment depends on my good will. As does your fate. You have my word that Blackwing will not be harmed.’

          ‘The word of a kinslayer,’ spits Visenya, venomously, eyes darting to him, ‘If you are under the impression that minor acts of benevolence shall convince me to talk, you are gravely mistaken. You overestimate my family’s trust in me.’

          ‘They trusted you enough to put you in command of an army four thousand strong,’ reminds an earnest Aemond, ‘And you expect me to believe that you have no knowledge of your twin’s whereabouts?’

          I wouldn’t trade Jace for the Iron Throne. ‘We shared a womb, not a brain,’ she corrects, tracing the rim of her goblet with her digits, contemplating refilling it. I need my wits about me. ‘You are wasting your time, nuncle. Mine, too. Fetch your torturers, and be done with all this bother.’

          ‘I will do no such thing,’ he rebuffs, inclining his head.

          ‘You will torture me yourself?’, asks Visenya, feigning innocence, brushing her loose silver-white hair over her shoulders.

          ‘You are being difficult, Visenya,’ he accuses, exasperated.

          ‘What do you intend to do with me?’, she interjects, involuntarily fiddling with her absent rings, ‘Executing me would be unwise. I presume that you will have my dragon killed, and me delivered to King’s Landing, where your usurper of a brother awaits, warming my mother’s rightful seat… or is he still broken and bedridden, lost in poppy dreams?’

          ‘Mind your tongue, Visenya,’ warns Aemond, louring at her, melting some of her resolve.

          ‘The Clubfoot will probably throw me in a cell and dispatch his floggers to visit me,’ she concludes, scratching her thigh. Stable boy must have had fleas.

          ‘I’m not sending you to King’s Landing,’ announces Aemond, with apparent mirth towards her gesture.

          ‘You will ransom me to my father?’, taunts Visenya, smirking wickedly, ‘He’s the poorest man in the Seven Kingdoms.’ Aemond’s demeanor refutes her insinuation. She continues, all semblance of jest vanishing, ‘You cannot justify keeping me here. Once the Pretender learns about my capture, he will order you to send me to King’s Landing.’

          ‘Aegon does not concern me,’ he grumbles, clasping his hands behind his back.

          ‘Pār ivestragī nyke jikagon,’ she advises, coyly. Aemond hums, musing, a glimmer in his eye that doesn’t indicate outright negation. ‘We are at war, and you allow your feelings to cloud your judgment?’ (Then let me go.)

          ‘Iksi daor rȳ vīlībāzma,’ argues a mild Aemond. (We are not at war.)

          So, you did not slaughter Luke? That’s a consolation. ‘Iksis bona skoro syt emā daor ossēntan nyke?’, inquires Visenya, masking her anger. (Is that why you have not killed me?)

          ‘Killing you would be as imprudent as freeing you,’ he reasons, purposely oblivious, ‘You are worth more alive than you are dead. You lost a fair battle, you surrendered, and now you are my prisoner.’

          ‘I’ve heard stories about how you and Ser Crispin treat your prisoners,’ she disputes, mordant, ‘And I never yielded. You ride the largest dragon in the world. That’s hardly a fair match.’

          Cole and the Usurper’s forces had sacked the port town of Duskendale, putting the ships at the harbor to the torch, hundreds of men, women, and children to the sword, and beheading Lord Gunthor Darklyn for supporting her mother’s cause. Hundreds more had been massacred at Rook’s Rest, where Lord Staunton, too, had been relieved of his head. Besieged by the Greens, he had barricaded himself inside his castle walls, and had requested assistance from the Blacks. With Prince Daemon at Harrenhal, and Queen Rhaenyra griefsick in the aftermath of her son’s murder, command of the Black Council had passed to the Velaryons. Rhaenyra had forbidden her children from answering their ally’s plea, so Princess Rhaenys had flown to Rook’s Rest instead. She and Meleys had fallen in battle against the Pretender, the Kinslayer, and their dragons. Sunfyre had been rendered flightless, the Usurper had suffered severe burns, and Aemond had assumed the title of Prince Regent – to rule in lieu of his older brother.

          Visenya’s side hadn’t fared any greater. A wroth Sea Snake had blamed Rhaenyra for his wife’s demise. Jace had named him Hand of the Queen, to appease him – a measure that Visenya had commended. Better than Ser Crispin.

          ‘You ambushed us,’ reiterates Aemond, incredulous, ‘We would have presented you with terms, to avoid bloodshed.’

          Oh, please. You don’t believe that. ‘Fuck your terms,’ curses Visenya, waving dismissively, ‘I suppose that being twice a kinslayer would have marred the carcass of your reputation.’

          ‘I spared your life,’ he chides, vaguely baleful.

          ‘A clemency that you did not extend to my brother,’ she sneers, bilious, her nails digging into the table’s surface.

          ‘Half-brother,’ deadpans Aemond, promptly.

          ‘If you had to slay your own kin, personally, I would have picked your dear brother, the Pretender,’ proffers Visenya, honeyed.

          ‘Perhaps you should have killed him,’ he retorts, untroubled, ‘You had your chance.’

          Her family had gone to King’s Landing for the Driftmark petition, where her father had created a ghastly spectacle – publicly beheading Vaemond Velaryon for defaming her mother and her brothers. The Targaryen method of solving quarrels. Viserys himself had sat the throne, and had favored Luke as the heir to Driftmark – adhering to the Sea Snake’s wishes.

          Due to his declining health, the King had been the first to retire during the subsequent supper that they had all attended. Visenya hadn’t been surprised by his condition; she had frequented the capital, unlike her parents and her siblings. The gathering had soon turned disastrous. Jace had invited Helaena to dance with him – offending Aegon and Aemond. She is so sweet. Alicent had been evil to marry her off to that cunting demon. None of them deserve her. Visenya herself had danced with Daeron, grinning the entire time. We had once been engaged... I could have loved him. He would have been a dutiful Prince Consort and a doting father to our children. Aemond had toasted to her Velaryon brothers, referring to them as “strong.” Fighting had erupted betwixt her siblings and her uncles, and her father had intervened to break them apart.

          That evening, her family had sailed for Dragonstone, but Aemond had insisted that she stay in King’s Landing with him. Against her better judgment, Visenya had accepted. She ponders whether it had been a ploy of the Greens to take her hostage, and Aemond had simply played his part. Her grandsire had tragically expired overnight – poisoned by the Hightowers, according to her father. Visenya isn’t so certain. He hadn’t required meddling. He had been rotting for decades.

          On the morrow, the Greens had locked her in her chambers. Visenya had refused to swear obeisance to Aegon – had even spat in his face – and to bow at his false coronation. Blackwing and the Princess Rhaenys had come to her rescue – emerging from underneath the Dragonpit on Meleys. Visenya had mounted her dragon, and had addressed the crowd, her voice clear and fierce, laced with fury.

          “People of King’s Landing! The Hand and the Dowager Queen deceive you. King Viserys named my mother the Princess Rhaenyra heir to the throne. For twenty-four years, the succession remained indisputable and unchanged. Rhaenyra is the rightful and lawful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. By crowning Aegon, the Hightowers have committed the highest of treasons and have usurped the Iron Throne, violating the King’s will. Aegon shall show you neither kindness nor wisdom. Remember today. Remember that you lived by the mercy of Rhaenys the Queen Who Should Have Been and myself. If the Hightowers do not cease in their treachery and do not bend the knee, I vow to return with fire and blood!”

          Blackwing had roared so intensely that the Conqueror’s crown had been hurled from the Pretender’s head.

          Aemond has the right of it. We could have bathed Aegon in flame, quelled their rebellion then and there.

         On Dragonstone, the news of Viserys’ death and the Hightowers’ betrayal had driven her mother into an early labor. Her father had descended into madness, determined to levy war. Their losses had continuously piled… and the Seven Kingdoms would bear the cost.

          ‘I am no kinslayer,’ snarls Visenya, slighted by the idea, tearing her gaze away from Aemond.

          ‘I made you a generous offer that would have foiled the war,’ he broaches, the grievous memory still raw for him.

          Oh, how could I have displayed such ingratitude? She wouldn’t describe his proposal to marry him and rule together as “generous.” It had been an odious humiliation. Aegon – who had not wanted the throne, declaring himself “unsuited” – would have embarked upon a ship and departed Westeros permanently. The Iron Throne is not his to relinquish. Visenya knows that Aemond has no love for his father, but asking her to usurp her mother’s throne? An audacious affront. She had vehemently spurned him, and they had traded sour words – their prides injured.

          ‘Our families would have started a war to kill us for it,’ drones Visenya, flatly, ‘And what of my parents? They would have never abided by your… solution.’

          ‘They have no consideration for your happiness and welfare, yet you still toil in their service,’ observes Aemond, provocatively.

          ‘And you have?!’, she opposes, her fist slamming on the table, ‘You conspired to usurp the throne and slaughtered my brother, the Princess Rhaenys, and their dragons. You are in no position to launch accusations.’

          ‘Even now, you feel compelled to defend them,’ he comments, dejected.

          ‘Lucerys was my blood!’, snaps Visenya, wrathful, standing from her seat and storming up towards him – stopping a couple of feet in front of him.

          ‘As am I!’, booms Aemond, towering over her, ‘And you have never defended me half as much as you did him! He took my eye when I was but ten, and to even that the imp felt entitled, while you gladly dismissed it as an accident and moved on!’

          Outside, Blackwing and Vhagar grow agitated, shrieking and flitting their wings, stirring the wind. It seemed to Visenya that Aemond had often been harsher on her than he had been on Lucerys. He loves me… or he used to.

          ‘It was an accident,’ she maintains, tamer, ‘We were children. Our parents mishandled everything. I’ve told you numerous times that I profoundly regret what happened to you. It’s the truth. I cannot undo Luke’s actions.’

          It’s been ten years since then, and forgetting the incident has been impossible. Aemond wears the consequences of it on his face, in his daily life. Our unease at the sight of his gash is a small price to pay.

          He had delivered several blows – and had broken Luke’s nose – afore he had been overwhelmed by all five of her siblings, and Lucerys had slashed one of his eyes. Visenya’s absence from the fight had spared her from the interrogation, wherein Rhaenyra had suggested that Aemond be “sharply questioned”, Alicent Hightower had demanded Luke’s eye to compensate for Aemond’s, and Viserys had been eager to abandon his conciliatory obligation. The discord had exposed the personal feud between Rhaenyra and Alicent – their rhetoric diverting from “vile insults were levied against my sons” and “my son has lost an eye” to “duty and sacrifice are trampled under your pretty foot” and “you have been hiding beneath the cloak of your own righteousness.” The Queen had gone so far as to attack the Princess – slitting her arm with the King’s dagger.

          Visenya hadn’t spoken at all – displeasing Aemond and her siblings. To her, matters hadn’t been so absolute. Although Aemond had claimed Vhagar too soon – disrespecting Laena Velaryon’s memory – his assault and maiming had been unwarranted. I love Rhaena dearly, but Vhagar was not stolen. The dragon never belonged to her. Aemond and Vhagar chose each other. Visenya had later communicated her opinions to him, and she had reassured her sister that she would have a dragon.

          The next morning, the Targaryens and the Hightowers had exchanged false courtesies and falser apologies. Her family’s exile to Dragonstone hadn’t prevented Visenya from writing letters to Aemond, Helaena, and Daeron, or from flying on Blackwing to visit them in King’s Landing.

          Alas, the bloody seeds of strife had been sown.

          ‘No, you cannot,’ concurs Aemond, glancing at her lips, ‘No one can. That is why I sought justice for myself.’

          ‘Justice?’, echoes Visenya, disdainful, her glare piercing, ‘Had you had your other eye, you would still be as blind as you are now.’

          Aemond growls, lashing out and grabbing her roughly, their lower bodies pressing together. Visenya glowers at him defiantly, placing her hands on his breast, to preserve some distance betwixt their upper bodies. The effort shoots a jolt of pain along her arm.

          If he meant to scare her, he failed. Aemond would not harm me.

          ‘Hold your tongue, Visenya,’ he exhorts, through gritted teeth.

          ‘Or what?’, she challenges, her face inching closer to his, ‘You will have it removed? You will butcher me as you did my brother?’

          ‘You are brazen, to speak of your half-brother, of my wrongdoings and my crimes,’ berates Aemond, his jaw clenching, ‘What of your family? What of my nephew Jaehaerys?... Iā tresy syt iā tresy. Nyke gīmigon īles aōha kepa.’ (A son for a son. I know it was your father.)

          Aware of what Aemond alluded to, Visenya hesitates, her response withering on her tongue.

          After the tragedy at Storm’s End, a raven from her father had arrived at Dragonstone. An eye for an eye, a son for a son. Lucerys shall be avenged. She had deduced that Daemon had hired the assassins who had executed Prince Jaehaerys – the Usurper’s six-year-old heir – with Alicent, Helaena, and the latter’s other children as witnesses. Visenya had confronted him about his heinous deed at Harrenhal. Undaunted, her father had firmly admonished that the “pious one-eyed flea of a traitor who slobbers over you” had slain her brother.

          In retaliation for Jaehaerys, the Pretender had sent Ser Arryk Cargyll to Dragonstone, to assassinate Jace and Joffrey. The knight had entered the castle in his Kingsguard attire, disguised as his twin Ser Erryk – Queen Rhaenyra’s loyalist – whom he had encountered on his way to the royal apartments. By the conclusion of their duel, the two had mortally wounded one another.

          I owe the Hightowers nothing, least of all my sympathy. Children should not be the target of our ire. How do we differ from the Greens if we perpetrate and perpetuate the same crimes that they do?

          ‘Nyke ēdan daorun naejot gaomagon rūsīr bona,’ clarifies Visenya, sincerely, albeit faintly. (I had nothing to do with that.)

          ‘No, you are merely the spectator,’ scoffs Aemond, haughty, ‘Proudly passing judgment while others bloody their hands. You are passive. Passive in your beliefs, your guilt, your love.’

          Visenya blinks against the tears that prick her eyes, her breath hitched. His cruel and bitter words cut deeply, rooted in years of grievances, enmities, neglect, and abuse. Aemond had once been a sweet, innocent boy – her closest friend, her betrothed. He’s the product of his conditions, his upbringing, and his parents’ influence… as am I. Both confined in a prison of our parents’ sins. Perhaps we inevitably inherit the burdens of our forebears.

          Though Visenya may not be the sole reason for his resentment, she is present. Aemond hadn’t blamed her for her family’s actions. He condemned her for not loving him enough. That is unfair. I’m not culpable of that.

          A consuming poison has been dribbling inside of her, on the verge of gushing. Visenya has strayed too near to the edge – now wavering, uncertain whether she wishes to tread the line and unravel the truth. That is not why I am here...

          ... but her decision has already been established.

          The truth is important to me.

          Summoning her courage, Visenya reaches behind Aemond’s head to peel off his eyepatch, lifting the veil between them. I need to see him, so that he cannot deceive me. She tosses the item aside, neither shrinking nor averting her gaze. She caresses his face, drinking him in – his scar, the sapphire in his eye socket, the flesh that had healed crookedly. Aemond tenses, watching her intently, his respiration ragged. His grip on her slackens.

          ‘Gōntan ao ossēnagon zirȳla kesrio syt hen issa?’, murmurs Visenya, circling his wrists, impeding his retreat. (Did you kill him because of me?)

          At the Black Council, Jace and Luke had offered to act as their mother’s messengers, to acquire support for her claim. The twins had been tasked with the difficult mission – negotiating with the Eyrie, the Three Sisters, White Harbor, and Winterfell. Lady Jeyne Arryn would declare for Rhaenyra if dragonriders defended the Vale. Jace and Visenya had met with Lords Borrell and Sunderland at Sisterton, and at White Harbor, they had arranged for Joffrey to marry Lord Desmond Manderly’s youngest daughter.

          The news of Luke’s death had accosted them in the Vale. Visenya had collapsed in Jace’s arms, wailing as her twin had embraced her tightly. She had agonised over her brother’s demise every night, plagued by what she could have done to save him, weeping into a tumultuous sleep. Visenya had never listened to the rumors and the gossip. Lucerys had been her family, her brother, her blood. I fed him, bathed him, read to him, sparred with him, played with him… yet I could not protect him from Aemond.

          She possesses little knowledge of what had occurred betwixt Luke and Aemond at Storm’s End. The weather had been atrocious, her brother’s dragon too small to withstand it. In the following days, bits of Arrax’s carcass had washed up on the shore of Shipbreaker’s Bay. Luke had never been recovered. He may have died a dragonrider’s death, but he had died alone and afraid. Had his demise been slow and painful, or swift and painless? Her brother had sworn on the Seven-Pointed Star that he would not fight – merely deliver the Queen’s message. Aemond had taken no such oath. Had Visenya known, she would have held on to Luke and besought him not to go.

          If I had flown to Storm’s End in his stead, Aemond could have slain me, and my brother would still be alive.

          ‘Daor,’ whispers Aemond, at last. (No.)

          Visenya stifles a sob, tears escaping her eyes, dampening his thumbs. She foolishly believed that her grief would wane. His confession barely scrapes the surface. Visenya feels no relief, no closure. Has she been on an erroneous campaign to absolve herself of any responsibility, to alleviate her own conscience, and to forgive Aemond – chasing these ends to the detriment of Luke’s memory? If I wanted to bring justice to my brother, I would have slit his killer’s throat and let him bleed out on the ground.

          When Aemond succumbs and pulls her into him, Visenya doesn’t resist. The buckles of his tunic are cold and rough against her cheek, contrasting the warmth that he radiates. She releases the exhale that she has been withholding. Her greatest flaw rears its hideous head – a flaw that has sown division amongst her family and has rendered her an outcast. Visenya had suffered for her refusal to forsake her friendship with Aemond, enduring disapproving scowls from her parents, mean jests and malicious accusations from her siblings, and a lack of compassion – all serving to remind her of her tenuous position.

          Her proximity to Aemond had even prompted her mother to spurn her as her heir – arguing that he would undermine her as Queen. I cannot have both Aemond and the Iron Throne. I am the eldest child. By all rights, the throne should pass to me.

          Shoving those thoughts away, Visenya clutches his sides, sobs wracking her body. Aemond timidly buries his mouth in her locks, breathing in her scent.

          ‘Daor,’ he repeats, definitively, cradling the back of her head. (No.)

          The remainder of her defenses crumble. Visenya loathes that she errs, that she seeks and welcomes comfort from the man who is the source of her sorrow. With the realm plunged into war after Lucerys’ death, there has been no time to mourn – not for her grandsire Viserys, nor her sister Aemma, nor her brother Luke.

          An unavoidable war. We are Valyrian, and prone to violence. A testament to power corruption. Prior to the blood magic, the dragons, and the conquests, Valyrians had been a peaceful community of shepherds. They had become increasingly tyrannical and ambitious as their power had soared. The peak of our Freehold… and its ruin. Forewarned about the Doom by Daenys Targaryen’s prophetic dream, her forebears had fled to Dragonstone – a venture that the other, unsuspecting dragonlords had considered cowardice and had ridiculed. We had the last laugh.

          Targaryens have always been stubborn, passionate, fierce. Visenya is no exception. Despite their families’ hopes and despite his crimes, her love for Aemond hasn’t dwindled. Their bond is too strong, their souls and fates entwined. I am the blood of the dragon. Nobody dictates whom I love.

          And love is seldom simple.

          Aemond brushes his lips over her temple, causing her skin to tingle. Visenya lifts her eyes to meet his, and recognises the same ache and longing that lay dormant inside her. Affection blooms in her chest. She could stop this from flourishing, spare them both the misery. As children, they had found solace in each other’s company whenever their families had been the reason for their anguish, so they had promised to never hurt one another.

          A part of Visenya still yearns to love Aemond freely. Must her logic always be at odds with her emotions? The only man that I have ever desired, and I have been deprived of him my entire life. I have never been in control. The forbidden aspect merely furthers the appeal of the dalliance. She wants to surrender to the temptation, repercussions be damned.

          Visenya traces his mouth with her fingertips, reverently, and strokes his face – recommitting it to memory. Aemond leans into her touch, reveling in the gesture, his respiration shallow. The tips of their noses graze against each other. He wipes her tears before his digits fall on the sides of her neck, feeling her quickening pulse under the pads of his fingers. Aemond’s eye gleams with lust, igniting the same blaze within her. She peers at him from underneath her lashes, drowning in the depths of his blue eye. A shiver runs down her spine. Her lips tremble in suspense, the proximity making her dizzy.

          Aemond dips his head to capture her mouth in a tentative kiss. Visenya surges upwards to reciprocate, inhaling sharply through her nose, eyes slipping shut. Their lips mold together, their flame rekindled. His large, calloused hands grip her jaw, to guide her. She splays her hands over his chest, fisting the lapels of his coat, desperate to draw him closer. Visenya parts her lips, granting him entrance, tasting the lingering flavor of the wine that they had shared earlier. A familiar ardor seeps into her belly, immersing her body. Her fire has burned quietly for too long. Now, it has stirred again, emboldened to emerge.

          Aemond sinks his teeth into her bottom lip, splitting it and sucking the blood, famished. Visenya groans, her breath blowing the loose strands of hair that cover his forehead. Her knees weaken, and she grasps his shoulders for support, grateful that he wraps his arm around her middle. Her pelts land on the floor. Aemond steps forward, backing her into the table, and hoists her on it impetuously.

          Aemond kindly adjusts his belt, to remove the dagger betwixt them. The irony isn’t lost on Visenya. She spreads her legs, inviting, allowing him to settle between them. He sprawls over her, caging her in, his heavy weight almost crushing her against the table’s rigid, uncomfortable surface. His silky hair cascades around her head, framing his face, conferring a strange sense of privacy. Visenya peppers delicate pecks over his chin, continuing along his jaw, her digits prodding at his smooth neck.

          She fervidly awaits a kiss that never comes. Aemond hums affably, his arrogant smile shooting to her core. Their breaths mingle, his hands traveling up and down her sides with modest curiosity. Visenya huffs in exasperation, and shifts, ticklish, the heels of her feet digging into his ass. Her thumb catches his lower lip, pressing into it. Aemond holds her gaze, parting his lips enough to engulf her thumb. He swirls his tongue over it afore sucking on it gently. She watches him, captivated, her mouth slightly agape.

          The knot in her belly snaps, her patience having thinned, ousted by resolve. She pushes him off, so she can sit up, impelling him to stand. Aemond obliges without objection. Visenya hooks her fingers in his belt, to bring him nearer, and deftly unbuttons his tunic, revealing his bare chest – inch by inch. She drinks in the sight, caressing his glistening skin. The intolerable heat induces sweat to drip betwixt her breasts and to trickle down her spine.

          She leans in, only for Aemond to jerk his head away and deny her another kiss – the tip of her nose bumping against his cheek. He smirks, conceited, despite his ruddy complexion. Visenya gnashes her teeth, intent on retribution. Straightening her body, and looping her uninjured arm around Aemond, she licks his earlobe and bites it softly, eliciting a growl from him. He squeezes her hips in silent warning, and sneaks a hand under her shirt, to fondle her breast and pinch her nipple until it stiffens. Visenya moans, hushed, her head lolling back into her shoulders.

          Aemond rests his free hand on the base of her throat, his digits winding around it, lips latching onto her exposed neck. Visenya suppresses her whine, the air deserting her lungs. He incessantly strokes her bosom, his teeth abusing the sensitive skin of her neck. She drops her arms – mindful of her wounds – one hand surrounding his wrist, her other fumbling, blindly cupping his hardened member through his breeches. A salacious grunt rolls out of Aemond’s mouth, filling the tent.

          His fingers release her throat to tangle in her tresses, and yank, his hips grinding against hers, creating friction. He withdraws his lips from her, and tugs her hand away, his other hand raking down her abdomen. Her chuckle turns into a gasp as Aemond languidly rubs the wet area between her legs, his breath fanning her face. Visenya relishes in the waves of pleasure enveloping her body, her spine arching, though her soaking cunt clenches around nothing. She heaves her thighs higher, hugging his waist – lest he dare pull away from her.

          A metal item pokes at her thigh.

          My brooch.

          Visenya peels her eyes away from him, scrambling to salvage her composure. Aemond ceases his ministrations. He raises her chin with his thumb and forefinger, coaxing her to look at him. Her heart stutters, her vision bleary beneath his suffocating leer. The clouds in his eye have cleared… or he conceals them well. Their lips crash in a frantic kiss – her veins aflame, scalding. He swallows her wanton moan, kneading the flesh of her ass. Aemond cannot fool me. A constant tempest festers within him, ravenous for blood and revenge. Visenya would never be able to tame it. Nothing would.

          Numbing remorse smothers her fire. She had forgotten herself and her loyalties. She breaks the kiss, tasting ashes on her tongue. His mouth chases hers, his hand curling around the nape of her neck, to reunite their lips. Aemond bends her back, cradling her against him – the pressure on her shoulder tearing a whimper from her. He lays a tender, apologetic kiss there. Her digits slide into his locks, thwarting him. Visenya stares at the shadows dancing across the ceiling of the pavilion – Aemond’s head pillowed on her breasts.

          What am I doing? Where am I going? With him? Distant limbs envelop her, lips ghosting over her skin. He licks a stripe up the column of her throat and nips at it, nuzzling his nose against her neck. I would never betray my family. I cannot have both Aemond and the Iron Throne. The dream is over. Bury it, and crawl out of this bottomless pit of vipers.

          He has been stretching seconds into minutes, delaying the inevitable, but he cannot stop it. The die has been cast.

          ‘Aemond, wait,’ pants Visenya, her own voice foreign to her, her nails clawing at his back, ‘We cannot. I am–’

          ‘Betrothed?’, deadpans Aemond, cocking his head to peek at her, crimson lips swollen, hair and clothes disheveled, ‘I’m aware. Your half-brother told me, at Storm’s End.’

          Her heart leaps into her throat, yet Visenya falters, preferring to disregard his comment and its implications. If Aemond and Lucerys had exchanged insults – and her brother had mentioned her betrothal – it might have incited the former to attack the latter. A door best left shut.

          ‘Lord Stark is a good man–’

          ‘Have you sunk so low?’, criticises Aemond, reproach etched on his features, ‘You are a Targaryen princess, the blood of Old Valyria. Dragons do not mate with other beasts, and we do not consort with lesser men.’

          Visenya blinks in incredulity, scanning his face for any indication of pretense. He has been collecting dangerous beliefs. Undoubtedly the result of Ser Crispin’s and Alicent Hightower’s influence. King Viserys had been too neglectful to bear any blame in that respect. He’s overly culpable in innumerable other matters.

          ‘If I have sunk low, I do not wish to imagine what hell you wander in,’ she retorts, dour, shoving him away, her lower back pressing against the edge of the table, ‘I do not require lessons on our heritage. Valyria is gone. I do not adhere to the Doctrine of Exceptionalism, nor do I delude myself about our superiority. According to this logic, your Westerosi mother is lesser. Everybody has their history and their pride. The Starks are the blood of the First Men, descendants of Bran the Builder. Cregan is my equal, and I will not bring him dishonor. You once said something similar to me, when we were younger.’

          Visenya purposely omitted that Cregan would have taken additional offence if Aemond – a usurper and a kinslayer – had been her choice of paramour. Following the annulment of her betrothment to Aemond, she had snuck into his bedchamber, and had urged him to claim her maidenhood. It would have compelled our parents to marry us to each other. He had adamantly refused, reiterating that he would dishonor her by doing so. Visenya wonders whether his consent would have changed the tide, whether he rues his decision now… were he capable of it.

          ‘I remember,’ mutters Aemond, cupping her cheeks, brushing his nose against hers, ‘Yn īlon issi daor riñar dombo.’ (But we are not children anymore.)

          ‘No, we are not,’ she assents, doleful, undeterred by his lingering lips on her forehead, ‘I am a woman grown, my mother’s daughter, and I vowed to marry Cregan. My word is not fickle. A foreign concept to you and your family.’

          She had suggested the match herself, on Dragonstone, prior to hers and her brothers’ departure. Supposing that the Queen’s appeal failed to persuade Lord Stark to pledge the North to their cause, Visenya would offer her hand in marriage.

          The memory of beholding Cregan for the first time still exhilarates her. She had been climbing down from Blackwing while Jace had approached Lord Stark, to greet him. Cloaked in furs, he had been an imperious presence – tall, brawny, handsome, graced with grey eyes, dark, wavy locks that cascaded to his shoulders, and a dense beard. His gaze had frequently drifted towards her. Jace had suavely introduced her, and Cregan had curtsied, addressing her as “princess.” Visenya had answered with “my lord” – her smile timid, her eyes wicked.

          The harsh weather hadn’t spoiled the northern capital’s beauty, magnificent structures, and rich culture. The twins had received a warm welcome at Winterfell, amidst the winter preparations, and Lord Stark had been a most hospitable host, entertaining his guests with drinking, sparring, and hunting trips in the wolfswood. Visenya had mingled with the commonfolk, conversing with them, helping them with their errands, and teaching their children how to read and write. Cregan had often watched her, fondly, from afar. Some servants had been intimidated by her appearance and her station, stammering through their responses. She had instructed them to simply call her “Visenya.”

          Whenever his duties had permitted, Cregan had accompanied her on walks around the castle, to the library, the ancient godswood and its hot springs, and the disturbing crypt that had contained the tombs of the deceased members of House Stark. His direwolf Fang had ambled after them everywhere. They had discussed history, politics, trade, and their families, and had comforted one another in their grief, as Cregan’s wife had recently perished in childbirth. He had even confessed that Jace had reminded him of the brother that he had lost more than a decade ago. She had met his sweet babe Rickon, whom she had doted on. Cregan had bestowed upon Blackwing the highest distinction, deeming her a “formidable beast” – with his habitual morose disposition. Visenya had become besotted with him, regarding him as virtuous, conscientious, tenacious, and reputable.

          By the end of the twins’ stay in Winterfell, the Pact of Ice and Fire had been formed, whereby Visenya would wed Lord Stark, and the North would side with Queen Rhaenyra. He had forged a direwolf brooch for her, and she had gifted him one of her rings, to wear it as a necklace. Cregan and Jace had sworn an oath of brotherhood, sealed in blood.

          ‘You sold yourself to a wolf pup so that you may rally his army to your mother’s cause, and you boast about honor,’ accuses Aemond, scornful, satisfied that he discerns her imagined act, ‘Twas a different kind of sword that you required.’

          Sold myself? Visenya’s mouth twists downwards, her latent, crude contempt quivering. Blackwing rattles her shackles, screeching viscerally. He views me as property. I paid my price in kindness and youthful promises, so I am constrained into being his property. I have no freedom, no intuition, no capacity for judgment. I am a frail puppet dancing on my family’s strings, dependent on Aemond to rescue me. He would rather I were a fly in his web. What sort of person expects me to fulfil the vows that I uttered as a child?

          ‘Cregan would have honored his late father’s word,’ she contends, smoothing her garments, heedless of Aemond’s eye roaming over her body, ‘Lord Rickon Stark swore an oath in the throne hall, and acknowledged my mother as King Viserys’ heir. All of the Westerosi lords did, great and small.’

          Upon his lord father’s death, Cregan had inherited Winterfell at the age of thirteen, so his uncle Bennard had ruled as regent until his nephew had reached manhood. Bennard’s reluctance to relinquish power had spurred Cregan to imprison him and his three sons. Akin to Queen Rhaenyra’s plight, his kinsman had attempted to supplant him. Lady Jeyne Arryn – Queen Aemma’s cousin – had thrice endured uprisings that had contested her inheritance of the Eyrie.

          A hereditary curse. A woman’s curse. In this world of men, we women must band together.

          ‘Over twenty years have passed since then,’ specifies Aemond, shrugging blithely, ‘Most of those lords are dead, including the wolf pup’s father. Bones are all that is left of them and their vows.’

          Pup. A peculiar term to use for Cregan – a man older than they are. Aemond’s vanity confirms that, to the Greens, King Viserys’ succession amounts to nothing. Their cause is false – founded on quicksand, conspiracy, and murder – and they bury themselves deeper and deeper into an abyss of lies and treachery.

          ‘They represented their Houses and spoke on their behalf,’ corrects Visenya, her shoulders slumping from the sheer absurdity of having to explain this, ‘Enlighten me, nuncle. How does your situation differ from mine? Are you not betrothed to one of Borros Baratheon’s daughters for her father’s troops? Or is it all four daughters? I have heard varied accounts.’

          The illiterate Lord of Storm’s End – another traitor responsible for Luke’s demise. Her brother Joffrey had sworn a terrible oath of vengeance against him and the Kinslayer. The Velaryons had prevented Joff from instantly mounting his dragon Tyraxes to exact revenge. Would I have done the same? He is merely a boy, too young to know such hatred and grief. He and Rhaena are in the Vale, out of harm’s way. Willful Baela remains on Dragonstone, to fight by Jace’s side. Aegon and Viserys, the youngest, are with them. We must ensure their safety, else the war will strip them of their innocence… and their lives.

          Dragonstone, Harrenhal, Winterfell, the Vale, King’s Landing, Stoney Sept… My family is divided. If only I could protect them all…

          ‘I did what was asked of me,’ defends Aemond, forlorn, resting their foreheads together, ‘I never intended to wed her.’ He adds, his words scattered among hasty, consecutive kisses, ‘We have always agreed that we would marry one another. I have neither forgotten, nor forsaken that. I want you.’

          ‘I thought that we were not children anymore,’ she echoes, shrewd, bending to retrieve her discarded pelts, ‘Our parents annulled our betrothal years ago. You would have us marry without your mother’s blessing? I value my well-being, even if you do not.’

          ‘You are mistaken,’ coos Aemond, holding her hand to his mouth, kissing her knuckles, her palm, her inner wrist, ‘It’s not too late. There’s still a chance for us.’

          Visenya had once shared that sentiment. He lives in the past, clinging to it, misconstruing it. Matters betwixt them would never be the same – a truth that he hasn’t accepted. I would have waited for him... Aemond had usurped the throne and had slain her brother. Now, he hopes to abuse her clemency. What stops him from mistreating her, from hurting her? Why must I always be patient and compassionate? Why must I always forgive and forget? What will I gain from it? Aemond? It’s not enough. His redemption is a prolonged, tedious endeavor that she will not partake in.

          I’m severing my noose.

          ‘A chance?’, snarls Visenya, in conjunction with Blackwing’s shrieks, ‘Is that what you offered my brother when you unleashed Vhagar on him?’ She folds her arms over her chest, her furs caught between them. ‘You have already spilled my blood. I will not present you with a chance to do it again. Aye, I once wanted to marry you. A summer dream of summer children. Winter is coming.’

          Ripping the cord that binds her to Aemond will be excruciating, like slashing a part of herself. He is the thorn lodged in her side, her twin flame, his scent and touch imprinted on her, haunting her asleep and haunting her awake. The only power I wield over him is denying him myself.

          ‘You have returned to threats,’ chides Aemond, buttoning his tunic, visibly irritated by her usage of the House Stark words, ‘Parroting words that are not your own, chirruping tales that others have stuffed your head with, like a little bird.’

          ‘‘Tis not a threat, beloved,’ purrs Visenya, woven with venom, savoring his indignation, ‘It is a fact. The maesters of the Citadel will release the white ravens soon, to announce its arrival.’

          She had witnessed the foreboding signs with her own eyes, at Winterfell – the resplendent snow, the howling winds, the bitter cold. Winter is upon us… and we are vying for the throne.

          ‘‘Tis also a fact that your wolf pup has a wolf pup of his own,’ jeers Aemond, donning his eyepatch, ‘A son whom he fathered on another wench. A son who will inherit Winterfell and all of its attendant lands, titles, and incomes. A vile indignity, a humiliation, to you and your brood. You would submit to a puny northern savage, as his second wife?’

          Puny northern savage? Innovative.

          “Our children will sit the Iron Throne,” Visenya had told Cregan in the godswood, with the snow floating around them, piling in thick layers on the ground, the trees, and the castle walls. I kissed the snowflakes on his lashes, and they melted on my lips. Her heart flutters at the memory. My sullen wolf. She longs for him more than she can express.

          Would that appease Aemond? Nothing would. He has become spiteful. “Wench.” Lady Arra of House Norrey had been Cregan’s late wife and cherished childhood companion. She had dismally died birthing Rickon. I will not debate Cregan’s family with Aemond, a jealous craven threatened by suckling babes.

          ‘Rickon is an innocent babe,’ reasons Visenya, hugging herself, suddenly feeling naked without her armor, ‘Aye, he is the heir to Winterfell, and no threat to me. I will not set my children against their brother, nor will I encourage them to steal his birthright. I am not your mother.’

          And, oh, how you despise that…

          ‘I suppose that you will be no threat to him, either, should you die in childbirth,’ ventures Aemond, elated at the notion, his eye shimmering in the light of the flames, ‘And your wolf pup would be twice widowed.’

          Visenya lashes out, striking him so viciously across the face that his head whips to the side. Blackwing’s mighty roars rumble outside. Aemond doesn’t even blench.

          She had never hit him before. If he is startled or enraged by the assault, he masks it – devoid of any emotion. Visenya quashes the temptation to shout at him, to call him a dog, a pig, a rat. He is beneath these creatures. He has no conscience, and his cruelty is boundless. Her grandmother Queen Aemma and her aunt Laena had both expired in childbed. Her sister had been stillborn. What does Aemond know about the perils and throes of women? Nothing.

          I could flee, go anywhere but here... Her flesh crawls. I’m his captive in so many ways. Briny tears well in her eyes.

          Tears cannot quench dragonfire.

          ‘Do you love the wolf pup?’, challenges Aemond, his demeanor impassable, though she distinguishes a crack in his frigid tone.

          And if I do? You would flay him alive, and force me to watch. The question of Visenya’s suitors continues to be intricate and contentious. The Disputed Lands of Westeros. She had been engaged to Aegon, to Aemond, and to Daeron, and had been courted by Westerosi Houses, Essosi princes, triarchs, archons, nobles, magisters, merchants, and generals. The Red Kraken would have made me his salt wife. Visenya had rejected all of them. Adulterers and drunkards old enough to be my grandsires and fat enough to crush me beneath them.

          Rhaenyra had been sympathetic to her daughter’s predicament; she herself had initially opposed marriage. My mother had been younger than I am when she had birthed me and Jace. Visenya shudders at the thought. Her father hadn’t been concerned, confiding that she could wed out of duty and fuck whomever she pleased. Men always do so. Why shouldn’t I? Her twin had convinced her that she would find a suitable pair, to her liking. Jace had the right of it. I chose Cregan, and he chose me. She touches her brooch through her trousers. I’m assuming control of my life and my future.

          ‘I will,’ declares Visenya, seething, jutting her chin, ‘He is neither a usurper, nor a kinslayer. Cregan is worth a thousand of you, and more.’

          ‘Yet you delay marrying him, and the wolf pup delays assembling his banners and marching,’ admonishes Aemond, his reddened cheek beginning to swell, ‘Perhaps you are not as devoted to each other as you think you are.’

          A surrounded animal, slinging its final, pitiful blows. Her wolf’s motives for not marching had been warranted. He awaits the collection of the harvest, so that he can feed his subjects throughout the winter. The Southrons seal themselves in their castles with their bountiful harvests, whereas the Northerners bear the brunt of the burden – snow, frost, famine, death. Cregan’s obligations lie with his people and his lands.

          As for herself, Visenya prefers to marry him during peace and stability. He could mourn his wife properly, and he would not be widowed again, if I were to… to…

          ‘His Winter Wolves are at the Twins,’ she states, noting Aemond’s mouth twitching, ‘They have joined their forces with the Freys’, and will resume their advance south. They are merely a fraction of the North’s strength. I assure you. Cregan will honor his vow.’

          She had wept upon reading Lord Roderick Dustin’s words to Lady Sabitha Frey. We have come to die for the dragon queen. Cregan had taught Visenya about the Winter Wolves – elderly men who leave their homes in order to conserve supplies for their kin. Grisly custom. Those warriors hope to die for glory and plunder. They will never reunite with their families. Wretched conditions, wretched measures.

          Aemond must have observed a spark in her eyes, heard something amiss in her voice that aroused his suspicion.

          ‘What have you done, Visenya?’, he demands, narrowing his eye, fixing her with a hawkish glare.

          I fucked the wolf pup. And Alyn Velaryon… Not both at the same time. She had befriended Alyn and his older brother Addam shortly after hers and Jace’s return from Winterfell. Her twin had summoned Targaryen bastards – “dragonseeds” – for the riderless dragons, promising wealth, lands, and knighthood for those triumphant. Addam’s feat of claiming Seasmoke had emboldened the Sea Snake to petition Queen Rhaenyra to legitimise the Hull boys. Conveniently, their mother Marilda had revealed that they had been sired by Ser Laenor Velaryon. And Mushroom is seven feet tall. My stepfather had no interest in women. Lord Corlys had proceeded to name Addam his heir.

          Alyn, however, had been less fortunate. Sheepstealer had bathed his cloak in flames. His brother had doused the fire, saving his life. At least Grey Ghost had vanished. Those had been wild dragons. Alyn is lucky to be alive. Grand Maester Gerardys had tended his burns, and Visenya had changed his bandages thrice a day – delighting in his insolence. The habit had blossomed into clumsy intimacy. She had seldom stayed the night – a decision that hadn’t troubled Alyn. He never judged me. Visenya misses him; his jests, his smile, his company.

          A furious Jace had reprimanded his twin for her recklessness and temerity, arguing that Cregan was a good man, a second chance – everything that she had ever dreamed of. Her involvement with Alyn could compromise their indispensable alliance with the North. Visenya had listened to his warning, remorse slithering around her throat.

          I have been remiss… but Alyn is only a matter of brevity. I have to tread prudently.

          ‘I do as I please,’ she asserts, the ghost of a smirk tugging at her lips, ‘Do not fret, cousin. Cregan treated me well and was most gentle with me… the first time.’

          Her admission slices him to the bone. Aemond’s expression sinks, desolation flooding his eye. A child looks at her, into her, agony engraved on his features. Have I been too austere? Spoken too harshly? He had betrayed her trust, had usurped the throne, and had murdered her brother. My sins pale in comparison.

          Aemond recoils, turning away from her, his head lowered. His fists clench at his sides. The table behind her shakes at Vhagar’s menacing growl. Visenya maintains her composure, sheathing herself in steel. I will not cow. I am the blood of the dragon.

          And I will not regret Cregan.

          While she hadn’t lacked for suitors, those men had sought to marry her out of pride and ambition. My Targaryen heritage brings their House closer to the Iron Throne, and my dragon is power.

          She had proposed to Cregan that she would willingly surrender her maidenhood to him, as a token of her intention to wed him. Fighting a war a maiden seems particularly dreadful. Should anything befall her, Cregan wouldn’t feel cheated or insulted – he would have claimed her gift of innocence.

          I lost my innocence long ago.

          Visenya hadn’t abused her station to compel him to lie with her. She wouldn’t have been offended if he hadn’t desired her.

          “I would be,” her wolf had responded, earning a chuckle from her.

          Two nights – and numerous fiery kisses – later, he had accepted her offer. A timorous ardor had washed over Visenya, her heart hammering against her rib cage. Cregan had led her out of the godswood, past the hot springs, the main iron gate with its walls, across the inner yards, into the castle, and up the winding stairs – retreating to his solar, where they had shared half a flagon of wine. He had kindly asked her if she had been nervous.

          No. I am a Targaryen princess, a dragonrider… and the wine soothed my nerves.

          Their intimate moments had been sweet, passionate, exhilarating. Visenya remembers them so vividly. His large hands cupping her face, disrobing her with deft precision, caressing and fondling every inch of her. His darkened eyes reveling in her figure. Cregan lifting her into his arms as though she weighed nothing, laying her down on the bed. His tongue licking her stiffened nipples, his mouth sucking on her plump breasts. Her fist stroking his leaking cock, guiding him into her heat slowly. Cregan swallowing her soft whine when entering her, the stretch burning deliciously. The overwhelming need to hold him nearer. Wrapping her limbs around him as he vigorously thrust into her, the featherbed engulfing her. The chambers brimming with their moans, gasps, and the lascivious sounds of sweaty skin slapping against sweaty skin. Cregan intertwining their fingers, Cregan driving her to the heights of pleasure, Cregan spilling his seed inside her, blending with her maiden’s blood.

          Slick pools between her legs, and Visenya squeezes her thighs shut, salivating at the memory.

          He had collapsed on top of her, and – at her insistence – had lied there, panting, his face buried in her neck, his beard tickling her. An equally breathless Visenya had threaded her digits through his damp hair, pecking his cheek and his temple. Cregan had rolled off of her, grunting at the effort, and had pulled her into him, allowing her to rest her head on his chest, and to hook her leg over his. Her wolf had attentively inquired whether he had hurt her.

          “Not at all,” she had murmured, demure, draping her arm over him, their combined fluids trickling on her groin, “You have been so good to me.”

          Visenya had drifted off to sleep in his safe embrace, lulled by his heartbeat and his snores. His body had been a hearth underneath the pelts. I am the blood of the dragon, allured by warmth and fire.

          She and Cregan had spent most evenings together – to the dismay of his bed. Days had been dedicated to duties, negotiations, and furtive glances, nights for themselves and for each other; for raw lust, hushed laughter, and the solace that they had been starved of; for their satiation and contentment. Her loins had often ached by the next morning. A good ache.

          Cregan had even taken her in the godswood, under a starry sky, before the heart tree, following their sword sparring. Afterwards, he had suggested that they retire to his solar.

          ‘To sleep?’, questioned Visenya, coyly, tangling their feet together.

          ‘If that is what the princess wants,’ granted her wolf, amiably.

          ‘The princess wants you,’ she mumbled, nestling against him, their clothes and furs providing scant shelter from the cold.

          ‘She has me,’ vouched Cregan, carding his fingers through her locks, ‘All of me.’

          Oh, yes. He has had me in the sight of the old gods, and I have bled for him. Targaryens have always had a grievously deep connection to blood. It’s one of our House’s words. Our forebears used blood magic to bind the winged beasts to them. We cut ourselves and drink each other’s blood during our nuptials. We practice incest to ensure the purity of our bloodline. The blood of Old Valyria, the blood of the dragon. Blood unites, and blood divides.

          Their stealthy meetings might not have been shrouded in such secrecy. Jace had dared to tease Visenya about the marks that he had glimpsed on her throat. She had thrown a snowball at him, hitting him in the nose.

          ‘Locking myself in a castle is more appealing than waging war against my own kin,’ admitted Visenya, in an instance of fragility, atop one of Winterfell’s towers.

          ‘You’re not destined to hide in a castle,’ proponed Cregan, petting Fang, basking in the sun – reminiscent of their early mornings abed. I would trace the lines of his back, the scars on his chest, admire his naked form as he opened the shutters… ‘Your hair is akin to the snow around us, your eyes the color of the sunset sky. Why would nature make you so lovely, if not to behold you and to reflect on you? The sun must see you to shine, the moon to glow.’

          Visenya tore her gaze away from him, misty-eyed.

          Her Valyrian appearance had protected her from japes about being a Strong bastard. Is that term so preposterous? My parents hadn’t been married at my birth. I had borne the name Velaryon for a decade. People had viewed her as a Myrish carpet – to be gaped at – and had treated her like a stud-mare, to be bought, owned, and mounted to produce sons – her beauty a mere instrument to that end. Devious motives behind hollow adulation.

          ‘You are gracious, my lord,’ rasped Visenya, flustered, the gossip of the commonfolk below muffling her answer slightly, ‘I am flattered.’

          ‘I have spoken the truth,’ affirmed Cregan, tipping her chin up, coaxing her to peer at him, ‘You are meant to be kissed.’

          ‘By you,’ she assented, his gloved digits wiping her tears, delicately.

          On the day of the dragon twins’ departure from Winterfell, Vermax and Blackwing had been impatient to leave the North and its freezing temperatures. Visenya hadn’t shared their zeal. I’m not a little girl anymore. The winds of winter are rising. There is a war to be fought and won.

          “Come back to me,” her wolf whispered to her, their joined hands concealed in their cloaks and pelts.

          I will.

          Aemond’s subtle movements wrest her to the present.

          We’re at war with the Greens. I’m a prisoner at Stoney Sept, in the Pretender’s camp. My Cregan is leagues away.

          I must not forget my mission.

          Aemond’s insidious posture betrays him, his shoulders on the brink of crumbling under the burden of his pride and envy.

          ‘A dragon rendered a broodmare by a wolf pup,’ he chastises, repulsed, his features drawn into solemn lines, ‘Have you spread your legs for his army, too? I wouldn’t be surprised, given your taste for depravity.’

          Visenya refrains from guffawing, albeit with great difficulty. Oh, may the Crone’s lantern light my path to wisdom, and may the Father judge me justly, and may the Mother show me mercy, for I am a filthy wanton, and Lord Stark does possess a generous… host.

          ‘I would rather be his broodmare than be your wife,’ she spits, defiant, baring her teeth, ‘The wolf pup is Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North.’ And you are insufferably obtuse. ‘He and his bannermen will liberate me, should the Winter Wolves and the river lords fail to do so, and should you yourself refuse to release me. Are you so mad that you would oppose the might and wrath of the entire North?

          ‘I have heard enough about your wolf pup,’ announces Aemond, his nostrils flaring, ‘He has dishonored you. Perhaps I ought to march on his bleak castle, after I seize Harrenhal.’

          You ought to dress up in motley. Visenya shifts her weight from one foot to the other, her brow creased. The Hightowers must have abandoned their wits putting him in charge. Aemond is utterly inept. Their Lannister friends will find trouble at the Red Fork, and he will never take Harrenhal from my father.

          ‘Your men are unlikely to survive the muds of the riverlands, whose lords have unanimously declared for my mother,’ argues Visenya, twirling a lock of her hair around her forefinger, ‘I doubt that they will endure the hostile conditions in the North… also pledged to Queen Rhaenyra.’

          ‘I have Vhagar,’ reminds Aemond, his arrogance oozing like pus.

          ‘And what of it?’, she hisses, squinting her eyes, ‘You would torch the North, from the Neck to the Wall, on hoary, old Vhagar? Tens of thousands would perish.’

          Despite rivaling the combined size of the other kingdoms, the North is scarcely populated. Their lives, lands, history, and culture matter all the same.

          ‘Your wolf pup amongst them, if the gods are good,’ drones Aemond, looping his digits through his belt.

          ‘Cregan will die of old age, in my arms,’ corrects Visenya, keeping her furled fists at her sides, lest she strike him again, ‘You cannot vanquish the North. It is too vast and too wild. The Neck is impenetrable, filled with swamps and bogs. Moat Cailin is a choke point, and it has shielded the North from southron invasions for millennia. This is folly, Aemond. It will be your doom.’

          Then why am I trying to dissuade him?

          ‘Or on the contrary, the glory will be mine,’ boasts Aemond, his permanent smirk bolstering his confidence, ‘Those savages might dare to resist me, but in the end, they will pose a minor obstacle. Aegon the Conqueror brought the North to its knees.’

          ‘Because King Torrhen Stark bent the knee after the Field of Fire, to avoid bloodshed,’ objects Visenya, scowling, ‘Do not attempt to revise history. Ours will not redeem you. The kinslayer is accursed in the eyes of gods and men. The lickspittles that buzz around you will never be sincere, so I will bestow the truth upon you. You are cruel, despicable, and you nurse a grievance like a suckling babe. You are not Aegon the Conqueror. You are a prideful fool playing at war.’ You’re not good at it, either. ‘And winter is coming. That is the truth.’

          ‘The truth?’, repeats Aemond, creeping up on her, his eye boring into hers – a predator scenting its prey, ‘What do you know of the truth, Visenya? You lie and deceive and plot with every breath that you draw. You are a traitor to the realm, daughter of traitors, sister of traitors. You chose the Iron Throne over me.’

          You chose for me.

          ‘My mother is the rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms,’ she pronounces, her smile ominous, ‘The only traitor here is you, nuncle. You cower from the truth, and you retain it from everyone.’ Visenya tiptoes, and their lips almost touch. ‘You are looking with the wrong eye. Perhaps you will have to close the other to finally see.’

          Aemond cups her face roughly, pressing her against the table.

          ‘Your mother will never sit the Iron Throne,’ he sneers, ‘And neither will you. She still spurns you as her heir, but I vow to pay you the homage that you so desperately crave, and to lavish you with precious gifts – the heads of your family, your betrothed, and your stepson. They shall decorate the spikes of the Red Keep–’

          Visenya swiftly yanks his dagger from his belt. Aemond seizes her wrist too late. The tip of the blade digs at the underside of his chin.

          ‘Enough, Aemond!’, bellows Visenya, and for a moment, she is her ferocious Blackwing incarnate, ‘Are you deaf, as well as blind? You have usurped the throne, murdered my brother, and butchered hundreds of innocents. Your actions have consequences. Heed my words, for the love that you claim to bear me.’ She drags the point of the dirk down to the base of his throat, nicking him. ‘You will not make me an orphan and a widow. You are surrounded by enemies in every direction, and more are gathering as we speak. We have the armies, the fleet, the dragons, and most importantly, the legitimacy. An advantage that you will never have. So, either kill me or let me go, and flee to Essos, because you cannot – you will not – survive what’s coming for you. The choice is yours.’

          Aemond’s malicious eye studies her, a forlorn wall of blue ice.

          The boy I grew up with is gone. Hasn’t Visenya sensed it all along? We are not children anymore. The time has come to accept it.

          When has it all gone so awry, become so twisted? She mourns the boy that she had once shared everything with – a childhood, hopes, dreams. Those died with Lucerys.

          Dreams didn’t make us kings. Dragons did… and tears cannot quench dragonfire.

          It ends as it began, with fire and blood.

          Bloodlines will burn.

          Visenya licks the blood off of the tip of the dagger, spins the weapon, and presents it to Aemond, hilt first.

TAGLIST: @a-dash-of-random-magic @aaleksmorozova @aemondsversion @aereth @agirllovespancakes @another-life-addict @burningshewolf @buttercup--bee @cecespizza01 @cleastrnge @crazylokonugget​ @five-seconds-of-socialising @flosaureum​ @haystack-boy @lavendertales @lordsrks @maharani-radha @mandaloresson @masset-fotia @missusnora @moonlight-prose​ @oloreaa​ @poppyreader @prettyboyeddiemunson @shewhomustbecalledking @sofietargaryen @stargaryenx @strawberrypeachessss @sullho @sweethoneyblossom1​ @s-we-e-t-t-ea @that--thing​ @valyriians​ 

[snitchcrimsonwrites]

Maybe pt. 7

Pairing: Norm MacLean X Female Reader or OC if you squint

Former friends to a relationship?

Life is pretty easy in Vault 33 until you're trying to rekindle a former friendship and Raiders attack. Now, our main characters are trying to navigate newfound feelings, all while undercovering the mysteries of Vault 33. Stay tuned. Follows the main storyline of season 1; some events may be reordered for plot.

Norm navigates his decision to aid Lucy's escape from the Vault with help from his friends, finding comfort and another demotion on the table.

Part 1 Here. Part 6 Here Part 12 Here

Part 2 Here Part 8 Here

Part 3 Here Part 9 Here

Part 4 Here Part 10 Here

Part 5 Here Part 11 Here

Norm had quite the day and was ready for it to end. The post-events of the raider attack and his sister leaving the Vault to find their dad had left him physically and emotionally exhausted. He didn’t know how much more he had left in him. So when he heard a soft knock at the door of his outer living space, he wasn’t sure if he was in the headspace to deal with a visitor inquiring about his dad… or sister, for that matter, as it wouldn’t be long before the word on her rescue mission got out. 

When the pressurized door unlocked, he was relieved to see it was you standing at the threshold. 

“Hey, I don’t mean to bother you,” you started, but he waved off your apology. “No, it’s alright. What’s going on?” He asked, genuinely curious. 

“I came by to check in and see if you needed anything or wanted to talk—or not talk,” you added quickly. “I can do that too if you want some company.” You fidgeted with your hair, not quite knowing how to word the next part. “I just know how weird going from a full house to an empty one can be,” you trailed off. 

Norm perked up at the thought of spending time with you; maybe he had a little more social battery left. “Yeah, actually, that sounds nice,” he mused, stepping aside to let you in. “Though, I don’t think I have it in me to do much talking. I can put something on if that’s alright with you?” 

“Sounds perfect,” you reply, moving into the MacLean’s living room and claiming a spot on the couch. 

Norm flipped on the Radiation King television set, the box coming to life with grey images of cowboys fighting gunslingers from an old copy of “The Man from Deadhorse,” his dad’s favorite already queued up. Immediately no. “Let’s try something else. Any requests?” Norm asked, not feeling like dredging up any emotions associated with putting on a Western. 

“Dealers choice.” 

“Communists from Space! It is,” Norm decides, grabbing the next available tape, popping it in, and joining you on the couch. 

The two of you start off silent, attempting to enjoy the film with the limited social interaction Norm requested, but before long, neither of you can resist adding your own color commentary to the events on the screen. 

“I’m confused,” you interrupt. “Doesn’t a communist invasion from space imply that the containment policy failed in Europe, Asia, and now space? They’re suggesting America is losing on all fronts.” 

Norm snorted. “I appreciate that your suspension of disbelief stops at American geopolitics and not at the fact that those space helmets aren’t connected to any source of oxygen.”

“I’m asking the real questions here, Norm,” you giggle back. 

“I think the bigger question you need to ask is how the communists even managed to get the alien forces on their side? Cause there’s no way there’s a shared language.”

“I’d guess propaganda and the universal promise of American government secrets,” you deadpan.  

That sent you both into a fit of roaring, sidebusting laughter. 

As the laughter subsides, Norm announces, “Thank you for this. I didn’t realize how much I needed it until now.” He was grateful for the company but also for your ability to make him feel whole after the events of the last couple of days. No obsessing over the concerns about his family or what you two saw in 32, just time he was able to be Norm. 

“Of course, if you haven’t noticed by now, I really enjoy our time together,” you say, unable to control the blush rising to your cheekbones. 

“I do, too, and I hope I’m not being presumptuous by saying I would like to continue spending more time like this together,” Norm stated, trying to gauge the status of where the two of you stood. Was this friendship, or were you moving into the “something more” territory?    

“Not presumptuous of you at all,” you affirm, taking the opportunity to position yourself closer to Norm on the couch. He stiffened slightly, surprised by the contact of your vault suit against his, but took your repositioning as a sign to wrap his arm around your shoulders, “Is this alright?” he questions, ever the gentleman. 

“Perfect,” you respond as you lean in to rest your head on his chest and watch the rest of the movie. 

Something more, alright, noted. 

________________________

Norm is awoken by the sound of static on the television set and is momentarily disoriented when he realizes one, this wasn’t his bed; he was out on the couch, and two, the weight on his chest preventing him from sitting up was you curled up under his arm sleeping at his side. The two of you had fallen asleep on the couch sometime during the second movie you put on. He eased back down onto the sofa, intent on enjoying the moments before you both woke up.   

Beep. Beep. Beep. 

He feels you stir at the sound of your alarm and begin to reach over him to shut off the device. No, just a few more minutes, he wished. 

“Sorry,” you manage sleepily, rolling the upper half of your body over Norm, grabbing the Pip-Boy, and quieting the beeping. Norm does his best to suppress his imagination from running wild over the nature of your position hovering over him as you turn off the alarm. In another swift motion, you move to sit up and stretch away some of the sleep. Norm does the same, hoping you won’t notice how much your simple actions affected him this morning. “I didn’t mean to stay the night and keep you out on the couch,” you continued, unsure if you overstayed your welcome. 

“If it means you staying over, I’d gladly take the couch,” Norm replies, causing both of your cheeks to redden. 

You linger, not wanting to leave but knowing you’d be late if you dawdled any longer. After checking the time on your Pip-Boy, you decide it’s time to get up from the sofa and move to the front entryway. “I’ve got to run and get cleaned up for work, but we can meet up after my shift if you’re up for it.” 

“Definitely,” Norm assures. Everything else in his life might be turned upside down, but this was his one piece of solace.

“Okay, it’s a date,” sealing your statement with a kiss on Norm’s cheek before pressing the release button on the door. As the door slid open, you both were surprised to see Chet waiting outside, arm raised, ready to knock on Norm’s door, and he looked equally as surprised to see you leaving the MacLean residence so early in the morning. You decide to play it off as nonchalantly as you can. 

You greeted Chet with a wave and a sweet, simple “Good Morning, Chet” as you hurriedly exited the hallway and headed toward your place. You trusted Norm could navigate a conversation with his cousin without your help. 

Chet didn’t wait for Norm’s invitation to enter. He rushed into the MacLean domicile, making sure you were out of hearing distance, before he exclaimed, “Now, what’s going on with that?!” Gesturing wildly towards the direction you left from. “You had (Y/N) stay over? When did that start?”

Norm sighed and closed the door behind him, not eager to try to explain himself to his cousin. “It’s not like that,” he said, emphasizing the suggestive “that” Chet implied. “Nothing happened; she came over to watch a movie, and we fell asleep. Nothing to tell,” he wrapped up with a shrug. He wasn’t optimistic about his chances of ending the conversation with that explanation.

Chet looked at him and said, “Come on, Norm. You and I both know that when you invite a girl over to watch a movie, you’re not actually doing much movie-watching.” 

“Gross,” Norm rebutted, knowing who the girl in question was. “Is this what you came over for? To traumatize me and dissect my relationship with (Y/N)?” 

Chet frowned, not because of Norm’s taunting but because he was reminded of why he was here in the first place. Norm’s love life was a welcome distraction from the news he had to share. “No, I was supposed to inform you that the Vault council has summoned us for a hearing this morning. I’m starting to  think they’re not pleased we helped Lucy.” 

“Of course, they’re not. Did you think they were going to be? That we’d help her escape the Vault, and they’d give us a thumbs up and a sticker?” Norm asked. There was no way he was that naive.

_____________________________

Norm waited outside in the hallway while Chet took his turn meeting with the council. Suddenly, the silence in the corridor was broken by the sounds of sobbing and hyperventilating from behind the door. He guessed the council had made their decision. 

The council room door slid up slowly, and Chet exited. His face was puffy, and his eyes were red from the bouts of crying behind closed doors. He wondered if they were particularly tough on him. 

Norm decides to do the polite thing and asks him if he’s okay, even though his emotional state clearly displays the answer. 

“You okay?” 

“Yeah, I’m being reassigned,” he replied with a strained thumbs up. “ You were right; the whole “opening the Vault door for Lucy” thing didn’t sit too well with the council, so I guess I’m not gatekeeper anymore,” he said, trying to hold his composure. 

 “It’s not a big deal.” Norm could see right through that lie. This was a massive deal. For most people in the Vault, their identity was intricately intertwined with the position they held in the Vault. Take that away, and you’ve got all the material for a full-blown identity crisis. 

“I’m just not really sure who I even am anymore. Sorry…I. Mmhm.” Chet couldn’t hold himself together any longer, excusing himself from the conversation. 

Woody appeared in the doorway, summoning him into the meeting.  “Norman, you’re next.” 

Norm finds his familiar seat in front of the council, and Reg wastes no time kicking it off. “You know why you’re in here?” 

“Cause I helped my sister escape the Vault.” Cause I couldn’t just ignore my family in trouble. 

“Escape?” Woody laughed. “ You and Chet put your sister in incredible danger by helping her out that Vault door. The rad levels up there alone….” 

“Worse,” Reg interjects, trying to highlight a larger point,” you could have killed us all. What do you think started all this? These Vaults are impenetrable, meaning that those raiders could have only gotten into Vault 32 because some bonehead opened the door to the surface.” He wasn’t like they didn’t take this into consideration, but some things are worth the risk.

Betty, who had been quiet until now, shooting Norm a glare that threatened to burn through him, piped up. “A single bad decision put everyone at risk, not just Vault 32 but 33 and 31 as well. I telegrammed with the Overseer at Vault 31. Thank goodness, they’re unscathed. But you could have destroyed the last vestiges of civilization.” 

“It was Lucy’s idea.” Maybe playing the dumb coward could work in his favor. 

“And you didn’t think to at least try and stop her?”

“No.” 

“What are we going to do with you?” Betty asked. He wasn’t quite sure if it was rhetorical.  

“You were going to reassign me a couple of weeks ago; move forward with that, I guess,” Norm resigned, but he was growing tired of the council’s hypocrisy, and the next lines just slipped out. “I’m just glad to hear that we punish people down here for breaking the rules. Is that just for Vault dwellers or people who come down here and murder vault dwellers?” He made his position on the matter as clear as possible. 

Betty smirked at his statement, “Now that I think of it, we’ve got a job for you, after all,” as if she had been waiting for a chance to punish his insolence. 

[bijoumikhawal]

hello! i hope it's alright to ask you this but i was wondering if you have any recommendations for books to read or media in general about the history of judaism and jewish communities in egypt, particularly in ottoman and modern egypt?

have a nice day!

it's fine to ask me this! Unfortunately I have to preface this with a disclaimer that a lot of books on Egyptian Jewish history have a Zionist bias. There are antizionist Egyptian Jews, and at the very least ones who have enough national pride that AFAIK they do not publicly hold Zionist beliefs, like those who spoke in the documentary the Jews of Egypt (avaliable on YouTube for free with English subtitles). Others have an anti Egyptian bias- there is a geopolitical tension with Egypt from Antiquity that unfortunately some Jewish people have carried through history even when it was completely irrelevant, so in trying to research interactions between "ancient" Egyptian Jews and Native Egyptians (from the Ptolemaic era into the proto-Coptic and fully Coptic eras) I've unfortunately come across stuff that for me, as an Egyptian, reads like anti miscegenationist ideology, and it is difficult to tell whether this is a view of history being pushed on the past or not. The phrase "Erev Rav" (meaning mixed multitude), which in part refers to Egyptians who left Egypt with Moses and converted to Judaism, is even used as an insult by some.

Since I mentioned that documentary, I'll start by going over more modern sources. Mapping Jewish San Francisco has a playlist of videos of interviews with Egyptian Jews, including both Karaites and Rabbinic Jews iirc (I reblogged some of these awhile ago in my "actually Egyptian tag" tag). This book, the Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry, is avaliable for free online, it promises to be a more indepth look at Egyptian Jews in the lead up to modern explusion. I have only read a few sections of it, so I cannot give a full judgment on it. There's this video I watched about preserving Karaite historical sites in Egypt that I remember being interesting. "On the Mediterranian and the Nile edited by Harvey E. Goldman and Matthis Lehmann" is a collection of memiors iirc, as is "the Man in the Sharkskin Suit" (which I've started but not completed), both moreso from a Rabbinic perspective. Karaites also have a few websites discussing themselves in their terms, such as this one.

For the pre-modern but post-Islamic era, the Cairo Geniza is a great resource but in my opinion as a hobby researcher, hard to navigate. It is a large cache of documents from a Cairo synagogue mostly from around the Fatimid era. A significant portion of it is digitized and they occasionally crowd source translation help on their Twitter, and a lot of books and papers use it as a primary source. "The Jews in Medieval Egypt, edited by: Miriam Frenkel" is one in my to read pile. "Benjamin H. Hary - Multiglossia in Judeio-Arabic. With an Edition, Translation, and Grammatical Study of the Cairene Purim Scroll" is a paper I've read discussing the Jewish record of the events commemorated by the Cairo Purim, I got it off either Anna's Archive or libgen. "Mamluks of Jewish Origin in the Mamluk Sultanate by Koby Yosef" is a paper in my to read pile. "Jewish pietism of the Sufi type A particular trend of mysticisme in Medieval Egypt by Mireille Loubet" and "Paul B Fenton- Judaism and Sufism" both discuss the medieval Egyptian Jewish pietist movement.

For "ancient" Egyptian Jews, I find the first chapter of "The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words 1000 BC-1492 AD” by Simon Schama, which covers Elephantine, very interesting (it also flies in the face of claims that Jews did not marry Native Egyptians, though it is from centuries before the era researchers often cover). If you'd like to read don't click this link to a Google doc, that would be VERY naughty. There's very little on the Therapeutae, but for the paper theorizing they may have been influenced by Buddhism (possibly making them an example of Judeo-Buddhist syncretism) look here (their Wikipedia page also has some sources that could be interesting but are not specifically about them). "Taylor, Joan E. - Jewish women philosophers of first-century Alexandria: Philo’s Therapeutae reconsidered" is also a to read.

I haven't found much on the temple of Onias/Tell el Yahudia/Leontopolis in depth, but I have the paper "Meron M. Piotrkowski - Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period" in my to be read pile (which I got off Anna's Archive). I also have some supplemental info from a lecture I attended that I'm willing to privately share.

I also have a document compiling links about the Exodus of Jews from Egypt in the modern era, but I'm cautious about sharing it now because I made it in high school and I've realized it needs better fact checking, because it had some misinfo in it from Zionist publications (specifically about the names of Nazis who fled to Egypt- that did happen, but a bunch of names I saw reported had no evidence of that being the case, and one name was the name of a murdered resistance fighter???)

[reasonandempathy]

It is truly absolutely insane seeing exactly how much Zionism continues to be a prevalent and major, supported ideology, especially in and around Israel's current behavior of the ethnic cleansing/genocide in Gaza and even the saber-rattling about Iran, which Netanyahu has been trying to start a war with for decades now. This war is in nobody's interest, at all, period, unless that person is Bibi Netanyahu, a direct political ally of his, or is so committed to enacting violence (on either side) that they will almost happily see Israel and Palestine as a whole turn into a literally bloody wasteland.

Even limiting every other article/source to just Israeli press, Israel's attack on Iran is delegitimizing everything it's saying or proposing about attacking Rafah.

Taking over the Gaza Strip, the great "ground operation" that has left more than 34,000 Palestinian dead, was born in a diplomatic and strategic vacuum, with no plan for the "day after," no exit plan, and conducted by improvisation, with daily events replacing the empty square called "strategy" and dictating its content. The same is true for the killing of the Al Quds Force commander in Syria and Lebanon, Hassan Mahdavi (also known as Mohammad Reza Zahedi), which was not based on an understanding or recognition of the expected Iranian response, and which forced Israel to hurriedly built a response to the response – which also is not anchored in a strategy that takes into account the global and regional repercussions, especially the repercussions on Israel's own security.

The war and IDF are carrying out what is best for Netanyahu's political interests, not for Israel itself.

But history has shown us that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a world champion in missing opportunities. There have been so many since the first week after the atrocities of October 7. That's the problem with a striker who plays for himself. He's only concerned about the glory from scoring goals. He doesn't care if his team suffers a stinging loss. That's how it is when your eyes are constantly on the wrong ball – political survival, not Israel's interest. ... The Bibi-ist social media was beaming with unabashed pride on Sunday: If only Netanyahu had been woken up in time on October 7, Israel would have been protected from its enemies and everything would be beautiful.

Bibi's actions and escalation are actively endangering Israel as a whole.

Israel is facing a historic defeat, the bitter fruit of years of disastrous policies. If the country now prioritizes vengeance over its own best interests, it will put itself and the entire region in grave danger Unfortunately, Benjamin Netanyahu and his political partners have repeatedly proven that they are unfit to make such decisions. The policies they pursued for many years have brought Israel to the brink of destruction. So far, they have shown no regret for their past mistakes, and no inclination to change direction. If they continue to shape policy, they will lead us and the whole Middle East to perdition. Instead of rushing into a new war with Iran, we should first learn the lessons of Israel's failures over the past six months of war.

The war and escalation are actively harming the Israeli economy on the long-term

Ratings agency S&P Global cut Israel's long-term ratings to A-plus from AA-minus overnight into Friday, the confrontation with Iran heightened last weekend and amidst the already elevated geopolitical risks for Israel. In addition to the downgrade, S&P also published a negative outlook, meaning the agency believes it's likely there will be an additional downgrade in the future. S&P typically updates credit ratings on predetermined dates, with the exception being if an urgent update is needed. Israel's update was due to be published on May 10, and the agency said the political and security situation led to the urgent update. "We forecast that Israel's general government deficit will widen to 8 percent of GDP in 2024, mostly as a result of increased defense spending," S&P Global said in its statement.

Israeli courts are calling bullshit on the government's claims that they're taking steps to address the famine.

"This is the opposite of how people see the High Court of Justice. People think the state comes to court trembling with the fear of being reprimanded. But actually the court is very careful not to intervene." But the Supreme Court – serving as the High Court of Justice because it was responding to a petition – found a way to intervene. It didn't lash out at the state, it opted for soft activism. "The court, in its wisdom, entered through the opening that the state gave it," says Eyal Benvenisti, an international law professor at Cambridge University. "The justices told the state, 'You're saying you're taking steps; let's hear what you're really doing. And what you can do more of." ... Cohen-Lifshitz wondered why the state was so proud of its coordination with the aid agencies if in the same breath it rejected their reports about the acute humanitarian crisis in northern Gaza, arguing that these reports are based on Hamas' phony numbers.

Israeli claims that they're not going to takeover Gaza are laughably at face value, especially since the IDF is actively building fortifications in Gaza.

Satellite images and photographs shared on social media show extensive development and construction at two outposts the Israel Defense Forces is building on the strategic road that divides the Gaza Strip into two. The army calls the construction of these outposts in what it calls the "Netzarim Corridor" as a long-term achievement. The whole corridor is referred to as something that is here to stay. The Netzarim Road, in the heart of this corridor, bisects the Gaza Strip. The outposts were built along this road, which is intended to enable the IDF to control the movement of Palestinians from the south to the north and launch operations in different parts of the Strip.

And, of course, it isn't actually about Gaza or Hamas at all. Israel is still building new, Jewish communities in Jerusalem. There are many more to come.

A report by Ir Amim and Bimkom nonprofits, said that since October 7, planning agencies have advanced 17 master plans for Jews in East Jerusalem that encompass 8,434 apartments. The plans for almost 3,000 of these apartments have been submitted by the custodian general, which is responsible for managing Jewish assets abandoned when Jews were forced out of eastern Jerusalem during the 1948 War of Independence. Some other plans would expand large Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, like Gilo and Pisgat Ze'ev, by replacing low-rise buildings with high-rise ones. According to the Peace Now nonprofit, the invitation to bid shows that "Israel is advancing new settlements in East Jerusalem at top speed, and thereby perpetuating the bloody conflict with the Palestinians and the countries of the region."

And of course they're still speeding along any and every action to kick more Palestinians out of their homes, legal opinions be damned.

A court ruled that the Palestinian family's home is owned by a right-wing Jewish group that acquired the interests of a Jewish trust that bought the site prior to Israel's establishment in 1948. The Israeli justice who ordered the eviction stated he's not waiting for the attorney general's legal opinion

[curtwilde]

i have a genuine question, what is arab colonisation? Is it a real thing? The context where I have read about it was a bigoted islamophic hindutvabadi page so I don't know if it's true or just part of their larger lie. Do you have any readings, sources on it?

According to Marriam Abboud Hourani, Arabization is a sociological process of cultural change in which a non-Arab society becomes Arab, meaning it either directly adopts or becomes strongly influenced by the Arabic language and culture. After the rise of Islam in Hejaz, there were a series of conquests in the Middle East and North Africa, after which the Rashidun Caliphate, the first Muslim empire was established. Arab culture spread through the Middle East and North Africa along with the spread of Islam, and in some places pre-Islamic religions and cultures were violently suppressed. These days, most Islamic countries have reconciled elements of their older traditions with Islam. The older religions survive among minorities in some places - Christians, Kurds, Ezidis and Mizrahi Jews for example and are still oppressed under some Islamic fundamentalist countries, like Iran.

Often, the term Arabization or Arab colonialism is used interchangeably with Islamic fundamentalism. On paper they mean entirely different things. However, in reality Islamic fundamentalists revere Arabic culture because the Quran was written in Arabic and events of the Quran are set in Arabia. The difference between the two is a slippery slope and I will let you decide on that.

The term colonization is such a red herring these days and is used to fit a lot of problematic narratives. It is a favourite with zionists, which is probably where these hindutvadis picked it up. And if you come across it on the internet I'd advise you to re-examine the source as they may have an anti-Muslim bias. That said, Islamic fundamentalism is very much a real thing and I wholeheartedly believe that any form of religious fundamentalism, and especially those fundamentalists that try to gain administrative and jurisdictional power for themselves, are a problem. All government and administrative bodies, across the world, should be compulsorily secular.

Now, in the context of South Asia, Arabization in it's strict meaning of the word, has nothing to do with our geopolitical history. Our Muslim rulers were all of Turkish, Afghan, and Central Asian origins with no connection to Arabia. Even culturally, elements of Indian Muslim culture can be traced back to Persia rather than Arabia; and linguistically the Persian influence on Hindi/Urdu is obvious. The term Arab colonization is often used by hindutvadis to mean the spread Islam in the subcontinent but of course they see the Islamic world as a monolith and I doubt they have the reading comprehension to know the difference even if they bothered to look it up.

Books:

The History of the Middle East by Peter Mansfield is a great place to start.

Islam, a short history by Karen Armstrong - very quick read + unbiased take on the Arab conquests.

The Arabization of Islam by Al Mubarak Nadir Shabaz

History of North Africa by Charles Andre Julien

From the holy mountain: a journey among the Christians of the Middle East by William Dalrymple

The Kurds: a contemporary history by Patrick S. Clancy

The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon for a general idea of colonization.

Mutuals if you have any other recommendations please feel free to add.