vivacissimx
vivacissimx
—your monster, brandon stark.
2K posts
luen 29/they 📿 asoiaf & jjk sideblog
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vivacissimx · 2 hours ago
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JAEHAERYS TARGARYEN
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vivacissimx · 2 days ago
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Marilou Hanriot for Max Mara Atelier, Milan Fall 2023
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vivacissimx · 4 days ago
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It literally makes me feel like I'm losing my mind that almost no one in the global north on here will speak about, or even react to, the fact that the US is literally funding Israeli owned death traps for starving families.
The United States and Israel have made it impossible for all actual aid to enter Gaza. Then, private contractors from the United States created the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), with Israeli support, to "take over" aid distribution. They are preventing aid distribution by all humanitarian groups in Gaza that distribute aid in coordination with the U.N., and replacing them with GHF. These GHF sites are set up in collaboration with Israeli military to lure in starving families and gun them down.
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vivacissimx · 7 days ago
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Commission for @baellaggio. Willas and Mace Tyrell, shortly before the tourney that gave Willas his disability.
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vivacissimx · 10 days ago
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The petitioners will soon be at my gates. I must don my floppy ears and become their queen again. Headcannon: none of them wear their tokar properly as a petty F U
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vivacissimx · 16 days ago
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Six Daughters of Jaehaerys I
"He was better with roads than with daughters."
(Alyssa, Maegelle, Daella, Saera, Viserra, and Gael)
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vivacissimx · 17 days ago
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Hello! Saw in an earlier post of yours that you’re interested in Visenya mainly for the possible Jon/Dany/Tyrion dynamics that might (will) play out in Winds and Dream, and I wanted to ask, if you haven’t already explored this in another genius meta of yours, how do you see these dynamics unfold? I rarely see people take Tyrion into account for their endgames speculations, which is unserious given how Tyrion is so well connected to all the other protagonists.
That’s a good question! Sorry in advance for the tome in response.
I do really find Visenya’s archetype the most fascinating because it’s the one you have to chew on. It defies immediate categorization and in many ways kind of resists letting you in. Visenya is the insider-outsider. She is the first and last line of defense. She is my least ‘favorite’ conqueror yet she’s the one I fiddle with the most. And her later iterations (Queen Rhaena, Daemon T, Bloodraven, etc~) only reinforce the tension crucial to her character. Whether it’s negotiating gendered roles, the individual vs the familial, ambition vs loyalty, or love vs duty, with 'Visenya' the repetition of these push-pulls is a beating drum that only grows louder. Honestly, in that last sentence I’ve presented these dichotomies like they’re necessarily in conflict, but the truth is they include shades of each other. Visenya’s rigidity includes a rigid defiance of being categorized as either marginalized or complicit. 
Visenya’s archetype is, I think, unknowable from the outside, and reminiscent of a knife dragging roughly through a thick fabric—the people who love these ‘Visenyas’ understand viscerally the difficulty they pose. The question isn’t whether a Visenya can be loved, but how far can a Visenya (who is all at once ruthless, sentimental, independently capable, and personable) be trusted. And because Visenya’s social rank is always murky, there is a balance to be found between granting them freedom v. exerting control. I am not calling Visenya’s intimate relationships a zero-sum game but the presence of love doesn’t change the fact that there is only so much give. Often, the give between a 'Visenya' and an 'Aegon' is the presence of their third. Consider the relationships between Queen Rhaena & Jaehaerys, as well as Daemon & Rhaenyra: Because Rhaena & Daemon represented the strongest threats to Jaehaerys & Rhaenyra’s sovereignty, certain rituals were performed to enforce a hierarchy between them. Rhaena was made to do obeisance to Jaehaerys and she kept Dragonstone by his ‘gift’ rather than in her own right (after telling him directly that she had more right to it than him���perhaps similar to how Visenya raised Maegor largely alone on Dragonstone, implying she the elder had run of the island moreso than even Aegon did). Yet Queen Rhaena issues rulings from the island and it’s her Jaehaerys turns to with tasks he would not even have Alysanne perform. With Daemyra, upon her taking the throne she seemingly allowed his infidelity with Mysaria but she did so saying that Daemon could fuck who he wants while Rhaenyra was busy ruling. See: Daemon would not be ruling. (I would argue that Brynden & Daemon B are also a take on this Aegon-Visenya dynamic, but it’s not explicit therefore many people disagree. Either I will make another post on the topic or history will absolve me. Whichever comes first.)
And in all these relationships you can ask yourself what ‘Visenya’s’ motivations actually are. When Visenya brought Maegor back to Westeros when the Faith were in open revolt, did she do that because House Targaryen needed a strong King to survive this existential threat? Or was it personal ambition for her own son to sit the throne? Rhaena handed Blackfyre to Jaehaerys and supported his claim—how can you balance that with her clear and public resentment of everything Jae & Aly ‘took’ from her? Did Daemon just use Rhaenyra to get to power, or did he love her? Did Daemon court Rhaenyra’s dependency on him and weaken her, or did he defer to her and make her stronger? None of these can be neatly ascribed.
Overall I would classify all the post-Conqueror trios as ‘failed’ because none of them achieved the harmony that Visenya, Aegon, & Rhaenys did in the brief years that they all reigned together. By trio I do not mean three people, but three as one. Even the OGs fall apart after Rhaenys dies. It doesn’t work with just two. There is grief and even resentment between Visenya and Aegon following the loss of Rhaenys. And that is something important to highlight because this break between siblings is often assigned to Visenya being mad her child would not inherit the throne, only, at that point Visenya did not even have a child. The split between Visenya-Aegon was a result of the difference in the dynamic between Visenya-Rhaenys and Aegon-Rhaenys—something that will exist between Dany/Jon/Tyrion as well!
Visenya was Rhaenys’s older sister and was protective over her as an elder sibling would be. Here we can note that of Dany, Jon, & Tyrion, only Jon is an elder sibling. Yes Aegon was also Rhaenys’s older brother, however, he mostly loved Rhaenys as a wife and partner. A crucial difference! If he was just her older brother and King he would never have let her go on the Dornish mission which killed her. Visenya would never have allowed it. Aegon & Visenya had successfully conquered kingdoms through individual negotiation/negotiation by dragonflame. Rhaenys had failed in her attempt. This failure weighed on her. And because Aegon was foremost her partner in life, she demanded to go to Dorne so she could prove that she was truly an equal in their triple-pronged relationship. I imagine he acquiesced because to deny her would be to dismiss her. On an emotional level denying her would have broken something between them that Aegon would have never been able to get back, but which Visenya would not have even recognized as being broken. So what if Rhaenys needed Aegon and Visenya to believe in her? I'm older than you, I'm a better warrior, I'm going! Rhaenys’s death in Visenya's mind proved her right. Aegon alone had to reckon with the fact that, though it ended in the worst possible outcome, Rhaenys was capable of knowing herself & taking the risks she did with full resolve. Visenya saw herself as Rhaenys’s protector while Aegon saw himself as her other half, her accomplice.
[Aside: Recently I read GRRM’s first novel, Dying of the Light, where you can see a prototype of the ‘three heads of the dragon’ in the characters Jaan Vikary (a reformer and a leader), the man with whom he shares a highly revered lifelong warrior’s bond (Gaarse), and the woman who is his life partner but socially regarded as a concubine (Gwen). Gwen, unhappy with her lesser role despite Jaan’s supposedly egalitarian approach to their relationship, at one point engages in a duel she really can’t win because she refuses to be the object of such a duel—rather, she demands the agency to be an active participant. And Jaan, after this fight is lost, permanently breaks the codes of his culture while avenging her not as his wife/property but in the full spirit of her humanity. Gaarse tries to convince Jaan not to do this & seek vengeance following the codes of their honor-heavy culture, which would actually require both Gaarse and Jaan to fight on Gwen’s behalf—Gaarse agrees that vengeance must be had, but disagrees with Jaan’s method which inherently raises Gwen to the position of equal. In this I see Visenya/Aegon disagreeing over Rhaenys: the lack of ‘one mind’ which drove a wedge between them, later becoming a gulf.]
 So in the main series we can shallowly recognize that Daenerys is ‘the Aegon,’ while Tyrion is her Rhaenys and Jon her Visenya. I believe there is some disagreement that positions Jon as her Rhaenys but personality wise it’s very clear that Jon connects more to the Visenya archetype/tension and Tyrion to the Rhaenys (witty, clever, the one who will most love to fly, etc). We can look at an example of a Visenya who failed where Jon later succeeds: Visenya raises Maegor in her image and passes to him her sword (Dark Sister) yet Maegor discards her sword to choose his father’s (Blackfyre). Jon, in early AGOT, yearns for his own father’s sword (Ice) and dreams of earning it/the Stark name. When he thinks to run to Robb’s ranks and avenge Ned, he leaves behind Longclaw. Yet by the end of the book, he has instead accepted his place in the Night’s Watch—choosing Longclaw over Ice. And let's not forget that the Night’s Watch oath was used by Visenya when she created the vows of the Kingsguard. Bloodraven (a ‘Visenya’) joined the Night’s Watch. So, personality and story-wise, it’s Jon. Tyrion fights battle in AGOT as well but his contributions are moreso the Vale Mountain tribes whose allegiance he wins through guile. When he fights, it’s done not with the sense that he is a warrior but that he’s clever, brave, and valuable in ways that one misses when they hastily dismiss him for being a dwarf.
Obviously Jon & Tyrion have met and developed a relationship of mutual affection, tentative friendship, and disaffection with the systems that raised them. Actually it is interesting that Daenerys growing up hearing that Ned and Tywin were the ‘Usurper’s dogs’ gets so much play while Jon having a similar hiccup with Tyrion (he’s a Lannister and Ned is executed by Lannisters) gets glossed over. Which is to say, the books gloss over it first. In the rare moments when Jon and Tyrion respectively think of one another it’s always done mildly. So it’s exciting that the next two to meet will be Tyrion and Daenerys—because they are two who actually will be looking to resolve something generational. 
I’ve said before that I think they will meet on the opposite ends of the negotiation table. However I want to pin that the original three heads (Visenya, Aegon, Rhaenys) were siblings. The tension between them was inherently familial, so DanyJonTyrion’s tensions have to be translated into their own version of this because they are not directly related, rather their ties of 'kinship' are more complex. Leading into that (TW for rape & abuse in this section): it cannot be stressed enough that Tyrion’s relationship to women is complex. It begins really with Cersei the cruel sister who hates him, yet views him as belonging to her, hers to pinch and twist and abuse. It’s interesting how that dynamic is repeated not just in the obvious parallel of Daenerys with Viserys, but also in Cersei/Joffrey’s expressions of entitlement to Sansa—Tyrion’s future wife. Which brings me to my point: thus far, Tyrion’s relationships with women have mostly been with vulnerable women/girls for whom he feels a deep empathy, as well as a gratitude for convincingly loving him, though he second guesses the latter extensively as he doesn't believe he can have it even while desiring it above all (ex. Tysha, Shae, his one-sided hope that Sansa whose brother his family murdered could somehow, impossibly, find refuge in him). Yet it’s also true that he consistently hurts these women. In ACOK, Acting Hand Tyrion understands very well the attitudes and odds stacked against him (including the unlikelihood that Shae genuinely loves him) yet he pursues his seemingly unattainable goals with all his ability, in hopes of some form of positive recognition/redemption as a man, lover, brother, son, and so on. The trial over Joffrey’s murder is a complete farce but the reality is nonetheless that upon fleeing King’s Landing, Tyrion has completely lost his previous hope for respect, love, or even absolution. Absolution of all, honestly. Because when Tyrion comes to understand just to what extent he was forced into participating in Tysha’s gang rape, he sinks into his lowest pit of despair—leading up to the scene in ADWD where he rapes the sunset girl all the while thinking of Tysha, his own wretchedness, replicating how Tysha must have experienced him etc. I understand that scene is a VERY uncomfortable one but we do have to engage with it for what it is. In the rape scene with the sunset girl, Tyrion internally goes on and on about how much she hates him (she doesn’t actually speak except to protest his actions which may result in punishment for her) and indeed he wants her to hate him. He wants her to hate him the way he hates himself. As I said previously, Tyrion is extremely empathetic to Tysha, Shae, Alayaya, Sansa, Penny, and so on—he sees his own pains in them, is even mostly aware when he is projecting onto them, but he also sees clearly the pain he causes them. He is ashamed of himself in those moments, fearful that they’ll see him as a pitiful beast and revoke their affection. He is ashamed of his emotional neediness which fuels his lashings out. But with the sunset girl he loses all control. In ADWD, Tyrion wants to find Tysha. Why? To apologize? Yes, but also to be punished. It’s not that Tyrion hasn’t been punished by so many others “for the crime of being a dwarf” and causing shame to the Lannister name, but Tysha is someone who truly knew him for who he was. She loved the wholeness of him, which is what he's always yearned for—and she will surely punish him for the sins for which he is actually guilty. It may seem like a warping of his previous yearning but it’s rooted in the same desire for an intimacy which is purely between two people, something the whole world can neither touch nor understand.
With Daenerys and Tyrion, there’s a lot that’s up in the air for TWOW. What we basically know for a fact is that Tyrion will be the rider of Viserion, who is Daenerys’s gentlest child. That, and Tyrion will play a central role in Dance of the Dragons 2. The first point is a picture more easily painted so I’ll tackle it first. Throughout the series, there are profuse connections/parallels running between Tywin, Cersei, & Jaime with Aerys, Rhaella, & Rhaegar. Tyrion is not so much included in that due to his young age at the time of the latter three’s deaths. Yet when Oberyn comes to King’s Landing, it’s Tyrion who engages with him on the topic of Elia, Rhaenys, & Aegon’s murders. It’s Tyrion who roots out the identities of JonCon and Co, including Young Griff as ‘Aegon.’ It’s Tyrion who is Tywin “writ small,” Tywin whose role in said murders Oberyn seeks to obtain, and it's Tyrion’s trial for the murder of Joffrey which morphs into a duel between Oberyn and his sister’s murderer/rapist, Gregor Clegane. Both Daenerys and Tyrion have little to do with the violence that happened between their families besides carry the weight of it.
Narratively Tyrion represents the Lannister legacy; Tyrion is even quite similar to the originator of House Lannister, Lann the Clever. So when we think of Tyrion riding Viserion, who is so often referred to as Daenerys’s child, our second thought naturally goes to the last time Targaryen entwined with Lannister, that final image which keeps repeating throughout the story: when the bodies of Rhaegar’s children Rhaenys and Aegon were wrapped in red Lannister cloaks. Rhaegar’s children, murdered by Tywin—Daenerys’s children, one of whom Tyrion will touch and trust and ride into the sky. This is I think a redemption/absolution of which only Tyrion is capable: him, Tywin’s closest shade, and Daenerys, who is all but Rhaegar's daughter, building a trust which results in the exact inverse of the brutality seen in the previous generation. Instead of murdering a child, Tyrion will be put in a place to nurture a dragon. It’s poignant that Tyrion as a boy dreamed about dragons as a means of defense against Cersei & Tywin’s abuse because by ADWD Tyrion is deeper in that cycle than ever before. In order to earn the goodwill of Daenerys and then her dragon, Tyrion will have to be wily and clever, yes…. but he will also have to reach past his self-hate for a degree of belief that he can be worthy of this entirely unique form of connection. The fact that Daenerys is in a social position above him (she is a Queen while he is enslaved, a sellsword) is, I would say, a good thing for the development of their relationship but also for Tyrion individually. I am not even really touching on the fact that she saved his life in the pit. I moreso mean she’s an escape from the relationships he had and pursued before, with women who either used their authority to hurt him (Cersei) or those he loved, and caused astounding pain (Tysha, Shae) or those for whom he did not do enough to protect from his family (Sansa, Alayaya, Penny). 
Daenerys is also younger than Tyrion and not formally educated, though she is eager to learn, which invites a return to what AGOT Tyrion initially tells Jon is his use:
Things are expected of me. My father was the Hand of the King for twenty years. My brother later killed that very same king, as it turns out, but life is full of these little ironies. My sister married the new king and my repulsive nephew will be king after him. I must do my part for the honor of my House, wouldn't you agree? Yet how? Well, my legs may be too small for my body, but my head is too large, although I prefer to think it is just large enough for my mind. I have a realistic grasp of my own strengths and weaknesses. My mind is my weapon. My brother has his sword, King Robert has his warhammer, and I have my mind… and a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge." Tyrion tapped the leather cover of the book. "That's why I read so much, Jon Snow."
And this is a healthier state to which we already see Tyrion returning, when Griff commands Tyrion to write down everything he knows about dragons:
Tyrion had read much and more of dragons through the years. The greater part of those accounts were idle tales and could not be relied on, and the books that Illyrio had provided them were not the ones he might have wished for. What he really wanted was the complete text of The Fires of the Freehold, Galendro's history of Valyria. No complete copy was known to Westeros, however; even the Citadel's lacked twenty-seven scrolls. They must have a library in Old Volantis, surely. I may find a better copy there, if I can find a way inside the Black Walls to the city's heart. He was less hopeful concerning Septon Barth's Dragons, Wyrms, and Wyverns: Their Unnatural History. Barth had been a blacksmith's son who rose to be King's Hand during the reign of Jaehaerys the Conciliator. His enemies always claimed he was more sorcerer than septon. Baelor the Blessed had ordered all Barth's writings destroyed when he came to the Iron Throne. Ten years ago, Tyrion had read a fragment of Unnatural History that had eluded the Blessed Baelor, but he doubted that any of Barth's work had found its way across the narrow sea. And of course there was even less chance of his coming on the fragmentary, anonymous, blood-soaked tome sometimes called Blood and Fire and sometimes The Death of Dragons, the only surviving copy of which was supposedly hidden away in a locked vault beneath the Citadel.
Though he is at his darkest in ADWD there is a path back for Tyrion, in my view, with Daenerys and her children as one catalyst for that. I don’t mean to say that Daenerys will serve this purpose in Tyrion’s story because it is a mutual process of reconciliation, actually. Of all the dragons Viserion seems likeliest to ‘change’ into a female in order to lay future eggs (a gender transition which has seemingly already begun). We see in the example of Rhaenyra, Laena, and Daemon—another trio—that when their polycule or whatever is at their happiest, the dragons are at the peak of their fertility. Dany conceiving a child with Jon + Tyrion’s mount birthing draconic children simultaneously = a pretty impressive seal on the bond shared between the new ‘three heads.’
However, Tyrion is not Dany’s love interest (in the way that Jon is). Remember 500 paragraphs ago when I was describing the difference between how Visenya and Aegon loved and perceived Rhaenys? Right, bringing that back into play now. In the absence of a formal marriage, so to speak, there remains a tension between Tyrion as a Lannister and Tyrion as part of the trio. Tyrion as Daenerys’s hand, as Jon Snow’s confidante, is not without its friction. Dany and Jon will fall in love which pretty easily presents a path to understanding how they’ll develop empathy for each other and overcome past familial tensions, because when two people get married there’s an idea that they will henceforth prioritize the needs and beliefs of the family they build together. Families of birth aren’t erased but they aren’t so much at the forefront. That’s the blueprint for monogamous romantic love, generally speaking. There is of course another blueprint for an unconsummated courtly love, steeped in devotion flowing from higher values and blooming beneath heaven’s plenty, which I hesitate to call chivalric because I don’t think asoiaf’s ideas of chivalry quite align… and, by the way, I am talking like it’s a thousand percent certain that Tyrion will never ever ever even once be sexually/intimately involved with Daenerys and/or Jon. It’s not certain. I am a canonically bisexual Jon believer. In Jon’s very first chapter he uses the same terms to describe Tyrion that he does Jaime, to whom he is at least platonically attracted. The OG ASOIAF outline had Tyrion and Jon as romantic rivals. Aegon romantically/sexually engaged with both Visenya and Rhaenys. Though they’re not really one another’s types, Tyrion and Daenerys making love could have a host of other impetuses beyond the simplistic formula of "physical attraction->physical intimacy" and ultimately be really beautiful, you know, very safe. I don’t think this is necessarily likely but it’s possible.
More realistic is that Tyrion will be a single Lannister. In that case we are faced with Tyrion’s split loyalties between Daenerys (and Jon) and his family of birth (Cersei having by then formed a coalition with Euron), the latter of whom he hates but is nonetheless deeply intertwined with. People go back to what's bad for them all the time, quite frankly. My personal prediction (not unique, I’m fairly certain it’s the one held by the majority of fandom Philosophers~) is that Viserion will die during the Second Dance with Tyrion acting as a queenmaker, while Rhaegal is the one Euron will initially hijack (to be hijacked back, obviously). So, Tyrion's significance cannot be stressed enough. Not being part of the couple does not erase his primacy in the story, or the beautiful interweaving between three people that is coming. And this is what I mean by translation of the Conquerors siblings dynamics to Dany, Jon, & Tyrion’s non-sibling dynamics. That repetition of a love match within a triangle, and it only working so well because there is a unity outside of that traditional structure wherein each prong of the trident is performing precisely the functions they are best fit for, with shared values that guide them where they overlap—well, it can be done outside a polygamous incest union. It’s really the tensions, the give, which need to be retained. The faint lines between all three which push and pull.
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vivacissimx · 27 days ago
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However satisfying writing is—that mix of discipline and miracle, which leaves you in control, even when what appears on the page has emerged from regions beyond your control—it is a very poor substitute indeed for the joy and agony of loving.
— Gillian Rose, "Love's Work" (Penguin Books, March 14, 2024)
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vivacissimx · 1 month ago
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Statue in Hortulus Botanical Garden in Poland
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vivacissimx · 1 month ago
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George Ziel
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vivacissimx · 1 month ago
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before i knew my name.
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vivacissimx · 1 month ago
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Read this horrific account shared by Mo Zraiy, which describes the death trap that is disguised as "aid distribution centres" in Gaza:
"It felt like I was in an episode of Squid Game. Thousands - tens of thousands - sleep near the gate waiting for sunrise, because the amount of food being distributed is so limited. I arrived at 2 a.m., and as dawn broke, a quadcopter drone approached the crowd and spoke in broken Arabic: 'You will now enter to receive the food. There is a limited time — you must all leave before it runs out. You must all stick to the time.'
Everyone gets up, taking off their shirts to turn them into makeshift bags for cans of beans and sacks of rice. An employee from the American company waves his hand for people to enter. People rush in screaming — it felt like the Day of Judgment.
We enter a large yard surrounded by iron fences. U-shaped tables are stacked with everything Gazans long for - rice, oil, sugar, chocolate, flour. And because the supplies can only feed a few hundred people, the yard turns into something like a Roman gladiator arena. Whoever loses... their family will sleep hungry tonight.
When the time runs out, the quadcopter comes back again, ordering people to retreat and leave the yard immediately.
No one listens - everyone is busy picking food off the ground. I saw a woman and her child collecting grains of rice mixed with sand, pouring them into a sack they were carrying.
Then an Israeli tank takes position on a nearby hill overlooking the distribution point. It opens fire on the crowds. People scream and run. No one cares about anyone else — they step over the bodies struck by bullets. Everyone is just trying to survive."
This evil is incomprehensible. What fucking apocalyptic hell is this?
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vivacissimx · 1 month ago
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Azor Ahai (don’t come at me i’d kill for her)
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vivacissimx · 1 month ago
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Hortensia Mi Kafchin (Romanian, 1986) - Edge of Zodiac (2017)
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vivacissimx · 1 month ago
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jon/dany art trade for @saessenach 🖤❤️
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vivacissimx · 2 months ago
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I follow you on twt and last year, when that new art that seems to depict rhaelya with Arthur and ashara came out, you said "confirmed ashara involved in rlj" and although it's pretty straightforward, I love your theories and would love to hear any thoughts you have on how ashara was involved in it.
In my own mind, given the fact that they ended up going to dorne and ashara was Elia's lady in waiting, it looks like elia was in it or at least knew something (she's not the helpless and mindless bystander that the fandom makes her look like). And fanficky wise I always loved the possible friendship of lyanna and ashara because it's funny for Arthur rhaegar ❤️
Well, Ashara being present at the TOJ in some capacity was something I pretty much took on faith given GRRM's one SSM:
Ashara Dayne was not nailed to the floor in Starfall, as some of the fans who write me seem to assume. They have horses in Dorne too, you know. And boats (though not many of their own). As a matter of fact (a tiny tidbit from SOS), she was one of Princess Elia's lady companions in King's Landing, in the first few years after Elia married Rhaegar. The rest I will save for the books.
But the recent art placing Ashara even at Summerhall, on what had to have been the initial journey from the Riverlands to Dorne, threw me as above and BEYOND! The art in question was (unofficially) commissioned by GRRM's close collaborators Elio & Linda (who I am blocked by on twitter & glad to be so 😊 but that's a story for another day), and brilliantly executed by Fran Vegas:
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Now it's strongly implied that Ashara got pregnant at Harrenhal ergo by this point she'd be at least a month or two along, which is early enough to suspect/tell, and to go to either her brother Arthur or the Princess Elia for help. Following that, she was either summoned or sent to Arthur, and by him taken to Starfall to prepare for the child in a private, comfortable place. This speaks to a more personal level of trust between Ashara & the people around her.
We can discern from this that Ashara and Arthur had a decent relationship, and, dare I conjecture, it also illuminates Elia & Rhaegar's relationship to their larger household (Arthur as Rhaegar's sworn sword, Ashara as Elia's lady-in-waiting, the two of them evidence of a bloc supporting the married [i.e. politically allied] Elia & Rhaegar). Both Elia & Rhaegar are peripheral in Ashara leaving her post in Dragonstone and being escorted to Dorne at such a sensitive time. Politically I do believe ER were a functional unit and to some degree we know they were in one another's personal confidences (ex. Rhaegar had seemingly told her about the song of ice and fire) which not all noble couples can say for themselves.
Now, do I believe Elia knew that Rhaegar was planning to take Lyanna away from the Riverlands? No. I don't. I don't even believe Rhaegar knew he was going to do that when he left Dragonstone that final time. I have said before that I suspect Rhaegar was headed to see the Ghost of High Heart and seek advice on the matter of his son Aegon as TPTWP, only to come upon Lyanna relatively unexpectedly. Actually, this brings up the possibility that Lyanna joined Rhaegar's group as they moved to Dorne with the understanding that Ashara was in said group, and was pregnant with (one of) her brother's child (and I am also convinced the child was Brandon's though I don't disagree that she and Ned were a little bit in love). Part of the castigation of Lyanna is that she betrayed her Stark honor and ran off with a married man-- but in the face of her company including Ashara, who was carrying Lyanna's bastard niece, on top of Lyanna having long since pointed out that Robert had fathered bastards & would be unfaithful in her marriage... well, that isn't quite so righteous an argument. Multiple men close to her had bastards who they easily disregarded in favor of their forthcoming betrothed wives. I am not saying Lyanna laid down and died in the face of this information because she obviously didn't, and wasn't the type to, so her developing a closeness with Ashara would strike me as the strongest possibility given them spending time together.
I can see the idea that there might have been some communication between Rhaegar's camp and Elia's via Ashara's letters... I don't know to what end or what they'd need to contain, but it's definitely possible!
I will say this: in general I am super vexed by Ashara. She comes up quite mysteriously in AGOT which basically tells me George has had a plan for her from the beginning. It's possible that plan has morphed. But Barristan randomly throwing his hat into the Ashara ring in ADWD, bringing up the same unanswered questions we get about Ashara in ASOS (during Arya & Ned Dayne's random meeting, on the topic of Ashara's relationships to the Stark men), itches my brain! She's obviously something... but what??? Her dancing with a member of the KG (initially I assumed this was Arthur but dark horse possibility is Barry), Oberyn Martell, JONCON, Brandon & then Ned, at Harrenhal is CLEARLY IMPORTANT. She was in the middle of something! She is a person who knew a number of unidentified facts! And in general I do not think Arthur Dayne is at all a mystery. We have all the info we need on him and his place is very easily laid to rest in the story/the lineage of knighthood. ASHARA is the real curio of House Dayne... and of course House Dayne is itself a curio, what with their unknown but definitely coming significance. Personally I am partial to Ashara as Lemore but not immovably so, I just see the intentional omission of House Dayne's house words (because it'd be too illuminating) and then the omission of Septa Lemore's eye color (again, too illuminating) as quite a glaring tease in the direction of Ashara. Even if she's not Ashara, George wants us to be thinking about Ashara. It's equivalent to Lem-is-Richard-Lonmouth. The evidence is simply too heavy to disregard.
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vivacissimx · 2 months ago
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