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idkyetxoxo · 13 hours ago

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Jacaerys Velaryon - Sea Breeze

Summary - When the prince stumbles upon her naked in the sea, the encounter sparks an awkward moment between them. Amidst embarrassment and vulnerability, an unspoken bond begins to form. In the silence of shared discomfort, something new may blossom.

Pairing - Jacaerys Velaryon x reader

Warnings - None

Word count - 2083

Masterlist for Jacaerys • House of the Dragon General Masterlist.

My horse trotted softly along the shoreline, each step sending gentle puffs of sand swirling into the salty breeze.

The ocean stretched endlessly before us, shimmering in the sun's embrace, a mirror to the azure sky. The rhythmic crunch of hooves on sand mingled with the distant cries of gulls, their calls rising and falling like notes of a forgotten melody.

I gripped the reins loosely, tying them around a fallen branch that had washed ashore, bleached by sun and sea.

My steed whickered softly, the faint sound carried away by the wind. He dipped his head to nibble on sparse tufts of grass, content to linger in this tranquil place. I gave his neck a fond pat, feeling the warmth of his coat beneath my palm.

Together, we had journeyed far, and now, this brief moment of peace felt like a gift from the gods themselves.

I moved ahead, my bare feet sinking into the soft, warm sand with each step. The wind played with my hair, teasing it across my face and carrying with it the tangy scent of salt.

I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath, filling my lungs with the crisp air. The waves crashed in a soothing, eternal rhythm, their relentless dance a reminder of both change and constancy.

I let myself be carried away by the music of the sea, each swell and break a pulse in the heart of the earth.

The sun blazed above, radiant and golden, draping its warmth over me like a silken shawl. I sank into the sand, leaning back with a sigh, feeling it mould to my body as if cradling me in a gentle embrace.

For once, the world felt uncomplicated, the burdens of duty and expectation slipping away like grains of sand through my fingers.

Time slowed, and I basked in the sheer sweetness of the moment, as rare as it was perfect.

Then, a spark of mischief lit within me. I sat up, glancing around. The beach was empty—blissfully, completely empty. I grinned, the reckless thrill of freedom coursing through my veins.

No eyes to watch, no ears to listen. Only the sea, the wind, and the sky.

With a quick, breathless laugh, I jumped to my feet, shedding my clothes in a flurry of movements—each garment falling away like leaves from a tree in autumn.

The air prickled against my skin, cool and exhilarating, and I shivered, more from anticipation than cold. I stepped forward, tentative at first, the sand firm beneath my bare feet.

The water beckoned, a shimmering expanse of freedom.

The first touch of the sea was a shock, icy tendrils wrapping around my ankles. I gasped, hesitated, and then moved deeper.

The cold embraced me, each step bringing a fresh wave of sensation until, at last, I surrendered myself to its cool depths. I floated on the water's surface, staring up at the sky.

The world became smaller, reduced to the gentle lap of waves, the whisper of wind, and the vast, boundless sky.

Giddiness bubbled up within me, mixing with an overwhelming sense of peace.

I drifted, letting time slip by unnoticed. The sun dipped lower, painting the horizon with streaks of gold and crimson.

Reluctantly, I began to make my way back to shore, each step a reminder of gravity's pull. The water clung to me as I walked, drops glistening on my skin like jewels.

I paused at the water's edge, turning to steal one last look at the sea—a vast, untamed wilderness that mirrored my soul's desire for freedom.

And then, I heard it—a soft shuffling sound. My heart jumped, and I whipped around.

There, standing just beyond the reach of the waves, was Prince Jacaerys. His wide eyes were fixed on me, shock etched across every line of his face. He looked as if he had stumbled upon some forbidden scene.

For a heartbeat, neither of us moved, time stretching taut between us. His mouth hung open as if words had failed him.

A strangled scream tore from my throat, and I scrambled to cover myself, pressing trembling hands against my chest.

Jacaerys blinked, his face turning a vivid shade of scarlet as he spun around with such speed that he nearly stumbled. His hands flew up to shield his face, but not before I saw the tips of his ears, red with embarrassment.

"My lady—I—I apologize!" he sputtered, his voice high and panicked. "I didn't—I wasn't—I had no idea—!" He fumbled for words, each one more hopelessly tangled than the last.

"What—what are you doing here?" I demanded, anger and mortification burning through me like fire. I took a furious step forward, water splashing around me.

The motion made me slip, and I yelped, barely catching myself.

Jacaerys instinctively turned back, his eyes wide with concern. "Are you—" he began, but my second scream cut him off. He spun around again, so quickly I half-expected him to topple over.

"I thought I saw—something," he stammered, his shoulders hunching as if he could make himself smaller, invisible. "I was... walking."

He shifted his weight awkwardly, his hands now clenched at his sides.

Heat crept up my neck as I stumbled out of the water, desperately grabbing at my clothes. The damp fabric clung stubbornly to my skin, making every movement awkward and slow.

I was acutely aware of how ridiculous I must have looked—half-dressed, dripping wet, and fumbling like a fool.

"Why—why are you not wearing any... clothes?" His voice cracked on the last word, and he winced, as if wishing the ground would swallow him whole.

"I wanted to swim," I shot back, the words sharp and defensive. My hands trembled as I pulled my tunic into place, trying to ignore the heat rising to my cheeks. "I didn't want to ruin my clothes."

"Of course," he muttered, nodding stiffly. "Completely reasonable." His voice was strangled, each syllable a battle against his own flustered state.

An agonizing silence stretched between us, each of us shifting awkwardly, unable to meet the other's gaze.

The air felt heavy with unsaid words, the kind that lodged themselves in throats and made breathing difficult.

He cleared his throat again, the sound rough and awkward, as if he hoped it might puncture the weight between us. His face remained a brilliant shade of red, a colour that betrayed every ounce of discomfort he was trying—and failing—to suppress.

His eyes stayed resolutely fixed on the sand at his feet as if the intricate patterns left by the waves were the most fascinating thing in the world.

I wondered if he felt as unsure as I did—whether he was struggling with the same dizzying mixture of mortification, vulnerability, and absurdity.

He shifted uncomfortably, shoulders tense, as if torn between staying rooted to the spot or making another bumbling attempt at a retreat.

I imagined him weighing his options, each one more awkward than the last.

I clutched my damp clothes tighter to my chest, acutely aware of how exposed I still felt, even partially covered.

The wind picked up again, cool and unkind, reminding me of my precarious state. I wished desperately for the moment to dissolve, to simply wake up and find it was all a fever dream.

But reality had no such mercy. The silence stretched further, taut as a drawn bowstring. And then, he spoke.

"How... how did you get here?" His voice was strained as if he were forcing himself to speak in measured tones. He cleared his throat again as if hoping to chase away the nervous tremor.

The effort was futile; it cracked and wavered all the same. "There's... no one else around."

"A horse," I blurted out, the words coming too quickly, tumbling over one another in their haste to escape. I gestured vaguely toward where my steed was tied. "I rode here."

My voice sounded thin as if someone else were speaking through me. His brow furrowed slightly, as though my answer required deep contemplation.

He nodded slowly, the motion mechanical, as if he were piecing together a complicated puzzle.

"Ah," he said, drawing out the syllable as though it held profound meaning. "The same horse I saw run past me just moments ago?"

My mouth fell open. "Oh." It was all I could manage, my mind scrambling to comprehend the implications.

"Yes," he added, his gaze darting sideways before snapping back to the ground. "Quite majestic. Impressive gallop."

I shifted uncomfortably, feeling the grit of sand sticking to my wet skin. Mortification prickled over me, and I bit back the retort that nearly escaped.

"Well," I muttered, unable to keep the sarcasm from my voice, "thank you... for the commentary."

A beat of silence passed between us, so thick and heavy I thought it might crush me. I almost wished it would.

Instead, he ran a hand through his dark curls, the motion both hesitant and desperate.

"I, um... I will walk you back." His words were hesitant, as though he was giving himself—and me—every chance to refuse. "It's getting darker. Best not to be out here alone."

My instinct was to protest, to reject the idea of walking alongside him, prolonging this already excruciating encounter. But a glance at the horizon revealed the dimming sky, the sun's last light stretching thin and fragile across the water.

Night was creeping in, and I knew he was right. Reluctantly, I nodded.

"Fine," I said, the word tasting bitter on my tongue. "Thank you."

We started walking, each step an exercise in restraint. The only sounds were the crunch of sand beneath our feet and the relentless murmur of the waves.

My clothes clung to me, sodden and heavy, making each movement feel like wading through syrup. I focused on keeping my eyes straight ahead, willing the heat in my cheeks to subside.

Minutes passed. I could feel him glancing my way, every turn of his head a palpable pressure against my skin.

Eventually, he cleared his throat again, the sound so familiar now that I nearly laughed at the absurdity of it.

"I didn't see anything," he blurted out, words tumbling over themselves in their haste to escape. "I mean, I did not... I didn't see... anything. If that helps."

I stumbled, nearly tripping over my own feet. "Uhh..."

"No, I mean," he stammered, waving his hands in front of him as if trying to erase the words from the air. "I saw you had a—" He stopped abruptly, realization dawning on him, and his face darkened several shades. "You have a... a great..."

I stared at him, a mix of mortification and astonishment coursing through me.

His hands were clenched into tight fists at his sides, and he looked like he would rather be struck by lightning than continue speaking. His chest rose and fell rapidly, his breath audible in the growing quiet.

A rush of wind swept past, sending a fresh chill through me, and I shivered involuntarily.

He noticed instantly. Without a word, he shrugged off his cloak, the gesture both hesitant and determined. He stepped closer, holding it out with trembling hands.

"Here," he said, his voice soft, stripped of its earlier tension. "You're... cold."

I stared at the cloak for a moment too long, pride warring with gratitude. The cold won out.

I accepted it, wrapping the heavy fabric around my shoulders. It was warm, comforting, and faintly scented of salt and sun—and him. I drew it tighter, feeling both exposed and shielded.

"Thank you," I whispered, my voice barely audible. I kept my eyes on the ground, afraid of what I might see in his expression. Afraid of what he might see in mine.

He nodded, and we resumed our walk. The silence between us felt different now—fragile, but no longer suffocating.

Our steps fell into a quiet rhythm, and I stole a glance at him out of the corner of my eye. His expression was unreadable, a mix of worry, embarrassment, and something else I couldn't quite name.

As we walked, I clutched his cloak tighter, the fabric grounding me. For all the awkwardness—and there was plenty—I couldn't deny a small spark of comfort in his presence.

Neither of us spoke again, but the quiet that stretched between us felt like an unspoken promise.

Perhaps things would remain awkward, perhaps they would grow even more complicated.

But for now, beneath the cloak and the weight of all unsaid things, there was a shared understanding—a fragile sense that, somehow, this too would pass, and something new might be forged from the ashes of this mortifying encounter.

A/n - Tb to that class trip 4 years ago when the fire alarm went off and ofc I had just gotten out of the shower wrapped in a towel half naked and had to walk to the fire assembly point (it was a building with those self locking doors in an emergency so I couldn't even run and try to get dressed cause I was quite literally exiled from my room)🥰 my friend literally had to give me his hoodie and stand there shirtless mind you in the FREEZING Irish winter weather 😭

#house of the dragon #house targaryen #hotd #hotd x reader #house of the dragon x reader #hotd one shot #hotd season 2 #house of the dragon fanfiction #hotd fanfic #jacaerys targaryen #jacaerys velaryon #jacaerys x reader #jacaerys velaryon x reader #team black #prince jacaerys #jace x reader #hotd jacaerys #jacaerys strong

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immi-immi · 2 days ago

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why do you hate alicent? you are so silly 😂

Sure I can give you some of the reasons (in no particular order). Alicent is a hypocritical, self righteous and mysogynistic woman who deserves to be hated

1. (Show) Forces Rhaenyra to be separated from her newborn child so she can humiliate her and inspect the child. She told the maid to have the babe "brought to the Queen immediately", rather than stop getting her dress fitted and going down herself. Then having the gall to tell Rhaenyra to rest, taking her baby and implying he is a bastard. Laenor even says "I thought we were past this", meaning that Alicent's abuse is a recurring instance.

2. (Show) Humiliates Rhaenyra on the small council for having her breast milk leaking through her dress. While Rhaenyra is offering a branch of peace through marriage, Alicent makes a scene of Rhaenyra's chest. Knowing Rhaenyra had just had a child and was recovering.

3. (Show and Book) Spread the rumours that Rhaenyra's children are bastards, which could result in exile or execution for Rhaenyra and her sons. Regardless of this being the truth or not, it's a political manoeuvre to make Rhaenyra be disinherited - they don't actually care if the kids are Laenor's or not. Alicent's own son Aegon has bastards that fight in pits, that she ignores.

4. (Show and Book) Attempting to remove Lucerys' legitimacy as a son of Laenor by holding a hearing for the succession of Driftmark. This should have never happened, as Corlys was clear he wanted it to pass through Laenor to Lucerys. The Velaryon children are accepted by the King, Corlys and Laenor, so Alicent is being treasonous. Even Viserys tells her to never bring the topic up multiple times, and becomes increasingly angry with her.

5. (Show and Book) Is one of the main instigators of Rhaenyra's usurpation, causing the war in the first place. In the book she lets Viserys' body rot while preparing to crown Aegon as King, on the mysogynistic basis of Rhaenyra being a woman. Even in the show, Alicent has no right to change the succession, considering she was the only one in the room and the change was never written in Viserys' own words. It might as well have been lies (which it was). She has no right to change nearly 2 decades of a settled succession. Additionally, she directly causes Rhaenyra to miscarry, and her sons to die.

6. (Show) Expects Rhaenyra to be pious and lawful to her husband, despite having lovers herself. Rhaenyra took Harwin out of necessity to have heirs to secure her line, Alicent slept with Cole (a Kingsguard) and the whole foot scene with Larys. She is a hypocrite who breaks her marriage vows.

7. (Show) Expects Rhaenyra to be entirely truthful and friendly to her about her sexual life despite lying to Rhaenyra for almost 6 months and sleeping with Rhaenyra's father. Alicent feels entitled to Rhaenyra and quickly turns to abuse and humiliation after this to gain power over Rhaenyra.

8. (Book) Repeatedly wishes death and pain onto Rhaenyra. She says point blank that "maybe the whore (Rhaenyra) will die in childbirth". The woman whose life Alicent destroyed. She also calls Rhaenyra's dead children "bastard blood shed at war".

9. (Show and Book) Calls Targaryen customs 'queer' yet married Helaena to her older brother Aegon. Helaena was 13, and was forced to give birth to twins at 14. The plain disregard and lack of care she shows towards Helaena is disgusting. Rather than marry Helaena to Jacaerys (who is repeatedly described as honourable and good), she marries Helaena to her disrespectful and disgusting older brother. Alicent does this to tie Helaena and Dreamfyre to the Greens with no regard for Helaena, despite Aegon being a serial rapist and pedophile.

10. (Show and Book). Enables Aegon's behaviour in sexually harassing and raping servants, including one of her own handmaids. Rather than discipline him, she gives no consequence and sets the girl off. She sweeps Aegon's horrible behaviour under the carpet no matter the consequences on others - particularly the maids he likes to pinch that are terrified of him.

11. (Show) Frequently physically and emotionally abused/neglects her children. She smacks Aegon twice for no reason (not even as discipline but out of anger), and when he loses his son Jaehaerys, Alicent walks away from his crying without a word. When Aegon is in the carriage before being crowned, she can't even bring herself to tell her nearly crying child she loves him because she doesn't. When Aegon is burnt and physically disabled, Alicent does not even try to comfort him but watches in disgust. She does not comfort Helaena either for Jaehaerys' death, but just tries to absolve her own guilt.

12. (Show) Allows Aegon to mercilessly bully Aemond, with the whole Pink Dread situation being Aegon's fault as the eldest and main instigator. She continues to let it happen and does not do any real action to quell Aegon and Aemond's disputes. She also allows for Aegon and Aemond to bully the Velaryon boys and spread rumours of their supposed bastardy.

13. (Book) Told Jaehaera to cut off Aegon III's head despite Jaehaera being a traumatised child who had watched her twin brother die the same way. Aegon III is also a small child. This directly leads to Jaehaera committing suicide, and Alicent is left with the consequences of her actions. She has killed every member of her family, and destroyed the realm all to put her inept son on the throne.

#wrote this in one sitting lol #i probably have forgotten more but this was getting really long #game of thrones #got #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #hotd #house of the dragon #anti alicent hightower #anti team green #team black #dance of the dragons #alicent hightower hate #i hate alicent hightower

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daenerys-apolog1st · 2 days ago

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I'm gonna be so serious right now, every time I see someone from Team Green say that the show- "favors team black" -I just wanna ask what fucking show they're watching and if they can send it to me.

This ridiculous show has taken like 75% of the shit that happens in the books and either changed it or completely omitted it, all to either make TG seem more sympathetic or TB look bad.

Want some examples?

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In the books, Rhaenyra's sons' legitimacy was questioned, but in all likelihood they were 100% legitimate and the "bastard" rumors were mainly spread/believed by TG and their supporters---Rhaenys even had "dark" hair just like Rhaenyra's sons and, if I remember correctly, Aemma's appearance wasn't described but she had Arryn blood which would lend to the boys' dark hair as well.

In the show, they made her sons definitively bastards (at least by blood) and took away how Rhaenys looked in the book, making her have the stereotypical Targaryen features just to make Rhaenyra look stupid I guess.

In the books, Alicent Hightower was 18 years old and willingly went after Viserys because she---like her father---wanted power and wanted her blood on the throne. Viserys, at the time, was like 27 if I remember correctly.

In the show, Alicent is about 15 and is forced by her father to go after Viserys, who seems to be of about 40-50 years of age.

In the books, Alicent Hightower---a grown woman---had beef with an 8 year old little girl for no reason other than the fact that Viserys wouldn't write her off as heir in order to favor her son.

In the show, Alicent hates Rhaenyra because of childhood best friend drama---they made her and Rhaenyra the same age---and the fact that Rhaenyra didn't tell her about having a one night stand, betrayal yada yada, plus jealousy because Rhaenyra is "free" and Alicent "isn't" (even though they have similar power at the time as queen and princess, Rhaenyra just actually utilizes it).

In the books, Alicent has 0 remorse for Rhaenyra's sons dying and TG quite literally throws a party after Aemond kills Lucerys.

In the show, Alicent sends letters to Rhaenyra apologizing for his death and Aemond killing Luce was apparently an "accident" that he kinda feels bad for.

In the books, Alicent Hightower 100% supported usurping Rhaenyra and did it knowingly---she didn't give a fuck about Viserys wishes, her father didn't do jack shit, she just wanted her son on the throne and put him there.

In the show, apparently Alicent was "manipulated" into the usurpation by her father and really thought that Viserys wanted Aegon as heir---his dying wish or whatever---and she thought all the usurpation talk was just...idk a joke or something- (even though this retcon literally goes against what was established in S1).

In the books, Rhaenyra was said to always be dressed in jewels and fine fabrics, remembered for her beauty and how she adorned herself. Rhaenyra was also said to have had multiple ladies in waiting that she was close friends with, including Laena Velaryon and Harwin Strong's sisters.

In the show, Rhaenyra tends to be dressed in plainer or just downright ugly clothes and her femininity is stripped away, meanwhile Alicent Hightower is the one the showrunners decided to give the beautiful detailed gowns to and they allowed her to be feminine. Also all of Rhaenyra's female friendships were removed and tossed in the trashcan so that Alicent was her only friend.

In the books, Daemon really did love Laena as well as Baela and Rhaena. Daemon fought for Laena's hand and literally begged Viserys to let him present his daughters at court.

In the show, Daemon doesn't give a fuck about Laena or his daughters and the few scenes that were filmed that show Daemon being a loving husband/father got cut.

In the books, Rhaenyra, Daemon, and Laena were basically a throuple---they were said to visit each other often, fly their dragons together, and as soon as Rhaenyra heard that Laena was in childbirth she flew all the way to Driftmark to attend to her. After Laena's death both Daemon and Rhaenyra were heartbroken, with Rhaenyra even sitting vigil at Laena's bedside.

In the show, Rhaenyra's relationship with Laena is completely erased. Daemon and Rhaenyra fuck at her funeral.

In the books, Rhaenys is Rhaenyra's number 1 defender and is immediately ready to go to war for her birthright because she understands how she feels and still feels robbed of her own birthright.

In the show, Rhaenys has beef with Rhaenyra when she's a child, criticizes her for going to war when she's older, and only seems like mildly annoyed about not being queen.

In the books, Jeyne Arryn 100% supports Rhaenyra because 1. Arryn on her mothers side and 2. because women need to stick together in this "world of men." Rhaenyra also has support from the majority of the houses and the smallfolk, all said to have marched even after her death to "fight for Viserys' little girl."

In the show, Jeyne Arryn doesn't give a fuck about Rhaenyra and the other houses don't seem to either, Rhaenyra's title as the "Realm's Delight" is apparently just bullshit I guess.

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I could go on, but y'all get the point.

The idea that this bullshit "favors Team Black" is ridiculous, and do you wanna know the worst part? They're not even writing the changes well. I think I'd take the changes better if the show were actually written well and fully leaned into them, but instead they're just throwing around half-baked ideas and even going back on things that they already established in their own show!

I mean Alicent was 100% down with usurpation in S1, but in S2 apparently she didn't know? Be so fucking serious 💀

This show is just trying to make money off of some stupid- "choose your side" -marketing scheme and the writing is suffering for it, plus it's just changing the story into something completely different. If they wanted to change it this much then they should've just made an original show or something, because this is getting ridiculous.

#asoiaf #house of the dragon #anti team green #team black #alicent hightower critical #anti alicent hightower #anti alicent stans #rhaenyra targaryen #daemon targaryen #laena velaryon

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duxbelisarius · 2 days ago

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Back to the Dance Part Two: Environment and Logistics in the Dance

Thank you to those that have read along thus far; here's Part One of this new series if you haven't had the chance to read it yet!

Now that we've covered the political background of the Seven Kingdoms and the lead up to the Dance, we can start discussing the war itself. The next four parts will cover aspects of warfare in this setting and our own history, starting with the environment and logistics; we'll touch on aspects of the plot where it intersects with the topic at hand, discussing what we know about warfare in the pre-modern world, the conduct of warfare in George's series, and where problems arise in the Dance in trying to reconcile the latter with the former. Covering the environment of Westeros and what we know about logistics there, ie how do people, goods, and services move from place to place, allows us to assess how these factors affect warfare during the Dance (or don't affect it). This is important for establishing what is militarily possible for the Blacks and Greens to achieve, before we even get to how the actually fight.

Assessing the role of the environment is necessary given that it generally determines or influences how one fights: the deserts of southern Dorne will require different equipment and approaches to campaigning than the open expanse of the North. We know from F&B that Rhaenyra's coronation most likely took place on the 12th day of the 3rd Moon (March 12th; we'll use our calendar hereafter) 129 AC, and that autumn was well advanced by the team Jace arrived at Winterfell. We thus know that it was autumn by the latter part of March and remained so until Maiden Day the following year, after which it was winter for the next 5-6 years, meaning that the entire Dance took place during autumn and winter. We'll get into some of the issues that years long seasons create for the setting, but the fact that the war was fought for more than two years entirely in the autumn and winter creates immediate problems.

It should be noted that the seasons have symbolic as well as literal meaning in the series for George, who speaks of summer as a time of "growth and plenty and joy" while winter is "a dark time where you have to struggle for survival." There's nothing necessarily wrong with this view of the seasons, but the affect of the seasons on warfare in our own history is something which does not appear to carry over into the books. The years long seasons in particular create problems for the setting given that the cyclical nature of our seasons had an affect historically on two human activities in particular: seafaring and military campaigning.

Written around the early 5th Century AD, Vegetius' De Re Militari identified which months of the year were deemed safe for navigation; while the climate of the Mediterranean is renowned for being temperate and ideal for habitation, the weather can be exceptionally dangerous even outside the expected autumn and winter months, as seen in 2022 when unexpectedly heavy weather blew an F/A-18 Hornet off the deck of the USS Harry S. Truman in July. By our modern calendar, Vegetius deemed navigation permissible from May 27th to September 14th, with navigation becoming more dangerous due to severe weather from Sept. 14th to November 11th while Nov. 11th to March 10th was deemed too dangerous, and advising not to venture out before May 15th (DRM, 146). There is room for nuance in this picture however: per Oded Tammuz' investigation of ancient shipping accounts from the Eastern Mediterranean, the risks Vegetius attaches to winter weather (minimal daylight and long nights, dense cloud cover, fog, and violent winds) mainly applied to coastal vessels who risked shipwreck or foundering from taking on too much water, while ships on the open sea only really risked the latter fate. Michael McCormick made similar findings in Origins of the European Economy: Papal communications to France and Germany between AD 580 and 700 did not travel north in January, February or March when sea travel was used, but still took place even in October, November, and December (McCormick, Origins, 79-80). Sailing during autumn and winter was risky but it did take place, most likely on the open sea rather than along the coasts.

With regards to Planetos, the Narrow, Sunset, Summer, and Shivering seas are probably closer to the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean than the Mediterranean, with the latter three arguably being oceans in their own right. The books don't ignore the dangers of seasonal bad weather as autumn is repeatedly described as a dangerous season for ships, especially in Arya's ADWD POV "The Ugly Girl" when the Kindly Man sends her to kill the maritime insurer, while Stannis' fleet is scattered by a storm en route to Blackwater Bay in ACOK. Nonetheless, the risks posed by autumn and winter weather to naval activities should have dire implications for the plot of the Dance; we'll cover naval warfare in greater detail during Part Four, but suffice it to say that the Ironborn are screwed in this scenario. According to F&B, Dalton Greyjoy was able to seize 75% of the ships in Lannisport harbour and sink the rest before sacking the city; just so we're clear, using the distance scale on Atlas of Ice and Fire's map of Westeros gives us a distance of c.400 miles (c.644 km) as the crow flies between Pyke and Lannisport. Sailing around the Westerlands coast to avoid being spotted or wrecked by the weather would probably add half or even double that distance, and oared ships like the Ironborn longboats aren't quite seaworthy enough to handle such navigation as I discussed in the Velaryon Blockade post (more on this in Part Four!).

Shipping was seasonal and so to was warfare, for while George refers to summer as a time of 'growth and plenty,' this is exactly what one needs for waging war. In Logistics of the Roman Army at War, Jonathan Roth notes that the 'campaigning season' for armies in the classical world depended on when grain and fodder from the harvest became available to feed the armies and their animals, with armies preferring to spend the winter months of December, January, and February in 'winter quarters' near supply bases (Roth, Roman Army, 137, 177). Harvest times also varied from region to region; to quote Roth at length:

According to Greek sources, farmers sowed most of their grains in autumn, between October 20 and November 25; harvesting began in Greece in the middle of May and in southern Italy in late May. In the eastern Mediterranean, farmers planted wheat and barley in November and December, harvested barley in April and wheat in May. The Egyptian harvest took place during the months Pharmouthi and Pachon (March 27 to May 25). A fast-growing “three-month wheat” was sown in the spring, sometime in early March, and harvested in May or June; barley, millet, and panic could also be sown in the spring. Spring sowing had the advantage of furnishing a rapid early crop on fallow land, but could be used only on land rich enough to carry a crop every year. In the eastern Mediterranean, grapes were picked through the summer, from June through September although sometimes as late as October. Legumes, such as lentils, peas and vetch were harvested in April and May, chickpeas as late as June; figs gathered in August and September, and olives between September and November. (Roth, 136-137).

We thus have a Mediterranean campaign season which likely began around March or May and continued to November at the latest, meaning 7-9 months at best for largescale warfare and 3-5 months of 'winter quarters' in which this would be off limits or greatly curtailed, unless stores could be drawn upon or an army had no choice but to fight.

We know that Westeros has many different climate regions as according to George, "The Mountains of the Moon get quite a lot of snow, the Vale and the riverlands and the west rather less, but some. King's Landing gets snow infrequently, the Storm Lands and the Reach rarely, Oldtown and Dorne almost never." This should mean that limits on growing even during the winter should not be too severe outside of the North, but the problem this presents should be obvious nonetheless. Years long winters should see long periods in which warfare is drastically curtailed if not absent entirely from large parts of Westeros, owing to the need to carefully conserve existing stores and the harvest produce, save for a place like Dorne where greater rain and cooler temperatures would make warfare more viable. We also have to ask how warfare would function during years long springs, summers, and autumns; would the armies be forced to stop fighting for a time to allow grain and fodder to be planted and replenished? That certainly isn't the impression the books give us: Jaime II of AFFC mentions that 2000 men of the Lannister Army were retained to assault Dragonstone while the rest were dismissed to their homes, but this is due to the War of the Five Kings being all but over; in Catelyn V of ASOS, Robb expects to march on Moat Cailin with 12000 men once Edmure and Roslin are wed and plans to retake the North from the remaining Ironborn despite the inclement weather, sparse population, and economic disruption the North has experienced from the war. The importance of winter quarters to premodern armies is lost in the setting due to the seasons being thrown out of whack, and the logistical challenges that the armies should face are only treated haphazardly by the narrative.

The question of how harvests work in Westeros is another area where the environment's role in the story requires scrutiny, as their timing and frequency is unclear. As Roth's previous quote shows that the relationship of harvest times to the seasons is a complex one, since harvest time is determined by how long it takes for crops to germinate, grow, and ripen, while the climate and weather of a season often determines what can be grown/planted. I bring this up because the books make it clear that keeping track of the seasons is difficult: in Catelyn I of ACOK, Catelyn thinks with regard to autumn that "even the wisest man never knew whether his next harvest would be the last;" TWOIAF outright admits that the Citadel is unable to predict the length or the changing of the seasons, and the best they can do is mark the shortening or lengthening of the days to notify the realm that the change is taking place. With no one able to know the seasons are changing until it is already taking place, how can populations reliably plant and harvest crops in the first place? This should open the door for autumn rains to ruin summer crops and for winter snow and rain to destroy what was planted in autumn, depending on when the planting took place vis a vis the season changing.

The plot of the Dance doesn't help these issues by invoking the harvest as a plot device at opportune times: Jace arrives at Winterfell when Cregan Stark is already in the midst of his winter preparations, while TWOIAF claims the need to keep every man he could for harvesting prior to winter delayed Cregan's sending aid to Rhaenyra; when Aemond and Criston Cole abandon Harrenhal sometime after the 'Fish Feed,' Aemond and Vhagar attack Castle Darry in the midst of the harvest being brought in; the Hightower Army experiences desertion after First Tumbleton as men leave for 'home and harvest;' and finally, Rhaenyra's requests for aid while taking refuge at Duskendale are met with the response that Cregan Stark could not send men until they "bring in our last harvest."

Determining when these harvests took place is possible to an extent: the Battle of the Honeywine took place a fortnight after the end of the Battle of the Gullet, so January 20th 130 AC, and allowing a week for a raven to reach King's Landing means that Aemond's mustering of his forces would be complete by February 10th, while his 20 day march to Harrenhal would have brought him there the day after Criston Cole on March 2nd, meaning the 'Fish Feed' would have taken place some time after and the harvest in the Riverlands would be taking place in March or April; I suggested in Part 9 of the original series that Tumbleton likely fell on April 30th, though April 28th is probably a more accurate date, meaning the Reach harvest would be taking place some time in May or June; as for the North, if we take what TWOIAF says to be true that the riots in King's Landing began on May 22nd, then Rhaenyra would have fled two days later (I mistakenly suggested 5 days before) and probably arrived at Duskendale on June 1st, while her ravens would likely have reached Winterfell after a fortnight which means the northern harvest was ongoing in mid-June. So the Riverlands was harvesting in March and/or April, the Reach in May and/or June, while the North was harvesting in June and may have done so or continued to do so the previous or following months (May-July).

Based on the quotes from George and Jonathan Roth, this sequencing makes no sense: per Roth, the Egyptian harvest ran from late March to late May whereas Italy and Greece to the north and west began their harvests in mid-to-late May. Yet despite the Reach rarely receiving snow and having by far the warmest climate in Westeros outside Dorne, the harvest in the Reach is a month behind the more northerly Riverlands which have suffered considerable damage from the war already? The North is even worse however, as we were told that the snow was already deep around Winterfell when Jace arrived there in March 129 AC, but somehow the North is harvesting at the same time as the Reach or just a month later despite winter having officially arrived weeks before on Maiden Day? In essence the plot invokes harvest time not because it is important to the setting, which would lead to serious questions about how people are to be fed with a war going on, but because it ensures foreordained outcomes by keeping the North 'on pause' and weakening the Hightower Army at the right time.

Instead of the environment constantly affecting the plot even on a small scale, the narrative uses it for deus-ex-machina purposes which causes serious dissonance given the effect the environment has on ASOIAF. Asha and Theon's POVs in ADWD give us a front-row seat for how miserable it is to be fighting a war in the North during late autumn, let alone winter, via the actions of Roose Bolton and Stannis Baratheon's armies. In Arya IX of ASOS, Arya and the Hound find Lord Harroway's Town all but submerged by the flooding Trident, and Catelyn's later POV chapters highlight the struggles of Robb's forces to make progress with so many fords and bridges washed out by the rain. But aside from adding 3-4 days to Aemond and Cole's march on Harrenhal, the rain which we should expect to be affecting the Seven Kingdoms in a year long autumn and at the beginning of a 5-6 year winter has next to no affect whatsoever.

Having discussed the issues with the environment in the plot of the Dance, we can now assess the role of logistics; we will identify the logistical means available to the setting and the extent to which logistics actually influences the armies, or if logistics like the environment is not integrated into the narrative. For those who haven't read the Dorne analysis, my analysis of logistics in the pre-modern era is indebted to Hugh G. W. Davie, in particular his article discussing the economics and logistics of horse-drawn armies (I'll once again recommend checking out his blog if you have an interest in military logistics and the Eastern Front of WWII in particular). He provides a useful model for understanding the logistics of pre-modern armies, viewing them as 'micro-economies' that had to meet their demand with transport and supply inputs to output mobility.

Demand encompasses all the maintenance requirements of an army's personnel and animals, such as rations for humans, fodder for animals, water for both, alcohol for daily human consumption and to substitute water if safe sources are unavailable, fuel such as firewood for warmth, food preparation and operating forges, among numerous other items. We haven't even discussed the amounts of these items that might be required, but it should already be clear that the appetite of a pre-modern army could be voracious, although there were methods on the demand side that could be used to mitigate this. Temporarily reducing ration and fodder consumption or substituting with local forage and grazing the animals could preserve an army's stores and extend its range, forced marches could be used to cover great distance in a short amount of time with reduced consumption, unnecessary baggage, wagons, and carts might be abandoned to cut down on the number of camp followers who would otherwise add to the army's demand, and an army might be divided into separate hosts to disperse it's consumption of a region's supplies so as to avoid exhausting them (the maxim of 'march divided, fight united').

None of those methods save for the last two could be more than short term solutions, and mobility ultimately depended on meeting existing demand with supplies and transport. Supply sources will vary depending on the surrounding environment and enemy intervention, but Davie identifies three primary means with which an army can obtain supplies: Forage, gathered locally by one's troops; requisitions from the local population; and stores drawn from one's own magazines and conveyed to the army via transport. Forage is heavily dependent upon local population density, which is a rabbit hole I have no intention of going down in the context of ASOIAF; suffice it to say that gathering forage locally in this setting might be possible for a small and/or dispersed host, but larger armies would need to rely on requisitions and magazines for their needs. Requisition involves receiving stores directly from the local authorities, population, and markets, potentially by force but most often through purchase, while magazines involve stockpiling stores from one's own supplies along the army's lines of communication and transporting them where needed. A quote from Part Two of the Dornish Analysis should put in perspective the quantities of supplies needed:

Some idea of what these sources would have to yield for the Dornish can be gleaned from Jonathan Roth's excellent book The Logistics of the Roman Army at War (264 BC-AD 235), which analyzes the supply of the Roman Army from the early Republic until the Crisis of the Third Century. The Roman soldier's daily ration consisted of 1 to 1.3 kilograms (2-3 lbs) of grain and non-grain rations, and a minimum fluid requirement of 4 liters, half of which would be consumed via breathing and eating and the other half by drinking water, with another 4 liters or more required for daily operations in the form of water and alcohol (combat demands would certainly exceed 8 liters per day). Horses called for a 9.5 kg daily ration of hard and dry/green fodder, or 14 kg of pasturage, with 30 liters of water; pack animals like donkeys and mules required 7.5 kg, 11 kg and 20 liters respectively while oxen required 18 kg, 22 kg and 30 liters. To put those numbers into perspective, 1000 Dornish soldiers would need 1 tonne of food and 8 or more tonnes of water per day, with more needing to be stockpiled to support marches and combat. 100 Dornish knights with perhaps 2 horses each would need to furnish their mounts collectively with 2 tonnes of fodder and 6 tonnes of water daily.

This brings us to the third 'point' of the triangle, transport, without which an army's demand cannot be met and it's supplies are inaccessible. Despite being a fantasy setting, Westeros is in the same boat as our own world prior to the steam and internal combustion engines: moving people, goods, and services from one place to another requires some combination of water, wind, and muscle power. The former two involve seaborne and riverine transport, although oars were also utilized by watercraft in these situations as were poles and towing by draft animals for inland waterways. Land transport was entirely dependent on muscle power, with soldiers and/or porters carrying what they could manage or else depending on wagons, carts, and pack animals.

We'll discuss shipping in greater detail when covering naval warfare in Part Four, but suffice it to say that both factions have ample capacity for sealift within the setting. Oared and pure sailing vessels are utilized regularly in the books for moving goods and people throughout Westeros, while the ample coastlines of the Narrow and Sunset Seas possess numerous ports capable of serving both factions needs, weather permitting. An excellent example of what sealift could achieve comes from the Cretan Expedition of AD 911, launched by the Byzantine Empire against Muslim pirates stationed on that island; to meet this threat and that of other Arab pirates in the Levant, 15600 ground troops with equipment, supplies, and animals were provided transport by a fleet of 112 Dromons and 75 Pamphyloi (Dromons used for cargo transport) (Pryor and Jeffries, Age of the Dromon, 548-550). Westeros has access to larger ships than these for transport, so the main limits to what could be moved would be the availability of ships and port capacity. That being said, sealift would likely play more of a strategic role in war, moving troops and materiel around the periphery, with inland water and land transport being necessary to connect these to the interior.

I addressed inland water transport throughout the original analysis, but it warrants detailed discussion here for it's potential to connect armies in the field with supply centers that would be too distant to draw supplies from overland. Making effective use of riverine supply lines depends upon the navigability of the rivers themselves, ie the depth of the river, prevalence of debris and man-made obstacles such as mills, dams, and bridges, the strength of the current, etc. Fortunately for the setting, the regions where the bulk of the fighting takes place are home to three highly navigable rivers: the Trident, the Mander, and the Blackwater. Jaime I of ASOS states outright that the forks of the Trident are the easiest way to move goods and people throughout the Riverlands and TWOIAF confirms this, saying they "stimulate trade and travel during peace time, and serve as both roads and barriers in time of war."

The Mander's navigability is similarly high: although Victarion's AFFC POV "The Reaver" calls the Mander "wide and slow and treacherous with snags and sandbars," this mainly limits sea-going vessels to sailing no further than Highgarden, whereas Ironborn longboats can navigate as far as Bitterbridge and utilized all the vassal streams for raiding the Reach long ago. TWOIAF confirms this image, offering anecdotes of the Ironborn raiding up the Mander and of John Gardener "the Tall" who sailed his barge to the headwaters of the Mander and won the fealty of the local lords and petty kings of the region. The Blackfish's account of the Battle of the Blackwater in Catelyn II of ASOS provides further evidence of the Mander's navigability, as Tywin, Mathis Rowan, and Randyll Tarly travel to the battle from Tumbler's Falls on the Blackwater thanks to barges provided by Mace Tyrell. We know that Petyr Baelish negotiated the Tyrell-Baratheon alliance with Mace at Highgarden, so those barges would had to have come up the Mander with most if not all the troops that may have joined Mace, before they travelled overland to the Blackwater.

Our information on the Blackwater is much more scattered but indicates that it is also highly navigable; it certainly had to be for Tywin and Mace's forces to travel down river on those barges! The Blackwater is consistently described as deep and swift in the books with it's current being strongest where the river empties into Blackwater Bay; despite this, Imry Florent's ships were able to move upriver against the current when Stannis attacked King's Landing, and Cersei VI of AFFC notes that Margaery Tyrell is fond of sailing up and down the Blackwater Rush. We even hear from Sallador Saan in Davos II of ASOS that the galleys Ragged Jenna and Laughing Lord are said to be playing pirate on the Blackwater after having been far enough upriver to avoid the wildfire during Stannis' attack, suggesting even seafaring warships could venture far upriver to some extent. The river's high navigability is further indicated by the fact that ferries are the only means of crossing to King's Landing from the south based on Sansa IV of ACOK and Sansa II of ASOS, while Borros Baratheon's men fell trees to make rafts when they arrive at the Rush following the Moon of the Three Kings. The absence of a bridge over the lower Blackwater suggests that large vessels are expected to travel some ways up the lower river at least, as it's unlikely a bridge would be an obstacle if river traffic consisted only of smaller vessels capable of lowering their masts or those lacking one.

Regarding the capabilities of riverine transport, Jonathan Roth notes that the Romans possessed riverboats with a capacity of 34 tonnes, though most were smaller capacity craft of c. 9 tonnes. Even a 9 tonne boat could carry as much as 18 wagons or 72 pack animals, and with greater speed than land transport (Roth, 197). River transport also has the advantage of requiring less effort than land transport to move heavy loads, with a barge towed by a horse able to move 250 times the load the horse could carry on land. When the Roman Emperor Julian invaded the Sassanid Persian Empire in AD 363, he used a fleet of 1100 river vessels to carry siege engines, bridging equipment, and 6 months supplies for the bulk of his 65000 strong invasion force on its march from Callinicum (Raqqa) to Ctesiphon (Al-Mada'in), about 600 km (c.373 miles) as the crow flies. The main challenge facing this method is the rivers themselves, as the water level can rise or fall depending on the weather and render navigation difficult if not impossible.

This brings to land transport, the evidence for which in the books and which is in keeping with our knowledge of premodern methods. These include pack animals such as horses, donkeys, and mules, and wheeled transport in the form of two-wheeled carts and four-wheeled wagons (for goods) and carriages (for passengers), pulled most often by oxen and horses though donkeys and mules could also be used. The question of how important land transport was economically and it's efficiency compared to waterborne transport is complicated. The books tend to overestimate it: Catelyn II and III of ACOK provide us observations of Renly's host which imply the entire force of perhaps 100000 is moving by land, including "mangonels and trebuchets and rolling rams moved on wheels taller than a man on horseback." Upon learning of Stannis besieging Storm's End, Renly leaves behind "his wagons, carts, draft animals, and all his cumbersome siege machinery" with his foot soldiers and races to Storm's End. Catelyn notes that "he had outdistanced his supply lines, left food and forage days behind with all his wagons and mules and oxen. He must come to battle soon, or starve."

In reality, siege engines would be built on site of the siege as they were far too large to haul on the march, while such a large host should be relying on the Mander as a supply artery and drawing stores from friendly towns and holdfasts rather than foraging directly from the local region. That being said, if Renly's movements paint too rosy a picture of land transport in a premodern setting, it is also true that it is often discounted as too expensive and slow for anything beyond shortrange hauling. Reality was more complicated however, as Jonathan Roth notes that we have evidence of long distance land transport in Roman sources, such as pack trains carrying British tin through Gaul to the Mediterranean, a 640 km (c. 400 mile) journey which too over a month (Roth, 198). A common misconception was that Roman horse collars were inefficient and even harmful and that this limited the potential of land transport prior to the High Middle Ages; as Gail Brownigg notes in her article "The Origin of the Horse Collar," this misconception was based on faulty fitting of Roman collars to horses in modern experiments, and the fact that these were intended for pulling chariots and other light vehicles at speed while oxen were used for heavy hauling well into the Medieval era.

The limitations pre-modern and especially Medieval land transport faced were not technological but distance and infrastructure-based, as traveling great distances required providing rest and sustenance for the animals and their drivers, and depended on routes being able to support traffic since wheeled vehicles could be damaged if the state of the roads was poor. Cost was certainly a factor but it was far from insurmountable, as James Masschaele demonstrated using royal purveyance accounts in 1993; these record goods moved on behalf of the English crown for military purposes in the 13th and 14th century, and suggest that the ratio of land to river to sea transport in terms of cost was 8:4:1. Clearly there was an incentive to use waterborne over land transport, but on average the selling price of grain increased by only 4% for each mile it travelled, doubling for every 250 miles carried by land (Masschaele, "Transport Costs," 273-274). Although England is far smaller than most of the Seven Kingdoms, Masschaele notes that a ten mile trip would give most producers access to several markets, while the price of grain would be halved if the cargo could reach a river port and travel that way (Masschaele, 274). This last point is important for enabling land transport to meet army demand, since I pointed out in Part Three of the Dornish Analysis that land transport alone can only get one so far:

In Firearms: A Global History to 1700, Kenneth Chase gives some numbers for the transport requirements of a pre-modern army: An army of soldiers carrying 80 pounds of equipment and rations with no additional transport might march 12 miles a day for 10 days before running out; adding pack horses, carrying 250 pounds and consuming 10 pounds of fodder per day, might allow that army to make the round trip if supplies of grass, water and forage could be ensured. Supply wagons with a driver and two horses consuming 23 pounds per day and carrying 1400 pounds of supplies could each support 30 infantrymen enough for an army to march 200 miles, assuming 1 day of rest in 6 for the horses and favourable terrain. To double this range and allow the army to make a round trip of 400 miles, would require the number of wagons to increase from 1 per 30 men to 1 per 5 men, while removing abundant water and grass from the equation would cut the distance fivefold (400 miles to 80) (Firearms, pg. 17-18).

If the armies in this setting can establish magazines and hold markets at towns and holdfasts along their marching routes, and make use of the rivers to the greatest possible extent, their range of movement and thus mobility will be greatly extended. Larger teams of horses and oxen can be used to move heavier loads over shorter distances to these depots or river ports, allowing large stocks to be accumulated and moved via relays at the former or simply shipped greater distances via the latter. Moving armies and their supplies great distances would present issues, but these are manageable provided that land based supply chains and waterborne transport are combined effectively.

The question for the Dance is whether any of this actually matters in the plot, or if logistics is ignored like the environment in pursuit of predetermined outcomes. Fortunately the Blacks and the Greens each offer us an example of major operations being conducted, where at least 2 of the three transport methods we discussed could be used: the Riverlord armies and the Hightower army. The Riverlords conduct four major campaigns during the Dance: the first is led by Daemon against the Greens supporters in the Riverlands in 129 AC; the second begins after Daemon leaves for King's Landing in 130 AC, and sees them defeat the Lannister host and Ser Criston Cole before their army is annihilated at Tumbleton; the third is Second Tumbleton, which sees a newly raised host defeat the Hightower Army under Addam Velaryon; and the fourth and final campaign is in 131 AC when the Lads defeat Borros Baratheon at the Kingsroad.

In none of these campaigns do we get a sense that logistics affects the Blacks in any meaningful way, starting with how Daemon raises his army. Harrenhal is captured soon after Rhaenyra's coronation or c. March 13th, 129 AC, with Daemon securing the ruined castle and its wealth. We know that the initial supporters of Rhaenyra included the Freys, Mootons, Pipers, Darrys, Mallisters, the Rootes of Harroway, and the Vances of Wayfarer's Rest, with thousands of supporters supposedly flocking to Harrenhal in the days that followed. The only houses that we know supported Aegon II are the Brackens and the Vances of Atranta; when Stone Hedge surrenders, we're told that Aegon's supporters laid down their arms, suggesting there were other houses besides these two that supported him though none are ever mentioned. This is significant as Daemon's plan relies on amassing an army and presumably the supplies to maintain it at Harrenhal, a dilapidated half-ruin in the east of the Riverlands. The Trident, the God's Eye, and the roads would certainly facilitate these movements, but all the same I think HOTD actually got something right with the subplot of repairing Harrenhal, as the large quantities of men, animals and supplies would need to be kept safe from the elements (if the environment mattered that is).

Despite this, we have no indication of any Green houses interfering with this build up, either in the 'war of ravens' that followed Aegon and Rhaenyra's coronations or in the Stone Hedge campaign that began sometime after the murder of Prince Jaehaerys. We know from Jaehaerys' royal progress in 52 AC that Atranta is somewhere between Pinkmaiden and Stoney Sept, since the King travelled Harrenhal-Riverrun-Acorn Hall-Pinkmaiden-Atranta-Stoney Sept; despite this, neither the Pipers nor the Vances of Wayfarer's Rest are prevented from answering the call and the Pipers are even counted among Daemon's forces at Stone Hedge. Daemon manages to march his host, largely comprised of houses from the eastern Riverlands, from Harrenhal to Stone Hedge or c. 200 miles based on Atlas' map; this distance is entirely achievable for Daemon's host of unknown size, but it also relies on Daemon facing no interference on his march and arriving at Stone Hedge when the Brackens are absent.

When Daemon departs Harrenhal for King's Landing, the Riverlords abandon also the castle that was their primary base and depot for more than a year but there is no indication of any supplies be left behind sabotaged or otherwise that Aemond and Cole find, while rain only impedes the Green advance on Harrenhal and has no such affect on the larger Riverlord host. At almost 10000 strong including the Winterwolves, the Riverlord host has no apparent difficulties finding supplies nor is this an issue when the c.7000 strong army occupies Tumbleton in the lead up to the first battle. Even when this host is destroyed, Addam Velaryon raises another one in short order; this new 4000 strong host is raised from House Frey, Blackwood, Vypren, Piper, Smallwood, Deddings, Vance, and Darry, and allegedly includes forces of House Tully as well. Addam also manages this despite our knowing that all these houses save Tully, Vypren, and Deddings have suffered heavy losses in the past months, with the Darrys having seen their castle and lands burned by Vhagar. Distance seems not to be an issue either, even though Harrenhal alone is c.500 miles (c.805 km) from Tumbleton as the crow flies, and we know that Addam's forces attacked from the north and west. Unless they could move men and supplies down the Blackwater or draw upon local stores as they marched, even if they force marched for a time Addam's army would have collapsed before it ever reached Tumbleton. The same issues present themselves with the Lads march on King's Landing in 131 AC, where c.6000 men are raised at Riverrun by the Tullys, Freys, Blackwoods, Vances, Darrys, Mallisters, and Brackens. Between the Trident and the Riverroad the Lads should have had no issue reaching the Kingsroad at Harroway Town, but from there to King's Landing is a 375 mile (c.600 km) march; since they would be marching through hostile territory and could not count on requisitioning stores from towns and holdfasts along the way, the Lads would need to stick close to the God's Eye and the Blackwater in order to be supplied by watercraft, otherwise they're on a one-way trip.

It's often remarked upon especially by fans of the Greens that the Riverlords have infinite manpower, but as a Green fan myself I think this impression results from their logistics being ignored. Aegon's host at the Field of Fire was 11000 strong and drawn mainly from the Riverlands, while Edmure Tully's forces at the Battle of the Fords was some 12000 strong; I estimated in Part Four of the original analysis that the Riverlord host at the Fish Feed was c.7000 strong excluding the Winterwolves while the Lads army was c.6000 strong. Over 13000 men is in line with what we've seen elsewhere in the books, the problem is that the weather never affects their movements, the need for harvest labour never impedes their raising armies, and their armies never struggle with supplies and seem capable of appearing out of nowhere.

By contrast, the Hightower army runs into logistical problems even when it ought not to and largely at the convenience of the plot. Following Rook's Rest, Ormund Hightower sets out with a host of 1000 knights, 1000 archers, and 3000 men-at-arms, along with thousands of sellswords, freeriders, and camp followers, to subdue Rhaenyra's supporters in the Reach. I tried my hand in the previous analysis to estimate the size of this army but I think it's better to stick with the numbers we're given; even if the total host was 10000 strong with over half combatants, this would still require substantial land and riverine transport based on the Roseroad and Honeywine to support the initial march. Of the five houses that are bannermen to the Hightowers per the AFFC appendix, Costayne, Beesbury, and Mullendore all support Rhaenyra while Bulwer and Cuy never appear in the Dance, ensuring that maintaining secure supply lines would be difficult. Although we're told that the Caswells and Rowans raised a host similar to Ormund's in size, as with the Riverlords the Blacks in the Reach have no issues with Green supporters impeding their advance or threatening their supplies, since the Hightowers and Redwynes are the only houses we know of that support Aegon from the outset.

Ormund does have to contend with his supply lines being attacked, as the Costaynes fall upon his baggage train while the Beesburys and Tarlys burn fields and harass his forces. They manage this despite Three Towers being just under 150 miles (c.240 km) south of Oldtown, Honeyholt being just under 100 miles (c.160 km) to the north, and Horn Hill being 100 leagues/300 miles (c.483 km) to the northeast. No assistance or warning against these attacks is given from any of the other surrounding houses or the Hightower's own demenses, nor do Ormund's assailants have to worry about their own supplies. Under these circumstances, it's unclear why the Caswells and Rowans even needed to attack Ormund when the Tarlys, Beesburys, Costaynes, and Mullendores should have been able to keep Ormund bottled up in the Honeywine valley, leaving the Blacks in the Reach proper to attack the Greens elsewhere (more on this when we get to strategy in the Dance). Even if Ormund broke out of the valley, the Oakhearts and the Shield Islands are also supporters of Rhaenyra and are well placed to cut off the mouth of the Mander from the Sunset Sea, and Ormund cannot sustain an advance to King's Landing without the Hightower and Redwyne fleets moving supplies from the south up the Mander.

Following the defeat of the Black armies at the Honeywine on January 20th, 130 AC, the Hightower army sets it's sights on King's Landing. By the time of the 'Fish Feed' in March, Goldengrove, Old Oak, and the Shield Islands have submitted and the army lays siege to Longtable, eventually sacking Bitterbridge and taking Tumbleton by c. April 28th. The distance from Tumbleton to Brightwater Keep at the source of the Honeywine is just under 800 miles (c.1290 km), meaning the Hightower army covered that distance in almost 100 days between the Battle of the Honeywine and the First Battle of Tumbleton. That's a marching rate of c.8 miles per day, but when we consider the delays likely caused by the siege of Longtable, the sack of Bitterbridge, and the submission of the Oakhearts, Rowans, and Shield Islands, it's likely the marching rate was closer to the ideal 10-12 miles per day. This is significant, as according to Maester Munkun by the time the Hightower army crossed the Mander at Bitterbridge it numbered more than 20000 strong, with a tenth of them mounted knights.

If we take 20000 as our figure, this means the soldiers alone would have required 20 tonnes of rations and 160 tonnes of water each day; as for animals, if we assume each knight had two horses then we have 4000 warhorses in total, while giving the army one 2-horse wagon per five men would mean a total of 12000 horses. Excluding non-combatants, the Hightower army's total demand would be 20 tonnes of rations, 114 tonnes of fodder, and 520 tonnes of water per day. The amount of wagons and draft horses could be greatly reduced, as we suggested already, if the army utilized riverine transport and a magazine system for their supply chain. Establishing small garrisons at towns and holdfasts like Cider Hall, Longtable, and Bitterbridge to oversee the accumulation of stocks and allowing riverine and land transport to move stores up in relays should allow the army to maintain the over 8 mile per day pace we've calculated, by keeping the army's baggage to a minimum and allowing soldiers and pack animals to carry what supplies are needed on hand.

Unfortunately, the evidence F&B provides us suggests this is not at all how the Hightower army operates: when Longtable surrenders to Ormund, we're told he stripped the castle of it's wealth and every scrap of food, feeding his thousands on Lady Merryweather's grain; after the First Battle of Tumbleton, the man charged with the army's "baggage train", Ser Hobert Hightower, wishes to "fall back to the Reach to replenish their fast-dwindling supplies." Both anecdotes imply that the Hightower army supplies itself from forage on the move and carries with it what supplies it can, a remarkably ad hoc supply system that could not support a host of this size. Not only would it be impossible to meet the army's demand through foraging and carrying supplies via baggage train, we've already shown that this is unnecessary provided the army utilized riverine transport and established magazines as it advanced. With 5 men per wagon, the Hightower army could cover 400 miles before it ran out of supplies and was unable to turn back; adding the forces of local lords to his army as F&B claims Ormund did would only increase the logistical burden and offset any supplies obtained by plunder or forage. If the Hightower army functions as the narrative suggests, then it doesn't matter that Addam could not reach Tumbleton with his army, as Ormund's forces would never have made it past Bitterbridge.

Analyzing the Riverlords and the Hightower army shows that neither the environment nor logistics have more than a momentary effect on the plot of the Dance, influencing events here and there when it's convenient for the plot but otherwise being completely ignored. This negatively affects the story by removing stakes from the plot and making suspension of disbelief impossible. The worst part is that none of this was necessary, as there are fairly simple 'fix-its' that could be employed; for starters, have summer continue in 129 AC and autumn begin in 130 AC, with winter arriving in 131 AC. The fairer weather in summer and the earlier part of autumn would allow the armies of both sides to operate more freely, while allowing for more growing and harvesting of crops with which to feed said armies. As for logistics, having the armies operate more dispersed and/or stressing the importance of shipping, food storage, and magazines would show the armies are taking logistics seriously and place the writing on a better footing in that regard. I'll discuss this more and in greater detail when we cover strategy in the Dance, but these simple fix-its would go a long way to making the Dance better mechanically.

That wraps things up for Part Two; thank you for bearing with me through this fairly dry subject matter! Now that the 'board' is set up in terms of the Dance's political origins and the environment in which it was fought, we can start setting up the 'pieces' so-to-speak and look at how the Dance was fought on land, in the air, and at sea. Stay tuned for "Land Warfare in the Dance!"

#house of the dragon #hotd #asoiaf #asoiaf critical #grrm #grrm critical #fire and blood #fire and blood critical #daemon targaryen #ormund hightower #team black #team green

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varryvoo · 10 hours ago

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Arryn blue

In honour of the deceased mother

#the sims 4 #sims 4 #simblr #sims 4 screenshots #sims community #house of the dragon #hotd #fire and blood #rhaenyra targaryen #house targaryen #team black

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thisssees · 1 day ago

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Genuinely wondering, since I have seen many on TB (especially TikTok) talk about their love for Visenya, and many time in relation to Rhaenyra.

Like where did that come from?

Visenya, if anything is more like Alicent.

Both helped their son’s take the throne out of their own ambition (and some fear for the future) against the heir of the throne.

It seems that many constantly hate on Aegon for being an usurper, but suddenly praise Visenya.

#a song of ice and fire #house of the dragon #fire & blood #team black #team green #visenya targaryen #rhaenyra targaryen #alicent hightower

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celestiallenchantress · 2 days ago

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"Daemon would be a second Maegor, or worse. He is impulsive and violent. It is the duty of this council to protect the king and the realm from him"

Daemon:

#fandom #meme #fyp #fypage #tumlbr #hotd fandom #house of the dragon #hotd #daemon targaryen #team black

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pookaseraph · 3 days ago

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It’s also their last chance to have a ‘legitimate’ Green descendant down through the ages. It’s why they are obsessed with Jaehaerya living as well so there can be green in Dany’s blood. Their delusions that the greens ‘won’ are destroyed by the eradication of Alicent’s line, so they seek to make sure it’s not eradicated. If Alys’s son is a product of rape producing a bastard then they need to cry more again since their legitimacy (lol) stems from legitimacy.

Am I missing something? Why people act like the Alys and Aemond thing was the greatest love story ever ? Is it really the most anticipated subplot?

Because TGs have a weird condition that prevents them from seeing that rape is wrong. Aegon raped someone? So what, he's so handsome and his mother doesn't love him. Aemond took Alys as a "prize of war" and would have sex with her whether she wanted it or not? It's a beautiful love and their son made TG win.

#house of the dragon #team black #anti team green #anti team green stans

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rhaenyrathecruell · 6 months ago

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“Aegon the realm’s delight” is the saddest line ever. Aegon wants to be a daughter so bad. To be coddled and gazed upon with love and affection rather than distain and fear. Rhaenyra wishes to be a son. She wants the loyalty everyone has to be unwavering. She wants to be feared and respected like a man. They are truly two sides of the same coin.

#house of the dragon #hotd #hotd season 2 #team black #rhaenyra targaryen #hotd spoilers #king aegon #like man. i've never seen a child less loved in his life than aegon #hotd thoughts

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polartss · 8 months ago

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doodle (🥺)

#my art #digital art #alicent hightower #rhaenicent #hotd #hotd season 2 #house of the dragon #house hightower #team green #team black #sad kicked puppy eyes🥺#game of thrones #a song of ice and fire #asoiaf #fire and blood

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hauntedfictionland · 3 months ago

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❝His dear princess❞

☾︎✰❛❀ Jacaerys Velaryon x Fem! Reader!

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: Jacaerys did not want you, or the vow he was bound to for life. Yet when he makes a big mistake, and potentially loses you for good. He realises just how much you meant to him.

𝐈𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐬/𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Bastardphobia, mentions of death and grief, kissing, marrage of convenience and grumpy X sunshine trope, Jace is down bad, flirty!reader, guilt and anxiety and happy ending;)

🪐𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬: This is one of my first house of the dragon fics ever, so I truly hope it's not too bad. Jacaerys is one of my favourite characters in hotd after Alicent so I really wanted to get his characteristics and behaviour right. Also, I didn't like the way they showed his grief after Luke died, as if he just moved on after two or three days. But overall, I enjoyed writing this:)

Jacaerys was infuriated with you.

You—his betrothed, acted like you owned the castle as soon as you strutted in. Speaking with no formality and a sharpness in your tongue that only infuriated him further. And especially when you did not seem to care for his heritage, who he was. The heir to the iron throne. Yet you acted as if he didn't exist to you. As if he meant nothing to you.

A marriage pact with the martells was only one of convenience. You, a princess of dorne, he, the firstborn son of queen Rhaenyra. Yet, they were stuck in dragonstone, and needed support to match the strength of the green armies. His mother needed this arrangement more than the martells did, and you made that very clear by acting carelessly and so freely, like you were in your own home. By taunting him, sitting at the great council table with your legs on them, a coin in your fingertips and a smirk in your lips. He hated it, he hated especially how good you looked.

He hated being betrothed to you already.

Rhaenyra had told him martells were rather, open and modern people. They took part in adultery even after being married, especially with the consent of their own partner. He did not know how anyone could be okay with such acts. He did not know what to expect when he met you, but it certainly wasn't how you commented on his face, calling him one of a beauty. It was inappropriate, calling a prince by such bold remarks on the first meeting, yet you did not seem to care.

But what edged him to his limit was the day you called him a bastard.

Jacaerys had been worried, he couldn't find you anywhere. Not that he cared, he was just stressed you would create another ruckus. He looked around everywhere, the garden, the great council, the dining hall, your room, even his room, but you were nowhere to be found. His chest tightened, a restlessness growing in his stomach. It seemed he always felt that way without being with you for too long. Not because he missed you—of course, but because he wanted to ensure everything was going smoothly.

He was going around circles, head spinning with a feeling that made him uncomfortable. Where were you? did you flee the castle? or were so bored of him you went to the city to a brothel in search of another man to keep you company. Anger and jealousy filled in his chest at the mere thought of that.

Jacaerys did not seem where he was going, many thoughts inside his head, before he harshly opened a door to the library. And to his surprise, there you were, a book in your hand. ‘Adventures of Aegon the conqueror’, he could read the name of the book by how you were holding it. He felt he could breathe again. By the loud sound of the door opening your head flitted towards him. Your usual smirk growing up your lips. Something that made his heart flutter in a way he didn't want it to. He clenched his jaw, holding his fists in a tight ball.

“Where have you been?” he asks, desperate tone in his voice.

“Ah, Prince Jacaerys.” you smile, closing the book and turning your attention towards him. He hated how your eye lashes fluttered, your hair falling down in just the perfect way. “I've been gaining some Targaryen knowledge, as you can see. Since we are to be married, I thought I should know my husband's family. Don't you think?”

Husband.

That word rose heat to his cheeks, quickly clearing his throat.

“I'm not your husband.” he spoke, in a tone harsher than he intended, “At least not yet anyway.”

You smile wider, making his heart race. He was always a bit stubborn, and uptight. Yet you were always so carefree and light, always so kind with his demise. He didn't know what to make of it all. A curious look grazed upon your face, eyebrows furrowing. You sat up, walking onwards another shelf of books, lips pursued. Before looking at him.

“I have always wondered, hmm,” you say, your finger coming up to your lips, “do tell me prince Jacaerys, is it true that you were born out of wedlock?”

His eyes widened, “What did you say to me?”

You either did not notice the offend and defensiveness in his tone, or simply pretend not to. Turning to look at him, “I mean, all Targaryen children have white hair. Do they not? Even if they did not, none of your formal parents have black, dark hair like yours.”

His breath hitches, all of the insecurities he had contained in a jar of fireflies fled out the second you brought out his hair. A wall rising inside him. You were acting as if you just did not ask the most dangerous question ever. As if it did not matter to you.

“How dare you insinuate such filthy claims?!” his voice rises, almost shouting. Your eyes flicker surprise for a moment, before turning back to the usual stoic look.

“Ah, you are offended.” you state, as if he shouldn't be, “I meant no harm, my prince. I have no problem with you being a bastard. In fact, it only makes you more interesting. The thing I don't like is your distaste for the truth. One should own up to who they are.”

Bastard.

You, called him a bastard. He isn't able to speak for a moment, too tongue—tied. You....think of him this way too? you? he can't hear as you speak further, a ringing in his head. It only intensifies. Only when you start talking about dorne is when he snaps back from his haze.

“And I have thousands of brothers and sisters back in dorne, no one cares ther—”

“I don't care, what you dornish do back there, but here you don't speak to me with filths of a claim.” he grits, his voice cold, “I am the queen's son. And if I hear you say one word about that again, I will see you hanged.” his words held so much malice in them, one would believe it to be true.

Of course, he could never actually do that, the blacks needed martells armies more than ever. His mother couldn't afford them raging war at her and joining the green's side. And, he could never harm you either. It was just a baseless threat, one he said out of anger and insecurity. He immediately regretted it when he saw the look on your face; hurt. But even worse, fear. Before he could even begin to take them back, it was too late. Your spot, where you stood, was already empty.

You had seen him less and less after that. Of course, you were your usual self. Taunting and teasing him, but something was off. Something distant. He hated it. He hated how much he missed it. Your remarks, your witty replies, your cockiness. He wanted it back. He wanted you back.

Next time he sees you, it's in a completely unexpected place. Dragon—pit. He was about to ride on Vermax to patrol the skies, when he stops. There you were, sat on the hard rock, legs swinging at the edge of it and his dragon's head in your hands. You..you were feeding him. “What the hell do you think you're doing?!” he shouts, eye wide.

You turn your head to him, a smirk on your lips grows. You enjoyed the fact he was on his nerves, furious.

“What does it look like? I'm feeding this cute little angel right here.” you coo, talking to his dragon in a baby voice. Vermax was known for her temper, yet with you it magically dis—appears? a little bit inside him was flustered, heart beating faster than ever that you and his dragon, a very important part of his life, bonded flawlessly. But he shrugs it off, he has to. Flushing over you isn't his duty.

Protecting you is.

As much as he would like to deny it, you're his now. Lawfully so. And he wouldn't let anything happen to you. Especially Vermax. He wouldn't know how to live with himself if his own dragon were to be the cause of, of.. your demise. His throat burns, even the mere thought of harm coming to you feels as if he's being drowned to death. After Luke, he cannot lose anyone. Jacaerys cannot lose you. Even if that was the first thing he tried to do after meeting you. You were the most part of his frustrations yet the only thought when he's in his bed at night.

“Have you lost your mind?” he asks, his voice harsh, as if you were his child and he was scolding you for doing something childish.

“Have you had no fear? you could have died what were you even thinking?!” you falter for a moment, upon seeing the trembling of his hands and the tightness in his voice.

“Jacaerys—”

“No!” he interrupts you, “You, you could have been...do you even realise..”

Your eyes widened as he struggled to even breath, huffing for air anxiously. You quickly get up, walking towards him. He's so much inside his head that he doesn't notice your hands coming up his face, slinging through his dark curly hair. An act that slowed and claimed his beating heart down. Your soft palms make contact with both his cheeks, a peaceful shush in your voice and he finally breathes. Properly. He sighed, eyes closing as his hands came up to hold yours.

This, you, him? this felt oddly peaceful. This felt like home. Vermax watches the whole interaction with a quiet huff, turning away back to the pits. You nudge closer towards him, resting your forehead against his. Love. This felt like love. “Promise me” he starts out, his voice low and timid, “promise you will never do that again.” Instead of putting on a fight like you usually do, you nod, gently caressing his cheek. His head leaned further into your touch, putty in your hands.

“I promise.”

That, gives him great relief. “Good.”

Time seems to slow down, Jacaerys could count every freckle on your nose to cheeks, every small cut in between your knuckles or lips, every curve of smile you put on. And all the scents coming from your body that drove him crazy. You notice his lips still trembling, and above your judgement, you decide to kiss it better. He inhales a sharp breath as your lips touch his, but makes no movement to push you away. It's gentle, barely brushing against his. Jacaerys realised how they fit perfectly amidst his, and how much he was craving it all these months until he finally tasted them.

You slowly pull away, hesitantly. His eyes are still closed. Hands crawling up your waist. He speaks again, a whisper almost.

“I'm sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”

He's talking about the library, and you smiled softly, shaking your head.

“It's okay. You can't get rid of me that easily, Jace. Should have known that when you got betrothed to a dornish princess.”

You had already forgiven him. But he didn't want you to. He didn't want to be at your mercy this easily, not when he wasn't able to forgive himself. You, you had crept your way into his heart when he didn't want you to, and now he never wanted to let you go. It was all your fault.

“No I...” he shakes his head, “I never should have said that. Not only because it was so wrong but also because it was completely untrue.” Jacaerys swallows his breath, every bit of him wanted to turn away and never look back, but he couldn't do that. “I have been called names, about my heritage. Ever since I was a child. About my parenting and what not. And it's very...when anyone talks about it, it's like a bandage ripping off a new and fresh wound. No matter how many years pass by, it's still like that for me.”

You nod your head slowly, in understanding. This was raw. He had finally told you one of his darkest parts, his worst fears, and you hadn't run away.

“I understand. I should have never said that. I did not know it was like this for you.” He feels relief in your words.

But there was still something he needed to let out.

“But I...” he didn't know how hard this was for him until he started to actually say it, “I really could never mean it. What I said. Even if you have committed the worst treason or crime, even if you had taken my heart and carved it out, I still wouldn't be able to do one thing that might be even close to harming you. Believe me I have tried. And I have failed.”

He looks away from you, cheeks closing red. Jacaerys had just poured his heart out and gave it to you. But the chances of you, and feeling the same? were very dim. He sees stars when he sees you, what do you see? just him? or even worse? a filth in the name of a true born prince. A gasp leaves his lips as your fingers trace the outlines of his jaw, trailing down to his neck to his chest. You stopped at the red and black three dragons symbol made on the polish cloth he wore.

“Why do you think I agreed to this marriage? not because of this.” you point to the very symbol engraved on his chest, of the house targaryen, “If it was just for this, I certainly would have never.”

He turns his head back to you, confusion in his face. He also feels a bit of guilt in him. At first, he only agreed to this pact because his mother had no choice. Because of your house. Nothing else. And you're saying that his house didn't even matter to you when you agreed to this betrothal? then why? you did not even know what he looked like, and you simply agreed?

“Why then?”

That's the question that's now left in him. Why, if his house and title didn't matter?

“Well,” your lips curl up, a glint in your eyes, as a blush arose your cheeks, “From years I had heard stories of Targaryen princes. How arrogant and unkind they were, your cousins, Aegon and Aemond, well I certainly didn't hear anything good about them. And then you came. The velaryon prince, the son of the realm's delight, born with a kind heart and a fierceness to protect. I knew I had to marry someday, but I only agreed to marry you because I knew—you wouldn't mistreat me. Because I fell in love with the stories of the dark haired prince who had the most beautiful brown eyes ever, who protected his brother when he was a child himself, who stole my heart before he even claimed it.”

Jacaerys doesn't know what to say, his throat falls dry. It doesn't feel real, when he's wanted something so dearly and someone just gives it to him freely; it does not feel real. You do not feel real. But you are. He knows you are when your hands tug at his collar, his face close to you as you pull him towards you and your breath fanning on his cheeks. He knows this is real, and it's better than any dream he's ever had.

“I do not want our marriage to be an unhappy one.”

You say, a plea in your voice.

He smiles, wide. And he doesn't even have to make an effort this time, “For me, the words unhappy and you? well they don't go in the same sentence.”

That seals it for you, he can see that. As you kiss his words, an unspoken understanding and passion in it. Jacaerys realises he could get used to this. Kisses, hugs, reading each other books, waking by the warmth of your body besides his; in fact, there's no one else he'd rather do it by. And nothing he would want more.

𝐸𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 ℎ𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑓𝑢𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑡, 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑘 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑠𝑚:) 𝐼 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑎𝑙𝑠𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑖𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑟𝑒𝑏𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑔𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑎𝑠 𝑖𝑡 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑤𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑚𝑒 𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛! 𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝐼 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑠 𝑠𝑜 𝑑𝑜 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑙 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑚𝑒 𝑖𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑜𝑛𝑒.

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