#georges-goue | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

alyshiba · 1 year

Text

Fire and Blood

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

As all of us I too have fallen in the Aemond thist trap. I mean, have you seen him ? YET after seeing this fan art I could not stop my brain to think that the OG Aegon, the conqueror, the dragon, must have looked like that. I mean after all long silky hair are a Targaryen thing. So, since everyone seems to be sleeping on the OG Targaryen daddy Aegon I decided to entertain myself by writing a fic about him.

*Before we start* Clearly the characters depicted, the places, and events, belongs to George RR Martin, as they come from his writing. Then english is not my first lenguage, nor did I studied it much at school, so if you find error in either grammar or vocabular please let me know and correct me!

Finally, i am a highly erratic person (does that make sense?) I do start thing that I don’t finish, so there’s a chance that this think will be left unfinished.

Warnings: I intend to write this fic for an adult audience. Not much is depicted in this first chapter but there are hints of sexual activity. Then ofc we’re talking about Targaryens so there’s going to be a lot of incest going on. No violence is depicted in this chapter, but giving the nature of the story created by Martin, which in a large part I intend to follow, there’s going to be lots of it in the future. So if you’re not confortable with explicit sexual content, graphic depiction of violence, and everything that goues with it, consider not moving further in reading this fiction beyond the first chapter.

Summary: AU. This chapter is set several years before the start of the conquest. I dunno how this is going to go, but I’m sure I don’t want Rhaenys to die. She’s not mentioned here since she should be still a child at this point in the history of ASOIAF.

<<In Qarth it is common knowledge that dragons came into this world when the second moon that graced the skies wandered to close the sun, thus cracking like an egg.>> His brow was high, as to underline that even he was not believing his statement. <<They also say that dragons breathe fire for they drank the sun’s flames when the moon cracked >>. He finished his tale in a deep voice. Only a glint of amusement could be seen in eyes, -mockery- the woman thought. -How many lies were told to hide this truth?- guessed the woman.

<<It is also said that dragons originated in the shadowlands beyond Asshai. And that there were others who tamed them, who taught these skills to your people, only to then disappear from histories>> She continued, listing the firsts among the hundreds of tales surrounding the appearance of dragons in the world. Yet it was impossible to tell which might contain a grain of truth.

-Not that he’ll ever share the truth with me, if it has even survived the doom-.

<<Though, there are other stories i heard whispered.>> She decided to add, <<They talked about blood magic, of firewirms and wyverns.>> -there must lie the truth, not in moons or shadows- She was sure of it. <<Some even claimed that valyrians slept with dragons, that’s how your people are the only ones who can tame the beasts.>> She continued, not giving him the time to object. <<”The blood of the dragon”>>, joked the woman, placing her goblet of wine on the fireplace’s mantel. One could sense the uneasiness in the man before her, although it was impossible to say if it was for the lewd suggestion or if she did indeed find the hint of a long forgotten truth.

<<You are free to attempt your luck, Princess. Should you really believe these whispers.>> Said the man, again raising an eyebrow. <<Balerion lays resting in the courtyard, although I personally would prefer a more.. private location.>> The sarcasm in his tone was evident at this point, highlighted by the smirk that slowly graced his features.

She did consider the dynamic of the act for a moment, the princess always had a vivid imagination, yet that made her come to a conclusion -whomever originated that whispered must indeed be mad, how could someone survive it?- she reasoned, remembering the sheer size of the beast now resting outside the palace. <<I cannot help but wonder if anyone ever tried>> she laughed. <<Still, Balerion is not the only dragon present>> She mustered her more seductive tone. -Grandmother wouldn’t be pleased.- She considered. -Still, how could she blame me?- one glance at the man before her was all of the excuse she needed. He was tall, towering over her small frame, and built like a warrior. The tunic he was wearing did not do much to hide his strong arms. And when she gazed up, to his strong jawline, his purple eyes and his long, sleek silver hairs, she was sure that no other could blame her for trying to bed him. Even when her people knew too well what valyrians were capable of. -Perhaps these dragons are different- she hoped -More than a hundred years have they been locked on their island, never to fly their dragons east nor west, nor south-. She clinged to that though, hoping not to live to regret this decision.

He looked at her for a moment, considering. The Princess before him was indeed appealing to his eyes: she was slender, yet she had the curves of a woman grown, accentuated by the revealing gown she was wearing. She bore the long, silky dark hair and brown eyes of the Rhoynar, which she highlighted with a thick line of kohl. Much of her olive skin was showing, if in an attempt to seduce him, he could not say. -It would be a disaster waiting to happen, if I'm not careful- He reasoned with himself, trying to list all of the reasons why it would be a terrible idea. -She is beautiful indeed.- He thought -Though not nearly comparable to Visenya-. He found himself thinking of the sister he’s going to marry more and more these days. Her warrior soon-to-be bride: dark and deadly, waiting for him on Dragonstone.

<<How can you blame me, Lord Aegon.>> At that point Deria had her mind set on her goal, and rarely was she denied something she wanted. <<How many in the world can claim to have ridden a dragon?>> She moved from her spot by the fireplace, leaning in to run her hand on his chest as she spoke, trying to muster all of her seductiveness. She could feel the hard muscles beneath his tunic, and see the glint of lust in his violet eyes, she had broken the will of many men that way, all of whom bent to hers. <<More than you can think>> He said with his husky voice, he moved faster than a man his size should, grabbing her jaw with his right hand in a firm grip. He did not mean to hurt her, rather stating his dominance. He ran his thumb on her lower lip, -Aegon is no ordinary man- she realized -i was warned-, <<dragons Princess>> he said emphasizing her title, <<do not quite understand the difference between what is theirs and what isn’t.>> She parted her lips, allowing him to slide his thumb between them. <<And won’t rest until their hunger is entirely satisfied.>> This last statement, spoken while locking his eyes on hers, was enough to make her feel the need to squeeze her thighs together harder than she ever did before. -One last night of fun before marriage- He conceded, remembering the promise he made to his sister upon leaving their home: <Have fun brother> Visenya joked <for when you return you shall belong to me> she said to him gripping the back of his neck to lower his face at level with hers. <And keep this in mind: should you ever betray my trust Vhagar will feast on your manhood.>> He laughed before kissing her. <You are a dragon, Visenya. No one could ever comare to you>.

<<Kneel>> He ordered, his tone now cold and firm, the lust in eyes now more evident. <<Unbowed, unbent and unbroken>> She said more to herself than to him, hoping that the words of her house would help her muster the strength she needed to not look -and sound- completely desperate for his touch. Yet she must not be good at pretending for he smirked, and laugh at her show of false defiance. His grip on her jaw tightened, and he brought his face closer to her, she could now feel his breath on her face: <<you shall kneel willingly Princess>> He ordered, << or I will bend you myself over that cupboard>> stated Aegon hinting with his head towards the piece of furniture, while always holding her gaze. Never once did he break the stare, <<and then I shall break your wet cunt>>, said the lord of Dragonstone while slipping his free hand under the slid of her dress that almost bore her entire thigh, feeling how wet already had he made her.

She realized that she was now entirely at his mercy. Not that she dreaded it. His big hand now cupping her core, while his long and trained fingers started massaging her clit -Targaryens have always been closer to gods than men- she remembers being told as a child, as warning, -and gods are meant to be pleased- the princess found herself thinking, while realizing how wrong she had been in thinking she could bend a dragon to her will.

She slowly kneeled in front of him, her eyes never leaving his. One of his big hands now sliding on the back of head grabbing her hair tightly, while the other untied his breeches.

47 notes · View notes

theinvinciblenoob · 6 years

Link

Benjamin Joffe Contributor

Benjamin Joffe is a partner at HAX.

More posts by this contributor

70 years of VC innovation

2017 crowdfunding guide

The dream of a startup founder can often be summarized by the following well-intentioned, and mostly delusional, quote: “We’ll raise a few rounds and in a few years we’ll IPO on Nasdaq.”

But a more likely scenario looks something like this:

You invest a few years of hard work to build something of value. One day you receive an acquisition offer out of the blue. You’re elated. And you’re not prepared. You drop everything to focus on this opportunity. Exclusive due diligence starts. Your company is a mess (IP, contracts, burn). Days become weeks; weeks become months. You’ve neglected business and fundraising. You’re running out of money. M&A is now your one and only option. The buyer says they found a bunch of cockroaches in the walls and drops the price. Now what?

Sounds unlikely?

This is still a favorable situation: you had an offer! Think about how much time you invested in your various funding rounds. The hundreds of names and Google spreadsheet or Streak-powered quasi-CRM process.

Have you spent even a fraction of that on understanding exit paths? If you’d rather not live the situation described above, read along.

The E-word: A strange taboo

Investors live by exits, but many founders keep dreaming of unicornization and avoid the “E-word” until it’s too late. Yet, in 2016, 97% of exits were M&As. And most happened before series B.

Exits matter because that’s when you, your team and your investors get paid. Oddly enough, and to use a chess metaphor, we hear a lot about the “opening game” (lean startup), the “mid-game” (growth) but very little about this “end game”.

As a result, founders miss opportunities or leave money on the table. This is a shame. Our fund, SOSV, has over 700 companies in portfolio. We want the best possible exit for each of them. And fortune favors the prepared! Now, how to get 700 exits (and counting)?

To explore the topic, organized a series of Masterclasses tapping corporate buyers, bankers, investors, lawyers, and startup CEOs with M&A or IPO experience in San Francisco. It was a group that included the founders of Guitar Hero — bought by Activision; JUMP Bikes — a SOSV portfolio company bought by Uber, Ubiquisys — bought by Cisco, and Withings — bought by Nokia. Each one for hundreds of millions).

Their observations can be summarized below.

Maximize optionality

“Founders must be aware of what contributes to an exit. This means understanding partnerships and how they are formed in the business space the entrepreneur is working in,” said one MasterClass participant.

As founders, you build your product, your company and… optionality. You need to understand the options open to your company, and take steps to enable them.

The most likely one is an acquisition but there are others like IPO (including small cap), RTO, SBO, LBO, Equity Crowdfunding and even ICO.

“Exit is not a goal per se, but as a CEO it is something you should think about as early in your cycle as possible, while being business-focused,” said the London-based investor Frederic Rombaut, of Seraphim Capital.

Indeed, most participants said that exits should always be on the chief executive’s agenda, no matter how early in the process. “Exits should be on the CEO agenda. Not front and center, but on the agenda. M&A is a by-product of a great business and targeted BD. IPOs are always an option once you’ve built significant cashflow forecasting.”

It’s important to ask questions like: How many “strategic engagements” with potential buyers have you had this month? Is your message and value clear in their eyes? Have you considered an acquisition track in parallel to a fundraise?

It doesn’t stop there:

Equity crowdfunding might help close some gaps at seed stage.

Early IPOs on smaller exchanges can be an option to raise over $10M — the robotics startup Balyo went public and raised 40MEUR on Euronext to get rid of a critical ‘right of first refusal’ option held by one of its corporate investors.

Reverse mergers can work too: the medical exoskeleton company EKSO Bionics went public this way.

One thing is sure: the time to exit is not when you’re running out of money.

Companies are bought, not sold

Unicorn or not, the most likely exit is an acquisition.

As George Patterson, Managing Director at HSBC in New York said, “Good tech companies are bought, not sold. The question is thus: how to get bought?”

Patterson says it’s important to understand how mergers and acquisitions actually work; how to prepare a startup for an exit; and how to develop a “feel” for the market you’re exiting through and into. ;

How M&A works

Hearing from corp dev veterans from Cisco, Logitech, Dassault and IBM, a few key ideas emerged:

Motivations vary

It could be (from least to most expensive, or as a mix), as listed by Mark Suster, Managing Partner at Upfront Ventures:

Talent hire ($1M/dev as a rule of thumb — location matters)

Product gap

Revenue driver

Strategic threat (avoid or delay disruption)

Defensive move (can’t afford a competitor to own it)

How corporates find you

Corporates find deals via the development of partnerships, investment (CVC), their business units, corp dev research, media, and investor connections.

Asked about the best approach, Todd Neville, Manager of Corporate Business Development and Strategy at IBM (who gave the most detailed description of the corp dev process), said, “Do something cool to one of the IBM customers. If they rave about even a POC, we’re interested.”

In other words, business development is corporate development.

Get the house in order

Buyers typically want to know three things:

Is your IP really yours?

Is your team capable?

Will your customers stick around?

For IP, they will check your contracts (staff and contractors), run some automated code analysis for proprietary code and open source use. They will evaluate potential IP infringement. No point buying you if you end up costing more in lawsuits!

For your team skills: sitting down with your engineers will tell them plenty enough without understanding the details of this or that algorithm. Be sure the last thing a corporate wants is to be accused of stealing!

Lawyers engaged early can help. The later the clean-up, the more costly and painful.

Develop a feel for your “market”

Develop relationships and create champions within corporates. It will help promote your deal when the time comes, and will let you keep your finger on the pulse of corporate strategy to time your moves.

Do you read the earning calls of Cisco or IBM (or others relevant to you)? This is where strategies are presented. Are your keywords coming up there or in their press releases?

Chris Gilbert, former CEO of Ubiquisys (sold to Cisco for over $300M) was very deliberate in planning his exit.

“Selling start on day one and is a leadership-only function — work out who will be your buyer. Only the CEO can do this. Constantly articulate why a company should buy you,” Gilbert said. Bring clear messages into the acquiring company so it can be presented upwards: give them the presentation you would like them to show their boss! When the time is right, force decisions through competition. If you know they have to buy you, your starting position is strong.”

The dark art of price discovery

There are dozens of formulas (from DCF to comparables) to evaluate a deal — which also means none is ‘correct’. What matters is: how much would you sell for, and how much is the buyer ready to pay?

Gilbert, at Ubiquisys, described how close interactions with his banker helped drive the price up among the bidders assembled.

Just like buyers, we meet bankers and lawyers too rarely at startup events, but there is much to learn with them. They make deals happen, avoid value erosion and optimize price. They often also make introductions before you engage them, to build goodwill and earn your business.

And if you worry about fees, the right banker handsomely pays for itself by finding more bidders, and playing “bad cop” for you, avoiding direct confrontation with your future employer. Do you want a slice of the watermelon or the whole grape?

Final twist: Exits are not exits

When asked about what happens after an M&A or IPO, buyers said that they generally hoped the founders would stay with them for many years. Often using re-vesting, earn-outs or shares of the acquiring company to incentivize them. Neville, from IBM, mentioned a security company they acquired whose founder is now the head of one of the largest IBM divisions.

In the case of IPOs, supposedly the ultimate “exit”, any block of shares sold by founders would face extreme scrutiny and might cause a price drop.

So who’s exiting during those deals? Investors (and not always).

Eventually, if the average age of a startup at exit is 8–10 years, the active duty period of founders (if not replaced in the meantime) extends even more. Better love the problem you’re solving, and your customers!

Thanks to speakers, participants and supporters of this Masterclass series:

London: Frederic Rombaut (Seraphim Capital), Joe Tabberer (FirstBank), Chris Gilbert (Ubiquisys), Jonathan Keeling (Crowdcube), Fred Destin, Tony Fish (AMF Ventures, James Clark (London Stock Exchange), Denise Law (SGCIB).

Paris: Frederic Rombaut (Seraphim Capital), Manuel Gruson (Dassault Systemes), Pierre-Henri Chappaz (Rothschild Global Advisory), Christine Lambert-Goue (All Invest), Olivier Younes (EXPEN), Eric Carreel (Withings), Fabien Bardinet (Balyo), Xavier Lazarus (Elaia Partners), Pierre-Eric Leibovici(Daphni). Jean de La Rochebrochard (Kima Ventures), Jeremy Sartre (SmartAngels), Gwen Regina Tan (Entrepreneur First).

San Francisco: Natasha Ligai (Logitech), Matt Cutler (Cisco),Will Hawthorne, (CODE Advisors), Ryan Rzepecki (JUMP Bikes), Charles Huang (Guitar Hero), Jeff Thomas (Nasdaq), Shahin Farshchi (Lux Capital), Ammar Hanafi (Moment Ventures), Adam J. Epstein (Third Creek Advisors), Nathan Harding (EKSO Bionics), Kate Whitcomb, Anthony Marino and Ethan Haigh (SOSV).

New York: Todd Neville (IBM), George Patterson (HSBC), Ryan Rzepecki (JUMP Bikes), Aaron Kellner (SeedInvest), Jeremy Levine (Bessemer Venture Partners), Taylor Greene (Collaborative Fund), Adam Rothenberg (BoxGroup), Eli Curi (Fenwick & West), Ian Engstrand and Salil Gandhi (Goodwin), Warren Spar(Sparring Partners Capital), Duncan Turner, Vivian Law and Sheng Ge (SOSV).

via TechCrunch

#IFTTT #TechCrunch

0 notes