#pseudodog

"And where is she?"

/Been standing there for 5 minutes/

OC sketches (the short one belongs to my friend and got all her stealth perks maxed out). Being tiny has some advantages

"And I fixed it just yesterday..."

The Swamps

finished it! tried different shades, blue and brown, but i think green fits just right. here we have Doctor and his doge. got inspired in a process, so i wrote a short story featuring that brooding old man...

i'm interested in what do you think :)

i know i’ve talked about a few holidays but i can’t remember if i’ve talked about a winter holiday specifically.

so starks/the north once winter comes. once they get the white raven that says winter is here, on the next turn of the moon (so if it’s new moon, next new moon, if it’s full moon next full etc) they have a festival. basically, everyone from the surrounding farms or very small villages come to winterfell to hole up for the winter and this is the welcoming festival. everyone comes with supplies/taxes in order to get in (depending on who is the stark in winterfell depends on whether they legit turn you away - ned would never but some people absolutely DO and HAVE if the harvest was already bad or they’re a dick) like some crops, some animals, some textiles, whatever. winter town is POPPING. and it’s not just a winterfell thing - smallfolk and lesser lords tend to go to the nearest big castle, so everyone has slightly different festivities and decorations - umbers get incredibly tacky with wildling skulls, hornwoods got antlers everywhere and have moose themed games) but it’s the same general idea in that you’re getting ready to settle in for the siege of winter. the festival itself lasts officially for a month but the first six months or so of winter you get a Lot of smallfolk pouring in. it’s not feasting every night, they basically just have the one feast (can’t waste food) but there’s games & exchanges and stuff for a few weeks (like a 12 days of christmas thing).

there’s a second feastday for the first large snowstorm of winter but it’s just like, a hearty traditional soup, not really a feast. that one is more about the singers and making winterfell feel safe and warm. and for both of those winter holidays, people turn OUT. some singers will usually try to make it to winterfell then leave before the first snow to white harbor so they’re not stuck up there but they get the coin and shit from performing. theon has several ragers and this is the one (1) time ned will look away. sansa and robb are the worst sort of crazy holiday cheer types. everything has to be perfect or they will lose their minds. arya is in the ZONE meeting new people. no one knows where bran is (he’s people watching from the wall). ned likes this one much more than the harvest one, and he likes the first snow MUCH more than the beginning of winter bc he likes the lowkey part & getting to know some of his people he doesn’t normally interact with and hearing their concerns. jon snow gets told to smile every 2 seconds.

Hello! Sorry for the delay in this ask, I wanted to properly sit down to answer it.

I believe that Alicent's grooming of Rhaenyra - and I must note, before I get insane hatemail, that I believe this is a *possible interpretation of the text*, rather than absolutely definite canon - is very much a result of how young Alicent is when she's brought into court to be Jaehaerys' companion. Alicent, having been groomed by her father to be Queen, having her childhood and humanity removed until she existed only as an object of House Hightower's ambitions in court, is still a girl when Jaehaerys dies - and at that point, as we know, there's rumours he had a sexual relationship with Alicent, and he mistook her for Saera several times.

She's been dealing with that since she was a child - with the idea of sexual promiscuity as whorish, as unacceptable behaviour even for a royal, and, naturally, the idea that *to prepare someone for royalty and rule is to prepare them to function a specific sexual role*. That is to say, she cannot fathom the idea that raising a child does not accompany all that - because, well, grooming is a socially accepted, even socially *necessary* pattern here. Children are wed when they're still children, they're expected to fulfil a reproductive duty to their family that is constantly reinforced - we can see that in the main books.

When Alicent marries Viserys, she's older than Rhaenyra, but not so much that they don't share a comradery - Viserys is much older than her, and she sees in Viserys the image of her own father. She's now Rhaenyra's mother, and Alicent didn't have a mother to raise her - so she tries to raise Rhaenyra the same way her father raised her, because she sees Viserys as negligent and too permissive.

It's important to note that at this point, the Green and Black conflict is much different; the Greens support Rhaenyra's claim here, because they're more scared of Daemon's wilfulness, and generally believe that Alicent can assert herself over Rhaenyra and bear an heir that would marry her. It is noted in F&B that Alicent and Rhaenyra had pretty good relations before their big split, even.

Alicent, then, finds herself in a position of power over Rhaenyra, and seems to groom her - both sexually, so she can serve as Queen to her own yet unborn child, and literally, so she can rule adequately according to Hightower interests - and in that she finds a new freedom she hadn't experienced yet. Through Rhaenyra, she can articulate herself; she can have new sexual experiences, she can have new outlooks on life, she can free herself from being constantly under Otto's power by essentially taking over Otto's role and becoming him, in some way. Rhaenyra is wilful, and she pushes Alicent to be wilful too - because Alicent doesn't know how to be Queen, and Rhaenyra, even though she's a teen, teaches her that by flaunting her status and power.

These are things that Alicent slowly realises. And while Daemon is away, that's fine - that's the state of their relationship. Alicent is preparing Rhaenyra to be Queen, and Alicent is learning to be Queen *with* Rhaenyra - until Daemon is in court, and Rhaenyra is completely taken by him, because she romanticises it. Because Aegon is still a babe, and Daemon *is* charismatic and he is seductive and manipulative and he knows what he's about and Viserys is in this very difficult situation where he loves Daemon so much more than Alicent, but also puhes back against Rhaenyra's relationship with Daemon - and that makes wilful teenage Rhaenyra want Daemon *more*. Alicent can't offer her anything other than a presumed comfort within the structure, she can't get out of the cage - and the initial Black vs Green conflict is about which one of them gets to sit beside Rhaenyra, and which one of them is reading books with her and who is posting who will be her handmaiden and decide who will sleep with her at her bedchambers.

Ultimately, however, Alicent loses - because she gives up on Rhaenyra when the Velaryons push for the Laenor match, and sees her as no longer the best heir with the possibility of Aegon coming and Helaena too. So that pushes Daemon directly to Rhaenyra's side, and Rhaenyra to Daemon's side, to me - and Alicent is still bitter about it, and feels like she put so much into Rhaenyra that *she* is owed the same kind of loyalty that she showed to Otto, that Rhaenyra should be marrying *her* child so by extension Alicent can marry her in the same way that Alicent married Viserys so Otto could marry him.

And that's the thing. Rhaenyra by this point is a grown woman, who was thrown around between so many people, and Daemon can offer her some escape from being suffocated in King's Landing's court. With Daemon, she can be at Driftmark or Dragonstone and she can have Ser Harwin and nurture a secret affair that fits within the heterosexual boundaries of normative love. With Daemon, there's so much more she can do, because Daemon is Viserys' choice, ultimately.

Joseph Crawhall

Harrison Weir