#pseudodog

[acidumvalericc]

In connection with the abnormal heat wave in Ukraine... 💐

[kanycz]

[marinusart]

"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..."

And Hornbeam (who somehow looks like the guy who was playing the MC in Venom?..). I need to pay more attention to this character but his appearance type is still rather difficult for me to work with

[pelaajanifta]

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 :)

***

The mist spreads across the swamp like a soft blanket covering its ugly truth. The old man with a wooden stick steps carefully on ramshackle planks so as not to make a wrong move. The pseudodog which was following him felt its owner pensiveness and barked questionably. 

“What is it, buddy?” Doctor stops and asks. “Are you hungry? Or are you really asking what’s been bothering me?”

The dog tilts its head. Its small and crooked ears sharpen — at least it looks like they are. 

“Perhaps you could help me… Strelok and I had a disagreement, you see,” he starts to speak. “He believes the Zone is a mistake and she needs to be destroyed.”

Doctor casts a glance at the swamps surrounding them. Water bubbles relieve foul smell, weird-looking trees look like spikes, dead mutant’s parts are scattered on the water surface. Not even one living thing is seen — he can hear only distant uneasy sounds.

“But I believe the Zone is perfect as she is.” He continues gently. “She came into this world this way — frightening, painful. She’s full of life and untamed wilderness. She’s beautiful yet horrifying. Something greater than us made her, after all…”

Doctor rubs his temple and sighs.

“I asked him: if you knew how to destroy the Zone would you do it? But he couldn’t answer,” he shrugs and gives a hopeless smile. “Since then, I’ve wandered, unsure if I… would have done it."

The old man closes his eyes. He was silent for some time. One of the Zone’s creations squeaks in the distance. Doctor hears a splash of water and then the fog consumes the rest of the sounds.

“To this moment I have no answer, so, here we are, buddy, wandering around, thinking about this question.”

The dog barks.

“It’s been a while since we saw Strelok, isn’t it, pal?”

Somewhere nearby, a twig snaps. The dog barks again.

“Well, let’s have some dinner. I know that you're more interested in that than our old friend, after all…”

[kostusha]

stalker critters

[atopvisenyashill]

stark fambily holiday traditions? :) (if you havent already talked about these)

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.

the thing is. this is NOT a thing in the riverlands. it definitely gets cold in the riverlands if winter lasts long enough but it’s much more of a slush thing than a real snow build up. they deal a LOT with flooding of small villages in the winter so they usually DO take in a bunch of people but it’s not a whole big festival thing - theirs is a harvest thing & some religious festivals during flood season, but it’s a different aesthetic. the first winter in the north, she was so nervous about the whole thing but her and ned ~worked together~ on the whole thing and bonded and the winter didn’t even last very long anyway so it wasn’t a huge deal. she gets SUPER into the winter aesthetic though, partially because she’s cold all the time so she’s just wearing fur and shit anyway but she loves to decorate, she loves to plan a party.

[ludcake]

thinking about the alicent daemon grooming battle over rhaenyra this fine morning. would love to hear more of your thoughts about it

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.

Viserys gives Rhaenyra to Daemon, and Alicent has to go back to being a victim. And that's where she starts to work on her own children, whom we see develop their own *host* of issues.

[antiqueanimals]

hi! <3 could i request some rabbits please

Joseph Crawhall

Harrison Weir

The Book of the Rabbit, edited by Leonard U.Gill