how insane is it that catelyn spent the whole war not knowing if arya was dead or alive, grieving her one moment and scheming to get her back the next. to lose her last son at the red wedding, only to be resurrected and find out that she might have lost arya that night too. to learn that her daughter has been alive the whole time, but that she might have died trying to get home.

BUT despite her descent into violence and vengeance, lady stoneheart’s search for arya is her last source of hope. yes she wanders the riverlands hanging freys, but first she stops to ask if they’ve seen her little girl. and then to find out that sansa escaped king’s landing? that both of her girls are finally free? now that duty no longer stops her from saving them? there IS hope for lady stoneheart, and it exists in the form of her daughters.

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the Stark maidens

Lyanna, Arya, Winter Rose

Inspired by Suemi Jun, three Goddesses

Arya Week Day 7 | Future Speculation

Arya reunites with Nymeria and meets her wolfpack. She'll also reunite with her mother who will then crown Arya as Robb's successor ✨👑🐺🗡️🤍🩶✨

probably the coolest request i've ever gotten. @ladystoneshart requested on ko-fi that lsh and arya meet up. i marinated on how that scene would go in my head and i could not stop thinking about how arya and brienne's riverlands chapters are so obviously horror-coded that my depiction of this scene would be horror-centric. i could speculate on the horror of arya recognizing her mother in the rotted judiciary that enacts her vengeance on those she finds guilty, or the horror of catelyn somewhere still deep inside the corpse puppeteered by rage and grief identifying her daughter, broken like a wild stallion, beaten to a pulp both physically and spiritually, but still her living, breathing daughter nonetheless. but personally, the real horror here is that we may never get this scene because arya is no longer arya, and catelyn has been dead as long as ned.

Buy me a coffee? ☕️

Arya warm up doodles

Religions in Game of Thrones 

I’ve been all over the world, my boy, and everywhere I go people tell me about “the true God”. They all think they’ve found the right one!

The Night Wolf and true queen.

_________

Outfit referenced from @kraehenkunst ‘s gorgeous Arya/Nymeria post

SANSA + hugs

i’ve been thinking a lot about this line in this fandom that power is absolutely corrupting and how politically vacuous it is in a series as concerned with the liberation of people subject to the ultimate lack of power - the enslaved. actually, the enslaved that dany uses her power to free want power - dracarys becomes their rallying cry, in recognition of dany’s first use of dragon fire - to melt a slaver’s face off when he hands her a whip, when he hands her the means of total, uncontested power over other people and she uses her own greater power to reject it, that use of it. and they are not evil. wanting power is not evil, because power over one’s own body and soul is actually a key aspect of human dignity, and being under unjust power of others is the basis of subjection. but there’s this idea in the series you do need power first to change anything. dany goes from being a sexually abused child when she gets her dragons, which gives her power for the first time, and then is faced with the choice of how to use it to advocate for those still powerless. which is a good moral thing to ponder on. we all have power over others even if to wildly varying degrees and have to think about how we use it while also striving to destroy power and hierarchy for good.

what’s interesting is the above chapter in a song of swords is immediately followed by an arya chapter and then a sansa chapter, where the girls are profoundly, fundamentally powerless, and yet still make these little choices to use what tiny power they have - over their own bodies and actions in a very limited way - to be kind, even to those who don’t deserve it. arya gives some men who have been cruelly left to die by exposure to the elements water, even though they are rapists and murderers, and sansa, married off to tyrion against her will, feels remorse at her petty rebellion of humiliating him by not kneeling so he can put on her wedding cloak, bending down to kiss the adult man she’s been married to on the cheek in apology. maybe it would actually be a good thing if these teenage girls (and little girls, in arya’s case) had a bit more power. maybe they could use it well, the series is saying, certainly better than those that exert their own over them to frighten and coerce and hurt them. how could we ever know until they have it?

ARYA STARK APPRECIATION WEEK 2024
↳ Day 5: Outfits

Arya recognized silks and satins and velvets she never wore. She might need warm clothes on the kingsroad, though… and besides…

Arya knelt in the dirt among the scattered clothes. She found a heavy woolen cloak, a velvet skirt and a silk tunic and some smallclothes, a dress her mother had embroidered for her, a silver baby bracelet she might sell. Shoving the broken lid out of the way, she groped inside the chest for Needle. She had hidden it way down at the bottom, under everything, but her stuff had all been jumbled around when the chest was dropped. For a moment Arya was afraid someone had found the sword and stolen it. Then her fingers felt the hardness of metal under a satin gown.

ARYA STARK APPRECIATION WEEK 2024
↳ Day 7: Endgame speculation (insp)

"He was going to be a knight," Arya was saying now. "A knight of the Kingsguard. Can he still be a knight?"
"No," Ned said. He saw no use in lying to her. "Yet someday he may be the lord of a great holdfast and sit on the king's council. He might raise castles like Brandon the Builder, or sail a ship across the Sunset Sea, or enter your mother's Faith and become the High Septon." But he will never run beside his wolf again, he thought with a sadness too deep for words, or lie with a woman, or hold his own son in his arms.
Arya cocked her head to one side. "Can I be a king's councillor and build castles and become the High Septon?"

ARYA STARK APPRECIATION WEEK 2024
↳ Day 3: Magic → R'hollr

He laid a finger on her lips. "Three lives you shall have of me. No more, no less. Three and we are done. So a girl must ponder." He kissed her hair softly. "But not too long."
***
I'm the ghost in Harrenhal, she thought. And that night, there was one less name to hate.

A Clash of Kings, Arya VII

"My squire could take a lesson from you, it would seem. Frequent leechings are the secret of a long life. A man must purge himself of bad blood. You will do, I think. For so long as I remain at Harrenhal, Nan, you shall be my cupbearer, and serve me at table and in chambers."

This time she knew better than to say that she'd sooner work in the stables. "Yes your lord. I mean, my lord."

She filled Roose Bolton's cup, and did not spill a drop.

Arya IX, ACoK

ARYA STARK APPRECIATION WEEK 2024
↳ Day 6: Parallels → Rhaenys Targaryen

The mummers off the Ship showed her how a hero stands, and taught her speeches from The Song of the Rhoyne, The Conqueror's Two Wives, and The Merchant's Lusty Lady.

A Feast for Crows, Cat of the Canals