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@miltonthebutler​ asked:

Hypothetically, if a noble woman were to marry and her husband died soon after, before they had any children, what would happen to her? Would she be able to return to her family as soon as there was assurance she wasn’t pregnant? Would she be known as “Lady [Husband’s House] or Lady [Maiden Name]? How quickly would she be made to remarry?

It depends on a lot of different things. There’s no one specific rule that applies to every woman in every situation. To explain, here’s several different examples:

Myranda Royce: Married to a man who died on their wedding night. (While they were having sex, actually.) He was an older man, and she did not conceive. She lives in her father’s castle, is referred to only by her maiden name, and her father is looking for a new husband for her, but as yet hasn’t found one. Myranda calls herself “a widow, but scarce used.”

Barbrey Dustin: Barbrey Ryswell was married to Lord Willam Dustin of Barrowton before he went off to fight in Robert’s Rebellion. He never returned. She has never remarried, and still rules Barrowton as Lady Dustin. She is only called Barbrey Dustin, even in the appendix. It is possible that there are no other Dustins, and since House Ryswell is powerful in the North, that is why Barbrey retains control of the town.

Rohanne Webber: Her father’s only child, and his heir. She was married at 10 to her father’s 12-year-old squire, who soon died in the First Blackfyre Rebellion. It is highly unlikely the marriage was even consummated. She was married several times thereafter, and though two of the marriages produced children, they all died in infancy. (All her husbands died as well.) She was only referred to by her maiden name, and only lived in her father’s castle Coldmoat (and ruled it after he died), up until she married Lord Gerold Lannister.

Ellyn Reyne: Seduced and married Tion Lannister, heir to Casterly Rock, after her betrothed, his older twin brother Tywald, died in battle. Unfortunately Tion also died in battle three years later. Even though the marriage produced no children (though Ellyn did try to claim she was pregnant, per GRRM from a bit that didn’t make it into TWOIAF), she remained in Casterly Rock for another three years… until she tried to seduce the new heir to Casterly Rock, Tytos Lannister. (Who was already married, but nevertheless.) Ellyn’s former father-in-law Gerold quickly married her off to Lord Walderan Tarbeck. Interestingly, Ellyn was only called by her maiden name while in the Rock, but was called Lady Ellyn Tarbeck in her second marriage.

Amerei Frey: Married off to a hedge knight after she was caught having sex with several men at the same time, but he was soon killed by Gregor Clegane, and Ami returned to the Twins. She was one of the Frey girls presented to Robb Stark before the Red Wedding. Amerei was then married to Lancel Lannister and made Lady of Darry. (As she’s a Darry on her mother’s side.) Lancel never consummated the marriage, and abandoned her to become a knight of the Warrior’s Sons of the Faith Militant. It’s unknown what will become of her, whether she will once again return to the Twins, or if they’ll find someone else to marry her and become Lord of Darry, or something else. Note, only ever called by her maiden name.

Margaery Tyrell: Married to King Renly Baratheon; after his death she swore the marriage was never consummated and was betrothed to King Joffrey Baratheon. That marriage was definitely never consummated due to Joffrey dying at the wedding feast, and she was soon married to King Tommen Baratheon. That marriage hasn’t been consummated either due to Tommen being nine years old. Is only ever referred to by her maiden name.

Jeyne Westerling: Married to King Robb Stark. She did not conceive due to her mother secretly slipping her a contraceptive in the guise of a fertility potion. After the siege of Riverrun was broken, Jaime Lannister allowed Jeyne to return to her family home of the Crag, but she must wait two years before she can marry again to make sure that no child of hers could possibly be claimed as Robb Stark’s. Has only ever been referred to by her maiden name.

So as you can see, it varies greatly, with no particular standard. Status, politics, inheritance – all sorts of things can affect whether a childless widow returns to her family home and/or how soon she remarries. And as for maiden names, well, please see this tag for so many different examples of how that’s handled, because that varies greatly too. Hope that helps!

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Catelyn Stark, Jon Snow, and a particularly annoying fandom myth:

"Wow, if only Ned told Catelyn that Jon Snow is actually Brandon Stark's bastard/ Rhaegar and Lyanna's son, then she wouldn't have thought that he cheated and that he was a threat to her kids and we could have happy wholesome family times."

Guys. Lords and Peasants. My sweet summer children. Catelyn Stark's apprehension was justified.

First, please consider that Catelyn did not feel betrayed by Ned. They had spent one night together - purely for the purposes of securing the bloodline - before he went off to do a coup. She was aware of the fact that the man who she had only met once, who was not originally her betrothed, may do some light adultery. She expected that if he were to sire a bastard, that he would do the right thing, the noble thing, and ensure he was provided for.

She's furious that he brought his bastard home, with her trueborn children because - say it with me folks - Jon Snow does, in fact, pose a political threat to Cat's children.

Cat's uncle is a survivor of the war of the ninepenny kings, an off-shoot of a series of wars that stems from the time one guy decided his bastards should be legitimised actually. She's learnt of the dangers that come when succession is messy.

Also, consider that the North appears to view bastardry differently. many Mormont women are bastards, and they're still allowed to keep their last names. Roose has his bastard running errands for him.

Even Cat's own son is willing to disinherit his sister - her trueborn daughter - to make Jon heir to Winterfell.

And to top it all off, the bastard seems more accustomed to the north than she, or any of her own children do, when she still feels at an outcast at times. She feels ill-at-ease in the godswood, she often reflects on how strange the north's customs are. She often quibbles with her son's vassals and advisors, has to at one point reassert that she was Ned's wife to stop them from messy, brutal revenge.

To make matters worse; Jon beats Robb during training. He has the Stark features. His direwolf is a literal avatar of the weirwoods and the religion of the old gods.

But yeah, if ned could've gotten over his darned PTSD and trauma from the time he went to war and his family was brutalised and told the woman he was sworn to but otherwise was a complete stranger:

''oh yeah, he's not a threat to our children at all. He's actually the bastard son of my brother who was supposed to inherit Winterfell instead of me and many factions would prefer/Yeah he's the rightful heir and son of the guy who the king just brutally slaughtered and who's family was also murdered. But don't worry, we have no reason at all to worry. We're perfectly safe."

Besides, Cat is prejudiced. She's the archetypal Westerosi noble-woman. She's judgemental towards Mya Stone and Brienne of Tarth. She still genuinely puts her faith in guest right and the words of lords. She's courteous and wise.

People seem to forget that Cat and Jon are the main introductions to the political semi-feudal structure. From a doylist perspective, Cat is judgemental and vicious because the class system is brutal and unfair.

But I can't justify her actual treatment of Jon, and you shouldn't either.

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Show! Baela & Rhaena Targaryen

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Targaryen monarchs compared to Roman emperors

this started as a half-baked shitpost at midnight but took on a life of its own, and the wonderful @winterstarfall bullied me into posting it, so.

AEGON THE CONQUEROR and TRAJAN OPTIMUS

first of his name and of his dynasty/the man whose name was invoked as a blessing

considered the gold standard of their nation's leadership, both were considered foreigners despite being raised in the land they would come to conquer thanks to their parentage (of valyrian and hispanic descent respectively), and they expanded their empire's borders with almost shocking ease. pragmatic and less prone to egomania than the average member of their profession. overseeing a long period of peace and prosperity to accompany their asskicking, they also both happened to die of a stroke.

AENYS THE FIRST and ALEXANDER SEVERUS

the abomination king/the last of the severans

rulers who were better suited for more peaceful times, ultimately both wound up being seen as weak-willed due to showing reluctance in battle. they wound up defined more by their mothers than their fathers (aenys taking after his in personality and alexander having his mother do most of the ruling) resulting in assassination (probably in one case, definitely in the other).

MAEGOR THE CRUEL and COMMODUS

he who tried to drown the land in its own blood/the slayer of the golden age

the son of a highly competent father, neither of these men thought it beneath them to do their own dirty work committing mass slaughter and ruining a perfectly functional nation. they also made sure to have a lot of sex and torture plenty of people along the way before their premature, if not predictable, violent deaths, leaving everyone else with a massive mess to clean up.

JAEHAERYS THE CONCILIATOR and AUGUSTUS CAESAR

the architect of the golden age/the gravedigger of the republic

the other gold standard of leadership for their nations! both wound up involved in a massively bloody civil war as a teenager and came out victorious despite being more of an intellectual figure than a straightforward warrior. despite this, they were able to use their great political savvy to usher in an era of peace and prosperity, eschewing the ornate imagery of their predecessors in favor of a more humble, but effective propagandistic image. yet for all their accomplishments, they couldn't stop their preferred heirs from dying off before them unexpectedly. on top of that, they got pissed at their daughter for having sex and wound up kicking her off the continent, then grew depressed at the death of most of their loved ones before dying of old age.

VISERYS THE FIRST and CONSTANTIUS CHLORUS

the young king/the midwife of christianity

two men who you'd struggle to call bad leaders. their administration was competent in the face of adversity, if not genius, and in some ways they could even be considered to have progressive values. the successor they wound up choosing and the civil war that followed wound up overshadowing everything else they ever did, however, and so they are often left as a side character in another's story rather than a protagonist in their own right.

AEGON THE USURPER and VITELLIUS

the man who lost everything for the throne/third of the year of four emperors

rulers whose reigns existed entirely within a civil war, they still managed to stand out on account of their pointless violence even for an extremely violent era. too cunning to be content, too cruel to loved, and too incompetent to be respected, ultimately their own followers became their downfall.

AEGON THE BROKEN KING and VALENTINIAN THE SECOND

dragonsbane/the caged bird

¿what other word can you use for them besides puppet? maybe sorrowful. elevated at a young age and talked over by their advisors, they lived isolated lives and died lonely deaths (possibly the result of what little agency they were granted in their lives). their lives can also be seen as the end of an era of greatness that had once defined their nation (the death of the dragons and the rise of the puppet emperors).

DAERON THE YOUNG DRAGON and JULIAN THE APOSTATE

would-be great conqueror/would-be great reformer

after unexpectedly proving their competence in battle, these men's promising starts to their reigns were cut off by a surprise attack. one of the great what-ifs of history, the legacy that they wound up stuck with was "won some fights before starting a pointless war then left us up shit's creek with no paddle".

BAELOR THE MOST BELOVED and THEODOSIUS THE GREAT

the blessed king/the last ruler of a united empire

two monarchs with a surprisingly high-quality reputation despite all the cruelty and religious zealotry they wound up participating in. their impulses overrode commitment to their duties and common sense at key moments, leaving their nations worse for the wear, yet they remain beloved.

VISERYS THE SECOND and CLAUDIUS THE FIRST

the hand of the king who bore the weight of the crown/the conqueror elevated from behind a curtain

both men who were never particularly well-liked, they found success after being elevated at a surprisingly old age after a life of surviving their predecessor's bizarre excesses. they were both scholarly and very likely disabled (viserys with a spine condition and claudius with something like cerebral palsy).

AEGON THE UNWORTHY and HONORIUS

a vacuum of excess/the emperor more interested in chickens than the sack of his city

two pathetic excuses for a head of state, offering less help than a screaming toddler in a dirty diaper during an era when the people really needed not that. the only thing worse than their constant lack of action was the astoundingly terrible decisions that they did manage to make. two morons so useless that nobody even bothered to assassinate them.

DAERON THE FALSEBORN and HADRIAN

the good bastard/the bloodthirsty peacemaker

a pair of rulers who were unconventional for their era, disappointing many of their peers by sorting out several crises peacefully and introducing much-needed reforms to the state that undoubtedly preserved it. this didn't stop them from coming down hard on rebels, with their foreign policy defining conflict for centuries to come. although their rise to power was of dubious legitimacy, both are generally considered quite good at their jobs, even if many of their peers hated their obsession with a foreign culture (dorn and greece). they also both died of illness.

AERYS THE FIRST and HOSTILIAN

two idiots who accomplished basically nothing and then died.

MAEKAR and DOMITIAN

the anvil of summerhall/the damnatio memoria'd

the unfavorite sons who were never expected to take on the throne, they still rose to the occasion and proved themselves to be competent, even if they were never good at gaining the respect of others or predicting other people's moves. military men at heart, they were passed up for a promotion often enough that the fact that they didn't do as much murder as expected is surprising.

AERYS THE MAD KING and CALIGULA

he who would burn his own kingdom to ash/the conqueror of neptune

when they ascended to the throne, everyone was fairly optimistic about their prospects. any hope they had evaporated after a close encounter with death escalated these men from "impractical" to "batshit murder-happy clowns", resulting in a reign of terror that ended in their assassination. also they had surprisingly goofy nicknames (scab and baby boots).

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Always feel bad when ppl don’t know about book Jon Snow. I hope I’ve introduced someone to book Jon Snow and changed their lives. None of that stoic, boring crap. He is angry, he is cringe, he is 14, he is living his worst life. He tries to act all tough but in his head he’s calling everyone names. Actively defends his friends and companions against homophobes, bullies, and grown men who have beef with a bunch of kids. He’s probably bisexual but he has a job so he doesn’t care about that rn, but god does Satin’s hair smell delicious.

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[commission] You’re in the wind, I’m in the water

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Beren & Luthien

part 1 • part 2

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I have recently become SO obsessed with your art its truly stunning!!

If you're still talking requests I'd love to see your interpretation of dwarven women and maybe how their clothes differ from male dwarves! I'd also absolutely adore to see how you do their beards because the way you draw hair is so perfect!!!!!

Thank you so much!! <3 I absolutely agree that the dwarven women deserve proper beards! I thought of making Dís and Thorin, but I didn't have the time to make Thorin as well, perhaps later! But I remade Gimli's design earlier, so that can work as a bit of a comparison.

So here's my new design for Gimli, including a gigolas drawing I made for another request (click to see that properly). He's wearing armor so this doesn't show that well the differences between men's and women's fashions, but I think you'll get a bit of an idea at least.

Here's my design for Dís.

So, as mentioned before Old Norse is my main inspiration for dwarves, but there's Bronze Age influences as well, Bronze Age Iberian Peninsula for the jewelry and Greece for Gimli's armor, as well as a bit of Eastern European and Jewish influences. I decided that dwarven women would keep their beards and hair relatively short, while the men would keep them long, both would still keep them braided. I made Dís two different jewelry styles. I'm thinking the giant wheels are more of a ceremonial style, while the other style is more casual for a noble woman. Also, I have not drawn it for Gimli, but while women wear a veil, I'd have the men wear a cap.

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If you are still taking requests, I would love to see more of Jon and Dany doing whatever

meeting her silver :)

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Art Nouveau Plique a Jour Brooch

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"Do you think it will truly come to battle between them? If they should come to some accord—" "They won't," Tyrion said. "They are too different and yet too much alike, and neither could ever stomach the other."

Tyrion and Cersei looking at Renly and Stannis fighting each other, instead of uniting against their common enemy:

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“A huge collection of Regency mother of pearl gaming counters and thread winders. Many fish-shaped, many with engraved monograms.”

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when things are already pretty horsey but then the situation

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I have been thinking of this Canal+ ad with napoleon in it

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Because I'm unhinged I mentally gave the Neck water moccasins, aka agkistrodon piscivorus, a type of semi aquatic viper when I first read about the Neck. Then recently started making a coat of arms with one for personal reasons and got the idea of crannogmen harvesting it's venom for tipping their arrows in times of war because the maker I was using has 2 types of arrow heads as options. One of which is a pheon which is barbed arrowhead in heraldry and that would be diabolical but practical in a dishonorable warfare kind of way. Cuz yanno barbed arrows are hard to get out and do alot of damage when removed which is great if you're trying to get as much (cyno)toxic substance in contact with body as possible.

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George III 15ct Yellow Gold & Carved Red Coral Cross Pendant Antique c1820