#agot sansa my baby

[baelorbreakbeds]

[queen-helaenas-pet-spider]

"Save yourself some pain, girl, and give him what he wants."

"What...What does he want? Please, tell me."

"He wants you to smile and smell sweet and be his lady love", the Hound rasped. "He wants to hear you recite all your pretty little words the way your septa taught you. He wants you to love him...and fear him."

Me thinks Sandor wasn't talking about Joffrey 👀

[bookjonsadaily]

can you recommend some book jonsa fanfics? Not really that many on going in ao3

Hey anon!!!

Here are some more recs for you!!

the first are from nepobabyeurydice:

if you try to break me you will bleed by @dialux

time travel fic with Sansa, but it’s always the first fic I recommend to friends because the development of Jon and Sansa’s relationship from her holding all the cards, to him swearing herself to her, and then Sansa letting him see the whole deck is genuinely beautiful to read!

love exists in many forms by @dialux

In which Alayne Arryn, only daughter of Jon Arryn, commits suicide after her father dies in a failed attempt at rebellion, and her handmaiden, Sansa Stone, pretends to be her when faced with death. Sansa arrives at King’s Landing and finds herself betrothed to Prince Jon Targaryen; but their relationship is complicated by old secrets, new loves, and treason.

my head is bloody and unbowed by sadhippe

In which Robb’s baby survives, Sansa never marries Ramsay, and Jon is held captive at Dragonstone. Also more Tully’s and other Northern Conspiracy Faves!

and recs from visenyashill, who is going to do one of longer fic when they have the time and energy to actually read fic in a little bit, so these are mostly one shots-

in the midst of the ruins by iday

jonsa fic, post war for the dawn. while living out his days out of sight and out of mind, jon gets a raven from winterfell with only two words: "come home." so he does. brienne and podrick are also there. very cute, contained little story, and an older jonsa fic.

varg-hamr/wolfskin by undercovercaptain

this one gets rec-ed a lot but for good reason! a take on jon's ressurection and sansa as the girl in gray that i think is well done and also roughly what i predict will happen (leaving room for some crazy grrm-ness tho, obviously)

saw you in the snow by sleepingwithwolves

another girl in gray esque take but with bran coming to sansa in a weirwood dream as well as jon. i love this one a lot, i you will see i have a weakness for jonsa fic that features another starkling.

no smooth road by maybethrice

rickon pov where jon and sansa recall him from hiding on skagos when he’s twelve, to be the new lord of winterfell. it’s a “dany stops the long night” canon and i like it for delving into the difficult tie of the political situation.

ghosts by sansawolfbits

jon travels to the vale to meet with the lord protector and finds someone he didn't expect. very short but cute also myranda cameo.

i lost all signs so i got lost by tempisfugit

The five people who wanted Sansa for who she reminded them of and the one who just wanted her.

stealing by just_a_dram

jon steals sansa. this is the first jonsa fic i ever read and this author was super prolific with book canon jonsa in like....2016? ish? so if you're looking for book canon stuff, I would definitely start here!

a boy in his cups by greenhikingboots

a re-imagining of jon's first chapter in agot where he knows the truth of who he is and drunkenly proposes to sansa.

a stark in winterfell

it's not super romantic, more tortured than anything, about sansa needing an heir and seducing jon snow - and neither of them know about his true parentage.

[sherlokiness]

Jonsa as the last card

Not to sound delusional but I think jonsa is GRRM's trump card in the books. We were never meant to have them in the show. The author has got to have an ace up his sleeves, right? What convinces me of this is the changed dialogue between Arya and Ned during the 1st season. The book goes "You will marry a King..." to which Arya replies "No, that's Sansa" while the show's version was "You will marry a lord..." to which Arya says "No, that's not me."

Some say this was just a leftover hint from the og outline bc why would Ned say Arya will marry a King? There can only be one and Joffrey is already betrothed to Sansa. Well ofc I'd beg to differ. It'll be abandoned foreshadowing if one disregards Arya's response. Did you know that Abraham Daniel who adapted GRRM's graphic novel wanted to change what he deemed to be a throwaway line but GRRM refused bc it was a clue to suggest the endgame in ADoS?

There was one scene I had to rework because there's a particular line of dialog -- and you wouldn't know it to look at -- that's important in the last scene of "A Dream of Spring."

I have a meta about this but the link has been lost to time. 💀 So it's part of a dialog, inconspicuous, and should be before ACoK since only AGoT adaptation has been confirmed by that time.

The show had to rewrite it to make sense bc even so many readers found it perplexing but the comics had it exactly right.Look, it even has Arya winking perhaps as a nod to the audience.

"Not all," said Jaime. "Lord Eddard's daughters live. One has just been wed. The other …" Brienne, where are you? Have you found her? "… if the gods are good, she'll forget she was a Stark. She'll wed some burly blacksmith or fat-faced innkeep, fill his house with children, and never need to fear that some knight might come along to smash their heads against a wall."

I believe this is a nod by the author to make us think of the "No, that's Sansa" line bc here it's Arya who knows Gendry and Hotpie. If we take Jamie's line to be the opposite, can we infer that Sansa will never forget she's a Stark? Moreover,she will not marry a nobody and always need to fear her children will end up like Aegon- Rhaegar's heir.

If Arya's line comes true then the last scene will be of Sansa and Jon with their children. My ideal would be Sansa singing a lullaby to her baby with Jon by her side. It's a callback to the end of the first book's "music of dragons" where music refers to cries of newly hatched dragons. It also makes us think of Jon's memory of Sansa before his death.

I'm not saying the baby's lullaby is the song of ice and fire but...🫣🫣🫣 Baby+Song+Couple of a Stark and Targ

[prahelika]

Arya Stark Appreciation Week: Day 3

Overlooked Traits : Emotional Intelligence

Game of Thrones massacred Arya's character so badly that to someone who watched the show first (mostly), she appeared downright emotionless.

Safe to say that her emotional intelligence is a criminally underrated trait.

One of Sansa's first mentions of Arya goes like this.

Sansa knew all about the sorts of people Arya liked to talk to: squires and grooms and serving girls, old men and naked children, rough-spoken freeriders of uncertain birth. Arya would make friends with anybody. This Mycah was the worst; a butcher's boy, thirteen and wild, he slept in the meat wagon and smelled of the slaughtering block.

- Sansa I, AGOT

She makes friends with anybody. While she doesn't fit in with the highborn ladies of Winterfell, she is universally adored by the smallfolk there.

Arya had loved nothing better than to sit at her father's table and listen to them talk. She had loved listening to the men on the benches too; to freeriders tough as leather, courtly knights and bold young squires, grizzled old men-at-arms. She used to throw snowballs at them and help them steal pies from the kitchen. Their wives gave her scones and she invented names for their babies and played monsters-and-maidens and hide-the-treasure and come-into-my-castle with their children. Fat Tom used to call her "Arya Underfoot," because he said that was where she always was.

- Arya II, AGOT

The show portrayed Arya as someone who loses her softness and sweetness as her life gets progressively darker. This couldn't be further from the truth. In ACOK, where her father has just died and she is in hiding among the men of the Watch, even then, she tries her best not to take it out on anyone else. When Hot Pie bullies her for Needle, she remains non-confrontational. He instigates both verbally and physically.

Arya slid her practice sword from her belt. "You can have this one," she told Hot Pie, not wanting to fight. "That's just some stick." He rode nearer and tried to reach over for Needle's hilt.

- Arya I, ACOK

Something else worth noticing is that she stays in hiding in various dangerous places skillfully, in both ACOK and ASOS. No one suspects her of being Arya Stark (excluding Jaqen H'ghar). She even serves as cupbearer to Roose Bolton, and manages not to draw his ire.

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

- Arya IX, ACOK

This, by the way, isn't just a byproduct of the trauma she endured. All the way back in the first book:

It was the scariest thing she'd ever done. She wanted to run and hide, but she made herself walk across the yard, slowly, putting one foot in front of the other as if she had all the time in the world and no reason to be afraid of anyone. She thought she could feel their eyes, like bugs crawling on her skin under her clothes. Arya never looked up. If she saw them watching, all her courage would desert her, she knew, and she would drop the bundle of clothes and run and cry like a baby, and then they would have her. She kept her gaze on the ground. By the time she reached the shadow of the royal sept on the far side of the yard, Arya was cold with sweat, but no one had raised the hue and cry.

- Arya IV, AGOT

Something else of note is her kindness even when she's suffering. The way she takes care of Weasel even when she's starved or scared.

"You leave Weasel alone, she's just scared and hungry is all." Arya glanced back, but the girl was not following for once.

- Arya V, ACOK

This is what she does - she takes care of people, even when she needs taking care of herself. In Braavos:

"He has no coin," mocked the fair-haired bravo. His dark-haired friend grinned and said something in Braavosi. "My friend Terro is chilly. Be our good fat friend and give him your cloak." "Don't do that either," said the barrow girl, "or else they'll ask for your boots next, and before long you'll be naked." "Little cats who howl too loud get drowned in the canals," warned the fair-haired bravo. "Not if they have claws." And suddenly there was a knife in the girl's left hand, a blade as skinny as she was. The one called Terro said something to his fair-haired friend and the two of them moved off, chuckling at one another. "Thank you," Sam told the girl when they were gone.

- Samwell III, AFFC

There's one last point: apologies. This may not seem very important, but sometimes I see discussions where people claim that Arya is a selfish girl, does not take accountability for her mistakes etc. (usually in the context of Sansa). This is, as most anti-Arya sentiments, blatantly untrue.

Arya raised her eyes. "I'm sorry, Father. I was wrong and I beg my sweet sister's forgiveness."

Sansa was so startled that for a moment she was speechless. Finally she found her voice. "What about my dress?"

"Maybe … I could wash it," Arya said doubtfully.

"Washing won't do any good," Sansa said. "Not if you scrubbed all day and all night. The silk is ruined."

"Then I'll … make you a new one," Arya said.

Sansa threw back her head in disdain. "You? You couldn't sew a dress fit to clean the pigsties."

- Sansa III, AGOT

Arya offers a genuine apology here, even after her sister says horrible things. She even speaks perfectly here, remembering her courtesies. (Keep in mind, this is also after Sansa and Jeyne have told Arya that Mycah's death was her fault. She would be well within her rights to demand an apology from Sansa first.)

The last words they exchange here are:

"It won't be so bad, Sansa," Arya said. "We're going to sail on a galley. It will be an adventure, and then we'll be with Bran and Robb again, and Old Nan and Hodor and the rest." She touched her on the arm.

"Hodor!" Sansa yelled. "You ought to marry Hodor, you're just like him, stupid and hairy and ugly!" She wrenched away from her sister's hand, stormed into her bedchamber, and barred the door behind her.

- Sansa III, AGOT

This is self-explanatory, really. Also, she apologises to Lady Smallwood for the torn dress.

Lady Smallwood gave her breeches, belt, and tunic to wear, and a brown doeskin jerkin dotted with iron studs. "They were my son's things," she said. "He died when he was seven."

"I'm sorry, my lady." Arya suddenly felt bad for her, and ashamed. "I'm sorry I tore the acorn dress too. It was pretty."

"Yes, child. And so are you. Be brave."

- Arya IV, ASOS

(Unimportant sidenote: I love how kind Lady Smallwood is to Arya here. She really needed this.)

Basically, Arya of House Stark is one of the most emotionally intelligent characters in ASOIAF and I will not hear otherwise.

[jackoshadows]

One of Arya’s canonical relationships often ignored or minimized, because of fandom sexism, is that of her and Rickon Stark. Despite the text mentioning several times that Arya loves to play with babies, this is ignored simply because her character is often critiqued - by both feudal Westeros and fandom - for not performing femininity as per patriarchal ideals.

Arya had loved nothing better than to sit at her father's table and listen to them talk. She had loved listening to the men on the benches too; to freeriders tough as leather, courtly knights and bold young squires, grizzled old men-at-arms. She used to throw snowballs at them and help them steal pies from the kitchen. Their wives gave her scones and she invented names for their babies and played monsters-and-maidens and hide-the-treasure and come-into-my-castle with their children. Fat Tom used to call her "Arya Underfoot," because he said that was where she always was. She'd liked that a lot better than "Arya Horseface." - Arya, AGoT

Arya has a closer relationship with both Bran and Rickon, right from when they are babies - it’s not just a case of her hanging around the boys. When Robb takes Sansa, Arya and Bran down into the crypts to prank them, it’s Arya’s hand that baby Bran clutches when he is scared.

Her brother Robb had taken them down, her and Sansa and baby Bran, who'd been no bigger than Rickon  was now. (---) Sansa kept looking at the stubby little candle, anxious that it might go out. Old Nan had told her there were spiders down here, and rats as big as dogs. Robb smiled when she said that. "There are worse things than spiders and rats," he whispered. "This is where the dead walk." That was when they heard the sound, low and deep and shivery. Baby Bran had clutched at Arya's hand. - Arya, AGoT

Sansa’s only nostalgic memory of Rickon in her POV appears when she thinks Arya is safely back in Winterfell:

Once in a while, Sansa even missed her sister. By now Arya was safe back  in Winterfell, dancing and sewing, playing with Bran and baby Rickon,  even riding through the winter town if she liked. - Sansa, ACoK

And when Arya misses her family back home:

She wanted to tease Bran and play with baby Rickon and have Robb smile at her. - Arya, AGoT

After going on the run, Arya is concerned and worried for Rickon and wonders how tall he would have grown:

A whooping gang of small children went running past, chasing a rolling  hoop. Arya stared at them with resentment, remembering the times she'd  played at hoops with Bran and Jon and their baby brother Rickon. She wondered how big Rickon  had grown, and whether Bran was sad - Arya, AGoT

For a moment Arya forgot to breathe. Dead? Bran and Rickon,  dead? What does he mean? What does he mean about Winterfell, Joffrey  could never take Winterfell, never, Robb would never let him. Then she  remembered that Robb was not at Winterfell. He was away in the west, and Bran was crippled, and Rickon only four. It took all her strength to remain still and silent, the way Syrio Forel had taught her, to stand there like a stick of furniture. She felt tears gathering in her eyes, and willed them away. It's not true, it can't be true, it's   just some Lannister lie. - Arya, ACoK

She watched the parchment twist, blacken, and flare up. If the Lannisters hurt Bran and Rickon,  Robb will kill them every one.  - Arya, ACoK

So canonically it’s Arya who played with baby Rickon, misses him terribly in KL, wonders how tall he has grown and worries over what is happening to him in Winterfell. All this is Arya, not Sansa.

Note: This is not a critique of Sansa and how much she thinks of her family. There is nothing wrong in not wanting to be near babies or not wanting to play with babies. There is nothing wrong in not wanting to hang around little children or not wanting to care for them. Especially as Sansa and Arya are themselves children!! They are only 9 and 11 when the story starts and are now 11 and 13.

This is a critique of a fandom that twists Arya into some ‘NLOG’ caricature, ‘male-coded’, masculine, being violent, impulsive, too damaged, going around biting people, who can only fight or kill, wanting to sail away instead of being home with family, cannot become Lady of Winterfell because she is not the right kind of lady, has internalized misogyny etc. - all because her character disliked a few activities like sewing, singing and dancing. And all the while projecting qualities like motherhood, maternal feelings, womanhood, romance, marriage, children on 11/13 year old Sansa.

Things get even worse with the Jon/Sansa shippers, who turn Jon and Sansa into some masochistic, twisted idea of Ned and Cat (Because of course Jon Snow is a self-loathing, pathetic, shallow, sad sack of shite craving Catelyn’s approval and falling for the daughter who looks like Cat and acts a snob towards him simply because she’s too beautiful to resist at 11 years old 😭) and therefore Rickon is going to see them together and think they are his parents....

Like I said, taking from Arya’s canonical relationships in the books and giving to Sansa because the tradfem section of fandom are unable to read Arya as having a loving and caring relationship with her little siblings.

And then there’s Rickon Stark himself. First of all, Rickon would surely remember Jon Snow and Sansa as his siblings? Why would he think they are Ned and Cat? They are not clones!! 

Secondly, Rickon and Shaggy were mirroring each other’s wildness before they even left Winterfell. It’s Shaggydog who was biting people! Rickon then grew up during his formative years with Osha in Skagos or Cannibal Island. Osha is of the Freefolk and the Skagosi, like the Freefolk, talk in the Old Tongue. They live in caves and perform human sacrifices. This Rickon is going to see Jon and Sansa and go all ‘Mama and papa!’ and think he is their baby?! 😂😂😂

Then there’s all these future speculations and theorizing about how Sansa is going to become Rickon’s regent in TWoW. Again, how? Sansa is 13 in the TWoW sample chapter. Is she suddenly going to magically grow 3 years in the next chapter and turn 16? Additionally, the regent should have a good know how of the North to help the Lord of Winterfell run WF and the North - again, canonically it’s Arya who knows how Winterfell works, who refers to her father’s advice and teachings and who follows her father’s idea of Northern justice.

The only Stark/Snow who currently has the age and experience to become anyone’s regent is Jon Snow. And I don’t even see him being appointed as one, rather it’s more likely he is made KITN.

So after Bran, the Stark closest to Rickon is Arya. And then it’s most possibly Jon Snow. Jon who tells Tyrion to take a message for Rickon in Winterfell and Rickon who stopped to tell Jon hi at the feast and kept asking Bran why Jon was not sitting with them.

The only reason 13 year old Sansa keeps being connected to Rickon as some kind of maternal mother figure is because of fandom sexism and their rigid ideas of gender, femininity and even toxic masculinity.

[nymerias-heart]

“Their wives gave her scones and she invented names for their babies and played monsters-and-maidens and hide-the-treasure and come-into-my-castle with their children.” - AGOT Arya II

No War AU

In the books Arya loved to come up with names for the babies in Winterfell, so in my au I can see her trying to come up with names for Sansas child too.

This is set a few months after Sansa’s wedding to Joffrey (Sansa seems to be happy to everyone around her but in reality Joffrey has started to be cruel to her but she’s trying to act like everything is normal and is trying to do her duty as a wife like she was taught to do). The conversation takes place in one of the gardens in the red keep, this one was given to Sansa by Cersei as part of her wedding gift and Sansa designed it to be very northern and Stark themed. Sansa is currently a few months pregnant with her first child and it is expected by the maesters that this will be a boy. Catelyn is on her way to kingslanding to assist in the birth of her first grandchild and to be their for her daughter.

I imagine that Arya and Sansa wouldn’t be very close to each other when they got older but they also wouldn’t be fighting like they did when they were younger. And a lot of the goals and plots throughout the au would fail because they weren’t working together.

So this au would focus a lot on them trying to understand each other and fix their relationship.

[laurellerual]

ASoIaF: Arya’s change of clothes

AGOT 

Arya III: His claws raked at the front of her leather jerkin. (...) Arya whirled, felt leather catch and tear as a huge fang nipped at her jerkin, and then she was running.

Arya V: Some of them stared at her boots or her cloak (heavy woolen cloak) (...) The silver bracelet she'd hoped to sell had been stolen her first night out of the castle, along with her bundle of good clothes (a velvet skirt, a silk tunic, some smallclothes, a dress her mother had embroidered for her,  a satin gown) , snatched while she slept in a burnt-out house off Pig Alley. All they left her was the cloak she had been huddled in, the leathers on her back, her wooden practice sword … and Needle.

ACOK 

Arya VI: "That hair is a fright and a nest for lice as well. We'll have it off, and then you're for the kitchens." (...) Goodwife Harra slapped her so hard that her swollen lip broke open all over again (...) They gave her a shift of grey roughspun wool and a pair of ill-fitting shoes, and sent her off. (...) On the road Arya had felt like a sheep, but Harrenhal turned her into a mouse. She was grey as a mouse in her scratchy wool shift,

Arya X: They required dressing like a page and washing more than she liked. (...) In her cell, she stripped to the skin and dressed herself carefully, in two layers of smallclothes, warm stockings, and her cleanest tunic. It was Lord Bolton's livery. On the breast was sewn his sigil, the flayed man of the Dreadfort. She tied her shoes, threw a wool cloak over her skinny shoulders, and knotted it under her throat. 

ASOS

Arya I: She was still dressed in her page's garb, and on the breast over her heart was sewn Lord Bolton's sigil, the flayed man of the Dreadfort. (...) "Who dressed the poor child in those Bolton rags?" 

Arya IV: They insisted she dress herself in girl's things, brown woolen stockings and a light linen shift, and over that a light green gown with acorns embroidered all over the bodice in brown thread, and more acorns bordering the hem. (...) Lady Smallwood said as the women laced the gown up Arya's back. (...) one sleeve was torn on her stupid acorn dress. 

Arya IV: The dress she put her in this time was sort of lilac-colored, and decorated with little baby pearls. The only good thing about it was that it was so delicate that no one could expect her to ride in it. 

Arya IV: So the next morning as they broke their fast, Lady Smallwood gave her breeches, belt, and tunic to wear, and a brown doeskin jerkin dotted with iron studs. "They were my son's things".

Arya V: Then they stole all the clothes that Lady Smallwood had given her and dressed her up like one of Sansa's dolls in linen and lace. 

AFFC 

Arya III: In the black of night she rose again, donned the clothes she'd worn from Westeros, and buckled on her swordbelt. Needle hung from one hip, her dagger from the other. With her floppy (woolen hat patched with leather) hat on her head, her fingerless gloves tucked into her belt, and her silver fork in one hand, she went stealing up the steps. (...) She emptied her pouch into her palm; five silver stags, nine copper stars, some pennies and halfpennies and groats. She scattered them across the water. Next her boots. They made the loudest splashes. Her dagger followed, the one she'd gotten off the archer who had begged the Hound for mercy. Her swordbelt went into the canal. Her cloak, tunic, breeches, smallclothes, all of it. All but Needle.

ADWD 

The Blind Girl: The blind girl tied a strip of rag around her head to hide her useless eyes (...) The waif had shaved her head for her when they took her eyes; a mummer's cut (...)  she gave her pox scars and a mummer's mole on one cheek with a dark hair growing from it.  (...) The clothes she wore were rags, faded and fraying, but warm clean rags for all that. Under them she hid three knives—one in a boot, one up a sleeve, one sheathed at the small of her back. (...) A cracked wooden begging bowl and belt of hempen rope completed her garb.

The Ugly Little Girl: An ugly girl should dress in ugly clothing, she decided, so she chose a stained brown cloak fraying at the hem, a musty green tunic smelling of fish, and a pair of heavy boots. Last of all she palmed her finger knife.

The Ugly Little Girl: They brought a robe for her as well, the soft thick robe of an acolyte, black upon one side and white upon the other. 

TWOW

Mercy: She shaved, donned her smallclothes, and slipped a shapeless brown wool dress down over her head. One of her stockings needed mending, she saw as she pulled it up. (...) Her boots were lumps of old brown leather mottled with saltstains and cracked from long wear, her belt a length of hempen rope dyed blue. She knotted it about her waist, and hung a knife on her right hip and a coin pouch on her left. Last of all she threw her cloak across her shoulders. It was a real mummer's cloak, purple wool lined in red silk, with a hood to keep the rain off, and three secret pockets too. She'd hid some coins in one of those, an iron key in another, a blade in the last. A real blade, not a fruit knife like the one on her hip, but it did not belong to Mercy, no more than her other treasures did. 

[arte072]

Back at Winterfell, they had eaten in the Great Hall almost half the time. Her father used to say that a lord needed to eat with his men, if he hoped to keep them. "Know the men who follow you," she heard him tell Robb once, "and let them know you. Don't ask your men to die for a stranger." (Arya II, AGoT)

Arya had loved nothing better than to sit at her father's table and listen to them talk. She had loved listening to the men on the benches too; to freeriders tough as leather, courtly knights and bold young squires, grizzled old men-at-arms. She used to throw snowballs at them and help them steal pies from the kitchen. Their wives gave her scones and she invented names for their babies and played monsters-and-maidens and hide-the-treasure and come-into-my-castle with their children. Fat Tom used to call her "Arya Underfoot," because he said that was where she always was. She'd liked that a lot better than "Arya Horseface." (Arya II, AGoT)

Sansa knew all about the sorts of people Arya liked to talk to: squires and grooms and serving girls, old men and naked children, rough-spoken freeriders of uncertain birth. Arya would make friends with anybody. (Sansa I, AGoT)

Cat had made friends along the wharves; porters and mummers, ropemakers and sailmenders, taverners, brewers and bakers and beggars and whores. They bought clams and cockles from her, told her true tales of Braavos and lies about their lives, and laughed at the way she talked when she tried to speak Braavosi. She never let that trouble her. Instead, she showed them all the fig, and told them they were camel cunts, which made them roar with laughter. (Cat of the Canals, AFFC)

Arya simply is thee Lady of Winterfell idc idc

[she-wolf-of-highgarden]

You know what is kind of odd. There have been a lot of fights over the years about Sansa, Arya, and sewing. And usually, Sansa is characterized as someone who loves it. What’s odd is that other Arya mentioning it, Sansa never does. Even while she’s trapped in King’s Landing there is never mention of her passing her days by sewing or something. There is nothing that says she embroidered with Margery & co. or with Myrcella. You would think it would get mentioned she does it in the Vale, but there isn’t any. 

I’m not saying she isn’t good at it or talented at it, but I’m not sure she likes it as much as the fandom or Arya thinks she does. And even then, Arya doesn’t say if Sansa really likes it, she just says Sansa is better than her at it.  In fact, Sansa seems a lot more interested in learning the high harp. 

The two people who talk about sewing the most are Cat and Arya. Cat because she does it so often and Arya because she can’t seem to do it all.  

“They met in the lower bailey of Riverrun. When Brandon saw that Petyr wore only helm and breastplate and mail, he took off most of his armor. Petyr had begged her for a favor he might wear, but she had turned him away. Her lord father promised her to Brandon Stark, and so it was to him that she gave her token, a pale blue handscarf she had embroidered with the leaping trout of Riverrun. As she pressed it into his hand, she pleaded with him. "He is only a foolish boy, but I have loved him like a brother. It would grieve me to see him die." And her betrothed looked at her with the cool grey eyes of a Stark and promised to spare the boy who loved her.” - Catelyn VII, AGoT

"You are most welcome here, Your Grace." Catelyn had been sewing, but she put the needle aside now. “ - Catelyn III, ASoS

“Hours later, she was sewing in her bedchamber when young Rollam Westerling came running with the summons to supper. Good, Catelyn thought, relieved. She had not been certain that her son would want her there, after their quarrel.” - Catelyn IV, ASoS

“ 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.” - Arya IV, AGoT

Arya, meanwhile, will never let anyone forget the fact she is bad at sewing. Sansa confirms in the fight in Sansa III AGoT, but I think words spoke in anger only count for so much. 

“Arya's stitches were crooked again.” Is literally our first intro to Arya.

And we here about it again and again. Even while joining a death cult she doesn’t let it go. 

“Even sewing was more fun than tongues, she told herself, after a night when she had forgotten half the words she thought she knew, and pronounced the other half so badly that the waif had laughed at her. My sentences are as crooked as my stitches used to be. If the girl had not been so small and starved, Arya would have smashed her stupid face. Instead she gnawed her lip.” - Arya II, AFfC 

I think sewing is less of an Arya-Sansa problem and more of a Catelyn-Arya problem. 

[daenystheedreamer]

Top 5 extremely minor characters?🤔

oooo i gotta go with wenda the white fawn wylla manderly willow heddle of course. but wylla and willow DO have speaking roles thats not minor enough. i will be listing these in order of least to most minor

5. DANELLE LOTHSTON ms bathory and dragonseed tease... mentioned a couple times in relation to harrenhal and mentioned in d&e. this makes her a main character in my eyes compared to some of the minor minor minor characters of planetos

4. WENDA THE WHITE FAWN of the kingswood brotherhood actually mentioned in the main series more than once. branding merrett frey on the ass lmfao QUEEN

3. POXY JEYNE POORE mx joan of arc of westeros yasss. maegor executing her for being a witch when his mother is visenya and his wife is tyanna. lmfao. not mentioned in the main series but DOES get extensive (a scene.) coverage in f&b.

2. PRINCESS DAERYSSA only ever mentioned by sansa in AGOT and possibly intended to be a targ until grrm figured out his timeline. early instalment weirdness. serwyn of the mirror shield got retconned/mythologised into a kingsguard member and mentioned in twoiaf and by several characters in asoiaf but daeryssa never gets mentioned anywhere again. people's princess baby I remember you

finally URSULA UPCLIFF random coming of the andals character only mentioned in twoiaf not important to anything at all. witch who said she was wed to the merling king and fought on the side of the first men. won over by robar royce's "honeyed tongue" which may be about him being charismatic or maybe he got down on his damn knees and ate her pussy out like she deserved. had her head ripped off by torgold tollett (omg dolorous edd tease!!!) and he had to jump on her blood red horse to do it. and her name is probably either a reference to ursula littlemermaid (she's from house upcliffe which has the sea as their sigil and they're from WITCH ISLE.) or ursula k le guin either of which is iconic

[nightswatchdisbandmentera]

Randomly struck me how Arya's first trip down to the Winterfell crypts seems to parallel Jon's recurrent crypt dreams on one particular motif - a dead king rising.

Robb took them all the way down to the end, past Grandfather and Brandon and Lyanna, to show them their own tombs. Sansa kept looking at the stubby little candle, anxious that it might go out. Old Nan had told her there were spiders down here, and rats as big as dogs. Robb smiled when she said that. “There are worse things than spiders and rats,” he whispered. “This is where the dead walk.” That was when they heard the sound, low and deep and shivery. Baby Bran had clutched at Arya’s hand. When the spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood, Sansa ran shrieking for the stairs, and Bran wrapped himself around Robb’s leg, sobbing. Arya stood her ground and gave the spirit a punch. It was only Jon, covered with flour. “You stupid,” she told him, “you scared the baby,” but Jon and Robb just laughed and laughed, and pretty soon Bran and Arya were laughing too.

Arya IV, AGOT

Last night he had dreamt the Winterfell dream again. He was wandering the empty castle, searching for his father, descending into the crypts. Only this time the dream had gone further than before. In the dark he’d heard the scrape of stone on stone. When he turned he saw that the vaults were opening, one after the other. As the dead kings came stumbling from their cold black graves, Jon had woken in pitch-dark, his heart hammering. Even when Ghost leapt up on the bed to nuzzle at his face, he could not shake his deep sense of terror. He dared not go back to sleep. Instead he had climbed the Wall and walked, restless, until he saw the light of the dawn off to the east. It was only a dream. I am a brother of the Night’s Watch now, not a frightened boy.

Jon VIII, ASOS

In Jon's dream, he's a witness to the Stark kings rising to confront him. But in Arya's POV, Jon is the dead rising from a tomb to confront them.

It's just funny because a common theme in Jon's crypt dreams is how he doesn't belong. He voices the rejection to himself - he's not a Stark, he has no place.

Jon shook his head. “No one. The castle is always empty.” He had never told anyone of the dream, and he did not understand why he was telling Sam now, yet somehow it felt good to talk of it. “Even the ravens are gone from the rookery, and the stables are full of bones. That always scares me. I start to run then, throwing open doors, climbing the tower three steps at a time, screaming for someone, for anyone. And then I find myself in front of the door to the crypts. It’s black inside, and I can see the steps spiraling down. Somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don’t want to. I’m afraid of what might be waiting for me. The old Kings of Winter are down there, sitting on their thrones with stone wolves at their feet and iron swords across their laps, but it’s not them I’m afraid of. I scream that I’m not a Stark, that this isn’t my place, but it’s no good, I have to go anyway, so I start down, feeling the walls as I descend, with no torch to light the way. It gets darker and darker, until I want to scream.” He stopped, frowning, embarrassed. “That’s when I always wake.” His skin cold and clammy, shivering in the darkness of his cell. Ghost would leap up beside him, his warmth as comforting as daybreak. He would go back to sleep with his face pressed into the direwolf’s shaggy white fur. “Do you dream of Horn Hill?” Jon asked.

Jon IV, AGOT

He dreamt he was back in Winterfell, limping past the stone kings on their thrones. Their grey granite eyes turned to follow him as he passed, and their grey granite fingers tightened on the hilts of the rusted swords upon their laps. You are no Stark, he could hear them mutter, in heavy granite voices. There is no place for you here. Go away. He walked deeper into the darkness. “Father?” he called. “Bran? Rickon?” No one answered. A chill wind was blowing on his neck. “Uncle?” he called. “Uncle Benjen? Father? Please, Father, help me.” Up above he heard drums. They are feasting in the Great Hall, but I am not welcome there. I am no Stark, and this is not my place. His crutch slipped and he fell to his knees. The crypts were growing darker. A light has gone out somewhere. “Ygritte?” he whispered. “Forgive me. Please.” But it was only a direwolf, grey and ghastly, spotted with blood, his golden eyes shining sadly through the dark …

Jon VIII, ASOS

Yet Arya's POV shows that Jon does have a place. Not only that, but he becomes a resident of the crypts as a ghost. There's the implication too that he spends more time in there than all his siblings as he waits for them to arrive. Then when they do, he rises out of his own tomb like the dead Kings of Winter rise out of theirs in his dreams.

Bran's POV also says that only Starks belong in the crypts.

After that, oddly, Rickon decided he liked the Walders. They never played lord of the crossing again, but they played other games—monsters and maidens, rats and cats, come-into-my-castle, all sorts of things. With Rickon by their side, the Walders plundered the kitchens for pies and honeycombs, raced round the walls, tossed bones to the pups in the kennels, and trained with wooden swords under Ser Rodrik’s sharp eye. Rickon even showed them the deep vaults under the earth where the stonemason was carving father’s tomb. “You had no right!” Bran screamed at his brother when he heard. “That was our place, a Stark place!” But Rickon never cared.

Bran I, ACOK

It seems that Snow or Targaryen, bastard or trueborn, it doesn't actually matter. At the end of the day, Jon will always be one of them: a Stark son, and a true King of Winter.

[silverflameataraxia]

I can't get over Jon and Arya thinking about each other practically every POV 🥰

"He's frightened. We're leaving him." He remembered the day he had left Winterfell, all the bittersweet farewells; Bran lying broken, Robb with snow in his hair,  Arya raining kisses on him after he'd given her Needle. "Once we say our words, we'll all have duties to attend to. Some of us may be sent away, to Eastwatch or the Shadow Tower. Sam will remain in training, with the likes of Rast and Cuger and these new boys who are coming up the kingsroad. Gods only know what they'll be like, but you can bet Ser Alliser will send them against him, first chance he gets."

He told them all of it, even the part where he'd set Ghost at Rast's throat. Maester Aemon listened silently, blind eyes fixed on the fire, but Chett's face darkened with each word. "Without us to keep him safe, Sam will have no chance," Jon finished.  "He's hopeless with a sword. My sister Arya could tear him apart, and she's not yet ten. If Ser Alliser makes him fight, it's only a matter of time before he's hurt or killed."

AGoT, Jon V

A whooping gang of small children  went running past, chasing a rolling hoop. Arya stared at them with resentment, remembering the times she played at hoops with Bran and Jon and their baby brother Rickon. She wondered how big Rickon had grown, and whether Bran was sad. She would have given anything if Jon had been here to call her "little sister" and muss her hair.  Not that it needed mussing. She'd seen her reflection in puddles,  and she didn't think hair got any more mussed than hers.

AGoT, Arya V

Between the two of them, they think of all their siblings except Sansa 🤣🤣🤣 But then Sansa never thinks of her family in her POV's. She's too busy thinking about her beloved Joffrey 🤮

[esther-dot]

Hello, hope you're having a pleasant day!

I've been meaning to ask you for a bit of professional jonsa opinion for a pretty long time about this little theory of mine - could that be a thing or am I being delusional jonsa (as I always do).

So in SoS, Sansa IV there is this moment in her period dream where she calls for people who could possibly protect her, her father and brothers are among this list. And it's seems like a normal thing to do - to call for her family - but, but, but, BUT! - she never calls for her mother. She never calls for arya. She calls for people (and Lady) who could theoretically actively protect her as she thinks (Dontos and Loras are here too)- so people are not there by default, her subconscious actively chooses people to call for.

And that raises one teeny tiny question. Why would she then be calling for Bran and Rikon? I can't imagine that Sansa who is old enough to see them as little boys crying in their cribs just a couple of years earlier would think of them as said brothers who can protect her/save her. Robb is understandable choice - but then who would be this at least one other brother?

So yeah, I've convinced myself that when she calls for her brothers to help she means Robb and Jon. Like, you know, all those hidden times characters think of other characters without "thinking" of them (I'm looking at you, Jon, with your little "willowy creature" and "sight so lovely" comments). Because it would be actually understandable thing - she may not be very close with boys in their childhood, but she would probably see them training or playing together or whatever noble boys do being boys. It would be enough for her to see them both as "strong brothers who could protect her in case of something bad happens" - consciously or subconsciously.

What do you think? Is it too far fetched? May be it's been discussed and I'm just unaware? I just wish we could have the level of "thinking but not actually thinking" from Sansa as we do with Jon.

Sorry, this ask came out way too long. Thank you for letting me share this thing!

Thank you! It has been A Day™ (...a week...a year….😅) Anyway, I haven't seen anyone point that out!

"No," she cried, "no, please, don't, don't," but no one paid her any heed. She shouted for Ser Dontos, for her brothers, for her dead father and her dead wolf, for gallant Ser Loras who had given her a red rose once, but none of them came. She called for the heroes from the songs, for Florian and Ser Ryam Redwyne and Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, but no one heard. Women swarmed over her like weasels, pinching her legs and kicking her in the belly, and someone hit her in the face and she felt her teeth shatter. (ACOK, Sansa IV)

You know, I think you may be onto something because she is calling out to people who are in that "hero" role for her, it isn’t simply who she is close to (cuz you’re right, she doesn't call for her mother) and considering how she thinks of Bran and Rickon around that same time, it doesn't really fit her perception of them to think they're the ones she calls for?

"Sansa, did you hear? I'm to ride in the tourney today. Mother said I could." Tommen was all of eight. He reminded her of her own little brother, Bran. They were of an age. Bran was back at Winterfell, a cripple, yet safe. Sansa would have given anything to be with him. (ACOK, Sansa I) By now Arya was safe back in Winterfell, dancing and sewing, playing with Bran and baby Rickon,(ACOK, Sansa II)

As young as Robb is, she does view him as a hero who might avenge her as far back as AGOT,

After my name day feast, I'm going to raise a host and kill your brother myself. That's what I'll give you, Lady Sansa. Your brother's head." A kind of madness took over her then, and she heard herself say, "Maybe my brother will give me your head." (AGOT, Sansa VI)

and while we don't have a similar thought of Jon, we have good reason to think he might lurk as a hero figure too, considering how she romanticizes knights and thinks of the Watch:

In the songs, they were called the black knights of the Wall. (AGOT, Sansa III)

And, Jon is listed among her siblings in her next chapter, so he is in that "brother" grouping at this point in the story:

She sang for mercy, for the living and the dead alike, for Bran and Rickon and Robb, for her sister Arya and her bastard brother Jon Snow, away off on the Wall. (ACOK, Sansa V)

There's more of a distinction later, Jonsas have suggested Martin intentionally aims to create distance between her and Jon in ASOS where she seems to forget him:

But she had not forgotten his words, either. The heir to Winterfell, she would think as she lay abed at night. It's your claim they mean to wed. Sansa had grown up with three brothers. She never thought to have a claim, but with Bran and Rickon dead . . . It doesn't matter, there's still Robb, he's a man grown now, and soon he'll wed and have a son. (ASOS, Sansa II)

That exclusion might just be because she's thinking of who has a claim? It certainly heightens the "alone in the world" feeling she has in ASOS and AFFC until our favorite moment,

Oh, and the Night's Watch has a boy commander, some bastard son of Eddard Stark's." "Jon Snow?" she blurted out, surprised. "Snow? Yes, it would be Snow, I suppose." She had not thought of Jon in ages. He was only her half brother, but still . . . with Robb and Bran and Rickon dead, Jon Snow was the only brother that remained to her. I am a bastard too now, just like him. Oh, it would be so sweet, to see him once again. But of course that could never be. Alayne Stone had no brothers, baseborn or otherwise. (AFFC, Alayne II)

Where he returns to being "brother." So no, I don't think this is far fetched at all, especially when Martin has designated Jon as her hero, a fun twist we don't get until ADWD and will truly play out in TWOW, so it makes sense to me that he wouldn't name Jon (to kinda, preserve the element of surprise), but that upon their reunion we will see that even though Jon and Sansa aren't close and Sansa will have this curious, brother and yet not quite, view of him, it's a positive light in which she sees him, a heroic light.

I buy it, anon! Thank you for sharing this theory. I fully support any and all Jonsa delusions! 🥰

[thelustybraavosimaid]

Was there anyone in your life who might’ve served as an inspiration for Arya?

I can’t say there’s any one specific model, but a lot of the women I’ve known over the years have had aspects of Arya with them. Especially some of the women I knew when I was a young man back in the ’60s and ’70s, you know — the decade of the sexual revolution and the feminist movement. I knew a lot of young women who weren’t buying into the, “Oh, I have to find a husband and be a housewife.” That’s certainly part of Arya’s thing. There’s that scene where Ned is telling her, “Well, one day you’ll grow up and you’ll marry a great lord and you’ll be the lady of the castle.” And she says, “No, I won’t. I don’t want that. That’s Sansa, that’s not me.” I knew women who were saying things like that: “I don’t wanna be Mrs. Smith, I wanna be my own person.”

--

"The Lannisters are proud," Jon observed. "You'd think the royal sigil would be sufficient, but no. He makes his mother's House equal in honor to the king's."

"The woman is important too!" Arya protested. (Arya I, AGoT)

--

Arya had loved nothing better than to sit at her father's table and listen to them talk. She had loved listening to the men on the benches too; to freeriders tough as leather, courtly knights and bold young squires, grizzled old men-at-arms. She used to throw snowballs at them and help them steal pies from the kitchen. Their wives gave her scones and she invented names for their babies and played monsters-and-maidens and hide-the-treasure and come-into-my-castle with their children. Fat Tom used to call her "Arya Underfoot," because he said that was where she always was. She'd liked that a lot better than "Arya Horseface." (Arya II, AGoT)

--

"The Merling Queen has chosen a new Mermaid to take the place of the one that drowned. She is the daughter of a Prestayn serving maid, thirteen and penniless, but lovely."

"So are they all, at the beginning," said the priest, "but you cannot know that she is lovely unless you have seen her with your own eyes, and you have none. Who are you, child?" (The Blind Girl, ADwD)

Between this and befriending Merry and co at the Happy Port and getting justice for the Layna by whispering Chiswyck's name to Jaqen, or the revenge for both the daughter and Lommy by killing Raff the Sweetling, Arya has shown neither NLOG nor un-feminist behaviour. There isn't any disdain for girls or for being a girl.

What part of this is incomprehensible to some? Why are people finding it far-fetched that Arya is a feminist character when the own fucking author is saying it?

[rikakore]

Arya "Underfoot" Stark (AGOT)

She's babie!! I gave her Lyanna's face structure, her grandmother Arya Flint's curly hair, and Ned's eyes and coloring. Her forehead is a little higher, her face is a little wider, and Catelyn + Edmure Tully have gaps in their front teeth just like hers (because she had to get something from her mother's side)

Rickard-Lyarra Brandon Ned Lyanna Benjen Jon Arya

Minisa-Hoster Catelyn Edmure Lysa Robb Sansa Bran Rickon Robin

I think embroidering house imagery on clothes is a VERY important for hierarchical power dynamics. Firstborns or "heirs" to a house often feature the most unaltered "pure" versions of their house's sigils, but those further down in succession (or those whose mothers are "higher" in standing) can mix and match without too much pushback (Royces and their different colored horses, Brynden Blackfish, etc.).

I think anyone in Catelyn Tully's position would ensure her firstborn and oldest daughter dressed as Northern and traditionally "Stark" as possible, but I feel like Ned's lookalike Arya and the youngest kids would've had a little more leeway.

As for highborn bastards, I highly doubt Jon's clothes ever featured any direwolf imagery, even if they were just as well-made and warm as the other Stark kids. Theon had the opposite treatment, the Greyjoy kraken was always prominently on display, but that might have been interpreted as more alienating than enabling pride for his roots.

Arya reminds me of one of my younger cousins, I'd painstakingly braid her hair in the mornings so it was out of the way (she wasn't allowed to cut it :') but she'd always come home with her hair all tangled and the ribbons in her pocket or lost. I think Arya hates embroidery but is pretty decent at simple mending by AGOT due to having to repair her own clothes whenever she tears them.