#arya is a flower fairy

[ghariban]

— my absolute dream home. all or nothing baby.

[hamliet]

Is sansa connected to the winter rose?

In a word: no.

The winter rose is connected to Lyanna, Jon, and Daenerys.

The winter rose itself is a flower, a beautiful blue rose. They exist at Winterfell, and the legend associated with them is that Bael the Bard, a successful singer, entered Winterfell under an assumed name. As a reward, Brandon Stark offered him whatever he wanted, and Bael asked for the most beautiful flower. Brandon gave him the rose, but the next morning, Brandon's only daughter was missing from her bed, and the rose lay on the covers.

The crown of winter roses is what Rhaegar gave to Lyanna. Lyanna even dies holding roses, although their petals had turned black from death. The point is clearly that Rhaegar wooed Lyanna and she ran off with him, leaving her family. She also then died, and the beautiful blue roses had all decayed. I don't think Rhaegar and Lyanna weren't in love to some degree, but there's still a lot of political machinations at play and love, true or otherwise, didn't save them like in a fairy tale. In the end they were left with blood and death, not living roses. It's a symbol of loss as much as it is of love--loss of a daughter, loss of Lyanna, loss of a mother.

The context in which the Bael the Bard legend is told is also relevant: Ygritte tells it to Jon, who is Lyanna's son. I mean, the clues could not be clearer:

Ygritte: And she never sung you the song o' the winter rose? Jon: I never knew my mother. Or any such song.

Not only that, but Jon is facing a similar choice to Lyanna, of breaking his vows and staying with Ygritte. In the end, he chooses to return to the Watch.

But, it's not over. No, the legend continues in Brandon Stark relentlessly searching for them, but they never find anyone. He has no heirs, but then the girl returns with an infant, and as it turns out she and Bael never left the crypts of Winterfell--a place of death.

The symbolism is again pretty obvious: Jon as an infant, but also the idea that love stays with you even when you've lost the people whom you love. It's bittersweet. They're with you all along. And, from death comes life. The Stark bastard becomes a Stark lord. Again, the Jon symbolism is obvious.

Bael then becomes a King Beyond the Wall and invades the North, and his own son fights and defeats him--because Bael could not bring himself to kill his son. But his mother still loved Bael and commits suicide. Lovely. But again, the symbolism and themes are obvious: choosing love over duty (as Bael does) and choosing duty over love (as the Stark daughter does) both lead to death, because "death, the high cost of living." Our job living is to walk that tightrope and find a balance we can live with.

Dany's visions in the House of the Undying also connect Jon to the winter rose: she smells it "sweetly" as it grows "from a chink of ice in the wall." It's clearly associated with romance, as well.

Sansa has no connection to the winter rose as far as I can tell. In fact a search tells me the only connection is that after Ygritte tells Jon this, the next chapter is the one where she first "flowers," which is exceedingly tenuous as a connection. The Stark daughter who is repeatedly connected to Lyanna is Arya, not Sansa, and the winter rose has never actually appeared in either of their stories the way it has in Jon's and Daenerys's.

[deathclassic]

weekly tag wednesday but its thursday obviously

thanks for the tag @energievie @thepupperino @sirrudo @gallapiech

@burninface

When is yours? way too fuckin soon,,,,its in 11 days (17 Sept)

Where were you born? the same city i live in now

How do you feel about your legal name? Are you using it online and/or IRL? meh, too many people would respond with 'my dog has the same name' but i hate changing it for online purposes? I do sometimes but it genuinely makes me feel weird and like im impersonating someone but if you see someone go by Percy it could be me

How about your sign? Do you feel it "fits"? Virgo, idk what it means other than its my sign.

What's your earliest memory related to your birthday? i remember a fairy came to my party when i was 5 and she painted our faces, later i found out the fairy was my aunts friend so i sometimes still see her, she does not paint my face anymore.

What's one of the best gifts you've ever received? back when all my friends were in the dnp fandom,,,some fandom artists got together and all drew me pictures of dnp celebrating my birthday.

Also my parents got me a giant koala beanie kid for my 8th birthday bc we share the same birthday - it says so on the tag - and it's been nearly 20 years since then and i still have him on my bed.

How about one of the best you've given yourself? idk my tattoos i guess? my most recent leg tattoos were a reward for doing full time night shift so

What's your favourite cake flavour? red velvet with cream cheese icing

How about your favourite flowers? hydrangeas, they're tattooed on me as well

Have your ever thrown a birthday party? If yes, tell us about your favourite one. i havent thrown one but my parents did for me as a kid! one of my favourites was a 'gym bus' where a bus parks outside your house and its a double decker bus with monkey bars and things to climb on and a slide when i was 7.

What's the ultimate birthday song? that clip from the simpsons when its mr burns' birthday and smithers hired the ramones to sing him happy birthday.

And last but not least, pick a celebrity with whom you share your birthday. ritu arya who plays lila in the umbrella academy and i share a birthday

tagging @vintagelacerosette and @iansw0rld

[jackoshadows]

I noticed that someone said the quiet part aloud on the tags.

Oh, and also this post was tagged Jon Snow for some reason, probably because Sansa treating Jon like a bastard makes her a ‘soft girl’, I dunno 🙄

It’s basically this isn’t it? Sansa gives ‘soft girl/fairy tale’ vibes because she goes along with the patriarchal ideals of oppressing people who are different, who belong to a different class, who don’t fit into society’s idea of the right kind of gender, class, race, sexuality etc.  Arya is messy, spoiled and bratty because she gets along with the small folk, she fights back, she wants different things, she is unhappy with the status quo - hence she is not a ‘soft girl’ with fairy tale vibes.

Wanting to be treated fairly is like ‘modern person views’, has nothing to do with empathy, a basic sense of fairness or right and wrong. Nah, there’s not just enough of ‘fairy tale’ in helping the less fortunate and minorities wanting to be treated equally. It’s not like people have been fighting for rights since the start of civilization - it’s just a modern day phenomenon.

I wouldn’t have a problem if this person had just said, ‘I find Sansa more interesting because she’s a character that strongly believes in the patriarchal system of rules and laws of her world unlike her siblings and that makes her unique amongst the Starks’. Rather, what stood out for me is the way they describe Sansa as ‘soft and fairy tale like’ for being a bigot, but the Arya who plays with the babies of the kitchen cooks and picks flowers for her father will never be that.

This is why Sansa’s the fandom bicycle who gets shipped with every Tom, Dick and Harry in the series, why are her fanon crackships are more popular, why they take away from the ‘non soft’ girls like Arya and Daenerys to give to Sansa. This is why Jonsa is a thing - because Sansa has ‘soft girl/fairy tale’ vibes and they want that fairy tale romance and ending for her.

Why folks want or are looking for a fairy tale princess in a grimdark fantasy series where the author is deliberately deconstructing and subverting all these fairy tale tropes (Jaime/Brienne, Sansa/Sandor) is beyond me in the first place and secondly, I like how the post just ignores that this ‘soft girl’ with fairy tale energy mocked her little sister for being ‘ugly’, horse-faced and unsatisfactory.

[Note: I do acknowledge that this post at the least is different to the usual ‘Sansa is so realistic like a modern day 11 year old’ when excusing all her actions because she’s just a real world child and notes that Sansa is actually a character who believes in the rules of her world and hence a bigot. It’s just the equating of this bigot to being a ‘soft girl’ with ‘fairy tale’ energy that gets me 😂]

[negative-speedforce]

Your OCs find themselves face-to-face with a fairy-tale trickster! They're told they have to perform one song of their choosing, and it must be suitably entertaining to the trickster, or they'll lose their greatest skill forever! We're talking superpowers, Max's ability to design tech, Hyun-Ki's kills with performance (how ironic), whatever it is that makes them stand out.

What song do they pick, and how do they make sure the trickster is entertained by their performance?

Siv: Shows off their years of guitar lessons with a half-decent performance of "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"

Jay: Can't sing to save his own life, so he gives backup vocals for Cassandra's performance.

Cassandra: Sings "Texas Hold 'Em" by Beyonce, and while her performance by itself would have impressed the trickster by itself, she ends up making them leave because they got uncomfortable when Jay and Cassandra started making out.

Hailey: "Jokes on you, you can't curse me, I'm dead."

Ember: Uses his powers to make gemstones rain on them from the earth as they lipsync to P!nk's "Raise Your Glass" in her glitteriest outfit.

Arya: Mostly impresses the trickster with the fact that every songbird and squirrel was falling out of the trees around them because of their siren song, rather than their performance of BlackPink's "As If It's Your Last"

Gina: Asks if the trickster can wait like ten minutes, and she calls a few of her choir friends over and they perform "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" together.

Esme: Performs "Work Bitch" by Brittany Spears, and impresses them with the fact that no one should be able to dance that well while wearing heels that high and a skirt that short and tight

Cat: Joins Gina and her choir friends for "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" because they're gonna need someone for the alto line (or potentially the tenor line, if Freaking Travis doesn't show up again).

Max: Takes the microphone and starts singing Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" while slow dancing with Kyle and looking longingly into his eyes.

Kyle: Gets his old turntables from when he tried to learn how to DJ and makes a sick remix of Mad Love by Mabel

Eric: Pulls out his violin and performs "The Devil Went Down To Georgia".

Jacob: Serenades his husband with Elvis Presley's "I Cant Help Falling In Love With You".

Khalil: Sings "Daniel In The Den" by Bastille, attempts to impress the trickster by using his magic to create illusions to go along with the lyrics

Ameerah: Growls out a passionate cover of Hell's Coming With Me by Poor Man's Poison

Reggie: Manages to get through Rap God by Eminem without missing a single beat, impresses the trickster because xe's just this tiny kid who can rap that fast.

Antonio: Follows the trickster around for two hours playing The Song That Never Ends on kazoo until they promise not to curse him (yay psychological warfare)

Rania: Sings "Can't Catch Me Now" by Olivia Rodrigo and manages to impress the trickster with the sheer emotion coming through her performance (she is actually crying tears of rage by the end)

Kelsie: Sits the trickster down and pulls out a pad of paper and her glasses, and begins digging down into why they feel the need to do things like this. They feel much better after this impromptu therapy session.

Torryn: Just steals the trickster's magic and runs off with it.

Cory: Impresses the trickster with her fry scream and midair acrobatics while singing Monstarrr by Ennaria

Meredith: Starts signing aggressively about how she's "deaf and mute, dipshit, how is she supposed to perform music?" until the trickster feels bad and goes away.

Director Hawke

Onnie: Disintegrates the trickster before they can curse them and then she goes on with her day to day life.

Pippa: Sings a dreamy cover of "Flowers In My Hair" by Wes Reeve while daydreaming about kissing that mysterious Thawne girl she's only met a few times...

Jessi: Performs one of her own hit singles, puts on a really great show, and attracts a crowd of people because "OH MY GOD IS THAT JESSI JUNO???" (if you're looking for a real-world song with a similar vibe to her music, try "Bitches" by Tove Lo)

Hyun-Ki: Sings a haunting cover of Ave Maria, because no one expects the K-Pop star to be classically trained.

Marie: Screams out Girli's "More than a Friend" while useless lesbian-ing out over Qiara's existence, until she's blushing so bad that her face is bright green.

Liah: Dances to "Bombay Dreams" by KSHMR and shows off her skills from her former job as a Bollywood star.

Qiara: "No." *vanishes*. Jokes on you, you can't do that to an omnipotent space god.

Soraya: Asks for a religious exemption, since she's of the school of Islam that doesn't allow music or singing, so therefore she doesn't really know that many songs.

<note: for the Star Wars OCs, just assume it's the space equivalent to the song>

Thalia: Sings Elastic Heart by Sia (Space Version), actually does a fairly good job.

Reyna: Thinks she sounds great, but actually sucks so hard as she quite literally screeches out Space Demi Lovato's "Cool For The Summer".

Laila: Sings "Trouble" by Space Halsey, very obviously singing it to Athena. Stabs the trickster for even daring to suggest cursing her once she's done.

Athena: Manages to capture the trickster in a sack and then takes them back to her lab, where she decides to vivisect them to see how they work, all while singing a very sultry, seductive cover of Space Ariana Grande's "Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I'm Bored"

Pyrrha: Screams out "Weapon" by Space Against the Current (which is basically her theme song), and impresses the trickster with her dance moves, since her cybernetic limbs have higher strength and range of motion than her natural ones.

Samira: Duets "Rewrite The Stars" with Aldrich, since it's their song as a vampire/human couple (BIG taboo on that one)

Aldrich: Duets "Rewrite The Stars" with Samira, taking Zac Efron's part while Samira does Zendaya's part.

Sohelia: Sings "Snakes" By PVRIS, all while visualizing Mr. Head of the Hunters' Guild, immortal alchemist, and accidental creator of Vampires everywhere, Thaddeus St. James, so she puts far more vitriol into her performance than necessary.

Dolores: Sings "Which Witch" by Florence + The Machine and impresses the trickster with her powerful belting and the sheer emotion behind the performance (living your life at risk of being hunted for sport will do that to you)

Victorie: Plays Vivaldi's Four Seasons on violin, since that was new music when she was alive.

Matt: Sings "Believe" by Cher, can't really do anything that special with his performance with his EDS and everything, so he makes sure and puts some extra "oomph" in with his voice.

Vanessa: Sings "A Thousand Years" by Christina Perri, while slow dancing with Victorie, putting special emphasis on the line "Beauty is all she is".

Ellis: They're an angel, so they sing the Hallelujah Chorus with the voice of one. Probably go into the full "be not afraid" Biblically Accurate Angel form too.

[blade-liger-4ever]

For the Weird asks:

7. earbuds or headphones?

14. favorite non-chocolate candy?

15. favorite book you read as a school assignment?

38. lemonade or tea?

43. hoodie, leather jacket, cardigan, jean jacket or bomber jacket?

61. favorite line you heard from a book/movie/tv show/etc.?

66. favorite flower(s)?

70. left or right handed?

80. earth tones or jewel tones?

85. fairy tales or mythology?

94. favorite season? Sorry for so many of them, but hope you have fun!

Hi, thank you!!!

7. I used to be an earbuds person, but I'm looking into headphones now. Especially since I wanna watch a show or two and talk with friends while we watch.

14. Hmm, that's pretty tough. Um....honestly, I'm probably gonna weird you out with this, but mango flavored lollipops. I love those - heh, "suckers"!

15. Shane. I can't remember the author's name, but I ADORED that book (which says a lot about the quality, since I normally despise first person books.)

38. Tea, always. Lemonade is kinda...yucky, I think.

43. I'm not sure if this is personal preference or ownership, but of these options, my favorite is the bomber jacket. I desperately want one.

61. "Just because something's easier and more fun...doesn't make it right."

Grimlock, first season of Robots in Disguise 2015, "Similarly Different".

66. Roses are pretty cliche and overdone, but they have the right color. Honestly though, it's most likely chrysanthemums and dogwood flowers.

70. Right-handed. No Arya Stark here XD.

80. Um....probably - ugh, that's tough. I'm gonna say earth tones for camouflage, plus Toph Beifong Core.

85. Well, seeing as I haven't read fairy tales in a coon's age, and I'm currently deep into reading up on mythologies, I'm gonna say mythology. But I do love a good fairy tale!

94. Winter. Nice, cold, and sometimes snowy - what's not to love?

Oi, don't you dare apologize! No one's given me something like this in ages! I had tons of fun!

[themomsandthecity]

50 Meaningful Baby Girl Names

For a lot of parents, the sheer amount of baby names to choose from can be so overwhelming, not one name takes the lead over another. Our names are deeply tied to our personalities though, so you want to find something special and meaningful to you and your partner. If you're looking for unique girl names with deep meaning, we've got you covered. We know that while having a baby is an experience that's incomparable to any other, it's also OK to admit that it may feel a little stressful at times - especially when it comes to choosing the perfect name. If you're having trouble picking a meaningful baby girl name, don't worry. There are plenty of beautiful names out there that are made even more lovely and significant by their meanings. Maybe you'd like a name that translates to "strong" or something that means "light" or "beautiful." Either way, choosing from this list of girl names with meaning may be the best way forward. From Abigail to Zoe, one of these meaningful baby girl names is meant to fit your little one like a glove. Related: Malti, Nova, Posie and Other Aesthetic Girl Names Perfect For Your Newborn Meaningful Baby Girl Names We know there's a lot of pressure tied to finding the perfect name for your little girl. You want something that holds personal meaning, but is also unique to your baby. It's not an easy feat. Good thing that when it comes to looking for a unique and deeply meaningful name for your baby, there is no shortage of creative options. Read the list of names - complete with origin and meanings - below, and see what fits best for you and your family. * Abigail: Hebrew - The father's joy. * Alessia: Italian - Defending warrior. * Alexandra: Greek - Helper; defender of mankind. * Alice: English - Noble; kind. * Amara: Latin - Strong; attractive; stylish. * Amelia: German - Industrious; striving. * Anne: Hebrew - Favored grace. * Arabella: Latin - Lovely; elegant. * Audree: French - Nobility; strength. * Arianna: Greek - Holy. * Avery: French - Wise. * Callie: Greek - Most beautiful. * Calynn: Gaelic - Powerful in battle. * Charlotte: French - Petite; feminine. * Charvi: Sanskrit - Beautiful. * Claire: Latin - Bright; clear; famous; brilliant. * Cora: Greek - Filled heart. * Darlene: English - Darling; loved one. * Della: German - Noble; bright. * Diana: Latin - Moon goddess. * Eleanor: Greek - Bright, shining one; sun rays. * Ella: English - Light; beautiful fairy woman. * Eva: Hebrew - Life. * Farrah: Arabic - Happy. * Faye: French - Loyalty; confidence; trust; belief. Related: Arya, Sage, Zaire, and 144 Other Cool Baby Names * Gabriella: Hebrew - Devoted to God. * Grace: Latin: Goodness; generosity. * Hannah: Hebrew - Favor; grace of God. * Isabelle: Hebrew - God is my strength; devoted to God. * Jocelyn: Latin - Happy; joyful. * Kaitlyn: Greek - Pure. * Kalila: Arabic - Heap of love. * Layla: Egyptian - Dark beauty. * Mackenzie: Gaelic - Child of the wise leader. * Malia: Hawaiian - Beloved. * Mia: Latin - Mine; wished-for child. * Mila: Russian - Industrious; hardworking. * Millie: Latin - Free-born; strength; determination. * Naila: Arabic - Successful. * Nora: Greek - Shining light. * Reagan: Irish - Little ruler. * Reveka: Hebrew - Captivating. * Samantha: Hebrew - Listener. * Sarah: Hebrew - Princess. * Shayna: Yiddish - Beautiful; God is gracious. * Sophia: Greek - Wisdom. * Stella: Greek - A star. * Vivian: Latin - Full of life. * Zahra: Arabic - Flower. * Zoe: Greek - Life. https://www.popsugar.com/family/Meaningful-Baby-Girl-Names-46096722?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

[sanctificetur]

emma carstairs is at the land of faerie, at the campfire with the others. she has her sword 🗡 cortana sheathed at her belted hip. she is wearing a black shirt with her seashell necklace worn around her neck.

surrounding the campfire was a godswood, with trees with gnarled branches and a castle. a yellow jonquil flower was traced on the bark of a tree.

there is an eagle flying, korako, flying through the branches stretching towards the sky ; the brown mountains of the moon.

emma is holding squishy the marshmallow plushie, careful not to hold it too near the campfire, lest it catch fire. squishy was white, had a pink doughnut on its head and had a happy smiling expression.

she is a little annoyed by mat cauthon’s teasing of tavvy’s toy, he saying, ‘ he’s just mad he’s squishy ‘.

tavvy had named his plushie this, she frowning at mat’s words, through her smile, ‘ it’s soft and comforting to hug and sleep with! ‘

she then sees kieran with his blackened kohl powder eyes, lingering by himself. powder was from crushing coloured leaves 🍁— red golden glinting in the sun in silvery strands — with a pestle into a ceramic green bowl ; silver with black tiny stars within. it was part of arbol de vida ( cristina’s tree of life ).

eyes were shadowed in reminiscence, smelling of rain and leaves. he also sometimes grinded coffee grains like sand for a lighter brown texture as facial blusher for his cheekbones.

as she sees him, she can still feel the scarring on her back from when iarlath whipped her ( and her parabatai julian ) by the blood red hanging tree ; she travelling to the house of black and white in braavos ; with some of the fey being there within that house. part of her still felt anger brimming within her of how kieran was an reason why julian got harmed.

kieran is also looking around his surroundings, thinking the colours of the universe were quite beautiful ; breathing in the air ;; colours sinking into his aching lungs. the chocolate 🍫 milk running like a river through his neurosis ; when he is talking to emma was helping with his reality of a moment too. less like a black and white photo of him holding flowers by the road ; a ghost haunting the highway. he is wearing a white shirt, grey and fraying with holes.

she and the others had rescued him from being crucified forevermore at the unseelie court ; for killing the tree, iarlath (‘ I am not a tree, ‘ she could imagine him saying now in an angry tone ). hoping he would find a bit more peace of mind ; joy in the morning.

she had met iarlath at the shadow market, under a glamour of vampire handsomeness. she had seen he was a tree fairy from the bark branches like horns on his head and green skin… she and kieran had talked about how he was an ally to sebastian and malcolm.

he quietly asks, ‘ what did you do in braavos? ‘

she saying, ‘ I went there as a shadowhunter to talk to some assassins there, like arya. ‘

[wendynerdwrites]

A Notable Bi-Magical Union

My contribution to @jonxsansafanfiction‘s Twelve Days of Shipping. 

Dec 30th Hogwarts or Magic Au ❖ Bed Sharing Trope 

Because I’m me, I went with a Discworld AU with Jon as an Unseen University Professor, Sansa as a Witch and Nac Mac Feegle Hag/Duchess, featuring Arya as a Fairy Godmother, witch, and wizard. To stay true to Sir Terry’s writing style, this includes footnotes which will be designated by asterisks. 

Beware: Utter farce, drunk pictsies, and the Stark sisters being ALL OF THE EXTRA below:

The Ankh-Morpork Times had run its first engagement announcement in the liner notes of the ‘Society’ Section in the year of the Mongoose, an act which kick-started a trend among the aspiring aristocrats of the city to declare the impending nuptials of their sons and daughters through the press, paying a modest fee to see their children’s names in small print. These announcements were restrained to small blurbs of no more than fifty words apiece, as there was only so much any writer was willing to do for ten pence and two delusional strangers. The founding editors of the Times, William de Worde and Miss Sacharissa Cripslock, had Views on the matter of publicizing one’s private life (these Views, coincidentally, were the same reason that Miss Cripslock refused to be addressed as Mrs. de Worde).

The Society pages of the Times were usually more concerned with public events and exhibitions than people and whatever nonsense they got up to with their Favors. Even the marriage of the Right Honorable Samuel Vimes II, son of Their Graces Ser Samuel Vimes and Lady Sybil Ramkin Vimes, the Duke and Duchess of Ankh, to Princess Tiffany With Two F’s Please Don’t Say This Part Aloud Oh Bugger of Lancre* got the same space as Miss Muffy Butcher and Mr. Jiminy Stronginthearm.

There was one wedding, however, which even the intractable de Worde-Cripslocks admitted was newsworthy enough to earn a proper article.

“Notable Bi-Magical Union! Acting Wizard Legally Marries Witch!”

This was deemed newsworthy for three reasons.

The first was that by law and custom, acting Wizards (with few exceptions) were celibate, as certain accidents of wizarding genetics had a tendency to… snowball. An eighth son of an eighth son (or, in one accidental case, an eighth child of an eighth son) was an automatic wizard. The eighth son of an eighth son of an eighth son was a global catastrophe colloquially known as a Sourcerer. Thus, if a wizard did take it upon himself to wed, he was required to surrender his staff and magic to the Unseen University and retire.

Professor Jon Snow, DThau., DMS., DCM., and Her Grace Lady Sansa Tully-Whent**, Duchess of Genua, Hag o’ the Waters***, received a special dispensation for the marriage from Archchancellor Lannister for a whole other newsworthy reason: that being that they, along with the Her Grace’s sister, had rescued the Main Continent from a hoard of dragons and Ice Demons led by the bastard son of the Wintersmith and the Disc’s first ever Sourceress.

The third reason this event was deemed relevant had to do with the events of the wedding itself. The Duchess, mindful of the historic significance of the occasion, had reportedly summoned over four dozen witches from all across the main continent and employed over a thousand Pictsies, gnomes, and golems in order to create the perfect magical wedding. The Archchancellor himself was to officiate the ceremony, which would consist of over an hour of ancient rituals from nearly every major nation of the Main Continent, for the purposes of cultural sensitivity. The bride was to fly down the aisle on her broomstick, which had been refurbished and gilded with white gold, sapphires, and opals by the dwarves of Uberwald, who had also crafted over fifty ornate centerpieces for the reception. The gown had a thirty-foot train of Klatchian silk.

Professor Snow, rarely seen wearing anything but his severe black robe and hat, agreed to all of this on the condition that he not be required to take the courtesy title of “Duke of Genua” upon their marriage.

Unfortunately for the bride, things did not quite go as planned. The Duchess’s sister, Dr. Arya Tully-Whent, DThau., DMn., DMS., BEIL., F.G, was a notable bi-magical union in her own right, being only the second woman in history to master Wizarding magic and attend the Unseen University, a reluctant witch, and, thanks to her guardian’s sense of irony****, a most reluctant fairy godmother.

The good Dr. Arya was the Maid of Honor  and tasked with following her sister on her own broom and carrying a portion of the bride’s train. Prior to the wedding, the Duchess made the mistake of enchanting her sister’s broom to sprout roses. The furious wizard proceeded to attempt to undo the spell as they flew down the aisle of U.U’s Great Hall, resulting in a mishap in which the bride’s skirts burst into violet and emerald flames. A panic erupted, more as a result of the “help” the bride received from her guests. Many of which, unfortunately, were witches and wizards. The Great Hall of the University erupted in blasts of stray magic.

The Duchess was thankfully unharmed, having the good sense to avoid spells altogether and simply tear off her skirts and fly towards the nearest mop-bucket, which she immediately had to empty onto her bridegroom, who had been struck by a poorly-cast Luthsome’s UN-cinerater. By the time most of the guests fled and the ash and thaumaturgy had settled, the Great Hall was in a shambles and the Duchess’s once-glorious Klatchian silk gown had been reduced to what amounted to some conveniently-placed bandages.

Dr. Arya chose this moment to start another fire, this one smaller and more contained, at the center of the Hall. She then grabbed her dazed sister and brother-in-law by the wrists and rushed them towards the flames, yelling, “Leap, Knave! Jump, Whore! Be married now forevermore!”

The Times was lucky enough that their Chief Iconographer, Otto Chriek, was there at precisely the right moment to capture the happy moment. The Duchess had envisioned a more elegant public wedding portrait. She was later crowned ‘Best Legs on The Disc’ by Ankh-Morpork Masculine on the basis of the image, an honor which became less dubious to her when she continued to receive fan-mail from gentleman admirers well into her golden years. She was spared some humiliation at the reception, when her loyal Pictsie Companions decided to steal everyone else’s clothes and present the garments to their beloved Hag. The entire affair would go down in history and legend as “The Nude Wedding.”*****

For her part, the Duchess got revenge on her sister by casting a new spell on Arya’s broom to sprout roses, daffodils, lilies, hyacinths, and azaleas. Arya took her vehicle to every broom-maker and magical authority on the Disc and never managed to reverse it. To her extreme annoyance, she eventually earned the nickname ‘The Flower Fairy.’

Even well after their literally-explosive wedding, the marriage of Professor Snow and Her Grace attracted plenty of interest and attention from the gossips of the Disc. Professor Snow had famously refused to cast the final anti-sourcery sequence during the Battle for the Dawn until Archchancellor Lannister granted him a dispensation to wed the Duchess******.

The passion the two had for each other was mystery on its own to those who took interest in such things, as they were deemed ‘ill suited’ for one another. The Duchess had inherited her position in Genua from her elderly Aunt, the Baroness Ella Saturday. Not content with being a mere ‘Baroness’, she had herself upgraded within the peerage to the rank of Duchess. She was known as a passionate supporter of artists and up-and-coming magical talent, eventually starting the Genua Home for Magical Ladies, a halfway house for displaced witches, and a high-profile advocate of Female Dwarf Awareness. Under her rule, Genua became the art and fashion capital of The Disc.

Professor Snow, on the other hand, was a student of the legendary Ponder Stibbons, the founder of the University’s High Energy Magical Department. He’d received his basic education in the Assassin’s Guild as one of the charity cases, but declined his Black Syllabus on the basis of it being “Too Posh” and transferred to the University instead. After acquiring his Doctorate in Thaumaturgy, he was granted a Professorship in the field of Magical Avoidance. While professors at the Unseen University were famous for acquiring the body mass index of an adolescent whale, Professor Snow was one of the few faculty who could keep up with the hunting schedule of the resident ghost of the late Archchancellor Ridcully, and was Captain of U.U.’s official Foot-the-Ball team. Under his leadership, the school’s team gained its first legal win.

The two had met through Arya, and no one knows exactly where it went from there. Only that on three separate occasions at three separate society functions, Professor Snow was caught hiding beneath the Duchess’s voluminous gowns.*******

Furthermore, despite the great pains the two went to in order to wed, they lived surprisingly separate lives, mostly visiting one another on the weekends, flying back and forth between Genua and Ankh-Morpork. Despite this, the two managed to produce six daughters and were known to openly adore each other. When asked about the secrets of their success on their sixtieth wedding anniversary, Professor Snow replied, “Distance, affection, and very big skirts.”

*Youngest Sister of Queen Esmeralda Margaret Note Spelling I of Lancre

**Daughter of Catelyn Tully-Whent, who was Daughter of Minisa Whent. Witches aren’t really interested in their male forebears.

***The Duchess was the official witch or ‘Hag’ of the Genuan Clan of the Nac Mac Feegle. Despite the seemingly incompatible personalities of Her Grace and the Pictsies, she is credited as mastering the dreaded arts of “the crossin’ o’ the arms”, “the tappin’ of the feets”, and ‘“the knowin’ of the speakin’”. She was affectionately referred to as ‘The Fancy Hag’ by the Disc’s population of Feegle in general before eventually ascending to senior witch status as a ‘Hag o’ Hags.’

****Said Guardian was the Tully-Whents’ elderly aunt, the Baroness Ella Saturday, who had helped raise the girls after their parents’ death. Both girls were witches and their similarities ended there. Sansa had always yearned to be a magical fairy godmother and noblewoman. Arya, on the other hand, wanted to be a wizard and the next “Hag” to Genua’s Clan of Nac Mac Feegle. The Baroness, who had no small amount of experience with witches and fairy godmothers, arranged in her will for the girls to get some of what they wanted, but mostly what they needed. Arya got to go to the Unseen University and study under her idol Eskarina Smith. However, instead of being designated as the next ‘Hag o’ The Waters’, she was left the recovered Fairy Godmother’s wand instead. Sansa, as the elder sister, did inherit rule of Genua, but that also came with the deed to the Nac Mac Feegle’s mound, making her the new Hag (Hag being the Feegle term for ‘witch’). Thus it happened that in the annals of history, the tomboyish, staff-wielding Arya eventually became known as The Flower Fairy, while ladylike, delicate, class-conscious Sansa ascended to the revered position of ‘Hag o’ Hags’

***** “I wish,” sighed many a reader of Ankh-Morpork Masculine.

****** In order to ensure that the dispensation was honored, the dispensation was drafted by Her Grace’s clan of Feegles, for whom the concepts of law and the written word are weapons. It is a good idea "neever te sign a feegle contract; six inch high people write verra small print".

*******The Duchess’s dresses, and their thick, heavy skirts would acquire a legend of their own. It has been speculated that Her Grace popularized the trend of “poofy” skirts for the express purpose of having a place to hide her husband, who had been caught beneath them twice during the War for the Dawn and at at least three different foot-the-ball games. So frequent were these incidents that it became a running joke among the UU student body to reply to any inquiry about the Professor’s whereabouts to “check the Duchess’s skirts.” Others claim she kept to the seemingly-impractical style in order to house her Feegle companions, who she’d unleash upon any guests she found distasteful. The most famous incident involving her use of the Feegles in this manner was during a ball in Genua, when Lord Rust was overheard making a bigoted comment about Her Grace inviting goblins to the event and referring to the dwarf guests as ‘Lawn Ornaments’. The Duchess demanded an apology and, when that was refused, lifted her hemline and cried out “Alrae, Lads, gets dis Scuggan Offski!” Lord Rust was allowed to remain in Genua only long enough to collect all of his teeth.

[goodqueenaly]

Hi again! I had another question I wanted to ask you, about the waif’s origin story that she tells Arya in AFFC. I was wondering if you would mind explaining the significance/meaning of it? Sorry for such a broad question. It stands out to me, because it reminded me of some fairy tales especially Cinderella/Three little men in the wood. Thank you! Have a great day!

Prefacing this discussion with the caveat that we don't know for certain what is true about this story, since Arya and the waif had already established the precedent of the lying game and since the waif herself said both that there was "an untruth" in it and that she "lied about the lie". For these purposes, however, I'm going to assume that it is more or less accurate (including Arya's deduction that the House of Black and White took two-thirds of the family wealth, not all of it).

You're certainly right that GRRM loves his fairytale tropes: it's barely scratching the surface to say that he has drawn inspiration from stories like Beauty and the Beast (in the stories of both Jaime and Brienne and Sandor and Sansa), Snow White (in the story of Cersei and her fear of the younger, more beautiful queen), and Little Red Riding Hood (whose story beats get twisted in Sansa and Sandor's meeting during the Battle of the Blackwater), among many others, for ASOIAF. Indeed, he uses Cinderella's basic plot points for Falia Flowers as well - the daughter of the household treated as a serving-maid by her father's wife and the woman's daughters, only to triumph over them when she "marries" a king - but, as he does with many other tropes, plays with and subverts them, having Euron reveal his truly evil nature in his treatment of Falia afterward.

The waif's story, in that sense, also borrows elements from the classic (at least, to a western audience, appropriate given GRRM's own background as a member of this audience) telling of Cinderella. The waif's father's second wife fits the Wicked Stepmother trope all too well, and if the woman's daughter isn't strictly a wicked stepsister (she seems to be the child of the waif's father as much as the waif herself is, and we get nothing of her character in the story), there is certainly a sense of prioritizing the daughter of this second marriage over the daughter of the first. Perhaps GRRM was also thinking of the Grimms' more violent (second) telling of the tale (certainly compared to the Disney film), in which the wicked stepsisters are initially mutilated (on their mother's advice, in order to fit their feet into the all-important slipper) and later blinded as punishment for their treatment of Cinderella; certainly, the woman's literally poisonous attempted murder of the waif, and the father's willingness to have the woman murdered in turn reflect a distinctly non-sanitized take on fairy tale tropes. Again, because nothing is one to one between ASOIAF and its sources of inspiration, not all of the story beats of Cinderella are found here: the waif does not live happily ever after as the bride of a prince but is almost poisoned to death before being forced to spend the rest of her life working for a cult of assassins, and she seems to have none of the sweet, kind, unfailingly good nature of the fairy tale heroine.

In universe, the story underlines just how different the waif is from Arya; indeed, they are almost polar opposites in their family upbringings. The waif was "born the only child of an ancient House, my noble father's heir", her sole sibling eventually being a stepsister and rival for her dynastic place; Arya may also have been born to "an ancient House", but she grew up in a happy, relatively sizable family of five siblings, mixing the children of Ned and Catelyn with the (ostensible) bastard son Jon, and as the younger daughter had no worries about being prepped to inherit Winterfell. The waif speaks of never knowing her mother, who died when she was young; Arya, by contrast deeply loved and misses her mother, hates that she could not save Catelyn from the Red Wedding, and even seemingly named herself after her mother when prompted for a false identity in Braavos. The waif was subjected to the murderous ambition of her stepmother, who sought to drive the waif out of the family inheritance in favor of her own daughter, yet I tend to believe that the Stark kids, happy to be reunited with their loved ones, will resist factional attempts to pit them against each other for control of Winterfell (with the obvious reminder that there is, you know, an apocalypse coming). The father of the family has no problem seeking murderous revenge in turn against his second wife, though this could not be farther from the truth about the relationship between Ned and Carelyn; indeed, Arya so much believes in the love between her parents that she angrily defended it to Edric Dayne and included the same sort of parental love in her invented backstory as Cat of the Canals. Nor could we ever believe that Ned would sacrifice his daughter to a cult of assassins for the sake of revenge; rather, we saw Ned's willingness to renounce his firm beliefs about the succession and condemn himself to life imprisonment (and, though he might not have known it at the moment, death for himself) so that his daughter might be kept safe.

All of these contrasts emphasize that the House of Black and White is not the place of Arya of House Stark. This is a place which not only profits from dissension, infighting, and murderous ambition and revenge, but indeed depends on these to form its "market", so to speak - a far cry from the happy home of Winterfell and its Stark inhabitants. Where the waif treats the implosion of her family life as merely a new entry in the lying game, Arya has never stopped remembering, or missing, her life among her Stark family members. Arya cannot give it all up, as the waif did (or, rather, as the waif had it decided for her that she would); she belongs back with her family and back in Winterfell.

Of course, the waif's story is full of ironies as well. In the end, the grand fortune of that "ancient House" the second wife might have hoped for her daughter to inherit all but disappears into the coffers of the Faceless Men; only a third is left, less even than what the second marriage's daughter would have gotten had the inheritance been divided equally. The father is left back where he started, dynastically speaking - the single parent of a single daughter - yet poorer for it, arguably no better and perhaps worse off than he had been before (only limited by our lack of insight into his personal view on the matter). If the father's goal was to murder his second wife in revenge for what she had done to his elder daughter, his actions simultaneously took that daughter's life as well; the waif was forced to spend the rest of her days forsaking her entire birth identity and murdering others in the name of an assassination guild, legally and spiritually if not bodily dead. (Nor, of course, do we ever get any insight as to what the waif herself, the actual target of that attempted murder, thought of either the contracted murder of her stepmother or her own permanent confinement in the House of Black and White; in an act of revenge ostensibly taken in her name, the waif has no input and no agency.) Likewise, while the father had his second wife murdered, he seems to have done nothing to disinherit the child of his second marriage. This daughter was in turn left precisely where the waif was, her father's only heir and perhaps too young to remember her dead mother; the stepmother's ambitions posthumously won out, as her husband's elder daughter was effectively killed off and her own daughter was set to inherit. All of these ironies add to the waif's characterization, making her an outlet of narratively rich writing as opposed to simply an NPC Arya interacts with in her new environment.

On a practical level, too, the story provides more insight into elements of the Faceless Men's business model. The Faceless Men aren't out to completely beggar their clients - hence asking for two-thirds of the man's wealth instead of all of it - but they do ask for a considerable sacrifice, at least within the means of the requestor. The father in this story was probably a wealthy man (the head of that "ancient House" in a society which has historically valued trade and commercialism over feudal land ownership and agriculture), so the price was high in monetary terms - but because the father was also a man in the midst of a succession dispute, the price included the previous guarantor of his dynasty, his elder daughter (with, again, the implication that it would be the child of his targeted wife who would succeed him). Perhaps this pricing model was intended to imbue this killing with the divine approval of the Many-Faced God: if this man were willing to have his wife killed knowing that by his actions he would disinherit his older daughter and impoverish himself to some extent, then truly this request must be the will of the Many-Faced God, and not simply human vengeance.

[winterrose527]

🧠 Pick a character, and I'll tell you my favorite headcanon for them.

Sansaaaaa

oh, our baby, of course you can. apologies, these are unhinged (they are also all modern AU)

so since her bff (Myrcella) hates driving and is genuinely bad (like Sansa would never say it but no babe you're NOT getting behind the wheel if there's been even a little snow because I have a life to lead), Sansa is always the driver on their road trips. She enjoys driving, liking to be in control, and it makes her so happy when Myrcella puts on one of their special playlists.

She likes to be in control in general so isn't a great person to cook/bake with unless she trusts you implicitly or is trying to teach you (though she did make Rickon cry once and he's FINE like it's FINE they are FINE but um he's just gonna leave if Sansa is pulling out the cookie sheets, call him when there is dough to taste though), but she's an incredible cook/bake and it's one of her love languages. She'll make cupcakes for a promotion, or your favorite soup to make you feel better. In her fridge there are constantly things labeled with other people's names to bring over for them because she's an ANGEL.

It makes her REALLY happy when her siblings come to her for advice, because she's constantly biting her tongue when they are being idiots. Rickon goes to her for advice most, but Bran likes to use her as his 'red team' to poke holes in his argument to make sure it's strong enough. Arya very begrudgingly goes to her because she knows Sansa is going to tell her to do the right thing and that is often boring. Robb always waits just a little too long to go to her and always regrets it.

When Myrcella and Jon argue it basically makes her break out into hives. She HATES it. It doesn't happen often but every single time one of them apologizes to the other because they are like Sansa is wasting away, we have to fix this. (She thinks it is hysterical when Myrcella and Robb argue and will occasionally stoke the flames of it)

Everyone knows she loves lemons but I think she HATES artificial lemon flavor because it is an imposter, so when her high school boyfriend got her an entire thing of lemon candies for valentines day she was like 'does he know me but at all???' and Jon is like *cough* dump his ass *cough*

She had crushes in waves on Jon. Like it wasn't a CONSTANT all through middle school or high school, but it would hit her in these very intense moments and this contributed to Jon not entirely knowing where he stood with her because any time she was like IN IT she would just ignore him or even be mean to him because she was like HE'LL KNOW meanwhile Jon is like: k somehow I pissed her off again.

He has fully been in love with her ever since he saw her dance as the Sugar Plum Fairy. The Starks said he didn't HAVE to go see it with them but Sansa was so excited so he'd gone and drawn her a picture of flowers since he was too embarrassed to ask his mom to take him to the florist to get her any. When she started dancing his heart started thudding like crazy and his hands sweat so much that it ruined the drawing he'd made her but she was so happy afterwards and gave him a big hug and he smelled her lavender shampoo and saw her blue eyes sparkling and he was just DONE. He couldn't go to the Starks for a week and basically didn't look in Robb's eye for another month, but when she got back from the Christmas break there was a drawing of her dancing in her locker and she still has it (when they have a daughter she frames it and puts it in her room - after making Jon sign it).

When her and Jon get together, one of the reasons she knew he was the one was because he lessened her control freak tendencies. She loves being driven by him, and even when he is UNDER SEASONING THE VEGETABLES she doesn't mind, and generally just made her feel okay not being entirely in control because if he was around everything would be okay and yeah now I'm WEAK THANKS SO MUCH

[onceupona-chaos]

The Moon Goddess

Azriel helps Elain to find her place in the Night Court. One-shot.

NOTE: I suck at doing summaries, but I have fun writing this one-shot here. I used a beautiful legend from my country to write this and I hope you enjoy!!! And as usual, forgive me for any mistakes, English is not my first language. Be kind! 💙

"How far is this place?"

They have been walking for what felt like hours now, the only light illuminating the tricky path that snaked between huge trees came from the full moon above them.

Even with her Fae vision, Elain couldn't see five feet ahead and there was absolutely no indication of where they were going. Azriel didn't offer details either.

Elain had tried her best that night to appear her usual self in the family monthly dinner at the lake house.

She'd tried to push those words aside, tried to forget them. That was all she could do: try, try, try.

But they kept coming back as if someone out there were whispering them in her ear, branding them into her brain.

She'd been working on Arya's garden, when the elderly fairy came to talk. Elain didn't mind the company at all, but she couldn't help the blow when Arya had said as a matter of fact that Elain wasn't the type who usually fitted in the Night Court.

Elain didn't know what exactly those words were supposed to mean or why she kept thinking about them, but it wasn't the first time someone told her that. Yes, she had family, friends and yet… would that be the reason she felt so empty sometimes? So lost in her own head?

She had been able to act normal at dinner despite those miserable thoughts swirling in her head as if they were mist. Or so she thought.

A glance at the other side of the table had revealed worried hazel eyes filled with sorrow glued on her. Elain had looked away quickly, feeling her cheeks heat.

After dinner, Elain was checking on dessert, when Azriel had entered the kitchen. It didn't take long for her to confess what was in her heart.

Things were still unsure and volatile between them, as if they were flame a second away to turn into a fire. Elain tried not to think about what would take to set them alight.

She knew why he kept his distance, why he was staying up at the House of Wind with Nesta and Cassian.

But she missed him. Their conversations until the latest hours in front of the fireplace, the sunny afternoons in comfortable silence, when she'd work on the garden whilst he sat close in one of the tables, going through some paperwork. Pure understanding would shone between them in those moments. Gods, she missed him. His calm, quiet presence always made her worries fade away as if they were nothing but a distant wind.

Azriel had listened to every word, his eyes opened, his expression soft. When she had finished, he merely said to meet him in the garden after the house went to sleep - and with that, he strode out back to the dinner room.

After all the lights has been out, Elain went to find him, subtle and unnoticed. Azriel was already wating for her in the garden.

He smiled at her before take her hand - and they were gone into shadow.

More than an hour after he had winnowed them in the middle of it seemed like a forest and began waking instead of flying, Elain was tempted to throw something at his head. Most likely her shoe.

It only got worse when he chuckled at her question. "Almost there."

"Where is there?"

At that, he turned to look at her, amusement sparkling in his eyes, shadows dancing over his shoulders. But he repeated, "Almost there."

Elain had a perfect plan in her head on how she would throw him in the Sidra when he stopped so abruptly that she almost bumped against his back. Azriel must have noticed if his smirk was any indication.

But he merely stepped aside, allowing her to see what she hadn't noticed before.

There, in the very heart of the forest, there was a serene lake, its water so clear and peaceful that Elain could see the bottom.

Floating on the water were hundreds of white flower buds. The full moon cascaded a silver glow, making them shine so bright as the stars.

A perfect mirror of the night sky above.

Azriel took a place by the shore and sat, his cobalt Shiphons gleaming on top of his hands.

For some reason, that place irradiated peace. Elain's heart was suddenly so light, her breathing so easy that she closed her eyes, letting that sereny in.

A moment later she sat beside him, his wings stretching behind her. He looked so… relax. Peaceful. Even his shadows were gone as if the calm magic of the lake had put them to sleep.

"Those are water flowers. There's a legend that explains their origin." It took a moment for Elain to process his words, too busy staring at him. She blushed a little, but couldn't take her eyes off of him. There, sitting at the shore of the lake by her side, with nothing but the moonlight allowing them to see each other, those hazel eyes shone, the hues of green as bright as the rarest emerald.

Elain only realized she didn't answer when he spoke again, his eyes never leaving hers. "There was this young female... Naia. She was known for her beauty and attracted the attention of males and females whatever she went, and after one look at her direction, some of them promised to make her the richest Fae alive. Others went to the deepest of Prythian to fight our most evil creatures and bring her their heads as proof of their worth.

"But she ignored them all.

"You see… Naia decided to devote all her love to the Moon. Back then, there were these legends - stories - where the Moon was the warrior-goddess Jaci, the Night Guardian."

As the words left his mouth, Elain felt a chill run down her spine as if somewhere Jaci's eyes were watching over them.

"Jaci had a… liking on young females and sometimes, when one of them captured her attention, she would turn them into a star. So they would dance for all eternity with the goddess in the skies.

"Naia had been in love with the Moon for all her life and dreamed of the day she would be chosen. Night after night, she waited for the Moon. When it appeared, she spent the whole night contemplating... and whispering her stories to the skies. She wanted the goddess to fall in love with who she was, and not for her beauty alone."

The way Azriel looked at her now, eyes soft… as if he could see her soul… Elain had to remind herself how to breathe.

He took a deep breath before went on, "But Naia was getting weaker. You see, she didn't want to eat or drink or sleep. All she wanted was to wait for Jaci's call.

"One night she was waiting for the Moon to emerge, sitting by a lake, when she noticed it appeared much closer. She thought it was finally her call, so Naia didn't think twice before throwing herself into Jaci's arms.

"But it wasn't Jaci. It was only the reflection of the Moon in the water. So Naia who was already weak due to her restless wait ended up drowning in the river."

He ran a hand through his hair. "It wasn't the goddess call... but Jaci had noticed the female. Naia didn't know, but Jaci could only turn a female into a star once every thirty-three years."

Elain didn't know why, but her eyes burned. Azriel only reached to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Jaci had heard every whisper, every word from Naia. She had fallen in love with her, but the goddess' hands were tied. And since Jaci hadn't called for Naia, she couldn't turn her into a star in the skies.

"Unable to let Naia die in vain, to never have a dance with the female she loved… Jaci turned Naia into the most beautiful flower and shaped it as a star - a water flower. That way during the night, Naia could finally dance with the Moon in the waters when it was reflected - even if it was only once a month."

He smiled faintly. "That's how the legends say the goddess of the Moon created the Water Stars, whose full splendor can only be seen… " He trailed off as his hand cupped Elain's face, a scarred thumb brushing away her tears. Then, his hand dropped to her chin and he gently turned her head to the lake.

"... at night."

Elain sucked in a breath in pure awe. It was like watching time pass in full speed, as if spring had come in a blink of an eye. When the reflection of the Moon was perfectly upon the lake's center, Time itself couldn't reach them anymore: the delicate white flower buds floating on the water were still at first. Suddenly they all began to tremble as if they had been awoken. And then, they bursted open, revealing glowing petals that seemed to be made of the purest diamond under the moonlight, hundreds of star-shaped flowers covering the lake as they bloomed.

And one by one, they bloomed. One by one, they glowed.

Azriel kept silent as Elain admire the scene before her eyes. She had never seen anything more beautiful, had never felt her heart so full of wonder.

Tears began to roll down her cheeks once again, each one of them a drop of pure extasy and peace. She didn't know for how long they watched the flowers, breathing their sweet scent, but Azriel spoke first, "I'm not familiar with the different types of flowers, but... these are the most beautiful in Prythian." Azriel's voice was a whisper in the night. "And yet, their lovely, true beauty is in the inside. And you can only see it at night. Here."

Elain looked away from the flowers - to find Azriel's eyes already on her, shining brighter than the moon above them now. Her heart jumped in her chest at the raw intensity there.

"Only you can choose where you belong, Elain. Only you."

Right there, she knew. It wasn't just a legend or a story. It was a gift - for her and only her. She blinked away the tears and whispered, "Thank you, Azriel".

The smile that bloomed on his face was even lovelier than the flowers' spectacle she'd just seen.

They sit there for a while, watching each other, with only a calm understanding between them. It was always like that with him.

After seconds or minutes or hours, Elain reached to untied the laces on her shoes.

"What -" Azriel cleared his throat, his brows furrowing. "What are you doing?"

Elain stood barefoot, the cold grass tickled against her skin. She smiled down at him, "Dancing with a goddess." She extended a hand. "Come with me?"

Azriel studied her for a heartbeat, gaping a little at her as if he didn't quite believe what she was asking. Then, he threw back his head and laughed. Not in a sarcastic, mocking way. But out of pure joy like a child seeing the first snowflakes falling from the sky.

Azriel stood, took off his boots and, a second later, his shirt, his tattooed golden-brown skin entirely visible under the moonlight. Elain's heart raced and her cheeks and chest burned a bit.

But even with the hard, sculpted muscles, the powerful wings peeking over his shoulders… It was because of his eyes Elain could hardly breathe. They blazed like stars, fiercely and lovely, as he took her still extending hand.

Azriel remained close to her, so close Elain didn't even acknowledge the cold water soaking her dress, making the fabric hanging tight to her body. Not with the heat of his body next to hers.

They swimmed and swimmed, Elain observing the the water flowers. And Azriel watching her. She could have swear his eyes were darker than before.

Until she couldn't take it anymore. His eyes on her, her skin cold from the water, but on fire from his gaze. She looked at him. "Come closer." Her voice was sure, steady.

Azriel went still, but a heartbeat later he was facing her, close enough to share breath, his skin gleaming with drops of water running down his broad chest.

Without knowing what to do, Elain began tracing his tattoos, feeling him shiver under her fingerprints.

One of his hands found her arm, the other went to stroke her neck, sending a lightning of heat through her body.

She didn't say a word. Neither did he. They were beyond any words of any language.

So they just touched each other, his hands on her, her hands on him, until their mouths collided and light exploded behind her eyelids.

That night, they danced between and under the stars, with only their moans and whispers as music.

[aegonbeingfakeisracist]

IDK if this makes sense, but it annoys me when people group Elia w/ the other very white characters in the Dead Ladies Club b/c those people tend to ignore the intersectionality w/ Elia also being a WOC. Elia out of all the RR characters is treated in a very real raw unromanticized sense compared to a Lyanna or Ashara. Elia feels so much more like a character b/c of that, and it's strange when ppl equate how her brothers ppl who loved her for her compare that to how Ned/ Robert talk about Lyanna

I get that completely.

The other dead ladies are somewhat similar because they’re used and discarded - their presence in the story is limited to them birthing a main character and then they die. It’s gross, for sure, but we also have to remember that that’s not the case with Elia. What happened to her is worse. She’s not just dead. She didn’t die in childbirth. She was murdered after being raped after being humiliated in public after suffering through two brutal pregnancies at a rate that is inadvisable even with modern medicine and good nutrition. The people that mourn her don’t have an idealized view of her at all, they just miss their goddamn sister. It’s so far from the rose coloured lens through which we see those other women.

Let’s start with the non-Dornish characters we hear about Elia from. The three primary of those would be Cersei Lannister, Barristan Selmy, and Jon Connington. And what do they have to say about Elia? Nothing complimentary! Cersei disparages her appearance. Jon grumbles about her not being good enough for Rhaegar because of her health. Barristan makes weak attempts at saying something nice, but says something utterly generic instead of anything meaningful, then later thinks makes an unfavourable and unnecessary comparison between her and Ashara. That alone is enormously different from the comments random people make about Lyanna - Barbrey Dustin comparing Lyanna to a centaur, Harwin talking about how well she rode, different people reminiscing about her beauty, Robert wanting to see her crypt fifteen years later. It’s also different from the whole fairy tale going on with Ashara, where she’s remembered as ridiculously beautiful and rumours about her make it all the way up to Winterfell. Elia isn’t even romanticized enough to get an alias of her own in Howland Reed’s story. In that, Ashara is identified through her laughing purple eyes and Lyanna is identified through her house sigil, but Elia is defined as the wife of the dragon prince, rather than anything about her herself. And then you get the family members, and even there there’s a stark difference.

Oberyn loves Elia so much, but he doesn’t romanticize her. He doesn’t exaggerate or make a point of emphasizing any of her traits. He doesn’t idealize her. He just misses her. The Elia we see through Oberyn’s story feels so human - she loves babies and thinks Oberyn’s Breakspear-Breakwind joke is hilarious. Doran’s focus is on how she survived against all the odds. And neither brother makes a single comment about her appearance - why would they? Why would that matter? It’s not what made her special to them. It feels very realistic and painful to hear about her in this light. It’s a gorgeous view. But it’s very much unromanticized. I do in principle like the idea of women getting to be themselves, rather than idealized versions with all the flaws and humanity scrubbed away, but it’s uncomfortable when Elia, a woman of colour with such a brutal end, is the only one who doesn’t get that romanticization. Everything will always go back to how Lyanna died in a room filled with roses with her brother there to hold her hand, but Elia died alone with her family out of reach.

Ned talks so much about how beautiful Lyanna was. He brings her flowers, he idealizes her strength. Edric Dayne wants to talk to Ned and does talk to Arya because of romantic stories he’s heard of the aunt that died before he was born who fell in love and killed herself out of a broken heart. Joanna Lannister is idealized as someone Tywin truly loved and with whom the best part of him died. Even Rhaella, who isn’t romanticized nearly as much as Lyanna or Ashara and whose mentions mostly focus on the abuse she faced in her marriage, has that whole thing where Bonifer Hasty turned to religion because only the Maiden could replace her in his heart and died in childbirth, not because she was murdered. There’s nothing like that at all for Elia. She’s treated as a regular person, not the heavily idealized tragic romance heroine versions of Lyanna and Ashara that are immortalized in people’s memories. It’s impossible to disconnect that from how she’s a woman of colour. Brutal and gruesome vs romanticized and beautiful.

Also, there’s the issue of how romanticization influences fandom reaction, which is to a degree dependant on whiteness. Forgive me, this is going to be a rant that probably doesn’t make much sense, but I have so many complicated Dayne feelings because of this. Ashara is also a woman of colour, but the colourism in this is impossible to ignore. The Daynes are in effect conditionally white. Because of that, Ashara gets portrayed as some tragic heroine with a broken heart rather than written as a complete person with real wants and feelings. And when you combine that with how the Daynes aren’t especially associated with their liegelords the Martells...well, they collectively become a prop to be used to support the white characters. Fandom disregards their agency and obsesses over them while dismissing the other Dornish characters, not because fandom cares about them for themselves, but because they can be viewed as in service to the white characters. Case in point, all the speculation over Ashara’s connection to various Starks, the theories about the Daynes not caring about Dorne, all the endless talk about Dawn. How many fics are out there featuring Edric Dayne? How many of those fics are actually about him in any meaningful way in comparison to how many use him as a prop for Arya? What do you mean Ashara was Elia’s lady in waiting and probably her friend? Who gives a shit about Elia, not me, and so surely not Ashara, either! And the argument becomes that it’s not racist because the Daynes are white, which I repeat - they’re not. We can tell that by how Arya reacts to Ned. He doesn’t fit into her idea of what Dornish people are like, but the second he says something she doesn’t like, she’s basically, “that doesn’t matter, he’s Dornish, that makes him a liar”. It’s completely conditional.

The Daynes are barely mentioned in the text. They’re not characters. Elia is mentioned by name more times than Arthur and Ashara put together. Rhaenys is mentioned more times than Ashara. But it’s considered perfectly acceptable to care about and be interested in the Daynes or to believe that there’s a deeper importance to the family, while caring about Elia or Rhaenys gets all kinds of bullshit about our “self insert”. All this has to do with their conditional whiteness and the associated romanticization. Arthur died serving as a teenage girl’s jailer, but who cares, he had a cool sword, said dramatic lines, and was said to be a good guy! Ashara Dayne is the most minor of minor characters, but is painted in such a light that fandom insists she’s got to be important, even though we don’t know anything about who she was as a person. Which returns to how the character we do know about as a person, at least a little, is brown and unromanticized, so fandom refuses to believe she could matter at all to anyone.

I feel like I’m constantly screaming about this, but it’s gross just how over the top the brutality Elia faces is. She suffers through two pregnancies that nearly killed her but didn’t - completely unnecessarily, because there’s no actual narrative reason for that - and was raped and murdered after watching a baby killed in front of her. Her husband raped her. She was sexually assaulted by some random guy. She was imprisoned and used as a hostage to blackmail her brother and uncle. Romanticization is dehumanizing. But some degree of it is also natural, and the extent to which it’s avoided with Elia is highly questionable. She married a man that not only didn’t love her, but publicly spurned her for the sake of a teenage white girl. Unlike so many of these other dead ladies, she doesn’t have anyone in love with her or the idea of her fifteen years after the fact. There are no songs written about her. Why? Why is she not considered as worthy as Lyanna, Ashara, Joanna, Rhaella of having someone outside her family love her into the present? Why is she nothing but a cautionary tale?

[jackoshadows]

While developing characters, writers use certain literary tools to add depth to these characters and advance the plot.

Literary Foils and Mirrors

This is arguably the simplest of the devices. Foil characters share few or no values or traits. Maybe one character is lazy and boring, and his best friend is energetic and a go-getter. These are foil characters. Put them together, and they’ll highlight each other’s strengths and weaknesses. The most common foil characters are the heroes and villains, who stand for different values and want to achieve separate goals.

Mirror characters are used for a similar purpose. They tend to share several qualities and are used to complement and highlight each other’s traits. Common mirror characters embark on parallel plots, sometimes to achieve a single goal, which tests them and highlights their traits in different ways.

Arya Stark and Sansa Stark for example are literary foils.

Arya was one of the first characters created. Sansa came about as a total opposite b/c too many of the Stark family members were getting along and familes aren’t like that. Thus, Sansa was created; he ended by saying they have deep issues to work out. - GRRM

GRRM SSM November 11, 2000

You may be as different as the sun and the moon - Ned Stark, AGoT

Foils have contrasting personalities, a different set of values and are often used to highlight a character’s particular qualities. Snobby Sansa is used to highlight Arya’s socializing with the smallfolk and non-conformist Arya is used to highlight that Sansa is a proper lady. Arya rushes to help the butcher’s boy, Sansa is more concerned for the prince.

And then we have the mirror characters who share similar traits and qualities, again used to highlight and complement our characters. They may have parallel plots, give hints and clues as to how one characters journey could end the same or be different to the other.

In ASoIaF, Arya Stark and Lyanna Stark are mirror characters, in that, the author is using a tertiary character like Lyanna to complement and give us more information about our main character Arya.

“Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it. You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her.”

“Lyanna was beautiful,” Arya said, startled. Everybody said so. It was not a thing that was ever said of Arya. - Arya, AGoT

So here the author gives us some information about how Arya might look in the future as well as demonstrates Arya’s low self-esteem with regards to her appearance.

Lyanna is used to highlight Arya’s interest in wielding a sword:

Beyond, in a clearing overlooking the river, they came upon a boy and a girl playing at knights. Their swords were wooden sticks, broom handles from the look of them, and they were rushing across the grass, swinging at each other lustily. "Arya?" she called out incredulously. Joffrey glanced from Arya to Sansa and back again. "Your sister?" She nodded, blushing. - Sansa, AGoT

Now two children danced across the gods wood, hooting at one another as they dueled with broken branches. The girl was the older and taller of the two. Arya! Bran thought eagerly, as he watched her leap up onto a rock and cut at the boy.  But that couldn’t be right. If the girl was Arya, the boy was Bran himself, and he had never worn his hair so long. And Arya never beat me playing swords, the way that girl is beating him. - Bran, ADwD

Bran sees a vision that parallels Arya/Mycah and even Arya/Bran with Lyanna and Benjen. Notice how Sansa is both incredulous and embarrassed at Arya dueling with Mycah -  highlighting the differences between Arya and Sansa and at the same time paralleling Arya and Lyanna.

Horse riding.

You ride like a northman, milady,” Harwin said when he’d drawn them to a halt. “Your aunt was much the same. Lady Lyanna. But my father was master of horse, remember.” - Arya, AGoT

It hurt that the one thing Arya could do better than her sister was ride a horse. Well, that and manage a household. - Arya, AGoT

Notice how Arya and Lyanna are paralleled to highlight that Arya is a good horse rider, like the Northerners. And again, notice the contrast to Sansa. One character is a mirror here and one character a foil.

And again, with the flowers:

Ned remembered the way she had smiled then, how tightly her fingers had clutched his as she gave up her hold on life, the rose petals spilling from her palm, dead and black. […] “I bring her flowers when I can,” he said. “Lyanna was … fond of flowers.” - Ned. AGoT

Then to Sansa she said, “When we were crossing the Neck, I counted thirty-six flowers I never saw before, and Mycah showed me a lizard-lion.” - Sansa, AGoT

One day she came back grinning her horsey grin, her hair all tangled and her clothes covered in mud, clutching a raggedy bunch of purple and green flowers for Father. Sansa kept hoping he would tell Arya to behave herself and act like the highborn lady she was supposed to be, but he never did, he only hugged her and thanked her for the flowers. That just made her worse. - Sansa, AGoT

Text that is used to mirror Arya and Lyanna as liking flowers. We have Ned taking flowers to Lyanna and Arya bringing flowers to Ned. And again we have Sansa disparaging this. Mirrors and foils.

We have Arya and Lyanna stepping in to help people. Mirrors used to highlight Arya’s personality.

“Stop it!” Arya screamed. She grabbed up her fallen stick. Arya swung with both hands. There was a loud crack as the wood split against the back of the prince’s head - Sansa, AGoT

They shoved him down every time he tried to rise, and kicked him when he curled up on the ground. But then they heard a roar. ‘That’s my father’s man you’re kicking,’ howled the she-wolf.” The she-wolf laid into the squires with a tourney sword, scattering them all. - Bran, ASoS

Arya and Lyanna step in to help their father’s men and people like Howland Reed and Mycah. Sansa stepped in to help her Lannister prince.

Lyanna is deemed wilful and wild and comparisons are made to Arya.

“She was,” Eddard Stark agreed, “beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time.” - Arya, AGoT

And Arya … he missed her even more than Robb, skinny little thing that she was, all scraped knees and tangled hair and torn clothes, so fierce and willful.  - Jon, AGoT

“[…] This willfulness of yours, the running off, the angry words, the disobedience … at home, these were only the summer games of a child. Here and now, with winter soon upon us, that is a different matter. It is time to begin growing up.” Arya, AGoT

So we get a warning for Arya that her predecessor with a similar personality had a tragic ending. Will Arya head down the same path or will she make different choices from her mirror character?

And then there is Arya’s relationship with Lyanna’s son Jon Snow. The fact that Arya, Jon and Lyanna all look the same - and have the Stark look.

I think the writing in the books makes it clear that Arya and Lyanna are literary mirrors and Arya/Lyanna are literary foils to Sansa.

In what way is Lyanna a mirror for Sansa? How does Lyanna in any way complement Sansa as a character? What information about Sansa do we get from the Lyanna call backs in the text? What can we glean about Sansa’s personality and how she would react from Lyanna’s traits? There is no information about any of this in the books.

Which is why it’s baffling when some sections of fandom keep talking about the many parallels between Sansa and Lyanna. There are no parallels here, none.

We first hear of Lyanna when Robert mentions that unlike his failed engagement to Ned’s sister, this time around, Ned’s daughter and Robert’s son can marry to unite house Baratheon and Stark. This is GRRM setting up the scenario to subvert tropes.

Readers expect that Lyanna is a Sansa like character but as we keep reading, it’s revealed that the daughter who is similar to Lyanna is Arya and not Sansa. Even Arya is surprised when Ned tells her that it is she who will have Lyanna’s beauty.

Lyanna and Robert do not get married because Lyanna went against the wishes of her family. Meanwhile Sansa wanted to marry Joffrey against the wishes of her father. Character foils. If anything the Robert/Lyanna and Joffrey/Sansa pairing demonstrates how much Sansa and Lyanna are as much foils as Sansa and Arya.

Lyanna could see through Robert, that not even his closest friend Ned could do. She was not taken in by appearances.

“Robert will never keep to one bed,” Lyanna had told him at Winterfell, on the night long ago when their father had promised her hand to the young Lord of Storm’s End. “I hear he has gotten a child on some girl in the Vale.” Ned had held the babe in his arms; he could scarcely deny her, nor would he lie to his sister, but he had assured her that what Robert did before their betrothal was of no matter, that he was a good man and true who would love her with all his heart. Lyanna had only smiled. “Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man’s nature.” Ned, AGoT

Unlike Sansa, she did not believe that fairy tales were real. She was not idealistic about love. Contrast her with Sansa - who continued to love her sweet, beautiful prince after seeing him sadistically maul another child and try to harm her sister and after her own father warns her that Joffrey was not good

At first she thought she hated him for what they’d done to Lady, but after Sansa had wept her eyes dry, she told herself that it had not been Joffrey’s doing, not truly. The queen had done it; she was the one to hate, her and Arya. Nothing bad would have happened except for Arya.She could not hate Joffrey tonight. He was too beautiful to hate - Sansa, AGoT

“Once she had loved Prince Joffrey with all her heart, and admired and trusted her his mother, the queen. They had repaid that love and trust with her father's head. Sansa would never make that mistake again.”   - Sansa, ACoK

Much is made of Lyanna crying over Rhaegar’s song. As if this is a quality specific only to Sansa in ASoIaF. Cersei talks about how Rhaegar made her weep with his silvery harp. Arya likes songs and Arya cries. Arya and Sansa just like different songs and we have no idea what Rhaegar’s song was even about. Arya named her direwolf pup Nymeria from the songs.

Arya named hers after some old witch queen in the songs - Bran, AGoT

Arya wanted to become an outlaw like Wenda the White Fawn in the songs.

Tom and Hot Pie resumed their song on the other side of the brook, with the duck hanging from Lem’s belt beneath his yellow cloak. Somehow the singing made the miles seem shorter. - Arya, ASoS

Ygritte cries over songs about the last of the giants and Ygritte reminds Jon of Arya. Again, Ygritte and Arya are literary mirrors to remind Jon of his sister and highlight Arya’s personality and other characteristics.

She reminded him a little of his sister Arya, though Arya was younger and probably skinnier. It was hard to tell how plump or thin Ygritte might be, with all the furs and skins she wore. - Jon, ASoS

"If you kill a man, and never meant', he's just as dead," Ygritte said stubbornly. Jon had never met anyone so stubborn, except maybe for his little sister Arya. Is she still my sister? he wondered. Was she ever? - Jon, ASoS

There were tears on Ygritte’s cheeks when the song ended. “Why are you weeping?” Jon asked. “It was only a song. There are hundreds of giants, I’ve just seen them.” “Oh, hundreds,” she said furiously. “You know nothing, Jon Snow.” - Jon, ASoS

Ygritte displays both grief and anger at the fate of the giants in the song -  emotions that Arya often exhibits.

So GRRM compares two women who cry listening to songs with Arya in the text and yet the parallel here is somehow with Sansa?

Besides, let’s not forget Lyanna’s reaction to Benjen laughing at her crying:

The dragon prince sang a song so sad it made the wolf maid sniffle, but when her pup brother teased her for crying she poured wine over his head - Bran, ASoS

Who does this remind us of?

“You be quiet, stupid,” the girl (Lyanna) said, tossing her own branch aside. - Bran, ADwD

Who does this remind us of?

GRRM is deliberately writing in Lyanna Stark as a literary mirror to Arya Stark in the books. There are three possible reasons for this. One, to highlight and complement Arya’s personality and add depth to her character. Two, to highlight her strong connection to the North. And three, for a plot that he’s leading us towards, that will either parallel or connect to Lyanna’s story in some way.

GRRM sees no such need to connect Sansa and Lyanna because that is not Sansa’s story. Her similarities are with her mother Catelyn Stark. Her story has been revolving around Littlefinger for 5 books and Littlefinger is infatuated with her because she looks like Catelyn. The author has even talked about it.

My Littlefinger would have never turned Sansa over to Ramsay. Never. He’s obsessed with her. Half the time he thinks she’s the daughter he never had—that he wishes he had, if he’d married Catelyn. And half the time he thinks she is Catelyn, and he wants her for himself. He’s not going to give her to somebody who would do bad things to her. That’s going to be very different in the books. - GRRM

If there is an aunt that the character parallels, it is Lysa Arryn and not Lyanna Stark. Will Sansa fall to Littlefinger’s machinations and suffer the same fate as her mother and her aunt? Or will she forge a different path when facing same tests?

So why the obsession with Sansa and Lyanna parallels?

Sansa stans have this weird way of reading the text where everything is subconscious and not written on the page. This idea that what’s on page is not important but some sneaky, secretive subtext is what’s actually going foreshadow future events. So GRRM investing in Jon and Arya’s relationship in the text of the books means that Jon and Sansa are going to end up together. Or GRRM is making subconscious parallels between Lyanna and Sansa.

Sorry, but that’s not how GRRM writes. Everything that GRRM wants us to read and connect to is on the page.

“I’ve been planting all these clues that the butler did it, then you’re halfway through a series and suddenly thousands of people have figured out that the butler did it, and then you say the chambermaid did it? No, you can’t do that,” Martin reportedly said while addressing whether fan theories and online speculation influence his writing process for the “Song of Ice and Fire” series of novels on which HBO’s adaptation is based.

It’s easy to do things that are shocking or unexpected, but they have to grow out of characters. They have to grow out of situations. Otherwise, it’s just being shocking for being shocking. But this is something that seems very organic and natural, and I could see how it would happen.

Then there’s the misogyny. Beauty, songs, romance and love should only be associated with Sansa. Arranged marriages are only for Sansa, being used as a pawn for power is only Sansa. Only Sansa suffers the separation from family. Can’t associate any of that with Arya because she is ‘masculine’. Despite Catelyn arranging a marriage for Arya with a Frey and despite Ramsay marrying Arya to hold the North, only Sansa is the key to the North. Arya sees through Elmar Frey as easily as Lyanna sees through Robert Baratheon, but it’s only Sansa who is associated with an unwanted betrothal.

Every female character in this series has a betrothal plot, every female character is used as a pawn at one point - even Daenerys. We know nothing about Lyanna’s story - whether she was in love with Rhaegar, what she was doing in the Tower of Joy, why she eloped. We know nothing, just assumptions and headcanons. This is a character of whom we only get flashes here and there to add to Arya’s character for  plot reasons and the mystery of Jon’s parentage.

In my opinion, this obsession that Sansa stans have with connecting the character to Lyanna arises from a need to prove Sansa’s Northern/Stark credentials. Sansa stans are fanatical about the North. Parallels to Catelyn and Lysa evoke Sansa’s Tully lineage rather than her Stark one and for people that are obsessed with the North, this will not do.

Unless it’s the idiotic Ned/Cat Jonsa parallels where they theorize that Jon is attracted to a girl who looks like the woman who emotionally abused him 😒. Of course, with the new batch of Sansa stans who ship Jonsa there is now an added reason for pushing the Lyanna-Sansa parallels as a connection they want for Jon and Sansa.

So, in the text of the story, the author writes Arya Stark and Lyanna Stark as mirrors and Arya Stark and  Sansa Stark as foils. The author does not intend to have Lyanna and Sansa act as mirrors in my opinion. Rather, an examination of what little we know of Lyanna shows her to be a complete contrast to Sansa in all ways.

[negative-speedforce]

your ocs MUST get a tattoo but they aren't allowed to have a say in what it looks like: who do they trust to choose/design it and what does it look like?

Siv: Hailey (gets a hyperrealistic owl)

Jay: Hailey (gets a dagger)

Cassandra: Jay (gets a flower)

Hailey: Cassandra (gets a winking cartoon ghost)

Ember: Hailey (gets a microphone)

Arya: Cassandra (gets a pair of fairy wings)

Esme: Ember (gets rainbow stars/sparkles)

Cat: Hailey (gets a smiley cartoon computer)

Gina: Jay (gets music notes)

Kyle: Hailey (gets a lightning bolt)

Max: Hailey (gets a cartoon robot)

Eric: Khalil (gets "world's best dad")

Jacob: Khalil (also gets "world's best dad")

Khalil: Cassandra (gets a rubber chicken tattooed on his butt because siblings)

Antonio: (is too baby for a tattoo, gets a temporary tattoo from Ember with a picture of a rattlesnake on it)

Ameerah: Cassandra (gets her ex's name because Cassandra is VINDICTIVE and Ameerah is evil af)

Rania: Ember (gets a bunch of strawberries)

Liah: Soraya (gets the "Pisces" symbol)

Marie: Liah (gets lineart of the "Daphne turning into a tree" statue)

Qiara: Soraya (gets a stylized letter 'Q')

Soraya: Liah (Gets a Starfleet commbadge with flowers growing out of it)

Thalia: Reyna (gets a constellation)

Athena: Laila (gets a bunch of hearts)

Laila: Thalia (gets a DNA strand)

Reyna: Thalia (gets a test tube stand full of interesting liquids)

Samira: Sohelia (gets the phases of the moon)

Aldrich: Samira (gets a permanent wedding band)

Matt: Sohelia (gets a yin/yang symbol)

Sohelia: Matt (gets an arrow)

Vanessa: Sohelia (gets a cute cartoon bird)

Pippa: Jessi (does she trust Jessi? no. Is she a huge fan of her music? yes. Anyway she ends up with Jessi's signature and a stylized portrait of her)

Jessi: Pippa (gets lyrics to one of her own songs)

Onnie: Pippa (gets a waterfall)

[redteabaron]

Sansa and the (yellow brick) road home

The movie The Wizard of Oz follows along the general theme most heroes/heroines do; the journey to the inner self, at times in relation with the outer world. (The book by Baum, and by relation the movie, has racist/xenophobic/nationalist undertones and implications that continue and multiply through the text that I’m just not going to include here since this meta is already too long and I’m also not going to include the political or Baum’s personal symbolism in these things.) 

I’m going to go off on a limb and assume mostly everyone knows the general summary of TWOO and not summarize it, if not, the wiki on the movie itself is pretty comprehensive. Below, instead of a short novel describing all the possible references and parallels found, I’ll just be using summarized points about how Sansa fills in for Dorothy Gale on her road home.

Red shoes - Red in the film, as that’s what I’m focusing on rather than the silver ones in the book since that was all about the free silver movement. Red for women and girls in a lot of fairy tales often represents the path onto adulthood, particularly connected to menstruation, which isn’t an enormous part of Sansa’s arc but it does get quite a few notable mentions (usually from gross people concerned with her ability to produce heirs). Sansa, like Dorothy, only gains her “red shoes” once she leaves home (that is, setting her on a path to metamorphosis and growing up). The “red shoes” symbolize things Sansa possesses that people, envy, admire or desire for their own. Sansa’s red shoes represent womanhood, agency over self, beauty, intelligence, her kindness and compassion. 

Sepia colors to technicolor in the film/Kansas to Oz - This transition from little to no color to places where it becomes a feast for the eyes (from the north to the south) represents Dorothy’s and Sansa’s feelings toward their respective homes and the places of their desires. Sansa yearns for something else, something different and southron because that is the place all the songs and tales are about. The north, as reiterated by numerous characters both northern and southron, is a hard, harsh place that has little beauty. Sansa, like Dorothy, feels unfulfilled and out of place in her home. She doesn’t explicitly state how out of place she feels in the north like Jon and Arya, but there is the implication that at least within her family she is out of place (perhaps with the exception of Bran who wants knighthood, loves songs and stories like his sister and doesn’t stick his nose up in the air at the fact that Sansa prefers the ones with ladies or love). King’s Landing is her land of Oz, a place of magic and possibility like all the songs, it’s a world of technicolor and danger.

Yellow Brick Road - The yellow brick road is just that; a road on which Dorothy needs to follow to meet with the wizard of Oz, and most importantly the journey she must undertake to go home, and Dorothy does want to go home, she misses it even in this enchanting land that seems to be everything she first wanted. Like Dorothy, Sansa wants to go home after briefly being in the place where dreams are supposed to be a reality (all the stories can’t be lies) and this beautiful place has more danger than she’d realized; Sansa’s yellow brick road is a sight more twisted and unclear with far fewer friends and guarantees of safety. Dorothy is told to stay on the Yellow Brick Road to find her way to her ticket home (the Great Oz), otherwise she’ll run into danger. 

Sansa’s metaphorical ‘Yellow Brick Road’ is her role as a ‘pawn’ in the game of thrones; she has to play within the rules others make for her and outliving them, or she will have no other recourse for survival. 

Toto - Toto is Lady; the animal in a fairy tale setting that is something unknown in a child, yet to be understood or tamed. Toto was Dorothy’s playmate, constant companion, and likely her confidante, and undoubtedly although Toto didn’t have a large part to play directly in TWOO, he set off the events to occur the way they did for Dorothy throughout her time in Oz and in Kansas, but at least she had the comfort that he was there with her throughout it all. Toto is symbolic of a natural gut instinct (his hatred of Miss Gulch, where Lady hates the Hound) and the one who uncovers things normally concealed (again, Lady’s dislike of the Hound despite being the gentlest of her siblings). 

Lady, like Toto, sets off a chain of events for Sansa personally, but Sansa doesn’t have the comfort of Lady being there with her. Here, Lady is the unknown part of Sansa (that functions as her gut feeling, portrays her true self yet to be realized) but ultimately she, a part of Sansa, is killed by Ned at the behest of Cersei (also featuring Robert once again turning aside something unjust and gruesome for an easier solution). 

It brings Toto escaping from the Wicked Witch of the West in a harsher light. Dorothy’s tearful happiness that Toto escapes alive even while she’s captured and her life is in danger … yet Sansa is in danger and Lady is dead, only alive briefly in her dreams. Toto represents a part of Dorothy that manages to escape the worst of the punishment, yet a part of Sansa is already dead, spiritually, at this point. With Robb’s death and his last words being Grey Wind, we can assume there is no ‘getting a new direwolf’ or just simply recovering from the death of their direwolf. 

The Twister - Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon uproot Winterfell and the Seven Kingdoms unintentionally. By accepting the position of Hand, Ned paved the way for her journey there. Later the deaths of Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon, Sansa is trapped in King’s Landing/the Vale (“Oz”). Robert is the Twister and once in King’s Landing, Ned is the locked cellar, essentially leaving her out in the open in danger as he doesn’t share his worries with Sansa. He deliberately leaves her as the odd man out while he manages to speak with Arya about the situation and at least makes her aware that there is danger. 

Poppy field - The allure of giving up and wasting away; in TWOO these lovely, deadly flowers cause those who breathe in their sweet scent to lay down and fall asleep until their death. The poppy field represents apathy and surrender during difficult times, and similarly this makes its appearance for Sansa who abides by all the rules of her captors (people who have harmed her, her family, her home, etc) - but she only succumbs to this from a certain perspective. Sansa hasn’t fallen asleep and succumbed to her metaphorical poppy field, she is, in effect, lucid dreaming. Dreaming while aware, even if she must stay in the dream so she can survive. She’s giving everyone around her the illusion that she is trapped in her “dream”, that she is “Sleeping Beauty” while she continues to learn, adapt, and observe.

Dorothy has three companions that remain with her on her journey that all want the great wizard to give them something they feel they lack. While in the book/film, it’s clear they’re still good people and not without their positive traits, everyone focuses on what they lack across the board. In the sections below, I’ll be using commonalities found in the (unwanted) “suitors” of Sansa on her journey where they too focus on their negative traits, or are the inverted intentions of Dorothy’s companions.

Tin Man/Tyrion Lannister/Sandor Clegane - Men of sympathetic circumstance and who want to be wanted as they are, or desire to be loved/objects of desire and are understood among others as not having a heart or not able to.

Both Sandor and Tyrion project their feelings of rejection from society and in particular women, noblewomen, and lust onto Sansa (a child, a prisoner of war and an easy, isolated target). They are the most selfish form of desire for the Tin Man’s want for a heart; where the Tin Man desired a heart for the purpose of loving others and everything (although he finds later he never needed a physical heart because he was good and loving all along) Tyrion and Sandor desire a heart from someone else for themselves.

They’re who are typically the ones we want to root for as the underdogs who get their just rewards as they have been abused in their positions or misfortunes in life, but they ultimately fall short because they are simply awful and have built up these defenses and use them against Sansa despite being positions where they could have proven to be the ‘knights’ she yearns for (barring the enormous age gaps which inherently leaves these matches undesirable anyway). 

While Sandor’s backstory regarding his abuse at the hands of his brother are awful, he himself enacts abuse on others - the murder of Mycah, him relaying regret for not raping Sansa when he had the chance (whether or not he meant it, she was a child and it’s an awful thing to regret not doing), and his participation in the unkiss as well as verbally abusing her and gaslighting Sansa. Yet he wants kindness and some sort of love or affection from her regardless of his treatment of her. She sings the Mother’s Hymn for him during the Battle of Blackwater Bay, in a way, giving him some form of (her) heart although that wasn’t what she’d intended to do (she misremembers the trauma so we can assume she was terrified), it can be inferred that Sandor got something from her that he wanted (subconsciously or not). 

Similarly, we have sympathy for Tyrion because although he is highborn, he still faces constant mockery, obstacles, verbal and physical abuse due to his disability and looks. However, he still wants to be lord of Winterfell and he wants Sansa (who he finds himself attracted to) - girl or woman-child or whatever she is. Tywin could have married her off to a Lannister cousin, so Tyrion does have the choice to pass her up, but he chooses to go forward with the marriage and even prepares to take her against her consent (where he molests her and says he could be the Knight of Flowers in the dark; essentially telling her to lie to herself about how she felt about him and the situation) but stops after he feels guilty. Tyrion could have been sympathetic because he isn’t without his soft spots (see his conversation with Jon Snow, his consideration for Bran, etc) but he again falls short. He wants love and affection - but he has rather exacting standards, the same thing that infuriated him about Sansa not finding him attractive.

Like the Tin Man it isn’t that they have no heart. Unlike the Tin Man, however, for Sandor and Tyrion, it’s simply that most of that heart shown consists of selfishness and self-centeredness. Sandor might immediately cop to it and never attempts to hide it, but he tries to bring every man down to his level by saying how awful everyone is, everywhere. Tyrion meanwhile may be capable of kindness, but he shows that he is easy to offend when it is rebuffed or denied, as though he expects payment for such a thing.

Cowardly Lion/Ser Dontos/Joffrey - Characters who have the titles of courtly images; Joffrey is a prince, then a golden king. Ser Dontos is a named knight. Both have the roles in songs and stories where the expected virtues would include courage, grace, humility, honor, etc but ultimately do not have these things even if they have the appropriate titles. 

In TWOO, the Cowardly Lion presents a falsehood or an oxymoron (after all, how can the king of all beasts be a coward?). Joffrey and Dontos do the same. (How can a king be cruel, how can a knight not have dignity, etc). Sansa’s attachment and adherence to songs/stories isn’t really all that different from any of the ideas the Stark kids have about their favorite stories, but in her journey specifically, we see her unraveling popular propaganda in Westerosi high society; she even makes comparisons in her inner monologues. 

Where the virtues of kings and knights are meant to be shown, we see her expectations fall very short of what the title is meant to indicate about the character of the people who hold them.

In both Joffrey and Dontos, they lack these qualities even if we, Sansa, may briefly hold out hope for the better (where Joffrey immediately kills that by suddenly having Ned executed, where Dontos sells her off to Littlefinger despite trying to play her Florian). In particular, Ser Dontos ultimately fails as the CW because he says he wants Sansa to be safe, to be her Florian, but isn’t truthful with her about it, yet he wants to reap the reward for it. Joffrey believes himself to have these qualities but is often called out on it by other characters, playing the CW in the beginning who immediately attacks the Tin Man, seemingly unaware of his lack of character. 

In TWOO Dorothy says she’ll miss everyone, but she’ll miss the Scarecrow most of all; below the characters I associate with the Scarecrow are the ones who Sansa might be able to more easily pick out traits (or trick herself into seeing more good than exists) she is most comfortable with (one of the characters below is most obviously not “safe” or the one she has the most affection for, but rather the one she tries very hard, due to her current dependency on him, to project or emphasize what he’s “done for” her). 

Scarecrow/Petyr Baelish/Harry the Heir/Ser Loras - Characters shown or believed to be less intelligent, without depth, or even overrated. They are stuffed with straw, padded with nothing of substance in a person.

Briefly starting with Ser Loras, I included him specifically because even though Sansa has a little crush on him, she quickly realizes that he never had interest in her, and didn’t remember giving her the rose even though it was the highlight of her day when he did. This is an indication to Sansa she doesn’t know him even though she daydreamed about him. She doesn’t truly know him, is what she realizes and he doesn’t know her despite the implicit belief that love or affection can be found and trusted at first sight. He was handsome, seemingly knightly, dreamy, and he turned out to be no one who would have any consequence for her.

Harry the Heir, we don’t know much about as a person beyond the basics. He has one illegitimate child and is currently courting Saffron, who is pregnant with his second illegitimate child. He is a knight. He’s Robert Arryn’s heir. There’s the idea that he’s quite good at knightly actions (jousting, swordplay, horsemanship, etc) and likely indications that he is a little egotistical. From the released chapters of Alayne we’ve seen, he does apologize for his rudeness, but I don’t believe he’ll be around long enough for us to explore his person. Our understanding of him, and I believe Alayne’s/Sansa’s understanding of him will be one of pity, knowing his fate, but ultimately we won’t know him enough for it to be particularly impactful save for how his death will affect Sansa’s actions. 

To that end, Harry has every possibility of being a better suitor than the others that have sold themselves as her beaus, but it won’t last. Where we read that Ser Loras didn’t remember Sansa or seem to care or was invested in her, we’ll see that ultimately Harry is another, if newer scarecrow; ultimately a character of seemingly goodwill, or at least one who won’t wish her harm, but will fall flat by not having substance or not be allowed the time to develop much. 

Admittedly, Petyr as the Wicked Witch of the West is also fitting, but considering we are constantly told in text how dangerous he is forces him to the forefront of our minds as this terrifying endgame boogeyman. Since asoiaf likes to have little twists and turns and defy immediate expectations, he isn’t likely so important to the final fate of Westeros, and by extension, Sansa’s fate. His biggest impact will be having spirited her away to the Vale and keeping her under lock. To that end, he is (one of) the Scarecrow(s) in Sansa’s journey. 

The whole “I’ll miss you most of all, Scarecrow” here applies to Petyr. Not that he represents a positive point in Sansa’s journey home, but he does represent safety, even though it comes at a price. (Where he tells her to call him Father, where he molests her, gaslights her, verbally and psychologically abuses her and she forces herself to dissociate, ultimately piling on the trauma). 

Petyr isn’t stupid, or without a brain, but he is overconfident in his mind, to the end that he will make huge missteps he won’t have accounted for (Jeyne at Winterfell, not thinking Sansa will be capable of fleeing or thinking for herself, believing he knew everything that happened after the Red Wedding, doubting Dany is a dangerous element, underestimating Aegon, etc) despite giving Sansa similar warnings (all while believing she would be too stupid or naive to heed them). He, like the Scarecrow, is a planner but ultimately he will meet an anticlimactic death. He, and numerous other characters, sell the idea (very loudly) that there is more to him than there appears, that he has great depths, that he is one of the most dangerous men in Westeros.

That isn’t to say he isn’t dangerous - he obviously is. He kicked off a violent war, arranged for the deaths of numerous people, has quite a lot of money and power (although he doesn’t have a name with weight). It’s just that with every person who announces how dangerous he is, we’ll see in Sansa’s journey when we see him as his truest self, stripped of his gold and power we will see nothing. He has no great depths to plumb beyond his own ambitions.

He is the Scarecrow who already found his “brain” (where Petyr already has the lesson that his strength is his mind), yet in the end, is still a scarecrow. Just the form of a man filled with straw.

Wicked Witch of the West/Cersei - The ever present danger that never loses focus on Sansa, seemingly magically out of reach from danger to Sansa’s eyes. Cersei, in a way, is this insurmountable force to Sansa; she is the purest form of danger that exists and it’s why Sansa has no choice but to hide and trust that Littlefinger will keep her concealed.  

Cersei blames Tyrion and Sansa for Joffrey’s death, and especially has a grudge against Sansa for her “red shoes” (her name, her agency, her womanhood, children, beauty, etc, we see her reference snidely about Sansa’s qualities whenever she talks/thinks about her) (see above for what Sansa’s red shoes are) and the action she believes she is responsible for. She has multiple hangers on as Queen Regent (flying monkeys who do her bidding). 

She, from Sansa’s point of view, has all this power and represents someone who can’t be stopped (we see the same thing with Dorothy and the WWW), but yet the Witch dies easily. In TWOO, she’s melted by a bucket of water Dorothy accidentally spills on her. I think this may be an indication that Sansa may have another indirect hand in her death (indirect as with the Purple Wedding), perhaps letting some information she gives be used against Cersei, or something. But ultimately, Cersei, like the Wicked Witch of the West won’t have a particularly “onscreen” death (she’ll likely die in King’s Landing, either by Jaime’s hand, or indirectly through Tyrion when Dany burns it).  

Oz/Man behind the curtain - The songs and tales of Westeros that conceal the darker truths that exist behind what power means; a means of propaganda that Sansa is forced to unveil on her own. While all the Starks learn a lot more about people, the world, truth and lies, politics, etc Sansa’s position in court leads her to pay a lot more attention to what people don’t say. She also develops a deeper understanding of how what she believed came to actually be. She has to learn how to weed out the domino effect stories and songs have, even though at their core they can be appreciated (for instance, that honor and nobility are good things, even if the song/tale about the person isn’t someone who realistically practiced it). 

This saturates court culture across the world, although her focus is on Westeros, but we know that this isn’t just a southron issue; this exists in the north, across the Narrow Sea, within Houses, legacies, and even singular people.