Who wants to read a ned stark alive au gendrya romance, chilling up in the red keep and arya enjoy her blueberry tarts and kittens in peace?

Genuinely asking.

I am bored!!!!

Arya and the Stranger

Good news, I figured out a way to pack even more unnecessary, extremely tedious to color details into my art :)

No i've just been obsessed with these old russian fairytale illustrations for ages and really wanted to try and emulate that style and how it shows so much additional art in the borders of the work. It was really fun to figure out a way to portray the stranger, I wanted to play around a bit with the descriptions we are given without turning them into a standard grim reaper.

Oh, also if you want; you can get a print of this here!

"Learn three new things before you come back to us," the kindly man had commanded Cat, when he sent her forth into the city. She always did. Sometimes it was no more than three new words of the Braavosi tongue. Sometimes she brought back sailor's tales, of strange and wondrous happenings from the wide wet world beyond the isles of Braavos, wars and rains of toads and dragons hatching. Sometimes she learned three new japes or three new riddles, or tricks of this trade or the other. And every so often, she would learn some secret.

Back in Winterfell, Arya had prayed with her mother in the sept.

Arya Stark: She-Wolf of Winterfell and Protectress of the North

If she had the moon and the stars to see by, that was enough. 

inspired by x 

This drawing is the result of me rewatching Kiki’s Delivery Service (one of my favorite films ever) for the umpteenth time. Kiki reminds me a lot of Arya. I mean, a plucky, friendly, hard-working young girl with magical abilities who tries to overcome identity issues and low self-esteem while making new friends in a city far away from home. I couldn’t resist.

So this is an AU where Arya and Nymeria live in Braavos for approximately a year while working for Brusco. Also, this is an AU where Arya’s life doesn’t completely suck.

“Ask for Merry. Meralyn is her true name, but everyone calls her Merry, and she is.” Merry bought a dozen oysters everytime Cat came by the brothel and shared them with her girls. She had a good heart, everyone agreed. “That, and the biggest pair of teats in all of Braavos,”  Merry herself was fond of boasting.

Her girls were nice as well;  Blushing Bethany and the Sailor’s Wife, one-eyed Yna who could tell your fortune from a drop of blood, pretty little Lanna, even Assadora, the Ibbenese woman with the mustache. They might not be beautiful, but they were kind to her.

Fun fact about Arya Stark: She befriended a group of prostitutes because she thought they were chill

Her wolf dreams.

Cc: RiikkaPaints

the many facets of arya’s identities 

arya underfoot: a friend 

arya horseface: an outsider

arry: an orphan boy

weasel: a baby girl

nan: a storyteller, an old woman

nymeria: a wolf, a warrior queen

squab: a bird

salty: a stowaway 

cat: a mother, a feline 

blind beth: a childhood peer 

the ugly girl: an abused child

mercy: a silly actress 

and there will be more yet. her complexity knows no bounds! and its amazing to me because none of them diminish arya’s true character. they only make it stronger.

Nothing is more daunting then the fact that I am already 21, and dream of spring will probably come by the time i am in my thirties.

Valar morghulis 🗡️

Yeah even the comment on that thread that said somebody should have paid attention focused on ARYA being left unattended because you know, she's so wild and impulsive. Joffrey took Sansa out to the woods and got her drunk and where were the adults then? Joffrey drew blood against someone who couldn't fight back, how about we blame the adults for leaving the children unattended there? But no, ARYA, specifically, needs to be guarded because God forbid, she might save somebody's life! Or choose friends outside of her own narrow social circle, oh no! Clearly she is out of control and needs more adult supervision!

The reality is that if Arya hadn't intervened, the adults would have never gotten involved because nobody gives a shit if Joffrey carves up some butcher's boy for giggles, which is the very reason why Arya should be praised for intervening.

And to the people blaming Arya for playing with Mycah to begin with, not only is that not an opinion worth entertaining, but let's consider an alternate scenario where Arya isn't there at all: Joffrey and Sansa come upon Mycah, alone by the river, swinging a sword around like a stick and pretending to be a knight. Joffrey, like in canon, is amused and resentful of this butcher's boy pretending to be a knight and wants to prove what a big man he is, is still an entitled, sadistic ass, maybe even comes up with some excuse the way he did in canon, except instead of "that was my lady's sister you were hitting" it's "my lady and I were out walking and we came upon this hostile, violent, armed peasant." Sansa, like in canon, is too terrified to do anything, so she just stands there while Joffrey mutilates or kills this boy who is also too scared to fight back. Except this time none of the adults get involved or even know about it. Maybe Ned overhears that the butcher's boy is missing his son and wonders about it a little before the caravan moves on but nobody else bats an eyelash and it's quickly forgotten by everyone but Sansa, who now knows exactly what the crown prince she is to marry is capable of. Or maybe the king finds out about it and treats it like that time Joffrey sliced open a pregnant cat because a butcher's boy is little more than an animal to the royal class. Or maybe they don't come upon Mycah and Joffrey just takes a drunk Sansa into the woods and molests her. Who should we blame then? People say that Joffrey isn't even to blame for his violence because he is only a child but the reality is that he's a violent child with power and no one to stop him. And neither Ned, Cat, or Septa Mordane have the power to stop the crown prince, either, and certainly not if they were to stay within their class, as Arya's critics suggest should be done.

People keep bringing up Arya's class as a reason she should not have been involved but it is exactly the reason she was right to do so. As someone in a higher social position, Arya actually has an obligation to defend Mycah and the fearlessness that comes of being raised in a castle and mostly isolated from higher ranking nobles, and also doesn't care what they think, so she's not afraid to fight back against Joffrey, who definitely wasn't expecting anyone to fight back or tell him no. And even if there was no way this would turn out good for Mycah or Arya, it was still the right thing to do. You don't stand up for what's right only if there's a chance of success. You do it anyway. That's not a reason to blame people who can't stand up, but it IS a reason to not shift blame onto those who stand up for what's right when they can.

For a great part of its early history, its secret status made it of little consequence in the wider world. But in time it grew, eventually emerging as a power almost without rival.

what a good city for arya to be associated with 

Arya Stark + Women being friends with each other: Polly Dartford as Daena

Daena howled. “Mercy, don’t you know anything? It’s his siggle. In the Sunset Kingdoms all the lords have siggles. Some have flowers, some have fish, some have bears and elks and other things. See, the envoy’s guards are wearing lions.”

It was true. There were four guards; big, hard-looking men in ringmail, with heavy Westerosi longswords sheathed at their hips. Their crimson cloaks were bordered in whorls of gold, and golden lions with red garnet eyes clasped each cloak at the shoulder. When Mercy glanced at the faces beneath the gilded, lion-crested helm, her belly gave a quiver. The gods have given me a gift. Her fingers clutched hard at Daena’s arm. “That guard. The one on the end, behind the Black Pearl.”

“What of him? Do you know him?”

“No.” Mercy had been born and bred in Braavos, how could she know some Westerosi? She had to think a moment. “It’s only… well, he’s fair to look on, don’t you think?” He was, in a rough-hewn way, though his eyes were hard.

Daena shrugged. “He’s very old. Not so old as the other ones, but… he could be thirty. And Westerosi. They’re terrible savages, Mercy. Best stay well away from his sort.”

“Stay away?” Mercy giggled. She was a giggly sort of girl, was Mercy. “No. I’ve got to get closer.” She gave Daena a squeeze and said, “If the Snapper comes looking for me, tell her that I went off to read my lines again.”