Im In A Deep Shit Ocean Of Feels Bc Of This Fanfic

Arya Stark and the Trauma of Killing

Arya is not the cold-blooded, pleasure seeking killer that the showrunners, and the majority of fandom, like to portray her as. She has never been happy about the killing she’s had to do to survive, the killing she’s had to do to stay with the faceless men because she thinks she has no where else to go, the killing she’s done out of a sense of justice against those who’ve harmed her and others (Raff) and those she’s been taught to view as the most dangerous of all men (Dareon, the Night’s Watch deserter).

More often than not, Arya has felt shame for what she’s done, so much so, that her kills haunt her all the way in ADWD when she’s trying, and failing, to become no one. She must justify to herself why these people deserve their deaths and she’s never *happy* about any of it. She has felt empty, hopeless, weak because nothing she can do will ever bring her parents, her family, back to her.  

A few instances where Arya reflects on the killings, and the blatant shame, fear, guilt she feels when thinking of how her father, mother, brother, and others would react:

Yoren didn’t know about the stableboy, but she was afraid of what he might do if he found out…

-Arya, ACoK

Arya told of Yoren and their escape from King’s Landing as well, and much that had happened since, but she left out the stableboy she’d stabbed with Needle, and the guard whose throat she’d cut to get out of Harrenhal. Telling Harwin would be almost like telling her father, and there were some things that she could not bear having her father know. 

-Arya, ASoS

Arya didn’t know how much Robb would pay for her, though. He was a king now, not the boy she’d left at Winterfell with snow melting in his hair. And if he knew the things she’d done, the stableboy and the guard at Harrenhal and all. “What if my brother doesn’t want to ransom me?”

-Arya,ASoS

And her lady mother, what would she say? Would she still want her back, after all the things she’d done? Arya chewed her lip and wondered.

-Arya, ASoS

In fact, the small amount of comfort she ever has about her kills is this:

Jon wouldn’t care who I killed or whether I brushed my hair…

-Arya, ASoS

Finally, all the way in ADWD, she is still unable to forget the killing, she hasn’t found any peace, relief, happiness, fulfillment, etc. It’s clear that it’s all taken a heavy toll on her, and it is not something she will ever be okay with:

Yet there was the black singer, there the stableboy she’d killed with Needle, there the pimply squire from the crossroads inn, and over there the guard whose throat she’d slashed to get them out of Harrenhal. The Tickler hung on the wall as well, the black holes that were his eyes swimming with malice. The sight of him brought back the feel of the dagger in her hand as she had plunged it into his back, again and again and again.

-Arya, ADWD

Bottomline, killing is an incredibly traumatic, confusing, and more times than not, necessary part of Arya’s arc. It isn’t this cut and dry action that leaves her feeling satisfied or happy. 

And just as a sidenote, I never see any comments about Jaime Lannister killing people, Jon Snow, Stannis Baratheon, Ned Stark, Sandor Clegane. Yet the few kills Arya has, most of whom were out of survival, ALL of whom were dangerous, horrible people, automatically brings out the tumblr MDs trying to diagnose her with sociopathy or psychopathy, or the ~concerned fans~ about her loss of humanity.

It’s funny, because Arya is actually one of the few people who understands the worth of life. When she saves Jaqen, Rorge, Biter from the fire, when she’s concerned about creatures like fleas, LITERAL FLEAS, in her clothes dying, when she witnesses countless deaths and desecrated bodies and is forced to realize just how quickly lives can end, when she witnesses the resurrection of Beric and asks if her father’s life can be restored as well, when she’s concerned about giving Yoren a proper burial. But God forbid this little girl wants the monsters responsible for the massacre of her family, for the abuse she’s endured, for the horrible atrocities she’s seen committed, dead. I guess when it’s a female character wanting justice, it makes her too far gone, but when it’s a male character, it makes him a hero. 

Yesss those two could have been besties

🐺 Arya Stark appreciation 13/-

Parallels to Oberyn Martell Pt. 1- The Water Dancer of Winterfell and the Red Viper of Dorne.

Arya + Wolf Monikers (Requested by @insomniarama​)

She was no little girl in the dream; she was a wolf, huge and powerful, and when she emerged from beneath the trees in front of them and bared her teeth in a low rumbling growl, she could smell the rank stench of fear from horse and man alike.

arya stark & leadership

Honesty

Arya squirted past Greenbeard so fast he never saw her. “You are a murderer!” she screamed. “You killed Mycah, don’t say you never did. You murdered him!”

The Hound stared at her with no flicker of recognition. “And who was this Mycah, boy?”

“I’m not a boy! But Mycah was. He was a butcher’s boy and you killed him. Jory said you cut him near in half, and he never even had a sword.” She could feel them looking at her now, the women and the children and the men who called themselves the knights of the hollow hill. “Who’s this now?” someone asked.

The Hound answered. “Seven hells. The little sister. The brat who tossed Joff’s pretty sword in the river.” He gave a bark of laughter. “Don’t you know you’re dead?”

Communication

“Do you hear?” Hot Pie asked in a hoarse whisper, as he hugged an armful of cabbages. “Someone’s coming.” 

“Go wake Gendry,” Arya told him. “Just shake him by the shoulder, don’t make a lot of noise.” Gendry was easy to wake, unlike Hot Pie, who needed to be kicked and shouted at. 

“I’ll make her my love and we’ll rest in the shade, heigh-ho, heigh-ho. The song swelled louder with every word. 

Hot Pie opened his arms. The cabbages fell to the ground with soft thumps.

“We have to hide.” 

Where? The burned cottage and its overgrown garden stood hard beside the banks of the Trident. There were a few willows growing along the river’s edge and reed beds in the muddy shallows beyond, but most of the ground hereabouts was painfully open. I knew we should never have left the woods, she thought. They’d been so hungry, though, and the garden had been too much a temptation. The bread and cheese they had stolen from Harrenhal had given out six days ago, back in the thick of the woods. “Take Gendry and the horses behind the cottage,” she decided. There was part of one wall still standing, big enough, maybe, to conceal two boys and three horses. If the horses don’t whinny, and that singer doesn’t come poking around the garden. 

“What about you?”

“I’ll hide by the tree. He’s probably alone. If he bothers me, I’ll kill him. Go!”

Confidence

They rode north, away from the lake, following a rutted farm road across the torn fields and into the woods and streams. Arya took the lead, kicking her stolen horse to a brisk heedless trot until the trees closed in around her. Hot Pie and Gendry followed as best they could.

Commitment

She would make much better time on her own, Arya knew, but she could not leave them. They were her pack, her friends, the only living friends that remained to her, and if not for her they would still be safe at Harrenhal, Gendry sweating at his forge and Hot Pie in the kitchens. If the Mummers catch us, I’ll tell them that I’m Ned Stark’s daughter and sister to the King in the North. I’ll command them to take me to my brother, and to do no harm to Hot Pie and Gendry.

Creativity

“Anyone?” she repeated. “A man, a woman, a little baby, or Lord Tywin, or the High Septon, or your father?” 

“A man’s sire is long dead, but did he live, and did you know his name, he would die at your command.”

“Swear it,” Arya said. “Swear it by the gods.”

“By all the gods of sea and air, and even him of fire, I swear it.” He placed a hand in the mouth of the weirwood. “By the seven new gods and the old gods beyond count, I swear it.”

He has sworn. “Even if I named the king.”

“Speak the name, and death will come. On the morrow, at the turn of the moon, a year from this day, it will come. A man does not fly like a bird, but one foot moves and then another and one day a man is there, and a king dies.” He knelt beside her, so they were face-to-face, “A girl whispers if she fears to speak aloud. Whisper it now. Is it Joffrey?”

Arya put her lips to his ear. “It’s Jaqen H’ghar.”

Even in the burning barn, with walls of flame towering all around and him in chains, he had not seemed so distraught as he did now. “A girl… she makes a jest.”

“You swore. The gods heard you swear.”

“The gods did hear,” There was a knife in his hand suddenly, its blade thin as her little finger. Whether it was meant for her or him, Arya could not say. “A girl will weep. A girl will lose her only friend.”

“You’re not my friend. A friend would help me.” She stepped away from him, balanced on the balls of her feet in case he threw his knife. “I’d never kill a friend.”

Jaqen’s smile came and went. “A girl might… name another name then, if a friend did help?” “A girl might,” she said. “If a friend did help.”

The knife vanished. “Come.”

Intuition

When she got closer, she saw that he was a northman, very tall and thin, huddled in a ragged fur cloak. That was bad. She might have been able to trick a Frey or one of the Brave Companions, but the Dreadfort men had served Roose Bolton their whole life, and they knew him better than she did. If I tell him I am Arya Stark and command him to stand aside… No, she dare not. He was a northman, but not a Winterfell man. He belonged to Roose Bolton.

Inspire

“Child,” said the singer, “put up that sword, and we’ll take you to a safe place and get some food in that belly. There are wolves in these parts, and lions, and worse things. No place for a little girl to be wandering alone.”

“She’s not alone.” Gendry rode out from behind the cottage wall, and behind him Hot Pie, leading her horse. In his chainmail shirt with a sword in his hand, Gendry looked almost a man grown, and dangerous. Hot Pie looked like Hot Pie. “Do like she says, and leave us be,” warned Gendry.

Integrity

“Whose men were you?” she asked them.

At the sound of her voice, the fat man opened his eyes. The skin around them was so red they looked like boiled eggs floating in a dish of blood. “Water… a drink…”

“Whose?” she said again.

“Pay them no mind, boy,” the townsman told her.  They’re none o’ your concern.  Ride on by.“

“What did they do?” she asked him.

“They put eight people to the sword at Tumbler’s Falls,” he said. “They wanted the Kingslayer, but he wasn’t there so they did some rape and murder.” He jerked a thumb toward the corpse with maggots where his manhood ought to be. “That one there did the raping. Now move along.”

“A swallow,” the fat one called down. “Ha’ mercy, boy, a swallow.” The old one slid an arm up to grasp the bars. The motion made his cage swing violently. “Water,” gasped the one with the flies in his beard.

She looked at their filthy hair and scraggly beards and reddened eyes, at their dry, cracked, bleeding lips. Wolves, she thought again. Like me. Was this her pack? How could they be Robb’s men? She wanted to hit them. She wanted to hurt them. She wanted to cry. They all seemed to be looking at her, the living and the dead alike. The old man had squeezed three fingers out between the bars. “Water,” he said, “water.”

Arya swung down from her horse. They can’t hurt me, they’re dying. She took her cup from her bedroll and went to the fountain. “What do you think you’re doing, boy?” the townsman snapped. “They’re no concern o’ yours.” She raised the cup to the fish’s mouth. The water splashed across her fingers and down her sleeve, but Arya did not move until the cup was brimming over. When she turned back toward the cages, the townsman moved to stop her. “You get away from them, boy–”

“She’s a girl,” said Harwin. “Leave her be.”

“Aye,” said Lem. “Lord Beric don’t hold with caging men to die of thirst. Why don’t you hang them decent?”

“There was nothing decent ‘bout them things they did at Tumbler’s Falls,” the townsman growled right back at him.

The bars were too narrow to pass a cup through, but Harwin and Gendry offered her a leg up. She planted a foot in Harwin’s cupped hands, vaulted onto Gendry’s shoulders, and grabbed the bars on top of the cage. The fat man turned his face up and pressed his cheek to the iron, and Arya poured the water over him. He sucked at it eagerly and let it run down over his head and cheeks and hands, and then he licked the dampness off the bars. He would have licked Arya’s fingers if she hadn’t snatched them back. By the time she served the other two the same, a crowd had gathered to watch her.

Decisiveness

“The wolf blood.” Arya remembered now. “I’ll be as strong as Robb. I said I would.” She took a deep breath, then lifted the broomstick in both hands and brought it down across her knee. It broke with a loud crack, and she threw the pieces aside. I am a direwolf, and done with wooden teeth. 

…

At the forge she found the fires extinguished and the doors closed and barred. She crept in a window, as she had once before. Gendry shared a mattress with two other apprentice smiths. She crouched in the loft for a long time before her eyes adjusted enough for her to be sure that he was the one on the end. Then she put a hand over his mouth and pinched him. His eyes opened. He could not have been very deeply asleep. “Please,” she whispered. She took her hand off his mouth and pointed. 

For a moment she did not think he understood, but then he slid out from under the blankets. Naked, he padded across the room, shrugged into a loose roughspun tunic, and climbed down from the loft after her. The other sleepers did not stir. “What do you want now?” Gendry said in a low angry voice.

“A sword.”

“Blackthumb keeps all the blades locked up, I told you that a hundred times. Is this for Lord Leech?”

“For me. Break the lock with your hammer.”

“They’ll break my hand,” he grumbled. “Or worse.”

“Not if you run off with me.”

“Run, and they’ll catch you and kill you.”

“They’ll do you worse. Lord Bolton is giving Harrenhal to the Bloody Mummers, he told me so.”

Gendry pushed black hair out of his eyes. “So?”

She looked right at him, fearless. “So when Vargo Hoat’s the lord, he’s going to cut off the feet of all the servants to keep them from running away. The smiths too.”

Personability

Sansa knew all about the sorts of people Arya liked to talk to: squires and grooms and serving girls, old men and naked children, rough-spoken freeriders of uncertain birth. Arya would make friends with anybody. This Mycah was the worst; a butcher’s boy, thirteen and wild, he slept in the meat wagon and smelled of the slaughtering block. Just the sight of him was enough to make Sansa feel sick, but Arya seemed to prefer his company to hers.

Empowerment

Back at Winterfell, they had eaten in the Great Hall almost half the time. Her father used to say that a lord needed to eat with his men, if he hoped to keep them. “Know the men who follow you,” she heard him tell Robb once, “and let them know you. Don’t ask your men to die for a stranger.” At Winterfell, he always had an extra seat set at his own table, and every day a different man would be asked to join him. One night it would be Vayon Poole, and the talk would be coppers and bread stores and servants. The next time it would be Mikken, and her father would listen to him go on about armor and swords and how hot a forge should be and the best way to temper steel. Another day it might be Hullen with his endless horse talk, or Septon Chayle from the library, or Jory, or Ser Rodrik, or even Old Nan with her stories.

Generosity

Arya was a skilled climber and a fast picker, and she liked to go off by herself. One day she came across a rabbit, purely by happenstance. It was brown and fat, with long ears and a twitchy nose. Rabbits ran faster than cats, but they couldn’t climb trees half so well. She whacked it with her stick and grabbed it by its ears, and Yoren stewed it with some mushrooms and wild onions. Arya was given a whole leg, since it was her rabbit. She shared it with Gendry. The rest of them each got a spoonful, even the three in manacles. Jaqen H'ghar thanked her politely for the treat, and Biter licked the grease off his dirty fingers with a blissful look, but Rorge, the noseless one, only laughed and said, “There’s a hunter now. Lumpyface Lumpyhead Rabbitkiller.”

Persistence

“The Trident.” Arya unrolled the stolen map to show them. “See? Once we reach the Trident, all we need to do is follow it upstream till we come to Riverrun, here.” Her finger traced the path. “It’s a long way, but we can’t get lost so long as we keep to the river.”

“Gendry,” she called, her voice low and urgent. “They have a boat. We could sail the rest of the way up to Riverrun. It would be faster than riding, I think.”

Lem was not the leader, though, no more than Tom; that was Greenbeard, the Tyroshi. Arya turned to face him. “Take me to Riverrun and you’ll be rewarded,” she said desperately.

A white sun on black was the sigil of Lord Karstark, Arya thought. Those were Robb’s men. She wondered if they were still close. If she could give the outlaws the slip and find them, maybe they would take her to her mother at Riverrun …

It should be noted though:

Warm and dry in a corner between Gendry and Harwin, Arya listened to the singing for a time, then closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. She dreamt of home; not Riverrun, but Winterfell. It was not a good dream, though.

Accountability

As she worked, Arya thought about the people she wanted dead. She pretended she could see their faces on the steps, and scrubbed harder to wipe them away. The Starks were at war with the Lannisters and she was a Stark, so she should kill as many Lannisters as she could, that was what you did in wars. But she didn’t think she should trust Jaqen. I should kill them myself. Whenever her father had condemned a man to death, he did the deed himself with Ice, his greatsword. “If you would take a man’s life, you owe it to him to look him in the face and hear his last words,” she’d heard him tell Robb and Jon once.

Bonus

She dreamed of wolves most every night. A great pack of wolves, with her at the head. She was bigger than any of them, stronger, swifter, faster. She could outrun horses and outfight lions. When she bared her teeth even men would run from her, her belly was never empty long, and her fur kept her warm even when the wind was blowing cold. And her brothers and sisters were with her, many and more of them, fierce and terrible and hers. They would never leave her.

jason really won the ally award of the year bc he does not only got a bisexual dad, a bisexual godly brother, a lesbian sister, a gay best friend but had also a lesbian girlfriend !! it doesnt get any more supportive than that! SPEAK VALENTINA !!

My baby boy of to kill some monsters and save us all yet again...

List of people Percy Jackson has scared the shit out of:

Clarisse, daughter of Ares, Drakon Slayer: “Believe me, revenge is coming. One of these days, he’s going to be sorry. Why am I waiting? Just strategy. Biding my time and waiting for the right moment to strike. I am not scared, okay? Anybody says different, I’ll rearrange their dental work.” - Demigod Files (Interview with Clarisse LaRue, Daughter of Ares)

Luke Castellan: “‘Luke feared you,’ the Titan’s voice said. ‘His jealously and hatred have been powerful tools. It has kept him obedient. For that I thank you.’” -BotL

Kronos himself: “"Perseus Jackson,“ one of them said. “Yes,” mused another. “I do not see why he is a threat.” “Who said I was a threat?” The first Hesperid glanced behind her, toward the top of the mountain. “They fear thee. They are unhappy that this one has not yet killed thee.” She pointed at Thalia.” -TTC

Leneus, a member of The Council of Cloven Elders: ”I didn’t push him very hard, but he was kind of top-heavy. He fell on his furry rump, then scrambled to his hooves and ran away with his belly jiggling.” - TLO

Hades, Lord of the Underworld: “Hades swallowed. ‘Now, Jackson, listen here…’ He was immortal. There was no way I could kill him, but gods can be wounded.” -TLO 

Phobos, the God of Fear himself: “I couldn’t kill him. He was immortal. But you wouldn’t have known that from his expression. The fear god looked afraid.” -Demigod Files (Percy Jackson and the Stolen Chariot) 

Leo Valdez: “Leo’s legs trembled. The way Percy looked at him made him feel the same as when Jason summoned lightning. Leo’s skin tingled, and every instinct in his body screamed, Duck!” -MoA

Piper McLean: “Piper guessed that Percy hadn’t meant to cause so much damage, but his glowering expression made her want to leave the ship as soon as possible.” -BoO

fucking Annabeth Chase: “Since she’d come back from Tartarus, Annabeth had told Piper about a lot of scary things that had happened down there. At the top of her list: Percy controlling a tide of poison and suffocating the goddess Akhlys.”- BoO

And let’s not forget:

How Percy looks when he fights: “My expression in the picture was fierce—disturbing, even—so it was hard to tell if I was the good guy or the bad guy, but Rachel said I’d looked just like that after the battle.” - TLO

Hazel’s first impression of him: “Then she’d met Percy. At first, when she saw him stumbling up the highway with the old lady in his arms, Hazel had thought he might be a god in disguise. Even though he was beat up, dirty, and stooped with exhaustion, he’d had an aura of power. He had the good looks of a Roman god, with sea-green eyes and wind blown black hair.”

Hephaestus’s words to him in BotL: “The god grunted. “Not that powerful, eh? Could have fooled me. You’re the son of the Earthshaker, lad. You don’t know your own strength.””

“Nico twisted his silver skull ring. “Percy is the most powerful demigod I’ve ever met. No offense to you guys, but it’s true. If anybody can survive, he will, especially if he’s got Annabeth at his side.“ -MoA

“Part of their problem was Percy. He fought like a demon, whirling through the defenders’ ranks in a completely unorthodox style, rolling under their feet, slashing with his sword instead of stabbing like a Roman would, whacking campers with the flat of his blade, and generally causing mass panic.” -SoN

😍😍😍😍😍(not mine)

My favorite wolves.

So the meme above with the wolves was actually a miscaption (all 3 wolves were male and the middle wolf simply bumped into the other wolf while backing away), but I felt inspired anyways.

I imagine that Arya and Jon be tripping over each other trying to protect the other.

😍😍😍

A scene I want to see in #got7 cause I’m a nerd #nymeria #aryastark

This is Gold PURE GOLD

“He pleaded with tose sea-green eyes, like a cute baby seal that needed help. Piper wondered how (the f*ck) Annabeth ever won an argument with this guy.”  I’m so happy I drew this lmao