Baby Rickon Being Raised By Osha And Growing Up Among Wildings, This Will Probably Affect How He Views

Baby Rickon being raised by Osha and growing up among Wildings, this will probably affect how he views women ( aka not turning into a misogynist westerosi lord). I can't wait for him to reunite with his family, and especially with Arya who also doesn't follow Westerosi patriarchal rules. It would be a delight to see baby brother interacting with his brave older sister and showing her the appreciation she deserves. He in turn will get all the love he deserves, because Arya has a big, loving heart and is especially fond of little children.

i feel like there's a trend i'm seeing, esp in online queer spaces, of being, like, oddly against the idea of people being attracted to each other

like I've been seeing the word “sexualization” tossed around to mean sexual attraction and framed as a bad and disrespectful, bordering on nonconsensual, thing.

recently in a sapphic group I’m in, a teenage lesbian mentioned that she’s attracted to her friend and and keeps getting distracted by her boobs. she was immediately dragged by dozens of grown ass adults telling her this was gross and inappropriate

it would have been one thing to tell her not to stare (she already wasn’t tho tbh), but the general gist of the comments was that seeing someone’s body and feeling attraction is *inherently* inappropriate and unethical

it’s totally fine to be attracted to someone. and you know what, a lot of people like boobs and that’s also fine

basically i just keep seeing stuff cropping up in the queer community with the message that sexual (and i guess now romantic?) desire is bad

and that’s uhhh what’s the word, fucked

on the other hand people are chill with tinder and hooking up and there are a ton of “normalize having sex with your friends!!” posts

people are cool with sex but they are not ok with desire

tinder, i think, feels fine because it’s really not about attraction. it’s about fulfilling a general need for sex and isn’t about the person at all.

being attracted to someone, though — looking at or thinking about a specific person who’s already in your life and wanting to have sex with them — that’s what it seems a lot of people aren’t ok with

there’s a level on which i get it. the person is just existing, they didn’t specifically and intentionally put themselves in a space for sexuality like tinder

but, y’all.

this is how attraction works. you spend time with people, you do things alongside them, you get to know them… and maybe you start thinking they’re hot. maybe you want to fuck them or kiss them. this is literally so totally fucking fine.

the thing that’s disrespectful is when you actually do shitty stuff! don’t say vulgar things to them. respect their boundaries. don’t make them uncomfortable. if you approach them for sex or dating and they say no, accept that. etc

but there’s literally nothing wrong with wanting to fuck someone or wanting to date someone.

Canon Arya Stark Appreciation Week - Day Two: Favorite familial relationship

She’d tell him, “I missed you,” and he’d say it too at the very same moment, the way they always used to say things together. She would have liked that. She would have liked that better than anything.” (A Clash of Kings, Arya I)

Rickon yelled, "Me! Me now! I want to play!" Little Walder beckoned him on, and Shaggydog started to follow. "No, Shaggy," his brother commanded. "Wolves can't play. You stay with Bran." And he did...

...until Little Walder had smacked Rickon with the stick, square across his belly. Before Bran could blink, the black wolf was flying over the plank, there was blood in the water, the Walders were shrieking red murder, Rickon sat in the mud laughing, and Hodor came lumbering in shouting "Hodor! Hodor! Hodor!" (Bran I, ACoK)

Rickon: *laughs hysterically at attempted murder*

Me: "aww, he's so cute 🥺🥺"

ARYA STARK APPRECIATION MONTH 2022 ↳ Day 23: Men in Arya’s life → Men searching for Arya throughout the series

She would have been better alone. If she had been alone, the outlaws would never have caught her, and she’d be with Robb and her mother by now. They were never my pack. If they had been, they wouldn’t leave me. She splashed through a puddle of muddy water. Someone was shouting her name, Harwin probably, or Gendry, but the thunder drowned them out as it rolled across the hills, half a heartbeat behind the lightning. The lightning lord, she thought angrily. Maybe he couldn’t die, but he could lie.

***

It had been so long since he had last seen Arya. What would she look like now? Would he even know her? Arya Underfoot. Her face was always dirty. Would she still have that little sword he’d had Mikken forge for her? Stick them with the pointy end, he’d told her. Wisdom for her wedding night if half of what he heard of Ramsay Snow was true. Bring her home, Mance. I saved your son from Melisandre, and now I am about to save four thousand of your free folk. You owe me this one little girl.

***

We are five thousand strong as I write, our numbers swelling every day. And word has come to us that Roose Bolton moves toward Winterfell with all his power, there to wed his bastard to your half sister. He must not be allowed to restore the castle to its former strength. We march against him. Arnolf Karstark and Mors Umber will join us. I will save your sister if I can, and find a better match for her than Ramsay Snow. You and your brothers must hold the Wall until I can return.

***

The outlaw gave him an encouraging smile. “Well, as it happens, we’re looking for a dog that ran away.” “A dog?” Merrett was lost. “What kind of dog?” “He answers to the name Sandor Clegane. Thoros says he was making for the Twins. We found the ferrymen who took him across the Trident, and the poor sod he robbed on the kingsroad. Did you see him at the wedding, perchance?” “He would have had a child with him,” said the singer. “A skinny girl, about ten. Or perhaps a boy the same age.”

***

You know nothing, Jon Snow. He thought of Arya, her hair as tangled as a bird’s nest. I made him a warm cloak from the skins of the six whores who came with him to Winterfell … I want my bride back … I want my bride back … I want my bride back … “I think we had best change the plan,” Jon Snow said.

***

“I mean to have Arya as well. I have men searching.”

Blood Sacrifice?

I’m probably not the first to notice this, but I’ve definitely never come across anything about this either.  In Arya X ACOK we get this scene:

In the godswood she found her broomstick sword where she had left it, and carried it to the heart tree. There she knelt. Red leaves rustled. Red eyes peered inside her. The eyes of the gods. “Tell me what to do, you gods,” she prayed.

For a long moment there was no sound but the wind and the water and the creak of leaf and limb. And then, far far off, beyond the godswood and the haunted towers and the immense stone walls of Harrenhal, from somewhere out in the world, came the long lonely howl of a wolf. Gooseprickles rose on Arya’s skin, and for an instant she felt dizzy. Then, so faintly, it seemed as if she heard her father’s voice. “When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives,” he said.

“But there is no pack,” she whispered to the weirwood. Bran and Rickon were dead, the Lannisters had Sansa, Jon had gone to the Wall. “I’m not even me now, I’m Nan.”

“You are Arya of Winterfell, daughter of the north. You told me you could be strong. You have the wolf blood in you.”

“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. - Arya X ACOK

I like to refer to this moment as “Arya’s Mufasa Moment” because her father’s voice through the weirwood gave Arya the strength to reclaim her identity.  She gained the courage she needed to make her escape from Harrenhal with her friends before they would be maimed or killed.  Whether that voice was actually Ned, or Bloodraven, or future!Bran, or some other greenseer, or the Old Gods isn’t the point of this post though.

One other aspect of the above quote I want to touch upon before I move on, is how Arya got dizzy when she heard the wolf’s howl after asking the Old Gods for help.  I think it’s pretty much accepted throughout fandom that (or I hope so because it seems kind of obvious) that Arya’s skinchanging abilities were opened more after this chapter.  Arya started gaining more, and more vivid wolf dreams after this chapter, either way.  In fact, in Arya I ASOS, Arya while skinchanging into Nymeria unknowingly protected them by killing the Brave Companions going after Arya, Gendry, and Hot Pie in their desperate escape.

So onto my point.

Arya’s Mufasa moment happens in Arya X ACOK, but that was not the first time in that chapter that Arya went to the Godswood:

The afternoon was still young by the time she was done, so Arya took herself off to the godswood. Her duties were lighter as Lord Bolton’s cupbearer than they had been under Weese or even Pinkeye, though they required dressing like a page and washing more than she liked. The hunt would not return for hours, so she had a little time for her needlework.

She slashed at birch leaves till the splintery point of the broken broomstick was green and sticky. “Ser Gregor,” she breathed. “Dunsen, Polliver, Raff the Sweetling.” She spun and leapt and balanced on the balls of her feet, darting this way and that, knocking pinecones flying. “The Tickler,” she called out one time, “the Hound,” the next. “Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei.” The bole of an oak loomed before her, and she lunged to drive her point through it, grunting “Joffrey, Joffrey, Joffrey.” Her arms and legs were dappled by sunlight and the shadows of leaves. A sheen of sweat covered her skin by the time she paused. The heel of her right foot was bloody where she’d skinned it, so she stood one-legged before the heart tree and raised her sword in salute. “Valar morghulis,” she told the old gods of the north. She liked how the words sounded when she said them. - Arya X ACOK

Did Arya inadvertently feed the weirwood her own blood from her injured heel while she was praying?  And is that why the next time she prays in front of the weirwood it answers her?  If so, I’m very curious to see if Arya ever goes back to Harrenhal and that Godswood again, in case there is some sort of furthering connection now to that land if this is the case.

Anyway, I just randomly came across this and it piqued my curiosity, so I thought I’d share to see what people thought.  I wish we knew more about weirwoods so we could better determine this.