#gendry and arya fan art | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

buttercuparry · 6 months

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I am mass tagging this because I think our criticism never reaches a larger part of the fandom. People can't comprehend why certain kinds of fan art styles are criticized. I acknowledge that in our enthusiasm to do so, we sometimes hurt fanartists ( in fact a few months ago a fan artist had deactivated and really that shouldn't have happened). So in this post I am trying to address the issue in the best way I know of. This post is about the way asoiaf artists tend to draw the Stark family. And because I am most interested in Arya I have talked about her in this meta. I have put the meta under cut so that if people aren't really interested in this, they can skip it.

I don't understand the genetics of a mixed race family of starks where only Jon/arya is dark skinned ( because Ned is imagined to be dark skinned) but Sansa/bran/Robb/rickon is pale or paler. Often, 80% of fanarts of every single fanartist follows this trend and when someone comments on it, and questions the fan artist on how and why this same style has become universal interpretation via implementing "death of the author" ( as one very recent defense puts it), the fan artist replies in a dismissive and defensive manner. The deflection of this very apparent problem ( and the implications of following the trend), is done by "uno reversing" the accusation of racism. This is absurd because when it is pointed out that something seems off with drawing the "plainer"Starks in a particular way, the intention isn't to single out and point fingers at one particular fan artist. One particular artist isn't doing this thing. The finger is being pointed at the trend of the style that dominates asoiaf fan art. Does this not strike anyone as odd that in 80% of these text interpreted fanart produced by most of the fan artists, the brown haired starks are darker than the red heads? The red heads who are said to be the prettier ones?

I am an Arya fan so i am going to talk about Arya here. Throughout the fandom at large whenever Arya Stark is talked of, it isn't done to analyze her motifs or themes or political importance. No speculation is made of a future that may position her in an office of considerable political power. No, fandom at large talks of Arya as if she were a brute, who kills people needlessly ( see raceforironthrone's meta on how the harrenhal guard didn't need to be killed), and is in need for constant supervision because she is volatile and therefore politically incompetent. There is also this running criticism of Arya Stans using too pretty face casts for her or yassifying her in fanarts, because to the larger fandom Arya is the ugly one. Now here's the thing, the slogan of let little girls be ugly isn't preached for Lyanna Stark. No one is saying let this dead teen be ugly even when Grrm in explicit terms has said Arya looks like Lyanna. No for some reason even when numerous characters talk of Arya looking like and behaving like Lyanna, the fandom at large only acknowledges that she has a spirit and sense of justice similar to Lyanna's. But they would bend over backwards to negate anything that says Arya looks like Lyanna. Why is that?

Then anything relating to Arya being married or having an heterosexual relationship and children born out of the relationship is mocked. I remember a poll where someone very cheekily gave an option specifying that Arya having non bastard kids with Gendry. I don't know if I had read it wrong but the way it was worded- using the term non bastard children...to me it personally seemed like a jab at what arya Stans speculate about Arya possibly marrying and having a family of her own.

I don't think there is anything woke or anything traditionally disruptive in trying to dismiss any and all possibilities of a GNC woman marrying a man and having kids. Sure on the surface, lumping on Arya various sexual identities other than heterosexuality and theorizing that she wouldn't want to have the whole husband/kids routine is very diversifying but if one is to go beyond the surface, then what is to be said about the hesitance of even considering that a GNC woman might enter a heterosexual relationship? What aesthetics prevent people from considering a GNC woman having a regular shmegular life? A GNC woman's sexuality perhaps isn't affecting her gender noncorfomity. ( this isn't to say that a fan can't see or project onto arya their own reality/identities that make them resonate with her, I wasn't talking about that. I was talking about the fandom blatantly ignoring Arya checking Gendry out and how much throughout the text family plays a significant role in her storyline. Her one "no that's sansa" cannot dismiss the possibility of her wanting to have a family in her twenties, especially as someone in whose story family plays a core theme.) ( there is also another sensuous scene in the bathhouse with jaqen but uhh...yeah I am not really sure how to talk about it).

So all in all a girl considered ugly by the fandom is often treated as being sexless,and is considered a volatile hotheaded brute and this girl when drawn with her sister is drawn considerably darker. Does this not strike anyone as alarming? Also where there is a discourse on if Arya is ugly or pretty, there is no doubt that Sansa is the prettiest of all the Starks, even Catelyn. Why is it that in the interpretation or via death of the author', Sansa is never drawn darker than Arya? In a mixed family why is Sansa never shown with a darker skin than the rest of brown haired/ red haired starks, not once? Individual interpretation and yet it seems like these individual interpretations have been same all through these years. Now yeah, Lyanna is drawn with darker skin sure but then again her looking like Arya is dismissed and it seems like there is a tendency to connect her with Sansa. Any criticism in this exercise is once again mocked or dismissed.

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reginarubie · 2 years

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hi I'm the anon from before about being hesitant to send a prompt! I'm glad that to hear your almost done with night shift and that your taking steps to take care of yourself!

Here the prompt I wanted to send and again do it on your own pace!

Pairing: Jonsa

au: John wick

it pretty much follows canon John wick where Sansa dies and she gives him dogs lady and ghost, John gets attack and lady is killed while ghost survived so he goes full dark Jon like the movies. Eventually he realizes he lost his way when the ring that Sansa and him exchanged was taken and he was forced back into the life he left to be with sans so once the battle is over and he has his ring back he spends the rest trying to do good, be the man she loved. idk starts charities, restore and preserve history,etc.

idk really know, this was just an idea but I'd be happy with any John Wick au of them

The other prompt isn't like a ship thing though. Its more of a sibling dynamic

Pairing: Arya and Sansa

Au: Arya goes through her first heartbreak and the family was worried before figuring out that IT'S ARYA. She'll be fine. But Sans is not convince, she notices that Arya doesn't have that same wildness when they argue. Notice that she spends more time staring into space, etc. Arya was not ok.

That's all I really have, I just want some solo sisters dynamic between them.

I had one for Stranger things LuMax and Eddie criss but idk if your part of that fandom. Wow this is a lot, again take your time!

Ciao anon!, thank you again for your concern!

Since, as we spoke about, I am taking things at my own pace I decided to start with the Arya/Sansa sister prompt, but you will get also the John Wick AU (after I've had time to rewatch it, since I've seen it like twice, bits and pieces and I'd like to have a better grasp of some foggy details that had intrigued me and I'd like to put in the story as well). I'm not really a great fan of Stranger Things, but I adore my girl, Max (another red-head...hmm...my bf is a red-head...hmm...I'm starting to see a pattern here) so let me know what it was that you were hoping for, with LuMax as they are adorable!

So, let's hop onto this sister-time between our fav Stark girls! Fair warning since I love, adore and would die for Edric/Arya we shall see a tiny bit also of Edric Dayne in this story (sorry if, instead, you don't like that pairing) and since Gendry did kind of break Arya's heart in canon he is her previous boyfriend.

Prompt: Arya goes through her first heartbreak and the family was worried before figuring out that IT'S ARYA. She'll be fine. But Sans is not convince, she notices that Arya doesn't have that same wildness when they argue. Notice that she spends more time staring into space, etc. Arya was not ok.

Of course, since we're speaking of love between siblings the songs that inspired me were Brother by Kodaline and Hey Brother by Avicii (and from lines of these songs I've drawn the title). Both of them are pretty young here, I'm thinking on Sansa being seventeen going to eighteen and Arya being fifteen.

It's short, but I promise it's sweet.

Warm and safe [for you, there is nothing in this world I wouldn't do]

[As always I cannot stress enough that the pieces of art are NOT mine, I simply collect them on the net and use them! Credit to the artist, because the work is amazing and it fit with the idea of a young Arya and Sansa going through heartbreak]

Arya almost slips on the last step of the staircase, though that might be because Nymeria has been hanging around her feet, or her slipper might have caught and slipped, yet her sister looks... miles away, not present.

Since they had been kids Arya had been the agiler and swifter of the two of them, graceful in her own way, her sister had been like a cat, able to fall on her feet even from the house in the tree in the backyard. It's strange, off-putting to see her so easily tripping like a klutz when her sister had never been such.

But what scares Sansa the most is that Arya is almost never quiet, unless she's plotting your demise — in that case you better start running for your life [just saying] — she's always moving, always speaking...she's a tumultuous volcano of activity.

When they had been little her anger had been worse, spiked and provoked way too easily, and when she had been diagnosed with ADHD most of them had been surprised to learn how much of her behavior was a direct result not only of it, but of the way they had been going around to try and help or contain her.

Now she's so quiet that Sansa has sneaked in her room whilst she was showering to make sure she is taking her meds correctly and it's not abusing them or not using them or... Sansa doesn't know, alright? — she's not a doctor — but if it's something that has to do with the ADHD it might pass through her meds and if those are in the correct amount based on her therapy (and yes, Sansa has sneaked also in her mother's room and controlled the right dosage in her sister's folder, which maybe she shouldn't have done it without permission, but she's worried) she can safely argue that maybe it's something else.

Though she still doesn't know what might have rendered her usually active, energetic and easygoing sister closed off and quiet beyond any measure. That is until Bran comments on how Meera's classmate, Gendry is strangely absent from their home and inquires with Arya about his wellbeing and suddenly everything clicks in her mind. She exchanges a look with Bran and knows Bran has done it on purpose.

“I wouldn't know,” Arya sneers “we're not together anymore” her voice sounds like vitriol. Sansa wonders if it tastes as acid as it sounds. Somehow she feels like it might taste like heartbreak.

Sansa had found Gendry lovely in his own bullheaded way, he had proved time after time he could stand his ground with Arya. The two of them, despite the age-gap had met in the gym Arya usually frequented (the same gym she has been finding excuses to go to in the last couple of weeks) and had started boxing together. In the matter of a couple of years they had started to go out together and Arya had seemed happy.

That's how, in the middle of a saturday morning the entire Stark household discovers that Arya and her boyfriend Gendry have broken things off.

For the first few weeks everyone is overly indulgent with Arya, which makes her angry — which is still better than the apathy both Sansa and Bran had noticed — Jon, their cousin and Arya's favored relative, comes around more often even while he attends college at Castle Black and Robbs returns almost every weekend from Silverhill college; Bran shares more of his video-games with her and Rickon offers to train with her. Their father just has this sad look in his eyes like he understands and brings home her favorite ice-cream more often than not. Their mother, has stopped lamenting on Arya's purple dyed hair or Arya's scruffy-looking manner.

Until slowly things return back to normal.

Afterall, Rickon comments one day when Arya, strong, willful Arya flips them all off and declares she is going out for a run alone “It's Arya, figures she'd get over him in no time”

Still, Sansa can't help but worrying.

In fact, while Arya does seem to be on the mend, though her grades have not gotten better, and starts again to enjoy her own activities (and takes to box again); she's even started to hang out with her friends again — Hotpie [And no, Sansa is never getting over the fact that, that is his real name] and Lyra Mormont — and Sansa is happy because of it; there is still something that feels off to her.

She tries to talk it over with her mother, whose response is of “Arya is as stubborn as I was her age, she'll get over it, she only needs time”

Yet...contrary to popular opinion in Arya's inner circle of friends and their family, Sansa still doesn't feel at ease.

So, and perhaps she's overstepping, when Sansa gets called by the principal to help a new transfer student to adjust and notices the way the boy's blue-almost-purple eyes seem to search for her sister around the building after he first caught sight of her, she decides it's time she learns to delegate and introduces the two of them.

Edric is kind and soft-spoken and not as bull-headed as Gendry but not for that less firm, Sansa sees that every time Arya makes plain he is overstepping (even when he really isn't) he gives her space, but without being recalcitrant about it, tries to coax her out of her shell again, even when he fails it doesn't seem to deter him; plus he is very friendly and easily falls into a cherished friendship with Arya's circle of friends.

Still doesn't mean Arya appreciated her help.

“So,” Sansa begins one night as they are busy preparing for the night, Arya is wearing her silly minions pajamas and Sansa is skin-caring “how is Edric? He seems like such a darling”

Arya, it seems has been at the end of her patience about this particular matter, so she slams her toothbrush on the sink and turns to her “Stop it,” she demands of her “just, stop it. He's annoying and restless”

And for a glorious moment Sansa thinks it's almost like having her sister back, the one who would not back down from an argument if her life depended on it.

“I think he likes you,” Sansa sing-songs mostly to goad her, try to get her out of her walls. It doesn't work, Arya's face and eyes which would've sparked with ire before, suddenly close off and shut down.

Her sister deflates “I don't need—no, I don't want his pity and I don't want either your pity or your help” she says and her voice, instead of being dripping venom as it would have usually...

You're a liar!

... is instead resigned. It hurts in Sansa very marrow to see her sister so apathetic.

Arya washes her toothbrush and puts it in its place “Just leave it alone” she says, her voice uneven as if she's holding back tears and, upon closer inspection, Sansa does notice that her eyes are teary. Still, Arya turns her back to her and walks out, when Sansa has finished and leaves the shared bathroom, passing near Arya's slightly ajar door she sees her sister sat on the windowsill, looking out, spacing out. But it is not the kind of spacing out she does, from time to time, when she's considering hard something. This is... sadder, filled with unresolved feelings.

Sansa remembers the first time her heart broke. She had been fourteen, she had fancied herself in love with a childhood friend who had, in truth, been horrible and they'd gotten together, by the time her fourteenth birthday had come around Sansa, who should've been the one to be celebrated had discovered, instead, that her boyfriend had been cheating on her with one of her — at the time — dearest friend.

She doesn't remember much, she remembers crying, she remembers the slap and the way the blood had echoed in her ears after he had struck her, the way the pain in her cheek had been numbed by the one in her chest, only to increase her heartbreak. Honestly she did not know how she did it, but she had fished out her phone from her purse to find it dead — she had forgot to charge it — and had walked bare-foot because those hells were nightmarish on the hard concrete to the nearest public phone and she had somehow, with trembling hands composed the only number she could find on the worn out phone book. It had been the number of the bar Jon worked at part-time in Wintertown.

She still remembers the way her voice had shaken when they had answered “Jon..?” and the relief when the stranger had passed the call to Jon, she hadn't been able to speak, only sobbing but somehow Jon had recognized her. He had mounted on his bike and came to take her home. He and Robb had also beaten up Joff, but that was neither here not there, repaying the bruise on her cheek in kind and her father had sued Joffrey for it too. Yet, Sansa had been too spaced out that night to do anything but turn and turn again in her bed all night, her mother wasn't home because their grandfather had fallen and broken his leg and needed care and she had felt so alone, until Arya had come to her room at two in the night — grumbling apparently annoyed about her moving and sobbing keeping her awake from the other room — with warm milk and a lemon cake, had not forced her to eat, but left it on her bedside table before sneaking inside her bed and curling like a small dormouse around Sansa, embracing her. Lady and Nymeria had curled around each other and the feet of the bed and Sansa had finally been able to sleep a bit.

So, as willful and stubborn as her other siblings and refusing to let Arya suffer alone because ‘it's Arya’, but exactly because ‘she's Arya’, she quietly slips in the kitchen and prepares her sister favorite vanilla hot chocolate and retrieves one of the baked biscuits Arya loves to much. Her father intercepts her as she returns upstairs, takes notice of the tray in her hands and smiles at her, kisses her forehead and lets her go, even if they have this rule not to eat any sweet after a certain hour.

She doesn't knock on the door, she just strides inside. Arya doesn't even take notice, she keeps looking out with that sad, resigned look on her face. A misplaced look.

Sansa cannot make her better with a snap of her fingers. She would if she could. But she can hold together her until things don't get better.

“Hey,” she calls after she has left the tray on the bed walking to the windowsill. Arya looks up startled when Sansa puts her hand on her shoulder “I know you don't want my help,” she starts “but I know you are hurting”

Arya sniffs and hastens to dry her tears “I am not hurting” she lies.

Sansa sighs and sits before her on the windowsill “It's okay to be hurting,” she tells her “it doesn't make you weak” she assures her.

Arya snorts “If you are about to say that it makes you stronger I will personally throttle you” and it's the most Arya thing they've gotten out of her lately. Unprompted nonetheless.

“No, it doesn't, not always anyway” she says “honestly, you might feel broken for a long time” she tells her.

Arya nods and looks out of the window for a long time, Sansa just sits there beside her, and at one point Arya offers her, her hand to hold and Sansa does. Firmly. Softly.

Arya sobs, instead, are not soft at all. But Sansa doesn't care as long as her sister, finally, feels safe enough to get all that hurt off her chest.

“It will get better,” Sansa promises “not today, not tomorrow. But one day”

“And until then?” Arya asks “fake it until you make it?” Sansa smiles at that, it had been a sort of mantra for her, after her breakup with Joffrey.

“How do you know it'll get better?,” Arya asks “did it get better for you?”

Sansa caresses her cheek “Of course it did, and of course it will for you too,” she replies “and I know because I am the smartest Stark in the shack” she says with a nudge to her sister nose with her own.

It's not true, not even at all. Without Bran's prompting none of them would have learned about the breakup for who knows how long, and Robb is a chess-genius. Still, it's a silly line, but it makes Arya gurgle a snort between her sobs.

“You are,” she says seriously after she has stopped sobbing and laughing together “you really are”

Sansa smiles softly at her “And you are the strongest person I know,” she says “you will get better, and you can do it alone too, but the point is... you don't have to” she tells her “I'm here. We all are”

And that's when the dam breaks, and Arya launches herself half in her lap curling around her and sobbing even harder than before. Sansa simply embraces her, cards a hand through her hair and murmurs encouragements and as much as comforting words as she can muster through the lump in her throat.

And when her sobs are subsided a bit, Sansa tugs at a lock of hair “And this color is the coolest” she says “Gendry has lost his winning at the lottery, but that's okay, because the win was yours alone to begin with and it's your right to share with whom you want and as you have to deserve their lottery they have to deserve yours”

So, four months after that, when Arya faceplates into the duvet of her bed mumbling incoherently “So, turns out Edric does like me” and Sansa rolls her eyes...

“You don't say?”

... and her sister sasses her right back her eyes sparkling, Sansa knows. Maybe she's not there yet, but she's on her way to get better.

And Arya will never know that Sansa has invited Gendry out for a coffee and given him a piece of her mind, chewed him whole and spat him out because he broke her little sister's heart (even though when someone falls out of love they can do little to avoid it), nor that she made sure that he is aware he has lost the coolest, cuddliest little menace he could ever hope to stand beside to.

And if she's had Jon and Bran — wheelchair and all — flanking her sides to intimidate him a bit, well that's her secret, no?

And, if when Arya turns nineteen and Gendry comes knocking at their door, and Arya flips him and his excuses off to then snuggle into Edric's — who had been playing video games with Bran and has put them on hold — embrace even though she has not admitted yet to her feelings properly; Sansa gives Gendry a mock ballet curtsy with a soft spoken but not for that less acrid ‘Told you so’, well that's just how things go, sometimes.

Fin

You can read it as well here, on ao3 (x)! Thank you again for the prompts, I'll get on with the others as well :D Hope everything is fine with you and that you enjoyed it!

As always sending all my love ~G.

#anon asks #ask the hag #prompts #arya stark and sansa stark prompt #the hag's prompts

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