#*catelyn

[bookhousestark]

ARYA STARK APPRECIATION WEEK 2024 ↳ Day 7: Foreshadowing → Reconciliation with Lady Stoneheart

"Stoneheart. Is that who you mean?" Lord Randyll had spoken of her, back at Maidenpool. "Lady Stoneheart." "Some call her that. Some call her other things. The Silent Sister. Mother Merciless. The Hangwoman."

A trestle table had been set up across the cave, in a cleft in the rock. Behind it sat a woman all in grey, cloaked and hooded. In her hands was a crown, a bronze circlet ringed by iron swords. She was studying it, her fingers stroking the blades as if to test their sharpness.

Brienne VIII, A Feast for Crows

"Mercy, Mercy, Mercy," she sang sadly.

Mercy, The Winds of Winter

[glashata]

Vi: F*ck cops

Catelyn: yeah... Same

Vi: WHAT?

[yorn-guzion]

[atherpurest]

“Arya Underfoot, he almost said. Arya Horseface. Robb's younger sister, brown-haired, long-faced, skinny as a stick. Always dirty.”

Arya Stark of Winterfell.

[deadlynnightshade]

I'd rather be dead

true freedom lies in not knowing and to my mother's joy: there's no more climbing I reached my peak as a boy several feet off the ground but since all fate changed I've never been safe or sound I only see an silly little lord plummeting from the tower with life's on the edge of a sword in free fall, with no superpowers just one strong shove and the things they do for love

[thateyriemaiden]

| Master of the St Elizabeth Panels – The St Elizabeth's Day Flood 1421 (c1490-1500)

| Peace Concluded by John Everett Millais, 1856

| Saint Catherine of Alexandria with a Donor by Bernardino Pinturicchio (c.1454–1513)

Catelyn V, A Storm of Swords (p. 620-636)

[heckofabecca]

Catelyn Tully, before her wedding

[mcytbullshit]

from cate’s priv

[outterridge]

The Haves and the Have Nots

It started early in the morning, when the paper-thin walls of Cat's muggle apartment let through the excrutiating sound of children waking on Christmas morning. Their excited shouts, the pad-pad-pad of tiny footsteps running back and forth, the distant tear of wrapping paper. When Catelyn curled her knees up, pulling her duvet up under her neck, she felt the walls closing in with her heartache: there were families in the apartment below her, next to her, above her.

It was an ache in her chest, an empty, hollow feeling that spread throughout her whole body, searching for something, someone that was not there. It paralysed her, left her staring ahead while her muscles groaned with the weight of her grief.

Was it awful, to consider this grief? Dona was very much alive - as far as she knew - and was acting of her own accord. Did it make her a toxic parent, an unappreciative mother, if her heart was tearing into pieces as if her child had died? What did it say about her, that she had her niece and nephew in the next room over, breathing and living and present, and Catelyn was so fixated on the one child she had lost that she couldn't bring herself to get out of bed to tend to them? The holidays were hard on them, too. She'd always been their rock. They needed her.

Shifting out of bed was a mammoth task, she bit her lip and raised her chin to the ceiling to stop the overflow of tears that threatened to spill, her shoulders shaking with the weight of it. Still, her deadweight feet pushed into slippers, her heavy arms slunk into a dressing gown.

Catelyn allowed herself a moment more- one more meltdown- pressing her face into the palms of each hand, before she stood and left her room.

The twins were already up and about, bless them. Nate fiddling about with coffee, Harriet setting cutlery out on the table of her too-small kitchen nook. They reacted the normal way, when she offered them a 'Happy Christmas'- Nate stiffened at the gentle hand on his shoulder, Harriet offered a firm-lipped smile at the touch to her own hand.

She would continue through the day, as she always did. Ever the surety, ever the rock. She would visit Loxley and speak in a quiet voice, when her mind was screaming for release. She would wash her hands before she prepared their Christmas supper, even while her heart was bleeding over her chest. She would hand out tiny wrapped gifts and ignore the aching presence of those under the tree that went untouched.

When she curled back into bed that evening, her throat aching from too many glasses of wine, she'd placate herself with a day well done- she got through, she soldiered on for her children, despite the pain.

When she'd wake the next morning, there would be a blissful, blissful two minutes before she remembered what she had lost. And then she would grieve again.

[bbygirl-aemond]

Hi! I just saw your posts about the hair colors of Targaryen children and now i'm very curious, have you ever done a similar analysis on Ned and Catelyn's children and why 4 out of 5 of them had auburn hair and blue eyes, both being (very) recessive traits? I remember reading somewhere that Rickard and Lyarra Stark were first cousins, both trueborn Starks who bore four long-faced, grey-eyed brunetes, so i think that its safe to say that Ned had BB genes; meanwhile, we don't really know anything about Minisa Whent, but since Cat and both of her siblings were born blue-eyed gingers, they all probably had bb genothypes. So, technically, a Ned/Cat pairing should result in all Bb children, isn't it? How come most of those babes inherited their mother's coloring, then?

ooh yes this is so interesting! so my original post here only talked about one gene, so that i could use mendelian genetics and punnett squares and everything: the gene for the protein eumelanin, which is the pigment that makes brown hair. this let me treat inheritance like it only involved two possible versions of one gene for the trait of hair color, one dominant and one recessive. if you don't meet these requirements, you can't use the punnett square probabilities to predict traits, since inheritance won't be that simplistic.

the pigment that makes hair reddish in color is actually an entirely separate chemical called pheomelanin, which is encoded by more than just two genes (it results from a polymorphic mutation in the original brown hair gene, but there are way more than two types of mutations that count so there are easily like 5+ versions of this gene). as a result, there's no simple dominant or recessive inheritance pattern here to follow the way there is when we're just talking about brown vs blond hair.

but for simplicity's sake, let's denote eumelanin with a B, and pheomelanin with an R. in the absence of either of these genes, hair will be blond. the more B's you have, the browner your hair will be, and the more R's you have, the redder your hair will be. the possibilities aren't either brown or red; it's a spectrum rather than a binary. and remember, each version of the R gene encodes a slightly different intensity and brightness of red hair, so we don't have enough information to even compare two R genes to each other since they'll likely affect hair color very differently.

we know that ned has two copies of the B gene, but we know nothing about if he has any R genes since the two copies of eumelanin will overpower everything else. we know that cat has no B genes because she's a tully, but has at least one copy and likely two copies of the R gene. so their kids will have:

no more than one copy of the B gene

0-2 copies of the R gene

but we know nothing about what types of R genes are involved here. we don't know which specific mutation it is. we don't know if it encodes really faint color or really intense color, and we don't know if it encodes light orange or dark orange. we also don't know how it interacts with the B genes; it won't be 100% dominant or 100% recessive, but we can't determine if it's more 90:10 or 20:80 or what. i will say that given cat's hair color is very much red and not faint in color, and given that ned can only pass down one B gene onto his kids, at the very least i expect every child to have hair that is much redder than their father. something like auburn, lol.

lastly, there are also epigenetic and epitranscriptomic factors that determine how much a gene is expressed. this adds a layer of complexity on top of whether or not the genes are inherited and how strong the genes are in and of themselves. and here, how much the B and R genes are expressed relative to each other will play a big part in where the kids fall on the brown to red hair spectrum.

as for the eye color, it's really not a shocker that the blue eyes would be dominant! i know we think of blue eyes as being encoded by recessive genes, but the inheritance patterns for eye color aren't super black and white. they have a lot to do with where pigment is expressed in the eye, not just how much. for example, both brown eyes and blue eyes have melanin in the back layer of the iris, but only brown eyes have melanin in the front layer.

grey eyes are actually the rarest eye color, even rarer than blue eyes, and they aren't necessarily dominant over blue eyes! they're not gray just because they lack that front layer of pigment, but because they also have higher levels of collagen in a particular part of their iris, causing the light to refract in a specific way. it's a different mechanism than the mechanism for blue eyes entirely, and it's not necessarily dominant. when a grey-eyed parent and a blue-eyed parent have children, they're usually almost all blue-eyed as a result.

tldr: red hair is a completely different and unique pattern of inheritance from brown hair! grey eyes are completely different from blue eyes in the same way. neither of these traits follow mendelian patterns of inheritance, and they also don't fit into neat dominant versus recessive categories, so this isn't a case where we can apply the statistics of things like punnett squares or dominant/recessive genes. it's very difficult to try to support the claim that it would be "unlikely" for ned and cat's kids to turn out this way as a result. hope this helps!

[sovereignofgeeks]

The Girl Named Ned Waters (A Gendrya AU In which Robb marries Roslin Frey)

No idea where this is going. Wrote this in like an hour. Just wanted to try something new. Will likely add more later today. This has not been edited yet.

The village of Riverbend was a simple village. Lines of simple wooden houses lined its narrow path. Children rushed about the single street village wildly as her children had long ago. As her grandchildren did in Winterfell. Catelyn frowned at the thought. It had been ten years since Robb’s wedding to Roslin. The war won and her children returned to her safely. Except for Arya. No one knew what happened to her youngest daughter. The Freys were understanding. Elmar Frey could not wed a girl who was dead. And so they moved on. Sansa off in the vale. Rickon and Bran tucked safely away in Winterfell. Yet here she was walking down the streets of Riverbend with her guards back at the village’s inn. When she had heard a child at the Crossroads Inn cry about the lack of sword lessons from his aunt Arry she thought little of it. Then the fat father exploded in rage. Sending the boy to his room away from work. He seemed terrified from that point on. Never able to meet her eyes. Robb would call her a fool but Arry sounded so much like Arya. She had to try. So with a bit of effort she had managed to bribe a younger girl to speak of the woman. Arry was a swordswoman from the village of Riverbend who was friends with the cook. Apparently they had met in Kings Landing when the war began. That had been enough. She had ordered her men to escort her to the village that afternoon. Foolishly wishing for her daughter. “Are you a real lady?” a young girlish voice took her from her thoughts. Causing the lady to look down at a child. Maybe nine in age. Her hair is bright red and done in elegant braids. A golden dress covered with dirt and poorly stitched up holes covered her form. Her face was long like a horse and her skin coated with dirt. “I am” she forced out as the child grinned at him, “I wanna be a lady! My sister says ladies are dummies tho! That’s wrong right?” the child asked excitedly as her lips curled into a smile, “Being a lady isn’t dumb at all. I quite like it”she paused. Recalling Arya sparring with Bran. Stick sword in hand. “But nothing is wrong with a girl who likes boy things either” she pressed as the girl frowned, “My mom says a girl can be anything she wants to be!” she exclaimed as Catelyn smiled at the child who gave the cutest attempt at a ladylike bow she’d ever seen. “Name’s Ned Waters” said the child holding out a dirty hand. Oh. “Ned you say” she forced out as the child nodded, “I know it’s not a ladies name but I’m named for the most honorable man ever!” Ned said with pride as she gulped. Oh gods. “Is your mother married?” “Of course! Mom and Daddy love each other a bunch” Ned beamed causing the Lady Of Winterfell to smile, “Oh really?” “Yes really!” Ned smiled at her widely, “You mentioned siblings” Catelyn asked as Ned nodded, “I have my twin brother Jon and my little sister Nym. Then I have my big sister Weasel, she's adopted!” the girl explained happily as Catelyn felt her eyes well with tears,

“What does your father do?” she asked as Ned grinned, “Daddy is a blacksmith and Mom teaches the boys and girls to fight!” she explained as Catelyn took a breath. “Your father lets your mother fight?” she asked a smile filling her face, “Daddy doesn’t let Mom do anything. Mom says a man who tells you what do you is a bad man” she reasoned as Catelyn chuckled, “You're mom seems quite strong, could I meet her?” she asked as Ned narrowed her eyes, “Daddy says I shouldn’t bring strangers home” she pointed out as Catelyn laughed, “Well I’m your lady friend Catelyn so I’m not a stranger” she said as Ned stared in wonder, “If I take you home you’ll teach me to sew!” she demanded as Catelyn laughed. She couldn’t help it. Of course Arya’s daughter wanted to learn to sew like a proper lady, “Ned. Nothing would make me happier than to teach you” she smiled as the child screamed with joy. Her eyes sparkling like stars as she grabbed Catelyn’s hands and pulled her down the streets of the village. Leading her to the other end of the street with haste to a rather modest two story home with a forge attached to its side. The wood was a bit rotten and she could see some of the windows appeared broken. But it looked lived in and held a sign at the front. Direbulls Smithing

She laughed at the hidden pun. Sure it would not matter to many. The girl led her over to the door, “Daddy’s working but Mom should be inside!” she cheered as she opened the door and led Catelyn into the first floor. It was a simple house. Seemingly divided into three rooms. A small kitchen that held a simple table with six chairs. Enough for one single guest. A bow sat on the floor off to the side that sat under what she supposed was a leak. 

The middle where she currently stood seemed to be for show. It was mostly empty and the floor seemed littered with wooden swords and dolls.

The final room to her right was filled to the brim with metals and weapons. Horseshoes and other things she’d assume you’d find in smiths shop. “Our bedrooms are upstairs, “Nym, Weasel and I share. Jon has his own room cause he’s a dumb boy” she scowled as footsteps echoed throughout the house. A voice calling down from the stairs a figure stepped into view. “Ned, did you bring someone here without asking?” the figure said, stepping into the light. It was Arya. Her brown hair was short reaching her chin and her face held a single scar across her forehead. She wore a cheap leather jerkin and loose breeches. In her hand was a small skinny sword that she held out threateningly as her eyes grew wide. Sweat seemed to force almost immediately. She paled as she stared before glaring at her daughter, “Ned. Get away from her. She’s dangerous” Arya accused as she stepped closer. Aiming the sword closer.  Ned rushed to her mother’s side hiding behind her legs, “Go out the side door and get Daddy. Tell him Summer Is Here and to find your siblings. I’ll catch up” she ordered Ned glared, “But mom Lady Catelyn said she’d teach me to sew” she whined as Arya narrowed her eyes ragefully, “Gods. I bet you think you're really clever. Using her like that” she spat as Catelyn jumped, “Arya I swear. I have no intent on-” Arya cut her off, “You're here to bring me to the Twins I bet. Make good on your transaction” she roared as Ned looked at her confused, “Mommy what’s going on” “This woman is Stark, she wants to take me away from all of you” the bitterness in Arya’s voice was apparent as the sword remained aimed at her chest. Catelyn felt tears well in her eyes. Did Arya really distrust her that much. “Arya I.. I just wish to speak to you. I don’t care about the Frey or any marriage contracts. I just” she froze, “Arya. I swear on your father’s grave. I will not do anything to this family. Please believe me” she begged, She didn’t want to leave. She didn’t want to go back to Winterfell and forget what she’d seen. All she wanted was to see Arya. To talk to her. Arya scanned her carefully, “Guards?” she asked as Catelyn smiled, “At the inn. They don’t know where I am and it will stay that way. You have my word” she vowed as Arya pulled back her sword, “Why are you here?” she asked as Catelyn couldn’t help but cry. “I heard a rumor about a girl who could be my missing daughter. Of course I came. I miss you so much Arya. God’s I-” she couldn’t hold it back anymore rushing her little girl and wrapping her in her arms, “I thought you died! Oh gods. I’ve missed you” she pulled back running her hands over Arya’s face which was filled with tears of her own, “I couldn’t.. I couldn’t marry him. That’s no-” she cut her daughter off, “I know. I know. I’m sorry we did it. We shouldn’t have. God. Arya you're perfect the way you are. I should never have” she brought Arya into a hug and sobbed. She should never have let that marriage be arranged. She should have let Arya train with a sword. Maybe if she had she wouldn’t have lost all these years with her beloved daughter.

Suddenly the sound of a man gasping filled the house. She whipped away from Arya to see what looked like a young King Robert staring at her,

“What’s going on, Arry?” he asked worriedly as her daughter,

“Gendry. I think it’s time you met my mother”

[awesamforehead]

She never misses

[mundoasoiaf]

"Ossos, pensou Catelyn. Isto não é Ned, não é o homem que amei, o pai de meus filhos. As mãos dele estavam apertadas sobre o peito, com dedos esqueléticos dobrados em torno do cabo de uma espada longa qualquer, mas não eram as mãos de Ned, tão fortes e cheias de vida. Tinham vestido os ossos com a túnica de Ned, o veludo branco e fino com o símbolo do lobo gigante sobre o coração, mas nada restava da carne quente que tinha servido tantas noites de almofada à sua cabeça, dos braços que a tinham abraçado. A cabeça havia sido reunida ao corpo com fino fio de prata, mas um crânio é muito semelhante aos outros, e naquelas órbitas vazias não viu sinal dos olhos cinza-escuros do seu senhor, olhos que podiam ser suaves como nevoeiro ou duros como pedra." - A Fúria dos Reis // Catelyn V

🎨: Richard Hescox

[rosaluxembae]

I'm really not convinced about the tactical criticism of Renly. There's two main things that characters and fans comment on but they actually kinda contradict each other. One is that he should have marched on King's Landing more quickly, and the other is that fighting Stannis weakens them.

But the thing is there's no rush to take KL. The Lannister army is in the Riverlands fighting Robb and nearly gets trapped in the Westerlands, precisely because Renly hasn't attacked. Like if Edmure didn't prevent Tywin from crossing The Trident (I also want to post about that tbh) then Stannis (or Renly if he'd survived) could have captured KL and the reason Tywin stopped trying to cross was because Stannis attacked. Even besides the specifics of those troop movements, as long as the Rose Road is closed, then the situation in KL is slowly getting worse for the Lannisters, while they and the Starks are bleeding each other dry. The capital was already on the brink of revolt in the canon timeline.

All the feasting and tourneys are a bit decedent and dangerous with accidents and whatnot but not as costly as directly getting involved in the war. It keeps his knights sharp and most importantly occupied, while he's stalling, so they don't start pillaging and getting into trouble. It's all a way of biding his time while preventing his army getting itchy feet and rusting from inactivity. People will complain about him dragging his feet but he can still go "yeah we're marching, making progress, we'll have our battle soon enough".

As for Stannis, Renly is right there too. If it wasn't for magic assassination (which I don't think it's fair to expect anyone to take into account), then Stannis' army would have been smashed with negligible losses, even without infantry. 20% of Renly's knights refused to go over to Stannis, which is probably more than would have been killed, and dead knights can't defect to the Lannisters. And most importantly the Tyrells refuse to go over to Stannis, who play a decisive role in The Battle of The Blackwater. So like rather than the fight weakening the Baratheon Bros, not fighting actually strengthened the Lannisters. Plus dealing with Stannis, rather than Storm's End being besieged when Renly's army is occupied, has political benefits, strengthening his claim and removing a potential thorn in his side.

Catelyn claims he should besiege the besiegers but she also criticises him for not intervening in the war more quickly. She can't have it both ways, besieging Stannis' army would make his march north much longer.

[greenwitchcrafts]

She's...definitely plotting my demise

[giggle-me-this]

[ Change ] - Cat sees Jackie's engagement ring for the first time 👀

@outterridge @harrixtpinnock

At sixteen, Jacqueline Outterridge was extraordinary and untouchable—a shooting star in a young woman’s body.

She was wild, and carefree; the one you always wanted to have at a party, she sparkled at the center of every room she walked into like a living diamond. 

She danced in and out of peoples’ orbits and left imprints of her radiance in their mind’s eye. She was unforgettable and enviable. Everyone wanted to be near her, to be friends with her, to be in her bed or on her tongue or just warmed by the beam of her fickle attention. Boys and girls from every Ilvermorny house would fall all over their feet just to drown themselves in her heavy, heady laugh, like liquid mercury. A manic pixie dream girl for all she encountered. Everyone wanted to be her.

But Jacqueline Outterridge was as unattainable as starlight itself; she was friendly with everyone but close with but a few. She gave love freely, but never her whole heart. Her feet were never fully planted on solid ground. She had secrets she kept guarded behind green eyes and coy smirks. Like a fox that always slipped its snare, she was a creature that had yet to be caught and held by anyone.

Which is why it came as a great surprise in her sixth year, when she returned to Ilvermorny wearing an engagement ring.

Jackie’s Pukwudgie housemate and close confidante, Catelyn, had been eyeing the ring with sullen suspicion for the better part of an hour when Jackie gave her friend a teasing laugh and said, “You can stop looking at it like it’s going to jump up and bite you, darling—it’s just a silly piece of jewelry!”

Catelyn returned to her a glare that said she was not in the mood for Jackie’s patronizing. “That is not all it is, and you know it…” Jackie just blinked those inscrutable emerald eyes at her, being purposefully obtuse, which seemed to exacerbate Catelyn even more. “…who even is it, Jackie? And why didn’t you tell me?”

Jackie danced her fingers through the air flippantly. “It happened fast, that’s all! His name is Hamilton Pinnock III. He’s the Giggle Water guy, you know—from the papers…”

Catelyn looked both revolted and, arguable, physically ill at this news. Her tone was imploring when she asked, “Isn’t he a little old, for you? And what about—?”

Jacqueline’s lovely and genial disposition darkened in an instant as she snapped with warning, “Don’t, Cat—you swore you'd never speak about her…” Catelyn did look abashed, and Jackie softened back to a more neutral tone as she added, “…and he’s hardly too old. He’s twenty, and already very successful…”

Catelyn’s expression was wounded, and searching, and Jackie averted her eyes to avoid the way it pried. There was heavy silence between them for a moment, before Jackie smiled and said, “Come on, Kitten. Don’t look at me like that—”

Cat bristled at the breezy use of the intimate nickname. “Don’t call me that, don’t try to dance around me like you do everybody else. It's me, so would you just, please don’t be so…are they making you do this? What do they have on you, Jackie? I know this isn’t what you want…”

Jackie sighed, melancholy and resigned, deep inside herself where no one could reach her. Because what no one knew about being born an Outterridge was that your comfortable life, the pure blood in your veins—it came with a debt that would one day have to be paid; spread the pollen of their influence, as advantageously as you could. That was the debt she owed. Addison had managed well enough, and Graham would certainly have no issues finding a suitable match. Eloise was still a baby, really. 

But Jacqueline? She was the jewel the Outterridges had been waiting centuries for, capable of giving the family power unlike any they’d ever known. A valuable gem like Jacqueline on the crown of anyone less than an emperor would be the greatest disappointment of the Outterridge legacy.

After a while, she said, “This is just the way things are done, in my family, okay? It doesn’t matter what I want—I had my fun, and I’m grateful for that—”

“So it’s about what, money?” Cat interrupted with disbelief.

“No, I’m—you know I’m not like that—”

“That disgusting rock on your hand would beg to differ.” It was Jackie’s turn to look wounded (even though the ring—a priceless American heirloom that had been featured in magazine spreads—was ridiculous) as the young women stared at each other, each of them stung, and betrayed, and powerless. It was Cat who broke first: “I’m…sorry, I know that’s not you. I just—I thought…”

And when she met Jackie’s eyes now, her expression was sheepish, and full of this longing that she just couldn’t hide, sometimes, when she looked at Jackie. 

And Jackie knew, deep down she knew what it was that Cat wanted from her. She wasn’t oblivious; there were many people that wanted that sacred something from Jacqueline Outterridge, wanted that precious and fragile thing that Jackie was unwilling to give. 

If she were to give it to anyone, she could imagine it might have been Catelyn. But Jackie wanted—no, she needed Cat to give something else and be someone else, for her. A friend, an ally through the dark days that lay ahead. A keeper of secrets.

She reached out and grabbed Cat’s hand, squeezing it. “I love you, babe—you know that, don’t you? Nothing is going to change that, I promise! Besides, it’s better this way—who knows, if you actually said ‘yes’ to Graham asking you out one of these days, we could even be sisters!” 

Cat gave Jackie the look that she always did, when Jackie’s brother’s persistent interest in her was brought up, and Jackie laughed. It melted Catelyn’s defenses, that damned laugh. She squeezed Jacqueline’s soft, lovely hands, never wanting to let them go.

And the rock that sat on Jackie’s finger dug into her skin, like a wall of stone between them. Catelyn squeezed harder, until the sharp diamond edges stung like a bite; nearly sharp enough to draw blood—the blood that would always run so much thicker than water.