#but chapter 4 is giving me so much trouble but I'm gonna power through cuz there is so much story I haven't shared yet

[ceakip]

Chord Progression

I'm back!!

Sorry it took so long but here's the latest Wilbur pov oneshot! This one is the collection of guitar moments for the anon request - hope you all enjoy and thank you so much for sticking with me :D

https://archiveofourown.org/works/35633407

Rating: T

Category: Gen

Words: 8,404

Chapters: 1/1

Music has always been a comfort for Wilbur and in the strange new home he and Tommy have been relocated to, Wilbur finds that he needs his guitar now more than ever. (A collection of guitar moments from the main story from from Wilbur's pov).

~*~

A companion story for Guitar Strings and Keyrings from Wilbur's pov set during chapters 2, 4, 8 and 10.

Taglist:

@m4delin @iccisheresometimes @basilthefourth @happyhololady

(If you want to be added to the taglist, here is the post :D )

[thefudge]

What do you think are the main differences between book!Arya and show!Arya? What do you think about them? (i don't know if you have written anything on this topic, if you already did i'm sorry)

i haven’t! but im sure some of my arya thoughts are on here, just not all of them put together

whenever i see show apologists talk about arya, they usually go: “oooh, you think she’s a psycho here?? she does worse things in the books”

and a) arya stark is not supposed to come off as a psycho (does she suffer from deep mental strain due to trauma? yeah, that’s different)

b) saying she does worse things is MISSING THE POINT

it’s not the violence that matters (well, it does, but not as much), it’s arya’s  REACTION and ABSORPTION of it 

everyone in asoiaf has to compromise at one point. there are no innocents. but it’s how people cope with these situations that make them, you know, people

arya-bot3000 from the show is not really a human being 

main differences:

1. book!arya is afraid all the time and this is an important aspect of her story  (like her father said, that’s the only time you can really be brave.) she is hardly ever sure of the outcome of her actions. just one example: her escape from harrenhal in the book is a terrifying ordeal which she goes through because there doesn’t seem to be another way out. show!arya strolls confidently out into the open while gendry cowers in fear. show!arya seems brash and self-sufficient even when she’s down. show!arya has “defeated” fear somehow. she strolls into danger like a weathered soldier….which….means she’s got nothing left to learn, i guess (to be clear, this has gotten worse with each season. s2!arya might as well be courage, the cowardly dog in comparison to s7!arya)

2. this brings me to emotions. book!arya feels them in SPADES. if you go have a look over her chapters and you consider the adjectives used and the stylistic choices, her POV is one of the most emotionally charged there is.  another thing is, arya sucks at hiding her emotions. which seems to be a problem for her spy training. as a faceless man, she shouldn’t go to pieces when she stumbles across her past. for instance, she kills Dareon just cuz she realizes he’s a night’s watch deserter. dude. come on. that’s a huge no-no if you’re trying to become this impartial embodiment of the god of death. and the house of black and white know she sucks at her emotions and i think they also know she won’t ever truly be faceless. i think they’re just happy to have a Stark with warging abilities under their control. this long diatribe is just to say that the show writers haven’t understood shit about her training. because in the show, they….sort of have their cake and eat it too. they make arya an excellent assassin/faceless man, but also…have her choose not to be one…because???  literally, her last scene with jaqen hagar is him saying “you truly are no one now” and her going like “psyche! u thought! i’m going back home!” in the span of five minutes. ….there is no point to this. and THEN when we see her in winterfell in s7, she’s got the masks with her. SO, she has embraced the training while also rejecting it??? do d&d care??? (and see, they MIGHT have made this work if they had made her abandon the masks altogether. some s6 episodes seemed to be hinting that arya disagrees with the house of black and white cuz this is what got her friend, the actress, killed. and yet, that one-time friendship doesn’t seem to matter in s7. arya embraces her (incomplete and nonexistent) training. because???

3. book!arya doesn’t hate femininity and all things girly. she envies them. there’s a difference. book!arya actually wishes she could be beautiful and feminine AND boyish and adventurous at the same time. it’s the fact that she wants these things which seem contradictory in westeros society that makes her lash out against women who fit the bill. show!arya proudly says “most girls are stupid”. myep.

4. book!arya gets attached to people BIG TIME. show!arya used to have that kind of empathy towards others. not anymore. book!arya still sadly recalls yoren who was supposed to take her to the wall in acok. she STILL to this day thinks about that orphan girl, weasel, whom she met in acok and whose name she used to hide her own identity. she immediately takes to certain braavosi courtesans and has favorite mummers and friends by the docks. meanwhile, show!arya is reunited with hot-pie and acts like he’s a gum on her shoe. LISTEN, i do think that arya stark is not gonna be super well-adjusted when the War for the Dawn ends. if she survives, i know she’s not gonna be a social butterfly. but her desire for connection with others WILL still be there. her compassion for others WILL survive. the creators of the show decided that the only way they can show a “grown up” arya who is wise and strong is by having them retcon her entire emotional journey. many ppl have wondered, for instance, why they didn’t give us an arya/gendry reunion. u know why. because they’d have to actually write arya as a human being with emotions. those stilted smiles she gave sansa wouldn’t cut it anymore. cuz gendry saw sides of her she’s not ready to remember. and d&d have decided she is a cool badass now. i would NOT be surprised at all if they never give us a gendrya reunion. i rly wouldn’t. 

5. book!arya definitely holds grudges and is convinced that only the lannisters are to blame for her troubles. she thinks eradicating them and their cronies will be enough. that’s a flawed, but reasonable perspective. what book!arya doesnt do is blame her sister for all of this.  even if book!arya found out about sansa’s letter to robb, she’d, at most, think sansa was naive to trust cersei but….that’s fucking it. in fact, this whole thing would make cersei the top name of her list. meanwhile, show!arya is a step away from putting sansa’s name on the list. book!arya hopes sansa is still alive. show!arya hopes for her death. and no, their flimsy reconciliation at he end does nothing to rewrite this terrible arc. 

6. the show, i guess, didn’t have the budget to stay in braavos longer (altho it wasted some of that budget on flashy, ineffective fight scenes between her and the waif). this cuts arya’s arc veeery short and reduces her whole character. because arya’s quest for identity is seemingly resolved. when that is NOT the case in the books. the fact that she’s got so many names and constantly shifts from one to the next, the fact that Cat of the Canals is exercising a deeper power on her than her other aliases is not explored at all in the show. because d&d think that arya’s time in braavos is about becoming some kind of seasoned Stark warrior. HAHA. so these guys are not even writing the same character. forget differences, their arya might as well be one of the sand snakes or whatever. 

it might be worth noting that yeah, the sand snakes and brienne are written in exactly the same way. any woman who can hold her own on the battlefield has to relinquish emotional depth. there’s no time for having existential crises, because in their reality, you’re either  Badass Strong Man-Woman or a Naive Crying Woman-Baby. no in-between. thx d&d

so that would sum it up for me. there are 100 more differences if you went through the plot book-by-book, but these are the most glaring thematic ones for me. 

show!arya at this point is a bot, pure and simple.