#in the same way of sandors family where his dad was named a house after saving a Lannister from being mauled by a lion

[pettyprocrastination]

as much as I love 141 medieval au's here the reader is a noble lady saved from her marriage or some lone townswomans rescued by the group of knights (looking @ my own nun!reader in this) I do love the notion of a lady knight.

A badass woman with no name or backstory that's taken up the life of a sellsword- who scoffs at the notion of "honor" when spilling blood on your blade- death is death. Honor means nothing for God or king.

Her hair is cut close to her scalp, because it's all too easy for somebody to grab a handful of those soft locks and be at the perfect position to slit her throat in a fight. Covered in scars and carried by aching bones that broke years ago but never quite healed properly.

Maybe Price is a king who sees this helmeted figure fighting at a tourney for his name day and asks for their name- their noble house only to learn you have none. Simply a desire for the money awarded to the winner.

Maybe Gaz is beloved prince who often sneaks out from his guards nose to mingle with the common folk- who enjoys sitting in a tavern with others and singing songs while drinking ale with a pretty little thing on his lap until he's walking back to the palace and finds a blade at his neck in a dark alley as you warn him that noblebloods should never walk unaccompanied- it makes the job far too easy.

Maybe a beautiful noble lady is sent to stay under the eye of a royal family in discussion for marriage- when the house offers to gift her one for their personal guards of the 141, she insists she more than happy with her own- you. The silent armor-clad figure standing close to her side. (yes I miss domentzia. she's my wife and always will be).

[minetteskvareninova]

How the GoT ends for to me

(Because I refuse to admit anything after 8x03 is cannon the same way many people refuse to acknowledge The Cursed Child.)

- Tyrion and all the other smart people (maybe Varys Davos and Sansa?) cook up the plan of the final attack

- First few weeks noone does anything, while Cersei plans the destruction of Targaryen forces. Daenerys takes a vacation to Essos, allegedly to deal with some made-up trouble, and Varys makes sure Cersei knows about that.

- Yara captures the Iron Islands, and Euron goes there to deal with her. Cersei lets him go, since she thinks she has time. Dornish attack him from back and Yara kills him herself.

- Bronn still comes North to murder Jaime and Tyrion, and they also offer him The Reach. However, they also ask him for something else - to go kill Cersei. Bronn obviously doesn’t want to risk his life for them, especially not by going against The Mountain, so The Hound offers himself to protect him, “to die for greater good when this c***t doesn’t want to”.

- Notherners pretend Bronn has been successful and maybe even have a fake funeral for Jaime and Tyrion. Bronn comes to King’s Landing as a Cersei’s man and meets up with her, bringing masked Sandor with him, claiming he’s the sort of man she might need. Cersei, desperate for some reliable lackeys, meets up with both of them, and they off both her and The Mountain.

- Ellaria Sand, as well as other prisoners, are given freedom, but Ellaria completely lost her mind in the meantime, which pisses off Daenerys, but people responsible for that are already dead, so there’s nothing she can do. Something happens to Quiburn, I don’t know what because I don’t give a shit about Quiburn. Maybe he survives and later tries with Dany to hatch eggs Drogon later lays? That would be cool. Golden Company just kind of fucks off? There’s noone to pay them and nothing to do, so I can’t imagine what they would do.

- Jon and Daenerys decide to get married after Sansa (of course, Jon still tells her) threatens to spill the beans, but their relationship has been soured ever since, so it’s just a political match, at least at first. Jon becomes Jon Aegon Targaryen, but everyone calls him just King Jon. Daenerys eventually has to return to Essos temporarily and will probably swing between continents for the rest of her life. In the meantime, Westeros is in the hands of Jon&co.

- I don’t know whether Jon would get over the incest thing, let alone whether this relationship would work in the long run. I guess so - these two just have a lot in common. At any rate, this would be a boring marriage, because Jon is overall a boring guy. Also, Daenerys has a baby. It’s a girl named Visenya (for Viserion). Yes, only one, because only one of her dragons has died. Maybe she decides to sacrifice one of her dragons for an heir? There’s a lot of story potential here, along with the future of dragons! At any rate, Ghost lives in capital with Jon, but if he wasn’t doing well down south, Sansa would take care of him as her new direwolf.

- At any rate, Jon is officially a Targaryen, but loves his Stark relatives and still calls them brother and sisters.

- Westeros is a complete mess after all those wars, anarchy and thugs everywhere. So the criminality has to be dealt with and it’s gonna be a lot of work.

- Stormlands are being ripped apart by power-hungry local lords, because their liege lord was long gone and Cersei had other things to worry about. Gendry is thus legitimised by Jon and given the title of lord of the Stormlands. Because he knows nothing about ruling, Jon sends Davos to mentor him and take care of the lords and various outlaws.

- The North is ruled by Sansa, obviously. She later fall in love with and marries Tyrion, but they only spend together a part of year, because he is in the Small Council and helps Jon rule. Jon seeks her advice a lot and when Daenerys returns, she has to admit Sansa is pretty good when it comes to administrative and court politics (especially since Daenerys considers the normal administrative stuff boring and focuses on big things). The two have kind of a frenemy relationship and work together for the good of the realm as The Queen In The North (a nickname, not an offical title) and The Dragon Queen, with King Jon as a peacemaker in case of a conflict. The North isn’t independent, but gets more authonomy than other lands, because they were the ones who had to fight the white walkers. Sansa and Tyrion have many children, who officially take their father’s name, but are so thoroughly northern people start to call them Lannistarks, which eventually sticks so much it becomes the official family name. They get a new sigil, probably something with a direwolf and lion.

- Arya Stark dates Gendry for several months, but when he is made the lord of Stormlands and asks her to come there with him, with the obvious implication of getting married there, she gets cold feet and with embarks on a journey with a few other people (Yara? They’d surely be besties. Tormund and wildlings? Maybe.) to the lands beyond former Wall, where they would explore whether Lands Of Always Winter are still there, what is the climate and wildlife situation there and most importantly, whether there is anything new to learn about the white walkers, since Jon is haunted by a possibility they might not be completely gone (since they are so mysterious and all). Bran helps them with all that exploration, warging into animals and going into past. In the end, she returns and decides she’s quite ready to settle, having seen and experienced in twenty years more than other people do in life, and marries Gendry, but doesn’t become a typical lady and still fights, helping her husband deal with outlaws and being sent by Jon on all sorts of secret missions.

- Jaime and Brienne get married and he becomes a stay-home dad, also taking care of the administrative in Westerlands and Tarth, while she is off being a knight. (I think Jaime’s old enough for retirement. Give him a break.)

- Varys stays Varys and is very smart and very useful as a spymaster, do you hear me D&D?! After he dies, his considerable wealth is given to the poor, probably trough some kind of charity organization.

- Missandei and Grey Worm stay in Essos and rule the cities in Daenerys’ absence. Missandei eventually earns considerable respect after dealing with all sorts of trouble and is treated as a second queen. She decides to not retire, unless Grey Worm dies (and maybe not even after that, because her queen needs her? IDK), since if she returned to Naath, she would have to leave him. You see, you can’t stay on Naath for long, because foreigners tend to get this illness called butterfly fever, and since Grey Worm isn’t from Naath... She visits the island several times, tho.

- The Unsullied generally serve untill they reach a certain age, then they are given lands and pension. Some of their training techniques are incorporated into a training regime for a new, elite unit, but most of them are deemed too brutal to be continued and so they just quietly die off.

- Dothraki divide into two groups - one returns to Essos, the other stays with their Khaleesi in Westeros and live of horse herding and breeding the way others might of cattle. They settle mostly in the Reach, because grass.

- It turns out Daenerys “breaking the wheel” meant breaking the cycle of the civil war by weakening the power of great houses and returning stability to Westeros (also end of hereditary monarchy and succession of the most worthy, like choosing your heir trough a testament or something never lead to civil war; that didn’t work anyway). One way was to modify administrative system, so that it’s more in control of chosen civil servants not belonging to any fraction. It’s not a democracy, but it’s a honest attempt to do better. Of course, after a few generations, civil war broke out again anyway, because some things never change, but the new system is still more egalitarian and generally an improvement.

- At any rate, the ending is happy for everyone involved and not bittersweet at all, but only in comparison with what they’ve already come trough; otherwise rebuilding the ruined nation is a difficult and somewhere down the line, they can always fail...

[summerseachild]

I also powerwatched GoT Season 2...

I stopped pretending I was only going to have three things to say about each episode.  

2x01

1. Sandor backing Sansa’s “it’s bad luck to kill someone on your birthday” play is SMOOTH. He has her back and I kind of love it????

2. BRAN WARGING! Back when this show cared about magical/fantasy elements that weren’t the dragons.

3. Ugh Theon’s idealism when he offers to go to his family for Robb stabs me right through the heart. (Also he likes calling Robb “Your Grace” A LOT and it makes me cackle and then want to go read fic.)

2x02

1. Cersei asking after Jaime while everyone else looks awkward gives me joy.

2. Gilly!!!! She’s so darling. And so is Sam. And Jon’s “Hello Gilly. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” makes me giggle. What stellar delivery.

3. Theon returning to Pyke is so sad and the castle on Pyke looks SO COOL. (And Yarra keeping a straight face during that horse ride makes me smile just as much as Balon Greyjoy makes me furious.)

4. Bonus: Gendry telling Arya he knows she’s a girl is precious. In fact every second they are on screen are so cute it should be illegal.

5. Bonus bonus: John saw a white walker (Or was that a wight?) Pick up a baby at Craster’s in SEASON FUCKING TWO. How did they so thoroughly fuck up that arc?

2x03

1. This episode was written by Bryan Cogman and directed by Alik Sakharov; which means I was going to love it because Cogman cared a lot about the story and the books, and Sakharov did one of my favorite director commentaries I’ve ever listened to.

2. Brienne’s intro is so great. She is such SERIOUS BUSINESS. Renly genuinely smiling and being happy to have her around :....( he would have been a good king.

3. THEON’S FACE WHEN HE SAYS YOUR LAST BOY JUST LEAVE ME HERE also THAT SHOT OF THEON HIS FACE LIT BY THE BURNING LETTER AND ALL ELSE IN DARKNESS AKDHWISJHSJJSSHSJ CINEMATOGRAPHY AND DIRECTING

4. Bonus: I remember how cute Gethin and Loras’s actor were about Loras and Renly and it gives me warm fuzzies

5. Bonus bonus: Yoren giving Arya the idea that will become her list is a nice moment and A GIRL IS CLEVER telling them Gendry was the dead boy!

2x04: one of the only episodes written by a woman!

1. Ok I love Lannister soldiers playing “who is GOAT?” before Greywind attacks.

2. I’m sorry all the blood just rushed to my eyes because I saw red during the scene with Joffrey having Sansa beaten in front of EVERYONE.

3. Catelyn Stark angrily brandishing a knife at Littlefinger when he’s all “I’ve always loved yoooooouuu” is A Big Mood.

4. Davos “WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST SEE” Seaworth, ladies, gentlemen, and honored folk....

2x05

1. Catelyn keeping her cool and being smart under pressure and keeping Brienne alive is some A++ women helping women stuff.

2. The room with all the latticework where Cersei and Tyrion talk is SO PRETTY. And Tyrion is... actually trying to do right by the city and his family. It’s sad, really.

3. I’d forgotten how much I liked Dagmer for actually helping Theon rather than just making fun of him for a lack of knowledge that isn’t his fault.

4. I remember there was some debate having Arya as Tywin’s cupbearer since it was a pretty major change to the books, but it gave us some great interactions between two super talented actors, and those scenes are... mostly(??) in character and reveal interesting things about them, so I’m on the side of “I love it.”

5. Wow, but the Fist of the First Men is beautiful. And I love Sam’s love of history and how it lets him do world building in an endearing way.

6. Brienne swearing to Catelyn literally just brought tears to my eyes.

2x06

1. Bran’s “Did you hate us the whole time?” to Theon is a moment that will have me in tears every time I hear it. Let’s just pretend I’ve flailed about every upsetting second Theon is on screen and how many awards Alfie deserves and call it a day.

2. Arya’s OH SHIT face when she hears that Littlefinger is about to come into the room... priceless.

3. Sandor Clegane is an Incredibly Useful Person.

4. I know he’s really different from the books, but Xaro Xhoan Daxos is so handsome and INTERESTING in the show, and Qarth is SO PRETTY. Like the clothes the sets... everything.

5. Probably Dyslexic Jaime is one of my favorite little touches the show added, and Tywin’s reaction to it was... very him.

6. Ygritte’s Wildling flirting is... both hilarious and adorable. Jon never knew what hit him.

2x07

1. Dany’s WHERE ARE MY DRAGONS? Iconic, and understandable given that they are three of the rarest things on earth.

2. Shae being willing to knife a girl to keep Sansa’s secret. Friendship goals. Also the following conversation between Cersei and Sansa is nuanced and breaks my heart. Anyone who says Cersei is 100% evil didn’t watch this scene carefully enough.

3. Jaime talking about squiring for Barristan Selmy and how much he loves fighting is a good way to show us that when we can’t be in his head. (Also is this the same fight he was talking about in season 1 in Robert’s office with Barristan? I think it is...)

4. Quaithe was super cool and mysterious and I wish we knew more about her, and Pyatt Pree was CREEPY AS FUCK how did I forget that he killed the 13?

5. Oh right because there’s a Jaime scene next and somehow Brienne makes “Man” the worst insult ever and she is magical.

6. Also that Cersei and Tyrion scene at the end KILLS ME. “I always hoped he’d be like Jaime...” also she voices doubts in the show WAY MORE than book!Cersei does. But... Lena and Peter make it real and complicated.

7. SO MANY VOWS. I still love everything about this. And Jaime trying to press EVERY ONE of Catelyn’s buttons is... amusing as always.

1x08

1. Wherever Robb and Talisa are walking on the way back from the Crag is SO PRETTY I just want to pitch a tent and camp there for a week.

2. Jaime falling off a horse and introducing himself to Brienne like she doesn’t know who he is WHAT AN ASSHOLE I LOVE HIM. This is the beginning of a BEAUTIFUL ROAD TRIP.... Canoe trip?

3. I want to eat a pie with sour cherries like Hot Pie is describing....

4. Bronn and Tyrion trying and failing to pronounce that historian’s name is SO FUNNY to me right now. This show used to be good at balancing little character moments and Serious Business.

5. Jacqen H’Ghar is clearly asking himself how a man got himself into this situation with this strange girl.

6. Robb and Roose Bolton talking about hunting Theon down gives me the stomach lurches.

7. Robb Stark makes ROmanTiC BuT pooR LiFE ChOIceS

2x09: it’s BLACKWATER TIME! Huzzah for ships and sea battles!

1. Cersei getting the poison from Pycelle stops my heart a bit.

2. We get to hear a bit of “The Rains of Castamere” for the first time!

3. Nearly died laughing at Varys’ “I’ve always hated the bells.” ME AND YOU AND THE WHOLE FANDOM, MY FRIEND.

4. I still LOVE THE CLEVERNESS OF TYRION’S PLAN. And the suspense... so good. “There’s only one ship...” Bronn firing the arrow and it hitting the water ALL OF IT.

5. Increasingly drunk Cersei is cruel and tragic and funny and I love her so much my heart doesn’t know what to do.

6. “Awwww pooR Sandor” is a reaction I NEVER thought I’d have about his little moment of paralysis after seeing the burning soldier but we never step in the same river twice and all that, and this time around I def had that reaction. And cheered at “fuck the King” for SANDOR’s sake.

7. I’ve said this before but PODRICK PAYNE FOR SQUIRE OF THE CENTURY

8. oh hai Renly’s ghost and dad Lannister (Daddister?)

2x10: Valar Morghulis, BITCHES

1. Tywin’s horse shitting just outside the throne room because Tywin needed to ride it in for some reason is the line of Lannister Extra (tm) that makes me love this awful family.

2. Show Margaery Tyrell is a devious Player of the Game, and I am enjoying that this time around. (Also I see shades of Anne Boleyn in the Tudors, and that was a performance I enjoyed.)

3. Jaime WATCHES Brienne all the time, like he’s trying to figure her out, and then making up that story on a DIME, and the two of them trying to sell it... FRENEMY GOALS.

4. If people watch the scene with Theon and Maester Luwin and think Theon deserved what he got, they are dumb. My poor identity crisis in kraken from... (Also thank you subtitles for telling me WEX IS THERE? I love him in the books but I’m sure they just used that name without attaching it to someone.)

5. So in the books the House of the Undying was SO CREEPY I had to stop reading because it was too late at night and I was too freaked out and I WAS IN MY 30S! So the way they did it here was just so underwhelming. Yet more proof that the producers didn’t buy into or value the parts of the story that were too “fantasy.” Did Pyatt Pree just... not know dragons breathed fire? Or did he thing they were too little? Idk that seemed a stupid plan he had.

6. I’m fine just crying over Maester Luwin like I didn’t know he died.

7. In the final episode, if we get a shot of the throne room in the red keep looking like Dany’s vision... but with ash instead of snow... at least it’ll be a bit of continuity.

8. That third horn blast still gave me chills on a warm day. Well done, season 2.

[silkygoldmilkweed]

Petyr Baelish vs Sandor Clegane: A Tale of Two Suitors

GRRM will be dead before he finishes the books so we’ll never get a chance to ask him about the construction process once the whole thing is out there, but until he says otherwise, I believe that he created Jon, Dany, Arya, Sansa, Sandor, Ned, Bobby, Rhaegar, Lyanna, Cat and Robb, and then built out many of the other characters as mirrors and foils to them. 

Theon is failed Jon.

Joffrey is the anti-Jon.

And I believe with all my heart that Littlefinger is the anti-Sandor. 

Name almost any character quality and Sandor has the opposite aspect to Littlefinger. Littlefinger is words. Sandor is deeds. Littlefinger is manipulation and lies. Sandor is brutal honesty. Littlefinger is selfish. Sandor is selfless. Littlefinger is either amoral or immoral or maybe both. Sandor lives by a strict personal code of how men, women and people generally are supposed to behave. Littlefinger is sinuous and simpering and sly like Hiss in Disney’s Robin Hood movie. The Hound is bold and strong and aggressive and all heart. 

But both of them want to fuck Sansa Stark. 

(My headcanon, BTW, is that Littlefinger’s nickname is really because he has a tiny dick and that it was Brandon “Wild Wolf” Stark that gave him the nickname. Sandor, of course, is prodigiously endowed. LOL.)

I think the show grants Littlefinger’s death scene a few nods to the SanSan subtext in Sansa’s life, and Littlefinger’s failure gives us some insight into where the Hound succeeded, even though it may not have been acknowledged at the time.

“Lady Sansa, I’ve known you since you were a girl. I’ve protected you–”

OK, this is excellent. When was the first time they met? According to Littlefinger circa season four, “The first time I saw you, you were just a child. A girl from the North, come to the capital for the first time. Not a child any longer.” So the first time they ever met was the Tourney of the Hand, and at that time, Sansa was officially a “child” or a “girl.” (Sandor met her just before that, and then won the tourney in question by protecting Loras from Gregor.) 

Anyway, LF’s been creeping on Sansa from the get-go (he puts his hand on her at the Tourney and Ned gives him a death glare) but more importantly, beginning as early as season four (MAYBE) but most certainly by season seven, Sansa is no longer a girl but a woman. SophieT is only 21 or something, but in Westerosi terms, Sansa is a twice-married widow of maturity and dignity. The way she dresses she could pass for a middle-aged spinster, but of course her face gives away her youth. 

Long story short, the show wants you to know that it’s no longer creepy if Sandor thinks she’s hot, because age difference or no, they’re both adults now and free people, and able to consent to sexual intercourse if they’re both of sound mind and body, etc.

“Protected me? By selling me to the Boltons?”

Littlefinger is first and foremost a flesh peddler. A whoremonger, as Lord Royce calls him. He sells Sansa’s body as readily as he brokers a street prostitute’s blow job work.

Counterpoint: Sandor Clegane doesn’t run around pimping out little girls. Can you even imagine? Quite to the contrary, he spends all his free time running interference between creeps and his Stark girls. Honestly, one of the most striking underanalyzed moments in the histories of the Hound is when he and Arya are with the farmer and his daughter, and the father is doing his prayers to the Seven. “We ask the Maiden to protect Sally’s virtue and keep her from the clutches of depravity,” says farmer dad. It’s at that moment that he interrupts, “Do you have to do all seven of the fuckers?” Now, mostly he’s literally starving and he just wants to get on with it, but I also think there’s an unspoken freaked-out reaction there: There’s no point in praying! The gods aren’t going to keep her from getting raped. They never stop any of that shit. You either can fight it off yourself or she’ll suffer it, same as all the other maidens.

The spectre of sexual assualt looms heavy over Sandor and Sansa’s “relationship,” not least because of the “fuck her bloody” line but also because of the size difference, the age difference, the power difference, his known predilection for violence, and his obvious overwhelming desire for her (not to mention Gregor’s history as a rapist, most famously of Elia Martell). But even though he could take her at any time, and she is quite often in very vulnerable situations with him, he never does anything untoward. (Show canon only, I know the book canon is slightly more salacious and risque, in word if not in deed.) But even though he could have stolen her against her will, and he should have, most likely, he politely asked her if she wanted to be absconded with and when she said no, he walked away. 

As he and Omar put it so succinctly, “A man’s got to have a code.” No stealing girls who don’t want to be stolen. 

Or as the vows of Westerosi knighthood put it, “In the name of the Maid, I charge you to protect all women.”

Littlefinger grossly exploits women’s bodies. Sandor puts his own body between women and danger. Littlefinger sells. Sandor frees. What a difference.

“If we could speak alone, I could explain everything.”

Littlefinger is a sneak. And a liar. He can’t do anything in the open, because he needs to lurk in the shadows to play his little games. It’s a kick to rewatch once you understand the extent of Littlefinger’s dishonesty, because you can absolutely see Aiden Gillen adjust his performance ever so slightly when LF is lying. It’s outstanding acting, although of course I loathe anything and everything LF-related.

Sandor, meanwhile, is honest to a fault. “A dog will die for you, but never lie to you.” 

“Sometimes when I’m trying to understand a person’s motives, I play a little game. What’s the worst reason you have for turning me against my sister? That’s what you do, isn’t it? That’s what you’ve always done. Turn family against family, turn sister against sister. That’s what you did to our mother and Aunt Lysa, and that’s what you tried to do to us.”

If we play this game with Sandor’s motives, I think we come to the conclusion that the worst thing he could want was to have consensual sex with a girl who was too young and too highborn and too fragile and too weak. He didn’t want Winterfell. He didn’t want money. He didn’t want power. He legitimately wanted to help Sansa, and later Arya. (I will insist on my deathbed that the Arya-for-ransom deal was bullshit generally but at best a poorly-thought-out plan to get him an entree to House Stark.)

The other thing is the sister divisions bit. I would add that Sansa and Arya (”different as the sun and moon”) have but a handful of things in common: Winterfell, their parents and siblings, and Sandor Clegane. He’s one of the things that binds Sansa and Arya together, rather than tears them apart. They approach him from different positions but end up in the same place.

Last but hardly least, he is the one single person who ever fought for both Sansa and Arya, who were almost completely abandoned after their father was killed. 

They were left alone in the wilderness. Arya had a little of Yoren and Jaquen and Gendry, but she was overwhelmingly scrapping on her own. Sansa had a little of Varys and Olenna and Littlefinger, but again, she was basically out there all by herself, being hunted by lions. The Hound was the only one who fought for them both. He is a tie that binds.

“Sansa, please.”

Ah, the pathetic begging. Show!Sandor never grovels for her attention. On the contrary, he discourages and frightens her on several occasions. He doesn’t need her the way Littlefinger is desperate for Sansa, both sexually and politically. Why? Because Littlefinger is weak and needy, whereas Sandor is strong and needy. Sandor desires Sansa Stark, but he doesn’t debase either of them to get what he wants. If what he wants is not freely given, he can walk away, whereas Littlefinger always crawls closer.

“I’m a slow learner, it’s true. But I do learn.”

Oh, my sweet Sansa. To me this line is so evocative and nostalgic and tragic. If viewed from a pure SanSan perspective, this is Sansa saying that she had to suffer through years of loneliness and torment at the hands of villains to be able to see what a good and rare and precious thing she had once had in Sandor Clegane. 

This line pairs beautifully with the other heartbreaker from Sansa to Littlefinger: “Back then I only thought about what I wanted, never about what I had. I was a stupid girl.” She’s had years to think about how her girlish, inexperienced, naive and entitled values prevented her from seeing that her True Knight was standing in front of her the whole time, right behind the beautiful, odious, vicious idiot king.

“Give me a chance to defend myself. I deserve that.”

Ugh. Let’s return to season six to reply to this. “I don’t believe you anymore. I don’t need you anymore. You can’t protect me. You won’t even be able to protect yourself if I tell Brienne to cut you down.”

Sansa sees now that she is much stronger and more powerful than Littlefinger ever was or could hope to be. He is a grubby little pretender and he destroyed her family for his own selfish ends, and he deserves every bit of the justice that he is about to receive.

Basically, my girl has become a woman, and she is free of all the bullshit men who have been using her for years. Tywin is dead. Littlefinger is dead. The Boltons are dead. 

She is unbound. She is a woman, and she can choose for herself, and I’m pretty sure what she chooses will be Sandor Clegane.

[lightspires]

— the story so far... (13/05/18)

The three unlikely friends make their way through Neverwinter, on a mission to both find out what is up with Gary Sunburn’s list of people and the slave trading Rosehop family. On the way to the second district, they pay a visit to the Parre family in the third district. At first they’re unsure what to think when the man of the house starts explaining, but eventually they trust him as he tells them about how their son, Gyles, was taken and how they didn’t receive any help to find him. After making the family promise that they’ll go on like they don’t know Gyles has been found, they move on.

While passing through the fishing district, they decide to try to figure out what’s happened to soldier Sandor’s boyfriend. They ask Belinda the street vendor for directions as Elion buys some delicious fried fish. “Just go towards all the smoke from those nasty cottages” she said. So that’s what they did. The mining corridor was not really a place the friends approved of. We don’t know much about what socioeconomic background these three budding heroes are from, but this is not it. The houses were small and cramped, dark sticky smoke was everywhere and whenever people form the houses were leaving, they had to sign out with the guard at the gates. He was rude. The friends mumbled that maybe they should just overthrow the city? They all seemed to agree that this  was a good idea, considering.

The missing dwarf, Frerin, has a sister. Her name is Dis and she makes very strong coffee. She takes some time to speak to the friends, even though she’s late for work. She seems to grow even more worried about her brother’s disappearance than she already was, saying she thought maybe he’d run off with his lover. Last they spoke about his lover, Frerin had exclaimed that he’d marry that man no matter what people thought of his own status. This made it clear that at least Frerin hadn’t dumped Sandor. Dis assured that if her brother had left willingly, he would have left a note or told her. After speaking to her, an old dwarven woman (Wilhelmina) outside the house starts talking to them. She says she saw Frerin leave the city through the Northern gates together with some scary looking humans, about a week before. Before then she’d seen him speak to a sickly looking ginger haired human man, but she didn’t know about what.

After the trip to the slums, the friends start making their way to the second district. There, Elion shape shifts into the image of Galliant Rosehop, in an attempt to make his disappearance less suspicious. Bree pretends to be his slave and Ru strips off her heavy armor and is made invisible, so that she can sneak with them. Elion, now Galliant, is  met by Galliants wife, Lorraine who seems furious with him for just leaving like that. They’d even started planning the funeral and everything. Maybe she’s even furious he’s seemingly alive. The daughter, just as ginger as Galliant himself but more pretty, seems amused by the spectacle and when the wife storms off she walks ahead of her father to his office, where she’s not usually allowed to be. Elion quickly takes a whole bunch of papers and then gives his “daughter” a present, probably because he feels somewhat guilty about killing her real dad although he says it’s to keep her quiet. Galliant’s wife is still angry when he re-enters the hallway and yells at him for leaving the house so soon after returning. Elion seems nervous but downs the drink she hands him and quickly excuses himself.

After this creepy experience, the group look through their findings from Galliant’s office and finds little of value, until they spot a receipt of purchase. On it there are five names, four belonging to the people they found in Wave Echo Cave, one they have never heard before they think, until they look at the long list of names they got at Cragmaw Castle and realize he’s on that one too, Ander Hyne. These unfortunate people seem to have been sold by Galliant Rosehop and purchased by Herman Rockford. The same man that for, some reason, is renting out his mansion to the Black Spider.

Realing with this discovery, the small group sets out toward the Kirksdottir residence to try to talk to them about their daughter. The parents don’t seem trustworthy somehow. They talk about how they thought their daughter Brilde might have run off because she wasn’t interested in marrying but then realizing she had somehow been taken. When the husband, Björn, admits that he was approached by someone who tried to get access to Castle Island, he suddenly becomes more trustworthy. He’d given them the name Herman Rockford… As they’re leaving, Brilde’s brother Asir (who looks just like her) approaches them and says his sister would never have just gone away. He also explains that she was in love with someone other than the man she was betrothed to. She’d never told him the man’s name, but he’d seen him. Expensive looking, beautiful, tanned etc. He didn’t think the man was responsible for her abduction, but still beat himself up about the fact that he hadn’t stopped his sister from sneaking out that night.

Paying a quick visit to the Hyne residence, after accidentally discovering the house on their way through the city, they speak to Ander Hyne’s wife. She’s so over him. He never loved her she says. She’s to be married to someone else. She couldn’t care less. She does, however, give them the name George Philman, a professor down at the College and suggests he might know more, as him and her husband were close.

You’d think their very long day would have ended here somewhere, but before retiring, they figure they could visit the Woodtallon family, who “can’t be trusted”. They know a Wine Woodtallon is written down as being deceased on their long list of names and want to see if they can find allies here. But the house is empty, left a long time ago, everything is just left the way it was as if someone just suddenly stood up and walked out one day. All that remains is the portrait of two happy men and their young daughter. They learn from the old neighbor man that the daughter had gone missing and that the family had suffered, until one day he saw them sneak off into the night, only to have their house raided hours after the fact. He’d never told the soldiers what he’d seen.

As a nice ending to the day, the friends then head to The three Beers - the fun tavern with three bears on its sign - to find the order of the Gauntlet. They do, very easily, and as they descend into the basement they discover that the gnarly but pleasant dwarf they met in the third district, Garulf Stormhelm is a member. He gets them something to drink and they sit and talk for awhile. They admit to killing Galliant Rosehop, he tells them that Herman Rockford is on the council and says they’re currently looking into the disappearances but that they haven’t accomplished much in this city yet. He promises that he’ll get a friend at the council to give them permission to enter the first district.