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docholligay replied to your post “docholligay replied to your post “some days I’m a pretty reasonable…”

Jill is pretty bitter about her not being a lesbian because she is SO BUTCH in her nobility and her desperate desire for goodness and to be loved for what she is, not in spite of it, and it was basically the shitty decision of an old straight dude

YES. And I get especially frustrated, because there’s so much already there (there is one passage where she reflects on a singer who came to Tarth once, and I latched onto it because it’s the gayest fucking thing) and all you have to do is switch the characters she has explicit sexual feelings for. HAVE BRIENNE IN LOVE WITH CATELYN AND STRICTLY LOYAL AND RESPECTFUL TO JAIME, BAM. (OR MAKE JAIME A WOMAN. WHICH REALLY FUCKS WITH THE STORY I THINK GRRM WANTS TO TELL BUT. LADY KINGSLAYER. TELL ME THE STORY DOESN’T GET EVEN BETTER IF JAIME NOT ONLY WAS EVERYTHING BRIENNE WANTED TO BE PRE-KINGSLAYING, BUT WAS A *WOMAN* WHO ACHIEVED THAT)

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captainsnumple replied to your post “some days I’m a pretty reasonable human being and some days I wake up…”

I WOULD LOVE TO READ IT IF YOU EVER REDECIDE SAM

AHAHA THANK YOU SNUMPLE. Though  warning, if I do it will be LONG, my first read-through of these books I wrote approximately 12,000 words just liveblogging about Brienne, and then I did part of my undergraduate thesis about her, I’M KIND OF RIDICULOUS

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docholligay replied to your post “some days I’m a pretty reasonable human being and some days I wake up…”

my wife has many Brienne feelings as well!

ahahah I can’t say I’m surprised. So much of Brienne’s story maps directly to feelings I have about being butch and being a lesbian, and my brief time being active in that fandom made it clear I’m not the only one. (The only time I ever got truly involved in fandom wank was over that, someone made a post like “But why did GRRM make Brienne like men,” and boy did people come for her, how dare we see ourselves in a character like this 😛 )

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dreamshapers-universe replied to your post “some days I’m a pretty reasonable human being and some days I wake up…”

lol I wanted to comment about how she totally wanted to jump Renly’s bones, but then I saw you got the tag about it so yeah XD

SHE SO DID. I kind of find it funny, because people use all the same arguments I see a lot to deny lesbians to deny Brienne having feelings for Renly and Jaime. SHE JUST FEELS LOYALTY TO THEM. PLATONIC LOYALTY.  THAT SCENE IN AFFC WHERE SHE GETS AROUSED BY THE MEMORY OF JAIME AND MAKES HERSELF THINK OF RENLY INSTEAD IS PLATONIC. 

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some days I’m a pretty reasonable human being and some days I wake up like “what if i wrote a post about how a lot of the ways people conceptualize Brienne of Tarth, particularly re:romance, is reflective of deep discomfort with gender non-conformity and how it intersects with sexuality”

It’s not very surprising that butches aren’t seen widely. My sense is that a lot of butches themselves aren’t really clamoring to see characters that look like them and are fine with watching the same gaggle of femmes that entertain the wider public. A market that consists of only a percentage of the gay community is not worth going after in most cases.

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sittingoverheredreaming:

docholligay:

I think I have a number of butch followers who would disagree on the nature of seeing themselves

OH ANON. You’ve really hit a button for me, there’s SO MUCH I want to say, but I’m on mobile so I’m gonna take a short cut and just say that there was literally a song about the importance of butches seeing themselves performed at last year’s Tony Awards. SEEING OURSELVES MEANS A LOT.

Okay, I’m doing this. Like, I obviously can’t speak for all butches, but working in retail in nyc, I see quite a few. And there is almost always a moment where I see joyous recognition on their faces when they see me and realize we’re the same. AND I AM JUST A RANDO IN A BOOKSTORE, NOT A CHARACTER WHO DOES AWESOME THINGS. JUST IMAGINE.
And as far as me personally, I take every scrap of representation I can get because there’s SO MANY THINGS telling me being this way is wrong. People either pressure me to be more feminine or they pressure me to be something other than a woman. The few butch characters I have showed me that I can be this way, and they give me something I can hold onto in this tide of bullshit. I mean, I’ve said before I wouldn’t have figured out how to be myself without Haruka Tennoh, and it’s absolutely true. She resonated with teenage me SO MUCH, and it still took me years to finally dress the way that makes me feel good and comfortable. If I had seen myself on regular television, or in books I read, or in movies, I probably would have figured things out so much sooner. And now, even being sure of myself, I wish I had more well known characters to point to when people question me, ask me why I don’t wear big earrings or get breast implants (yes, real thing a woman said to me) so they could tell more easily I’m a woman, or ask how I can think I’m a woman when I dress like this, aren’t I non binary, or a man?I wish I had more loved butch characters to think of whenever I hear a girl say there’s no point in liking butches, because what’s the point in liking a girl who doesn’t look like a girl. I WISH SO MUCH ANON.
ALSO. I get the implication from the “butches like watching femmes” bit that you mean we care about seeing people we’re attracted to than ourselves, which, fuck off with that bullshit. Not to mention butches can also like butches. We’re people, believe it or not, there’s some variance among us.

It’s not very surprising that butches aren’t seen widely. My sense is that a lot of butches themselves aren’t really clamoring to see characters that look like them and are fine with watching the same gaggle of femmes that entertain the wider public. A market that consists of only a percentage of the gay community is not worth going after in most cases.

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

docholligay:

I think I have a number of butch followers who would disagree on the nature of seeing themselves

OH ANON. You’ve really hit a button for me, there’s SO MUCH I want to say, but I’m on mobile so I’m gonna take a short cut and just say that there was literally a song about the importance of butches seeing themselves performed at last year’s Tony Awards. SEEING OURSELVES MEANS A LOT.