vitaminkenjoyer

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d&d said falling in love with the butch lady who shows up every few years to lecture u into behaving semi-decently exonerates u of all crimes #feminism

actually d&d are funny for simultaneously smol beaning jaime (giving him dyslexia) and making him like a hundred times worse (killing that one cousin for no reason, doing all of cersei's evil bidding, and being 40)

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actually d&d are funny for simultaneously smol beaning jaime (giving him dyslexia) and making him like a hundred times worse (killing that one cousin for no reason, doing all of cersei's evil bidding, and being 40)

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as an addendum to this im gonna say brienne can't get thru telling a joke without laughing

Im gonna say somethin yall might not like but jaime lannister seem like the type of dude to clap when he laughs

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jaime living n having 2 get a job is the real subversion actually

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sending this as an anon bc im mega shy but..... I think there are pretty solid grounds for the jb marriage to stand on!

I know the idea of marriage between them can sound a little bit tired, but IMO it's a marriage that simply by existing can be nothing but subversive. Firstly, it would be a union for love between nobles. That never hapens. Maybe they fall for each other later, but choosing to marry for love is already a subversive idea for Westeros. There are also subvertive political elements to it: There is a future power imbalance that Jaime and Brienne will experience. By deserting the Kingsguard Jaime becomes a traitor to the crown and so would extremely likely be ineligible to be the heir to Casterly. This makes him as good as a fugitive hedge knight. If we assume Brienne's father has fallen in battle, or died in some other way, that makes it so that the title of Evenstar is already Brienne's, making it so that the man in the match is the one to marry into higher power and not the other way around. There's also the fact that even if he *could* claim the Rock, it would be a pointless alliance given the distance between their territories. There are no good politics aplicable to it, save for it maybe being a good way to protect Jaime in the future (?), but overall it would give them absolutely no "benefits" to marry each other. So like, even at a base level it would probably be the weirdest marriage ever.

and a bit less seriously: Brienne publicly and officially bagging the Hottest Man In the Continent (tm) is a very fun idea to me lol

oh no i agree i think there's definitely some subversive elements to a jb marriage and im not opposed to it happening. like i said i think it could be a great opportunity for grrm to present a vision of marriage that is not patriarchal or controlling, but given that he's a hippy and that he and his second wife were together for decades before they ever got married i'm not sure he'd feel it's necessary to do? and he's not religious either so he certainly doesn't believe in pursuing it as a sacrament. then again he is a self professed romantic and yes having a marriage that can be solely for love in a society where it is largely used to cement political alliances, put women under the dominion of their husbands for the purposes of continuing bloodlines, securing wealth, etc, can be subversive. jb would certainly be an oddity in that regard. any love match succeeding in this series would be actually.

and it is true that if jaime is to survive to the end his status will likely be very diminished, therefore flipping the typical marital power imbalance on it's head. i just personally don't like to hedge my bets on jaime surviving since there is so much foreshadowing in regards to his death and the themes of legacy, redemption, how we're remembered after we die etc and brienne is the perfect person to carry that torch for jaime after he's gone. george loves his tragedy and bittersweet endings and i don't think jaime and brienne are an exception, whether their relationship culminates in a marriage or not. i'm not at all opposed to them surviving the series and being together, i just don't think it's likely.

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ironically tho brienne putting jaime's life on the line to save podrick shows that she sees him as a true knight fr (protect the innocent or die in the attempt) so jaime can't get mad actually

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i mean there's a case for jb marriage if grrm wants to do a reconstruction of marriage and show what his vision of male/female relations should be like within that context but we don't got time for that in two books lmao and george is a hippy so sorry to all those who rsvp'd to the jb wedding the ceremony is cancelled!

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my jb math is that im okay with jaime dying but only if podrick lives

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oh not related to marriage shit idgaf but i can so easily cope delude my way out of this u underestimate delusion powers

sooo true. u see it is the flames… it is they… it isnt “your”… u see give me a sword nothing can hurt me as long as i have a sword… u see tywins like i gave u a sword…. tywin gives him oathkeeper and he gives it to brienne… and then when his flame goes out brienne’s light still burns in his darkness u see… and then.. and she says she swore to keep him safe… “what is this woman to u” “my protector”… she asks for a sword.. he gives her a sword… that sword burns when the ghosts rush in… da only light in da cave da only light in da world… u see… “she had failed renly, had failed lady catelyn. she must not fail jaime. he trusted me with his sword.” heres how jaime nation can still win

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brienne in affc when she passes a tree that jaime walked head first into or sees a rock he tripped over

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dear diary, TODAY A CUTE BOY DANCED WITH ME HE WAS THE CUTEST BOY IN ALL SEVEN KINGDOMS 

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I hate it when people talk about Jaime's dyslexia as if it's a book thing. I get it's a cool little detail, but its shownly, and really doesn't inform anything about the book character at all.

I mean, two big high points in his narrative are him sitting down and reading the White Book, and him reading Cersei's letter. If he was dyslexic in the books, don't you think it would have come up at one of those moments?

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But she’s embarrassed ;”

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tbh i think more of the male readership is willing to accept brienne's ugliness (hence 'platonic boner' discourse, erasing bri from jaime's arc, downplaying the importance of jb's relationship/impact on the other etc) whereas the female readership has the impulse to pretty up brienne mostly because we all know irl that there are men who will fuck women they are not attracted to because they just want a hole to stick their dicks in and that is something that is very degrading and humiliating. so it's almost as if the reader feels she is protecting brienne from that fate by making her looks more palatable. but at the end of the day both approaches to the character/her relationship with jaime betray a total sense of disbelief that someone like brienne could be genuinely desired by a man it's like a horseshoe theory lol

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i think most people are willing to acknowledge brienne is unattractive when it comes to discussing the role ugliness plays in regards to morality/character (which is that physical appearance does not determine whether or not you are a good person/should be respected/etc) it's that when her looks are discussed in the context of a romance (esp a romance with a man like jaime) that the 'she's not really ugly' comments come in.

and i get that cause it does feel like an oxymoron to call brienne unattractive while discussing the merits of jaime's attraction to her. if jaime is attracted to her does she not then become less unattractive in a way? clearly her unattractiveness is not something so universally agreed upon then.

the problem really just becomes when people insist that her looks have somehow changed rather than the perception of them (it's notable that while in the weirwood dream jaime continues to call brienne 'wench', he doesn't refer to her as homely or ugly. he notes that she is just as tall and strong as he remembered, but with more of a woman's shape, whereas before he heavily scrutinized her features including her small breasts and broad shoulders. she becomes almost a beauty.)

at the same time shipping involves both a lot of self-inserting and voyeuristic enjoyment so if someone cannot see themselves in the shoes of hideous brienne or they find the sight of jaime/brienne too absurd there is the impulse to tune brienne's features until they are just palatable enough to make the relationship believable in their eyes.

it's something we all are guilty of. beauty and aesthetics do have a lot of hardline rules (certain lines and shapes and how they come together can make or break an image. things can become strikingly gorgeous or strikingly ugly or just middling depending on the harmony of features.) but attraction is more subjective on a personal level, therefore it does feel strange to continue to insist (or even having jaime himself insist) on brienne's ugliness when we are speaking of her being loved/desired in a romantic/sexual context because again it seems contradictory.

i think people are willing to tolerate physical imperfections when it comes to respect or kindness, but desire/genuine attraction is a whole other matter entirely and its not something that can be forced or put upon like a polite smile. the idea of jaime simply ignoring brienne's looks or loving her in spite of them is cringeworthy and not indicative of genuine love/attraction but rather pity or lukewarm tolerance. but brienne does have features that are indeed broad and coarse and mannish and that makes people uncomfortable which breaks immersion on some level, so the solution has to be making her prettier.

all this to say that everyone is guilty of this including myself and i get the impulse. the eye likes what it likes and particularly in the case of fanart it's very difficult to force yourself to draw something that you find unappealing when a large part of participating in a visual medium is figuring out how to hone composition/color/shape/technique in order to produce a final product that is pleasing to the eye.

and this is partially why i suspect that jb have been able to get this far in terms of popularity, because they made their 'debut' so to speak as words on a page and when they were adapted they were both played by two conventionally attractive people. if they made their debut on tv or film with brienne looking as book accurate as possible idk if they would have the same fanbase simply because it just does make people uncomfortable to see fiery passionate romance when one or more party in that romance is seen as hideous by about 9 out of 10 people.

people flock to entertainment as a means of escapism and that's much easier to do when observing two people with model good looks (or failing that, plain and unoffensive looks). in that way a lot of george's work is anti-escapism with it's ultraviolence, weird awkward sex, and ugly people galore.

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Tyrion hopped off the last step onto the yard. “I beg to differ, nephew,” he said. “The Starks can count past six. Unlike some princes I might name.” Joffrey had the grace at least to blush. “A voice from nowhere,” Sandor said. He peered through his helm, looking this way and that. “Spirits of the air!” The prince laughed, as he always laughed when his bodyguard did this mummer’s farce.

eternally thinking about this scene. worsties ❤️

commissions / ig

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oughh I love Catelyn's anger at Ned at his infidelity being thrown on Jon because he's a socially acceptable target onto whom she can place her anger without confronting her social position as a woman in westeros who adopts a golden image of her husband because to think otherwise would be to confront her own lack of agency in marriage, and i love how Tyrion and Cersei misplace their resentment of their golden brother Jaime onto their treatment of Lancel, how they have sex with him and mock him and use him as a pawn for their schemes in a way they cant so openly do with jaime.