#esp considering a lot of the way it works is a role of companionship on top of sex for most ppl

[gray-warden]

can u explain how butches and femmes are counterparts and not opposites? or how femmes arent like lipstick lesbians? im not trying to be argumentative im just a very confused gay girl who Wants to Understand

First of all, sorry for taking like 50 years to answer your ask! I hope you still see the answer, though femmes and butches come from the same piece of history, where they were two sides of the same coin, a sort of “ying and yang”, if you’ll forgive the cliché. it’s more of an attraction to something that’s different but also the same in some ways, someone who might balance you out in a way in their differences but still gets where you’re coming from. it’s not uncommon for femmes to have previously thought they were butches because they felt a connection to the butch/femme history and dynamic but also felt alienated from womanhood due to their lesbianism. plus, two things being seen as opposites kinda often implies that there’s something in between those things, which isn’t the case here. butch/femme isn’t a “lesbian gender binary”, and the whole “futch scale” thing isn’t how it works, it was sort of a joke that got out of hand and led to many people misunderstanding identities that are important to many people. a stone butch isn’t just a super masculine and tough butch. “soft butch” meaning “butch who isn’t super muscular and who is sensitive” ignores that those things don’t make any butch less butch in the first place.femme is just an older identity and it just kinda goes hand-in-hand with butch because they have shared origins, and originally, in the past, the typical dynamic was a butch and a femme being together or seeking each other. it’s about complementing each other by having differences that work with each other, rather than differences that clash, and by having similarities that bring deeper understanding. of course stuff has changed, butches can date other butches ofc (there’s not really a different term for “gnc lesbian who exclusively or mostly seeks other gnc women”, and butchness, while it is a specific identity and a sort of “role”, is very associated with a specific kind of appearance. plus, many butches hear some dumbass shit about butchness even among wlw, so some of us might seek other butches so we finally feel understood. or just because they find other butches hot, which, in my opinion, is very understandable lol).also, a femme doesn’t necessarily have to always be super typically feminine, there’s an association with an older type of identity or role, so many femmes these days might incorporate a few things that could be considered gender nonconforming, like not shaving, not wearing makeup, having super short hair or buying some clothing articles from the men’s section (usually not all at once i guess? idk, i’m just giving a few examples). some might not use “she/her” and might not really see themselves as part of womanhood.or they might be very traditionally feminine, as many are.of course there are lesbians who might do any of those things but aren’t femmes, but that’d be because they just aren’t drawn to the identity, don’t long for a certain type of dynamic in their life, don’t feel connected to that part of history. most lesbians just aren’t butches or femmes. it’s not a bad thing, or a deep thing, most lesbians just aren’t! it’s a subculture, and that’s for a reason.but basically, butches and femmes just have more in common than we have differences. they’re complementary identities.originally, in specific contexts where those terms came up, butches and femmes were just seen as the possible different “types” of lesbians who seeked each other for relationships, sex, companionship, understanding, etc. it was originally a thing that came from lesbian bars, frequented by working-class women. so many butches and femmes worked in the same types of places (factories, often), so they still lived in the same type of context (though many femmes were sex workers, and that’s also an important thing to know, i don’t wanna seem like i’m ignoring it, but i’m not going deep into it bc in that case what they shared was still that they were also working class). of course many butches and femmes now aren’t working class, but those are the origins of those identities, and we should never forget who came before us.of course there are lots of differences between how lesbian working class bars were a few decades ago and how butch/femme is as a subculture now. the current subculture largely relies on writings from people who were always butches and always femmes back in the day, rather than those who sort of had to make themselves fit into one of those things because that was the expectation in those bars but otherwise didn’t feel connected to a certain identity or role outside of the specific context of the bars and relationships. so the modern butch/femme thing is, first of all, a subculture, because we don’t want people who don’t really connect to being a butch or a femme to feel like they have to fit in there, because if you don’t then you just don’t and there’s obviously nothing wrong with that, that’s why it’s a subculture, most lesbians just aren’t part of it, the same way most people aren’t parts of other subcultures. and since it’s so very based on the historic records left by people who were always butches and always femmes, regardless of where they were, who they were with, etc, it’s also about a constant identity now, rather than being someone who calls themselves a butch in a context where it’s about women seeking women but otherwise doesn’t really feel a connection to the identity in my experience, many femmes get annoyed at women who say they’re femme4femme bc they say that that’s why the term “lipstick lesbian” exists in the first place, as most women who call themselves “femme4femme” usually just mean “feminine woman seeking feminine woman”, using “femme” to just mean “feminine”. so that’s why there’s often an annoyance there.i’m not saying that a femme has to /exclusively/ be into gnc women to be a femme. just that being a femme and being a feminine lesbian don’t mean the same thing, and generally, femmes in the current butch/femme subculture often have at least a preference for butches, due to a desire for a specific kind of dynamic in relationships and anything surrounding that. there’s just a specific kind of historical connection and a sort of role connected to butchness and femmeness. it’s a subculture that’s more than just about what you look like and what the people you’re into look like. “butch” gets tied to a certain kind of appearance a lot more than femme does, as it’s a kind of appearance that stands out on its own, without the person saying anything about their identity, so many femmes rely on that connection to a specific part of history and certain desires and dynamics and roles a lot when it comes to their identity as femmes.lipstick lesbian is a term that sometimes just refers to very feminine lesbians, but very often specifically to feminine lesbians who exclusively or at least mostly seek other feminine lesbians. and to my knowledge there’s not any kind of deeper connection to any older identity or culture there, it’s like “masc4masc” or something like that, it’s just a description of your personal kind of aesthetic and the kind of aesthetic you find desirable (i’m not trying to imply there’s anything wrong with that, of course! just that it’s not the same as being a femme, but of course two things not being the same doesn’t automatically mean one is better than the other, which is something i want to make clear throughout this whole huge answer to your ask).idk, i’m no expert or anything, and i’m also just not great at explaining things, i tend to ramble a bit and i sometimes express myself in a way that was clear enough for other people, and sometimes i end up talking a lot. also, there just isn’t much butch/femme history where i’m from, at least not any /recorded/ history, there aren’t always words that describe the exact same things (of course there are people like me and people who are like many femmes, though, we’ve always existed, but there’s not really much of a butch/femme type of community thing because our history and words are different, and there’s generally fairly little LGBT or specifically wlw or lesbian history recorded), so this is about what i know of butch/femme culture in the US and online (since the latter relies on the former).there are a lot of people out there who talk abt butch/femme a lot, people who have read and watched and experienced more stuff connected to that, so you could ask people like that if you need more information (you can ask me, of course, i’m just saying they’ll know more), esp when it comes to femmes, since i don’t have their specific perspective on differences between femmes vs feminine lesbians who aren’t femmes, or on the femme4femme thing, which means i’m only talking based on my understanding of what they say, rather than from personal experience as a femme, just because i’m not one. (part of the reason why it took me a while was bc i asked some people i know, one butch and one femme, both have more knowledge about this stuff than me, esp the latter, to see if there were any inaccuracies they could see or something i didnt express well)

#Anonymous #anon #ask #asks #answered

[lordbhreanna]

any new valenvaef headcanons? esp after the re3remake :D

It’s taken me a while to answer you, but I really needed to collect my thoughts around this one because DAMN the game delivered much more than I expected. So, sorry about the wait, anon! But yes, I definitely have headcanons or, at least, a melting-pot of thoughts and/or headcanons about their relationship in-game and what effect they have on each other post-game.

→ First things first, my biggest headcanon around this until proven otherwise is that Nicholai totally survived the missile blast. As I suspected, Capcom has played the vague card with him again, and the helicopter shown behind the one taken by Jill and Carlos seems to be hint enough to make you doubt he’s dead. Rule of thumb in Resident Evil is that if you don’t see them turn into abominations, they are alive. See Wesker in RE1 or Ada, who in the remake canon literally survives that fall. 

→ Jill doesn’t trust him at ALL after their first meeting because she values companionship between teammates - and she knows what betrayal is. So maybe Nicholai’s lack of concern for Murphy and cold practicality reminded him of Wesker’s betrayal and how it was the root cause for the STARS’ fate. That’s why she emphasizes the “killing your own people.” 

→ Nicholai despises how soft she is for a soldier, thinking she’d have so much more potential if she were a bit more ruthless. He’s already a bit aware of who she is and what she has done, she’s a survivor. But needs to “toughen up” in his opinion; get rid of her compassion. Moreover, he really wants to see her like that - that’s partly why he keeps hammering her with the “wisdom he’s been trying to impart on her.” In the end, he’s in RC for his mission and to collect his money, but he acknowledges she’s persistent if nothing else and she intrigues him a bit.

→ I also see the whole “teaching her a lesson” as kind of a power fight between the two, to see who is proven right in the end. Nicholai is overly confident of his moral code centered around self-preservation, when she’s the opposite. We know who ends up with the upper hand in the end, and that’s Nicholai’s lowest point ever. No one has brought him down to his knees like her, quite literally. 

→ According to canon, I would guess he’s seen her fight Nemesis twice - once in the Clock Tower plaza and then in the lab. Both times he’s ended up a bit awestruck by her skills. I would think this is what prompts him to say the “ongoing arrangement” thing later on. I still don’t have a solid interpretation for that, but at that point it seemed that he wasn’t thinking of simply killing her, but something different. One idea I have is that he might’ve considered taking her alive out of the city, but I can’t come up with a good idea for his purpose. In the end, the risk isn’t worth it, but it’s telling that it even crossed his mind.

→ Post-Raccoon City, I think they will haunt each other somehow. They certainly hate each other’s guts (especially her), that’s for sure, and have influenced each other in a twisted way.

Beyond him being an overall piece of shit, I see her resenting the hell out of Nicholai for destroying the vaccine - the betrayal of the train hurts too, it cost Jill her escape and Mikhail’s life. But I think for her the vaccine weighs more, because it could have saved people. The people she was supposed to protect, as a police officer in the city. She even tried to reason with him in the vat scene. That’s her turning point, when she truly sees what a greedy scumbag he is. So every time she sees the broken canister, she can’t help but be reminded of him. I don’t think she exactly regrets leaving him behind to his fate. Despite being a bit more heartless than her usual self, she just thinks he got his just desserts. But it pains her that, in the end, his ruthlessness rubbed on her a bit more than she’d have liked - even if she used it against him.

On the other hand, Nicholai holds both a bit of grudge against her while simultaneously starts to develop an (unhealthy) fixation on Miss Valentine. Like he’s fascinated and drawn to her. Because, in the end, she won and almost cost him what he values most, even more than money - his own life. Not only that, she refused his attempt at a deal, which might even be interpreted as him begging for his life. An unsuccessful one, and that must be a chip on his ego, I would guess. She can’t be bribed, and that’s the only language Nicholai understands. There’s a price tag for everything and everyone has a price - except her. At the same time, when she shot and decided to leave him in Raccoon City, knowing it’d mean his death, he realises she’s not a bleeding heart anymore (from his point of view, which considered that a weakness) - that little trait of hers he had looked down upon so much. And he kind of approves of all of her choices, almost proud in the most wicked sense, that his “lessons” did go through her. I really like how he looks up at the sky/helicopter as it leaves, laughing and smiling at times, perhaps thinking that ironically it was him who she got killed and not Carlos (although he didn’t die at the end, but that was a close one!). She has given him a taste of his own medicine, and he has the last image of her in the helicopter burned into his brain.

If Jill has the canister as a memento of Nicholai, he has the bullet wound. If you have read my Ada/Leon fics, you know I have a weird fixation with scars - and this one could be easily taken in a similar way, in a hypothetical scenario where Jill and Nicholai are bound to meet again. Now Capcom didn’t have to make Jill shoot him so close to his heart - but THEY DID. Who’s got a bleeding heart now, Nicholai? HA. Canonwise it works as a great role reversal for both characters. But in shipping terms it’s a treasure because Nicholai is now literally marked by her. I totally picture him way more obsessed and haunted by her than the other way around, and every time he sees the scar it triggers something in him. 

→ Now if we talk about scenarios where they could meet, I’m still brainstorming these because the possibilities are ENDLESS (and hopefully there’ll be a lot of fic exploring this!). I came up with an idea I may or may not ever use in my own fics, but since Nicholai only cares about the money, he doesn’t mind who he works for - so what if it was the US government who, at some point, hired him to get all the dirty secrets from Umbrella? They’re shady enough, so I don’t see it past them to hire someone like Nicholai. They were already dealing with Umbrella. Nicholai could be even playing everyone, his mysterious client from RE3R included. But the idea behind this is that he and Jill might be forced to work together in the future - and she’s really NOT buying it and it drives her mad this is even happening. From Nicholai’s point, I’m still debating whether he’d be more confrontational or more amused by the whole thing. 

→ Another post-RE3 scenario I could picture is Nicholai’s client (which might be Wesker, or the company who Wesker & Ada work for at this point in the story) wanting to silence the remaining STARS members, since Nemesis did a poor job of that. It could also be Umbrella, still trying to get them off the grid. In any case, he’s hired to go STARS hunting - and he accepts, on the condition that he’s assigned one Miss Valentine. The potential this could have is also *chef kisses*. 

As I said, this is such a disorganized load of ideas, and most of them I need to chew on a little bit more, give it more thought. What I can say is that their dynamics are so good in the game, it makes the relationship super fascinating to explore from all kinds of angles!

#resident evil #valenvaef #jill valentine #nicholai ginovaef #asks #Anonymous #re3 spoilers #re3make