#first ask of the century

[fictionadventurer]

Top 5 obscure light vintage novels! (Not sure if my previous ask got eaten, but also curious about this one specifically)

The strictest definition of what I consider "obscure light vintage novels" requires a book to meet a lot of criteria:

Published before 1960

Not recommended to me by anyone I know personally (including on tumblr)

Doesn't have a fancy Oxford-Classics-type edition with an introduction. (And none of the author's other books are well-known enough to have one)

Has a realistic setting

Ideally written by a woman or centered around a female main character

Which means that very few books fit this list. But of those few, here are my top five.

Desire by Una Silberrad: Flawed but fascinating Edwardian novel about an eccentric heiress who meets a soulful author and eventually winds up working for him when she loses her money and he inherits his father's pottery business. Fascinating characters, amazing romance, lots of interesting themes. I'm also going to count the author's other novels in this category, because she's come to epitomize "obscure light classic" for me. The Good Comrade is a much frothier novel with some great characters, and Curayl is highly flawed, but its silver-tongued hero lives rent-free in my head.

The Ark by Margot Benary-Isbert: I finished this book less than twenty-four hours ago (so I could include it on this list). It's a 1953 German novel set in 1947, about a refugee family building a home after the end of the war. It reads like, if you can believe it, a cozy post-apocalyptic novel. These people are living through some terrible things, but they make the best of things and manage to find joy. It's chock-full of fascinating details about life in post-war Germany, and reminds you that the people on that side of the war were human too, losing people and places they loved, and doing their best to live in terrible times. There are some superstitious elements later on that I wasn't crazy about, but otherwise I adored this story.

The Romance of a Shop by Amy Levy: Novel from the 1880s about four sisters who open a photography studio to support themselves after their father's death. Extremely underwritten (one of the girls meets an old flame and marries him between chapters), but a very easy, pleasant read with interesting historical details, and some nice sisterly relationships that remind me just a bit of Little Women meets Oscar Wilde.

The Heir of Redclyffe and Countess Kate by Charlotte Mary Yonge: Books by one of the bestselling authors of the Victorian age who's completely forgotten today. Both get too preachy at times, but make up for it by having amazing characters. The first one is a family saga about cousins caught up in an old feud, and the second is like if Anne Shirley suddenly found out she was a countess.

The Rosary by Florence Barclay: The bestselling novel of, like, 1920. It gets very melodramatic, but I was also surprised at how grounded and witty the characters were. I remember very little about it, but I have fond memories of the reading experience, and it earns a place on this list because when I want to find an "obscure vintage light novel", on some level I'm thinking I want to find a book like this.

I know you didn't ask, but I find myself wanting to list five novels that don't quite meet the strict criteria above, but are close enough that I want to highlight them.

The Dean's Watch and The Rosemary Tree by Elizabeth Goudge: Goudge isn't exactly obscure in this section of tumblr (which is why I heard of her in the first place), but she's obscure enough that a lot of her books are out-of-print or otherwise hard to get, and these two in particular are among the best books I've ever read.

The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery: Montgomery is extremely well-known, and this book has an ever-growing and very devoted cult following, so it's not exactly obscure, but it's much less well-known than most of her other books. A deep cut, if you will. It fits perfectly within the light vintage novel category, and has long been one of my favorite novels of all time.

Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon: It's got an Oxford Classics (or similar imprint) edition, and is well-known as one of the very first sensation novels, but it's not exactly known among people who don't deep-dive into Victorian literature. I read this last month and loved it. It's a cozy sensation novel with an amazing main character, great atmosphere, and a plot that manages to grip you even while not much happens.

Mrs. Miniver by Jan Struther: It's not exactly obscure if it has a movie adaptation, but from what I know, the movie basically ignores the book, which isn't that well-known today. Charming slice-of-life from the very early days of WWII England.

Helen by Maria Edgeworth: Not exactly beloved, and Edgeworth isn't exactly obscure, but this is a lesser-known novel that fits well within this category. The first half had some moments that were so dull I considered not finishing, but the second half was gripping enough that I can mention it as a nice, obscure surprise of a book.

[liesmyth]

would you be able to give examples/explain more about how race only impacts gideon in the tlt-universe? not being facetious or condescending, genuinely asking. thank you!

Hi anon! If you mean my tags to this post, I wrote

#earth conception of race doesn't impact any character in the series except the canonically brown main antagonist

By which I mean my Worstie and main antagonist of the series, John Gaius (PhD).

I don’t think TLT as a series engages with race in any especially meaningful ways. It’s set in a post-Earth society with entirely different social norms, and there’s no concept of race and ethnicity within the population of the Nine Houses. Physical descriptions of the characters are scarce to say the least, and they rarely spell out the kind of features that suggest specific racial connotations, because the POV characters don’t seem to think it’s something worth remarking upon. iirc, it takes until halfway through HtN for the narrative to confirm that Harrow has brown skin.

[See also Tamsyn’s GtN characters description post. It quotes passages from the book, and you can see how minimal the descriptions are, and she repeats several times that her characters’ appearances are up to the readers’ interpretations. It just doesn’t seem to be a big concern of hers]

Then there’s John, who grew up in twenty-first-century New Zealand and IS explicitly Māori in a way that absolutely impacted his character arc. It's not A major theme of his Nona chapters, but it’s there if you read between the lines. The boarding school he went to, which IRL had a high percentage of low-income Māori students on scholarship. The depth of his climate anxiety, his uncompromising “Nobody left behind” stance before the cryo project was halted, and his fervent hatred of ‘the trillionaires’ afterwards... these are all informed to some extent by his background as an indigenous man imo, and so was the global reaction to his developing powers. The “We were going to put you fellas in jail, weren’t we?” the way his initial attempts at publications are all flat-out ignored by the scientific community and dismissed as culty gimmicky faith healing until he leans into it.

John being Māori is just one of the many pieces of his backstory, and far from the most impactful to what eventually went down, but my point remains that he is the ONLY character in TLT whose racial background 1) affects his story arc and 2) is relatable to the audience. Everyone else is ten thousand years removed from Earth, and I’m just not very interested in using racial identifiers when exploring these characters and their dynamics, because the characters themselves don’t care and neither does the narrative.

[aleksanderscult]

It is also a teeny bit weird to make Zoya being prettier and thus a more ideal sun summoner be set up as thing to be proven wrong in the beginning but then Zoya actually becomes the Queen with lots of focus on how gorgeous she is and Alina fades into obscurity and wears old shawls.

I mean yeah.

Because apparently one of the messages this trilogy wanted to pass was how nothing is what it seems. Alina is not weak but very powerful, she just doesn't know it. Aleksander is not a man to be trusted but a selfish, power-hungry bastard, except Alina doesn't realize it until it was too late (*inserting dramatic tones if you didn't notice*).

Normally, Zoya wouldn't get that much spotlight. But, alas, Bardugo has said many times that she's one of her most favorite characters so she was bound to become important. A Squaller (among hundreds) became important by becoming a Saint as well.

Saints in the Grishaverse normally have very distinct, unusual powers. Alina had her light, Aleksander his shadows, Elizaveta's Materialki powers manifested themselves through her ability to control nature while Ilya didn't allow his powers to be restricted at all (he was both a Healer and a Durast as well as an inventor). Plus, they get martyred and Zoya is...well....alive.

Her push to the spotlight was, for me, too forced while, at the same time, the author tried to remove Alina's presence (as if she wasn't the main character for three books straight that the antagonist fell in love with and his plans revolved around her). Whether someone likes Alina or not, we have to admit that it's not going to be the same without her on the front. The story doesn't really make sense without her. It's like removing Harry Potter from his own books.

And it seems that whether Alina has powers or not, she stays hidden. And Zoya got what she wanted all along: the spotlight.

[mango-sideburns]

My fav thing about TAZ is that any aspect out of context sounds fucking bonkers.

Like, in the balance finale there's a scene in which Garfield (who is very specifically never described visually bc most people imagine him as like. The Lasagna Cat. Who in this universe is the most powerful warlock in the realm and also has a hobby of cloning people, which is great for the one character that got forced into haunting a mannequin) is summoned by an alien spaceship that runs on the power of friendship so he could beat up some flashing balls. In D&D.

And that was just. Such a normal scene in the narrative. No one blinked an eye. I would like to bow down to Griffins clear unmatched talent for making me feel such big emotions over ridiculous shit like a goddamned umbrella or a regular ass pair of jeans or the idea of a taco recipe.

[enlitment]

What’s the beef between Voltaire and Rousseau? I follow this person who pretends they’re Rousseau and they shit on Voltaire every other day…I’m so curious what is the lore 👀👀

Hi, first of all thanks for the ask! There's a lot going on, but I think it's quite entertaining, so if you have some time to spare to learn about a beef between two colourful characters from centuries ago, strap in!

(Also just decided I'll make two posts because there's so much to get into. Sincerely sorry, brevity has never been my strong suit.)

The genius leads Voltaire and Rousseau to the Temple of Fame and Immortality (from French Revolution period)

PHILOSOPHICAL DIFFERENCES (aka let's get the basics out of the way first)

I know that a lot of people (myself certainly included!) are mostly there to discuss the juicier stuff, but I think an overview of their general outlook on life is still important, if only to better understand the drama that went down between them.

This will of course be a gross oversimplification of quite complex philosophical problems. (I can almost sense my lecturers shaking their heads as I'm typing this.) Nonetheless -

The simplest way to describe their differences of opinion is that Voltaire championed reason and logic while Rousseau’s philosophy focused much more on feelings. (His personal life was like that as well. JJ prided himself in being in touch with his feelings, which I’m all here for, but sometimes it does really feel like he’s crying in the woods on literally every other page). Another key difference in their general worldview would be Rousseau’s optimism contrasted with Voltaire’s pessimism (probably best exemplified in Candide).

Voltaire essentially believed that human Reason, along with all the rapid advances in sciences and arts overseen by the 18th century would lead to a better life and a better society. Rousseau, on the other hand, in his famous essay First Discourse on Arts and Sciences that skyrocketed his career as a philosopher basically argues that people were originally good in their 'natural state' and it is the artifice of society that corrupted them and rendered them unhappy.

2. PERSONAL AND LIFESTYLE DIFFERENCES

This then very much ties into the differences between the two philosophers as people.

From Paris. Shout out to my friends who waited for me for five minutes before I got a decent angle.

Rousseau saw himself as a champion of the simple, humble life. In a personal letter to Voltaire, he claimed that the fact V spends his life surrounded by opulence, luxury, and insincere manners of the upper-classes is the precise cause of his misery. V in turn though that both Rousseau’s views and he as a person are a bit ridiculous. (Honestly? Fair. Lot of people did, especially among the upper-classes and 'men of letters' - a lot of which were former Rousseau's friends as well before he decided to go full cottagecore).

3. THE BEEF PART 1: THE (MOSTLY) GOOD

Voltaire contacted Rousseau after he read his famous essay The Discourse on the Origin of Inequality among Men in 1755. The letter itself is far from just patting Rousseau on the back. Voltaire does defend the arts, the sciences, and the human progress in general against Rousseau's criticism. I'm including this quote from it since it illustrates the typical banter of V that nonetheless has teeth:

as well as this quote (mostly because I think it's a banger line):

Letters support, refine, and comfort the soul: they are serving you, sir, at the very moment you decry them: you are like Achilles declaiming against fame (...)

Nonetheless, the tone of the letter is overall quite amiable. To me, it reads as playful criticism - critical, sure, but no open hostility at this point. He even invites Rousseau to come visit him at the end:

M. Chappus tells me your health is very unsatisfactory: you must come and recover here in your native place, enjoy its freedom, drink (with me) the milk of its cows, and browse on its grass.

[1/2] to be continued...

[aro-culture-is]

aro culture is celebrating, uplifting the voices of, and practicing advocacy with the disabled people in our lives this disability pride month.

[empirearchives]

Is it true that Napoleon Bonaparte used to know and associate with the Robespierre brothers? Like from what I've heard, he was pretty serious about it, to the point that it hampered his career post-thermidor. (It would make the stereotypical depictions of the Terror in Napoleon 2023 pretty hillarious, honestly.)

Yeah, it’s true. According to Saliceti (a Montagnard politician from Corsica), Napoleon was “their man” (1).

The first known mention of Robespierre by Napoleon was on 23 January 1791. He wrote a piece called Lettre à Buttafuoco. Matteo Buttafuoco was a Corsican politician. In it, he writes: “O Lameth! Oh Robespierre! O Pétion! O Volney! O Mirabeau! O Barnave! O Bailly! O La Fayette! This is the man who dares to sit next to you!” (2)

Napoleon was a political ally of the Robespierre brothers. As far as I know, he never met the older Robespierre brother in person, but he did meet and know the younger brother. They were associates and even became friends. Augustin Robespierre wrote to his older brother “the citizen Bonaparte commanding the artillery is of transcendent merit.” (2)

In 1794, Napoleon accepted an “unofficial” position in the Committee of Public Safety’s war office, specifically at the historical and topographical office. While he worked there, he wrote to his brother “I am swamped with work at the Committee.” (3)

This is how Pontécoulant, who oversaw him at the topographical bureau, described Napoleon at this job:

“It was not a mere sinecure that he had accepted, he sometimes worked fifteen hours a day, . . . and the considerable number of memoranda, reports, letters, and documents of all kinds that he wrote . . . would fill several volumes. Never, even during the campaign of 1794, had the topographical office of the Committee of Public Safety . . . deployed such activity; he maintained continuous communications with the leaders of the different armies, and their staffs, astonished, learned from then on to know this nervous style, full of precision, movement and masculine energy.” (4)

It was during this time that he was asked to write a general memorandum on grand strategy. It was titled Sur la position politique et militaire de nos armées de Piémont et d'Espagne (On the political and military position of our armies of Piedmont and Spain). The person he submitted it to was Augustin Robespierre in June 1794.

Frank McLynn’s description of the memoranda:

“Basing his strategy on the writings of Guibert de Bourcet, Napoleon devised a plan that enabled the Army of Italy to advance to the watershed of the Maritime Alps, having secured control of the passes of Col d'Argentière, Tende and St-Bernard. With the enthusiastic support of Augustin Robespierre, who took Bonaparte's memorandum to Paris with him, Napoleon argued that if the French attacked in Piedmont, Austria would be forced to come to the aid of her Austrian possessions and thus weaken her position on the Rhine, allowing the French to strike a knockout blow there. Napoleon's chances of getting the plan accepted looked good, for his new commander-in-chief, General Dumerbion, deferred in all things to the political commissars; Saliceti and Augustin Robespierre, in turn, nodded through anything military that came from the pen of Napoleon.” (5)

Augustin sent Napoleon to Genoa for a diplomatic mission on 11 July 1794. So, the Robespierres were behind the beginning of Napoleon’s long diplomatic career. In fact, Napoleon was still on this mission when he learned about the death of the Robespierre brothers (28 July 1794).

Earlier that year, the younger Robespierre brother had actually proposed that Napoleon take command as head of the Paris National Guard and replace François Hanriot in Paris. Napoleon considered it, but decided to keep his post instead.

Hanriot was executed the same day as the Robespierre brothers. Who knows, perhaps the same fate would have happened to Napoleon had he accepted the offer.

Nevertheless, according to Jean Tulard “the 9th of Thermidor opens a difficult period for him”. (2) He was arrested in the south of France for his association with the Robespierre brothers. The order was signed on August 6th, and he was imprisoned for over a week (August 9th-20th).

The fact that Napoleon had been in a foreign country (Genoa) on a mission for the Robespierre brothers at the time of 9 Thermidor was used against him.

According to Patrice Gueniffey, “Napoleon spent his spare time reading the history of Marshal Maillebois’s campaigns in Italy and writing a long, self-justifying memorandum addressed to the representatives […] without saying anything against Robespierre”. (3)

The appeal which released him specified his military acumen. He was considered too crucially important to the war effort to kill or keep imprisoned.

“We are convinced of the possible utility to us of this soldier's talents, which, we cannot deny it, are becoming very necessary in an army that he knows better than anyone, and in which men of this kind are extremely difficult to find.” (3)

So he was released, with his head still attached to his body. But, the situation had definitely changed for him. The representatives were cautious about him and refused to reemploy Napoleon as commander of the artillery. Nevertheless, he continued to work on the campaigns as part of the staff of General Dumerbion, and working his way up from there.

In 1797, Napoleon evoked Robespierre in a speech in Ancona to a surprised dinner party. He defended Robespierre for his “alleged crimes” and said of him:

“Since its origin,” he tells us, “France has had only one strong government: that of Robespierre.”

The impression of horror that the memory of this man had left on everyone’s minds was so recent, so profound, that it is difficult to imagine the painful surprise this opinion excited, and with what ardor it was opposed. Far from abandoning it, General Bonaparte tenaciously supported it:

“What,” he said, “is a strong government? It is one which has a well-determined useful purpose; the firm will to achieve it; the force capable of making will triumph; finally, the intelligence necessary to properly lead this force. Let’s examine if Robespierre combined all these advantages: What was his goal? The triumph of the revolution. He felt that a counter-revolution would be more bloody, would lead to more cruel, more lasting evils than those that our revolution had demanded and would still require. So he wanted to accomplish it at all costs.” (6)

Did this association have an effect on Napoleon’s career? I would say it definitely impacted his reputation and the perception everyone had of him.

To Madame de Staël (and eventually Victor Hugo), Napoleon was “Robespierre on horseback” (2). Mallet du Pan calls Napoleon “a Corsican terrorist” (7). The royalist pamphleteers had titles like “Robespierre and Buonaparte or the two tyrannies” and “The Jacobins and Buonaparte or historical essay on the alliance of the two tyrannies which oppressed the French nation” (2). In them, Napoleon was described as a “worshiper of Marat, accomplice of Robespierre, vile complacent of Barras” (2). To Metternich, “Napoleon seemed to me the incarnation of the Revolution” (8). He tried to warn the other countries in Europe against making peace with France, because, to him, “No peace is possible with a revolutionary system, whether with a Robespierre who declares war on chateaux or a Napoleon who declares war on Powers” (9). William Pitt the Younger spoke of the “jacobinism of Robespierre, of Barrere” and called Napoleon “the child and the champion of all its atrocities and horrors” (10).

This is a royalist caricature of Napoleon created by Pierre-Marie Bassompierre Gaston. The caption says “One is always faithful to one's first love”. (Source)

Here is Napoleon’s stance on Robespierre:

“Robespierre died because he tried to stop the effects of the Revolution, and not as a tyrant. Those who wanted to bring him down were crueler than he was: Billaud-Varenne, Collot d'Herbois, etc. He had against him Danton's party, which was powerful and immense. Probably he could not have acted otherwise. I believe that Robespierre was without ambition. . . . Everything I read in the Moniteur teaches me nothing, but it confirms me in the opinion that I had, and settles me in it even more. To be sure, Robespierre was not an ordinary man. He was very superior to everything around him. His discourse on the Supreme Being proves it. Disgusted by what he was hearing, he felt the necessity of a religious system among people who did not want anything, either religion or morals. Morality had to be raised up again. He had the courage to do it and he did it... That was great politics. No doubt he shed blood; that is the other side of the coin, but he is certainly less guilty than Tallien, who slaughtered Bordeaux, or Fréron whom I saw in Marseille taking poor unfortunates by the collar to have them shot. Those men were real killers. Had he [Robespierre] not succumbed, he would have been the most extraordinary man who appeared.” (3)

Sources:

(1) Adam Zamoyski, Napoleon: A Life

(2) Jean Tulard, De Napoléon et de quelques autres sujets: Robespierre vu par Napoléon

(3) Patrice Gueniffey, Bonaparte: 1769–1802

(4) Le Doulcet de Pontécoulant, Souvenirs historiques et parlementaires

(5) Frank McLynn, Napoleon: A Biography

(6) J. P. Collot, La chute de Napoléon

(7) Albert Sorel, L'Europe et la Révolution française, V. 5

(8) Memoirs of Prince Metternich 1773-1815 Vol. 1

(9) Henry Kissinger, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace 1812–1822

(10) The speeches of the Right Honourable William Pitt, in the House of Commons, V. 3

[swordmaid]

shri’iia not being used to the vastness of the sky always looking up and glaring at it from time to time, starts wondering what it would be like if the sky collapses or she gets sucked into it somehow, immediately spooks herself, runs off to a shade while muttering to herself in drowic.

[paingoes]

Hey! Hi. So, just wondering... do you have any references or thoughts about the Empire style (for the Emperor/Paris in specific)? Main colors, type of clothing, crown style, that kinda of thing.

*smiles at u*

well its based on the roman empire so that’s always a good place to start! 

not to doxx myself but i was actually living in rome in the months right before i began writing destroyer and when i imagine the imperial architecture its always evocative of italy and the castles i saw there. particularly florence now that i think about it. which is admittedly more renaissance.

i also imagine it to have some pretty gothic exteriors. those goths sure knew how to build a church!

but for fashion, my first reference would be russian court dress! at least among the nobility. all the clothing references ive found have been from 18th century france or russia. here are some favorites:

paris’s crown is actually more of a tiara, technically. the closest visual reference for me would be the devonshire diamond tiara

however, if given the choice, he’d rather not wear it. my favorite look with him is the golden laurel crown <3

if you’re interested in color motifs, i think paris primarily dresses in shades of pink and red. he wears exclusively gold jewelry and probably too much of it! delta frequently comments on the jingling noise it makes 😭

i imagine the official colors of empire to be purple and scarlet! i think the emperor himself would have a dark purple color motif and that bleeds into his environment. everything imperial has a golden accent.

the official flower of empire is a rose and i think paris incorporates that into his style a lot too :)

[ahopefulbromantic]

I just realized the most tragic thing - that I cannot gush about 31st October being Dziady / Forefathers' Eve because it's a Polish thing and none of my mutuals know what it is and no really good translation of the dramatic works exists to have them read it :(((

It's like a traditional Polish Halloween and nowadays it's mainly known from Adam Mickiewicz's (he's to Poland what Shakespeare is to England) 4-part drama centered around it. It follows a tortured poet (my blorbo, I love him) during the time Poland was partitioned and erased from the maps, its people oppressed but always fighting back. It is one of the most important and culturally significant Polish works ever created. And it's got, like so many themes, so many themes you guys. It's one of my favorite works ever one of my all-time dreams is to play Konrad, a protag from part 3.

So if anyone does know it or is interested in finding out more please please please message me or drop an ask I'd love to infodump!!!

[ulircursed]

Andrei's eyes open, blinking away the haze of sleep as he turns towards the door. The length of the flickering candle on the wall telling him it's nearly morning, but not quite. It's not a nightmare that had woken him, so what could—

Crack.

All thoughts of sleep immediately flees him as his gaze whips to the basket sitting on the bedside table, at the egg laying atop the furs lining the basket.

The egg that now has a sizeable crack lining its width, almost like a split grin.

As Andrei watches, there is another soft crack, the grin widening a sliver as the occupant of the egg moves within the shell. He sinks to the floor by the bed, eyes level with the basket, and stays in that position, observing the process.

It takes longer than he expects, the slight movement every few seconds punctuated by stretches of silence in between. Fingers hover over the egg hesitantly, before withdrawing. All birds must hatch by their own power, isn't that right?

After an achingly long time, it finally tumbles out of the shell altogether in one motion, a tiny, bright pink little thing with a sparse covering of yellow feathers and pieces of broken eggshell stuck to its body. In the candlelight, he could just make out a pair of wings, a beak, a pair of eyes, tightly shut.

"...Cranberry," Andrei breathes, the name suddenly all too fitting for the newborn.

Then, a high-pitched squeal from the hatchling sends him immediately to his feet, and Andrei, basket in hand, is out of the door and heading towards the tunnel that leads out of the Abyss before any of the others in the dormitory could wake. The thought that he now had, not an egg, but a real, live, very small and vulnerable bird on his hands just now dawning in his mind.

He needs to go find Naesala immediately.

Congratulations! The egg has hatched!

[screambirdscreaming]

I used to like saying "gender is a social construct," but I stopped saying that because people didn't tend to react well - they thought that I was saying gender wasn't real, or didn't matter, or could be safely ignored without consequences. Which has always baffled me a bit as an interpretation, honestly, because many things are social constructs - like money, school, and the police - and they certainly have profound effects on your life whether or not you believe in them. And they sure don't go away if you ignore them.

Anyway. What I've taken to saying instead is, "gender is a cultural practice." This gives more of a sense of respect for the significance gender holds to many people. And it also opens the door to another couple layers of analysis.

Gender is cultural. It is not globally or historically homogeneous. It shifts over time, develops differently in different communities, and can be influenced by cross-cultural contact. Like many, many aspects of culture, the current status of gender is dramatically influenced by colonialism. Colonial gender norms are shaped by the hierarchical structure of imperialist society, and enforced onto colonized cultures as part of the project of imperial cultural hedgemony.

Gender is practiced. What constitutes a gender includes affects and behaviors, jobs or areas of work, skillsets, clothing, collective and individual practices of gender affiliation and affirmation. Any or all of these things, in any combination, depending on the gender, the culture, and the practitioner.

Gender encompasses shared cultural archetypes. These can include specific figures - gods and goddesses, mythic or fictional characters, etc - or they can be more abstract or general. The Wise Woman, Robin Hood, the Dyke, the Working Man, the Plucky Heroine, the Effete Gay Man, etc etc. The range of archetypes does not circumscribe a given gender, that is, they're not all there is to gender. But they provide frameworks and reference points by which people relate to gender. They may be guides for ways to inhabit or practice a gender. They may be stereotypes through which the gendered behavior of others is viewed.

Gender as a framework can be changed. Because it is created collectively, by shared acknowledgement and enforcement by members of society. Various movements have made significant shifts in how gender is structured at various times and places. The impact of these shifts has been widely variable - for example, depending on what city I'm in, even within my (fairly culturally homogeneous) home country, the way I am gendered and reacted to changes dramatically. Looping back to point one, we often speak of gender in very broad terms that obscure significant variability which exists on many scales.

Gender is structured recursively. This can be seen in the archetypes mentioned above, which range from extremely general (say, the Mother) to highly specific (the PTA Soccer Mom). Even people who claim to acknowledge only two genders will have many concepts of gendered-ways-of-being within each of them, which they may view and react to VERY differently.

Gender is experienced as an external cultural force. It cannot be opted out of, any more than living in a society can be opted out of. Regardless of the internal experience of gender, the external experience is also present. Operating within the shared cultural understanding of gender, one can aim to express a certain practice of gender - to make legible to other people how it is you interface with gender. This is always somewhat of a two-way process of communication. Other people may or may not perceive what you're going for - and they may or may not respect it. They may try to bring your expressed gender into alignment with a gender they know, or they might parcel you off into your own little box.

Gender is normative. Within the structure of the "cultural mainstream," there are allowable ways to practice gender. Any gendered behavior is considered relative to these standards. What behavior is allowed, rewarded, punished, or shunned is determined relative to what is gender normative for your perceived gender. Failure to have a clearly perceivable gender is also, generally, punished. So is having a perceivable gender which is in itself not normative.

Gender is taught by a combination of narratives, punishments, and encouragements. This teaching process is directed most strongly towards children but continues throughout adulthood. Practice of normatively-gendered behaviors and alignment with 'appropriate' archetypes is affirmed, encouraged, and rewarded. Likewise 'other'- gendered behavior and affinity to archetypes is scolded, punished, or shunned. This teaching process is inherently coercive, as social acceptance/rejection is a powerful force. However it can't be likened to programming, everyone experiences and reacts to it differently. Also, this process teaches the cultural roles and practices of both (normative) genders, even as it attempts to force conformity to only one.

Gender regulates access to certain levers of social power. This one is complicated by the fact that access to levers of social power is also affected by *many* other things, most notably race, class, and citizenship. I am not going to attempt to describe this in any general terms, I'm not equipped for that. I'll give a few examples to explain what I'm talking about though. (1) In a social situation, a man is able to imply authority, which is implicitly backed by his ability to intimidate by yelling, looming, or threatening physical violence. How much authority he is perceived to have in response to this display is a function of his race and class. It is also modified by how strongly he appears to conform to a masculine ideal. Whether or not he will receive social backlash for this behavior (as a separate consideration to how effective it will be) is again a function of race/class/other forms of social standing. (2) In a social situation, a woman is able to invoke moral judgment, and attempt to modify the behavior of others by shame. The strength of her perceived moral authority depends not just on her conformity to ideal womanhood, but especially on if she can invoke certain archetypes - such as an Innocent, a Mother, or better yet a Grandmother. Whether her moral authority is considered a relevant consideration to influence the behavior of others (vs whether she will be belittled or ignored) strongly depends on her relative social standing to those she is addressing, on basis of gender/race/class/other.

[Again, these examples are *not* meant to be exhaustive, nor to pass judgment on employing any social power in any situation. Only to illustrate what "gendered access to social power" might mean. And to illustrate that types of power are not uniform and may play out according to complex factors.]

Gender is not based in physical traits, but physical traits are ascribed gendered value. Earlier, I described gender as practiced, citing almost entirely things a person can do or change. And I firmly believe this is the core of gender as it exists culturally - and not just aspirationally. After the moment when a gender is "assigned" based on infant physical characteristics, they are raised into that gender regardless of the physical traits they go on to develop (in most circumstances, and unless/until they denounce that gender.) The range of physical traits like height, facial shape, body hair, ability to put on muscle mass - is distributed so that there is complete overlap between the range of possible traits for people assigned male and people assigned female. Much is made of slight trends in things that are "more common" for one binary sex or the other, but it's statistically quite minor once you get over selection bias. However, these traits are ascribed gendered connotations, often extremely strongly so. As such, the experience of presented and perceived gender is strongly effected by physical traits. The practice of gender therefore naturally expands to include modification of physical traits. Meanwhile, the social movements to change how gender is constructed can include pushing to decrease or change the gendered association of physical traits - although this does not seem to consistently be a priority.

Gender roles are related to the hypothetical ability to bear children, but more obliquely than is often claimed. It is popular to say that the types of work considered feminine derive from things it is possible to do while pregnant or tending small children. However, research on the broader span of human history does not hold this up. It may be true of the cultures that gave immediate rise to the colonial gender roles we are familiar with - secondary to the fact that childcare was designated as women's work. (Which it does not have to be, even a nursing infant doesn't need to be with the person who feeds it 24 hours a day.) More directly, gender roles have been influenced by structures of social control aiming for reproductive control. In the direct precursors of colonial society, attempts to track paternal lineage led to extreme degrees of social control over women, which we still see reflected in normative gender today. Many struggles for women's liberation have attempted to push back these forms of social control. It is my firm opinion that any attempt to re-emphasize childbearing as a touchstone of womanhood is frankly sick. We are at a time where solidarity in struggle for gender liberation, and for reproductive rights, is crucial. We need to cast off shackles of control in both fights. Trying to tie childbearing back to womanhood hobbles both fights and demeans us all.

Gender is baked deeply enough into our culture that it is unlikely to ever go away. Many people feel strongly about the practice of gender, in one way or another, and would not want it to. However we have the power to change how gender is structured and enforced. We can push open the doors of what is allowable, and reduce the pain of social punishment and isolation. We can dismantle another of the tools of colonial hedgemony and social control. We can change the culture!

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

love how hua cheng is just like "I support xie lian rights and xie lian wrongs, except he can never do anything wrong ever even when he kills a bunch of people. Go off king" and Xie Lian is like “This is my beautiful husband, he has committed war crimes, but haven’t we all?”

And their relationship is somehow healthier than anything I've ever been in.

[dykespence]

Okay but seriously giggling and kicking my feet at the thought of swarla having back to back flirtatious banter and everyone around them being like so should we get these two a room or

[justworthlessreblogs]

i wish noir's generals & their dynamics with each other were more explored

i do too, anon... i do too

[nachobsns]

hi i saw your ask to applesauce and i just wanted to say im so proud of you for pulling yourself out of the radicalization pipeline, that takes true strength and bravery

thank you :) it’s tough because those spaces are excellent at conditioning people who have no involvement with the conflict whatsoever into a very absolutist “you must be thinking and talking about this issue at all times, otherwise you are a Bad Person who supports Bad Things and deserves to Die” mindset but really any “peace activist” whose “solution” relies on the complete demonization and dehumanization of another group of people does not care about peace or activism at all and i’m much happier now that i’ve stopped giving antisemitic bullshit any sway over my life. obviously does not absolve me from the harm i caused by being a part of it but i’m glad that i no longer am