#fiction by women

[mina-the-guinea-pig]

I would like to talk for a few moments about my enduring and all consuming love for Mary Shelley.

Today would have been Mary's (because we would be on first name terms) 226th birthday. It has been designated 'Frankenstein Day' after her most well known and influential work.

The influence of Frankenstein cannot be overstated. Without it the horror and sci fi genres would not look the same as they do now. The fact that she started the book as something to do while she was on holiday and the weather was terrible is fascinating to me. We were so close to not having this book. She came up with these ground breaking ideas and executed them so beautifully because she was bored. She was eighteen when she did this. I can barely fathom this.

Mary's personal life was no less intriguing than her writing. She was raised by learned and free thinking parents. Her mother was Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the earliest feminist writers. She died, tragically as so many women did in the late eighteenth century, giving birth to her and Mary was raised by her father and his second wife. Her father always surrounded himself with the most brilliant minds of the day and Mary absorbed their ideas.

Her marriage to Percy Bysse Shelley is well documented. She was his second wife, his first wife, Harriet, having taken her own life, possibly as a response to Percy's affair with Mary. Their relationship was passionate and tempestuous, but their love and devotion to each other was genuine. When Percy died, in a sailing accident off the coast of Italy, Mary apparently kept his heart wrapped in a silk scarf for the rest of her life.

She also apparently learned to write her own name by tracing it on her mother's grave.

However goth you are, you will never be as goth as Mary Shelley.

Mary continued to write after her husband's death, keeping herself and her children comfortable. Her other words often dealt with strikingly modern sci Fi themes, such as The Last Man about a man who thinks he is the only one left after a pandemic. She also wrote historical novels, including one about Perkins Warbeck, who claimed to be one of the Princes in the tower to usurp the throne from Henry VII.

She died in 1851 at the age of 53. I cannot imagine what my life would have been without her.

[hacked-wtsdz]

You can’t win as a woman in fiction. Be too positive, you become a Mary Sue, have flaws and those flaws are why almost nobody likes you. Be moderate, you have wet-cabbage personality, be exuberant, you are an unrealistic example. Have strong morals, and you’re badly developed, be morally corrupt and you’re hated with such vigour fans will send hate mail to the actress who plays the character. Be kind and soft and in love, you’re a representation of sexism, be cruel, harsh and cold and you’re just a bitch. Be a complex, realistic, ambiguous character, and either your flaws or your positive traits will be ignored or blown out of proportion and into oblivion. There is no winning for female characters.

[suzannahnatters]

all RIGHT:

Why You're Writing Medieval (and Medieval-Coded) Women Wrong: A RANT

(Or, For the Love of God, People, Stop Pretending Victorian Style Gender Roles Applied to All of History)

This is a problem I see alllll over the place - I'll be reading a medieval-coded book and the women will be told they aren't allowed to fight or learn or work, that they are only supposed to get married, keep house and have babies, &c &c.

If I point this out ppl will be like "yes but there was misogyny back then! women were treated terribly!" and OK. Stop right there.

By & large, what we as a culture think of as misogyny & patriarchy is the expression prevalent in Victorian times - not medieval. (And NO, this is not me blaming Victorians for their theme park version of "medieval history". This is me blaming 21st century people for being ignorant & refusing to do their homework).

Yes, there was misogyny in medieval times, but 1) in many ways it was actually markedly less severe than Victorian misogyny, tyvm - and 2) it was of a quite different type. (Disclaimer: I am speaking specifically of Frankish, Western European medieval women rather than those in other parts of the world. This applies to a lesser extent in Byzantium and I am still learning about women in the medieval Islamic world.)

So, here are the 2 vital things to remember about women when writing medieval or medieval-coded societies

FIRST. Where in Victorian times the primary axes of prejudice were gender and race - so that a male labourer had more rights than a female of the higher classes, and a middle class white man would be treated with more respect than an African or Indian dignitary - In medieval times, the primary axis of prejudice was, overwhelmingly, class. Thus, Frankish crusader knights arguably felt more solidarity with their Muslim opponents of knightly status, than they did their own peasants. Faith and age were also medieval axes of prejudice - children and young people were exploited ruthlessly, sent into war or marriage at 15 (boys) or 12 (girls). Gender was less important.

What this meant was that a medieval woman could expect - indeed demand - to be treated more or less the same way the men of her class were. Where no ancient legal obstacle existed, such as Salic law, a king's daughter could and did expect to rule, even after marriage.

Women of the knightly class could & did arm & fight - something that required a MASSIVE outlay of money, which was obviously at their discretion & disposal. See: Sichelgaita, Isabel de Conches, the unnamed women fighting in armour as knights during the Third Crusade, as recorded by Muslim chroniclers.

Tolkien's Eowyn is a great example of this medieval attitude to class trumping race: complaining that she's being told not to fight, she stresses her class: "I am of the house of Eorl & not a serving woman". She claims her rights, not as a woman, but as a member of the warrior class and the ruling family. Similarly in Renaissance Venice a doge protested the practice which saw 80% of noble women locked into convents for life: if these had been men they would have been "born to command & govern the world". Their class ought to have exempted them from discrimination on the basis of sex.

So, tip #1 for writing medieval women: remember that their class always outweighed their gender. They might be subordinate to the men within their own class, but not to those below.

SECOND. Whereas Victorians saw women's highest calling as marriage & children - the "angel in the house" ennobling & improving their men on a spiritual but rarely practical level - Medievals by contrast prized virginity/celibacy above marriage, seeing it as a way for women to transcend their sex. Often as nuns, saints, mystics; sometimes as warriors, queens, & ladies; always as businesswomen & merchants, women could & did forge their own paths in life

When Elizabeth I claimed to have "the heart & stomach of a king" & adopted the persona of the virgin queen, this was the norm she appealed to. Women could do things; they just had to prove they were Not Like Other Girls. By Elizabeth's time things were already changing: it was the Reformation that switched the ideal to marriage, & the Enlightenment that divorced femininity from reason, aggression & public life.

For more on this topic, read Katherine Hager's article "Endowed With Manly Courage: Medieval Perceptions of Women in Combat" on women who transcended gender to occupy a liminal space as warrior/virgin/saint.

So, tip #2: remember that for medieval women, wife and mother wasn't the ideal, virgin saint was the ideal. By proving yourself "not like other girls" you could gain significant autonomy & freedom.

Finally a bonus tip: if writing about medieval women, be sure to read writing on women's issues from the time so as to understand the terms in which these women spoke about & defended their ambitions. Start with Christine de Pisan.

I learned all this doing the reading for WATCHERS OF OUTREMER, my series of historical fantasy novels set in the medieval crusader states, which were dominated by strong medieval women! Book 5, THE HOUSE OF MOURNING (forthcoming 2023) will focus, to a greater extent than any other novel I've ever yet read or written, on the experience of women during the crusades - as warriors, captives, and political leaders. I can't wait to share it with you all!

[langernameohnebedeutung]

ngl, I'm beginning to take issue with how in conversations about anti-intellectualism almost automatically, the face of girls and women will be slapped on the problem.

[cowsnotcrows]

eat the rich before they eat you

[anaugust]

The game's name is lesbianism and I'm loosing.

[maishiia]

Underrated sapphic media? Fried Green Tomatoes is first on my list

[laurasbailey]

[sawtual]

its genuinely fascinating that some people want to pretend like theres not a problem in fandom/media of a massive preference for male characters. like objectively its not good, thats why theres been such a push for well written fully realized female characters in media nowadays, i mean you look back the amount of shows/movies with (almost) entirely male casts is kind of stunning. a single token female character whos idk killed for the male protags story. representation matters, just bc its just "women" doesnt mean writing stories about women doesnt matter.

[legendarytragedynacho]

Mars Needs Women (1968) Dir, Larry Buchanan

[mina-the-guinea-pig]

The Others of Edenwell

by Verity M. Holloway

Haunting First World War drama.

Edenwell stands in the Norfolk countryside, isolated from the horrors of war in the trenches and slowly starving to death from shortages and rationing. Sometimes, when the wind is in the right direction, you can hear the guns from France.

Alfred 'Freddie' Ferry cannot join up. He was rejected by the army because of his long standing heart condition. The guilt is eating away at Freddie. He worries people look at him in the street and judge him for being there, rather than fighting the good fight at the front. He lives in fear of being handed a white feather.

Freddie is a remarkable young man. He speaks to the corvids, the magpies and the rooks that wheel across the estate and he is a talented artist, exquisitely aware of all the pain and beauty in the world. Never does it occur to him that other people aren't as enamoured with the world as he is.

Eustace Moncrieff wants to go to war. He idolises the soldiers that he meets and dreams of being a sniper. But his wealthy family do not want him to go. They send him to Edenwell to take the cure of the famous waters and pay a doctor to sign him off from active duty.

When Edenwell is commandeered as a rehabilitation hospital the war comes to the estate. But there is also an unidentifiable evil lurking in the woods. As the war story and the blossoming love story between Freddie and Eustace blooms the sense of menace increases. The horror in the woods is barely glimpsed, only leaving devastation in it's wake. The atmosphere thickens, rising to an inevitable, heartbreaking climax.

[flightlessartist]

in hills made of coarse earth and honey🏺

✦ find me on instagram @the.flightless.artist ✦

[suzannahnatters]

So here's one of the coolest things that has happened to me as a Tolkien nut and an amateur medievalist. It's also impacted my view of the way Tolkien writes women. Here's Carl Stephenson in MEDIEVAL FEUDALISM, explaining the roots of the ceremony of knighthood: "In the second century after Christ the Roman historian Tacitus wrote an essay which he called Germania, and which has remained justly famous. He declares that the Germans, though divided into numerous tribes, constitute a single people characterised by common traits and a common mode of life. The typical German is a warrior. [...] Except when armed, they perform no business, either private or public. But it is not their custom that any one should assume arms without the formal approval of the tribe. Before the assembly the youth receives a shield and spear from his father, some other relative, or one of the chief men, and this gift corresponds to the toga virilis among the Romans--making him a citizen rather than a member of a household" (pp 2-3). Got it?

Remember how Tolkien was a medievalist who based his Rohirrim on Anglo-Saxon England, which came from those Germanic tribes Tacitus was talking about? Stephenson argues that the customs described by Tacitus continued into the early middle ages eventually giving rise to the medieval feudal system. One of these customs was the gift of arms, which transformed into the ceremony of knighthood: "Tacitus, it will be remembered, describes the ancient German custom by which a youth was presented with a shield and a spear to mark his attainment of man's estate. What seems to the be same ceremony reappears under the Carolingians. In 791, we are told, Charlemagne caused Prince Louis to be girded with a sword in celebration of his adolescence; and forty-seven years later Louis in turn decorated his fifteen-year-old son Charles "with the arms of manhood, i.e., a sword." Here, obviously, we may see the origin of the later adoubement, which long remained a formal investiture with arms, or with some one of them as a symbol. Thus the Bayeux Tapestry represents the knighting of Earl Harold by William of Normandy under the legend: Hic Willelmus dedit Haroldo arma (Here William gave arms to Harold). [...] Scores of other examples are to be found in the French chronicles and chansons de geste, which, despite much variation of detail, agree on the essentials. And whatever the derivation of the words, the English expression "dubbing to knighthood" must have been closely related to the French adoubement" (pp 47-48.)

In its simplest form, according to Stephenson, the ceremony of knighthood included "at most the presentation of a sword, a few words of admonition, and the accolade." OK. So what does this have to do with Tolkien and his women? AHAHAHAHA I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED. First of all, let's agree that Tolkien, a medievalist, undoubtedly was aware of all the above. Second, turn with me in your copy of The Lord of the Rings to chapter 6 of The Two Towers, "The King of the Golden Hall", when Theoden and his councillors agree that Eowyn should lead the people while the men are away at war. (This, of course, was something that medieval noblewomen regularly did: one small example is an 1178 letter from a Hospitaller knight serving in the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem which records that before marching out to the battle of Montgisard, "We put the defence of the Tower of David and the whole city in the hands of our women".) But in The Lord of the Rings, there's a little ceremony.

"'Let her be as lord to the Eorlingas, while we are gone.' 'It shall be so,' said Theoden. 'Let the heralds announce to the folk that the Lady Eowyn will lead them!' Then the king sat upon a seat before his doors and Eowyn knelt before him and received from him a sword and a fair corselet."

I YELLED when I realised what I was reading right there. You see, the king doesn't just have the heralds announce that Eowyn is in charge. He gives her weapons.

Theoden makes Eowyn a knight of the Riddermark.

Not only that, but I think this is a huge deal for several reasons. That is, Tolkien knew what he was doing here.

From my reading in medieval history, I'm aware of women choosing to fight and bear arms, as well as becoming military leaders while the men are away at some war or as prisoners. What I haven't seen is women actually receiving knighthood. Anyone could fight as a knight if they could afford the (very pricy) horse and armour, and anyone could lead a nation as long as they were accepted by the leaders. But you just don't see women getting knighted like this.

Tolkien therefore chose to write a medieval-coded society, Rohan, where women arguably had greater equality with men than they did in actual medieval societies.

I think that should tell us something about who Tolkien was as a person and how he viewed women - perhaps he didn't write them with equal parity to men (there are undeniably more prominent male characters in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, at least, than female) but compared to the medieval societies that were his life's work, and arguably even compared to the society he lived in, he was remarkably egalitarian.

I think it should also tell us something about the craft of writing fantasy.

No, you don't have to include gut wrenching misogyny and violence against women in order to write "realistic" medieval-inspired fantasy.

Tolkien's fantasy worlds are DEEPLY informed by medieval history to an extent most laypeople will never fully appreciate. The attitudes, the language, the ABSOLUTELY FLAWLESS use of medieval military tactics...heck, even just the way that people travel long distances on foot...all of it is brilliantly medieval.

The fact that Theoden bestows arms on Eowyn is just one tiny detail that is deeply rooted in medieval history. Even though he's giving those arms to a woman in a fantasy land full of elves and hobbits and wizards, it's still a wonderfully historically accurate detail.

Of course, I've ranted before about how misogyny and sexism wasn't actually as bad in medieval times as a lot of people today think. But from the way SOME fantasy authors talk, you'd think that historical accuracy will disappear in a puff of smoke if every woman in the dragon-infested fantasy land isn't being traumatised on the regular.

Tolkien did better. Be like Tolkien.

[sanguineships]

seeing canon x canon art with your f/o in it and it’s really really cute and well done but it makes you so jealous you want to turn radioactive

[halfrican-heat]

Backseat Driver (Ony)

Ony likes when you beg for a ride in his car.

A/N: Yes, I'm high. Hello. I am about to start posting these Onyankopon ideas I have in my head. This is the first one. Enjoy!

Warnings: Explicit Sexual Content; Vaginal Fingering, AFAB! Reader (breasts mentioned), Oral Sex (F receiving), Cursing, AAVE/Dialogue with Dialect, Public Sex, Overstimulation, Choking, Minor Oral Fixation, Minor dacryphilia (crying kink), Explicit depiction of Sex (p in v); Not beta'd, barely proofread (will update as needed later)

Pairing: Onyankopon x Black!Reader

WC: 3k

“Ony, please!”

Your voice comes out breathless and high-pitched as another orgasm courses through you. Ony lifts his head from your drenched cunt, a Cheshire grin on his face. He slides two fingers inside your wetness with ease and chuckles at the way your walls clamp around his digits. 

His car is pulled off into a hidden spot on the side of the road— not easily seen from the highway. He has your bodycon dress bunched up to your waist, the top pulled down to expose your breasts as he finger-fucks you.

Ony takes in your tear-streaked face, the sight going straight to his dick.  

“What’s that, mama?” He teases. “I can’t understand you.”

You whimper as his fingers work in and out of you at an agonizingly slow pace.

“You was talkin’ all that shit earlier. Distracting daddy from his business, right? Say somethin’ now.”

Your hand shoots to grip his bicep as the other goes for the car door behind you, nails scratching at it helplessly. 

“Daddy, please,” You whine, tears leaking from your eyes. “Let me ride. Need to feel you this time.”

He smirks, shaking his head. 

“I ain’t tryna hear that. Them pretty tears ain't gonna faze me, baby. Say you sorry to daddy for distracting him.”

His fingers shift position, finding that spot deep inside that makes you see stars. A guttural moan rips itself from your throat, sounding like music to Ony’s ears. His fingers work faster, rushing you toward another finish. 

“Wait, daddy! Wait- I’m sorry, daddy,” you cry, running from his punishing fingers

He yanks you back down using his free hand while his thumb starts to circle your overstimulated clit. 

“For what?” Ony demands, his voice low and sexy. 

“F-for distracting you on your business.”

His fingers stop moving entirely and you can’t decide what’s worse— the overstimulation or nothing happening at all. You clench around his fingers helplessly. 

Ony moves his free hand to your neck, forcing your head up so your dazed eyes meet his. 

“And?”

You take a shaky breath, licking your lips. Ony looks delectable, barely breaking a sweat as he tortures you within an inch of your life. His chain glints in the sunlight and the urge to pull into your mouth rolls through you. He tilts his head, looking at you expectantly. You swallow thickly. 

“For sayin’ I could find someone else to fuck me.”

His hand around your throat tightens slightly. His gaze is darker, more dangerous than before. 

“Why?”

You bite your lip, a soft moan escaping you. 

“‘Cause this pussy is yours, daddy.”

“You damn right,” He rasps, releasing your throat. 

You fall backwards slightly and watch with hooded eyes as his hands go to undo his belt. He frees himself from the confines of his jeans, pulling you over him like it’s nothing. His grip on your hips is tight as he holds you over his length, teasing your folds with his fat tip. 

The sound is lewd and wet as Ony gets himself ready for your creamy cunt. Then, without warning, he pulls you down on his length and grins widely at your scream as he impales you. 

Your head swims as you adjust to him, squeezing tightly around his cock. His jaw clenches as he watches your head loll back, overcome with pleasure. Ony grabs your jaw, pulling your head forward. 

Your gaze is unfocused as he slides his fingers in your mouth, rubbing them against your tongue. You taste your previous orgasms on his fingers. Your lips close around his digits, sucking without being told to. 

“That’s my baby,” Ony groans, barely containing himself. 

He pulls his fingers from your mouth, snaking his hand behind your head. He pulls you in for a nasty kiss, his tongue sliding in your mouth easily. He bites your bottom lip as you separate, his eyes lust blown. His free hand finds your ass cheek, smacking hard before squeezing.

“C’mon,” Ony says. “Ride your dick, mama.”

[chrissy-kaos]

Don’t mind me I’m just reading my new spicy book 🥵.