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imayoyo · 9 years

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Bad Girls Do It Well: A Reading List of Rebellious Victorian Women (in Novels by Women)

‘Well-behaved women seldom make history.’

On the off-chance that anyone still believes that Victorian women were swooning, doe-eyed, moronic, and naive puppets tossed about for the benefit of men: BEHOLD! A reading list – of women, by women, for all – of self-sufficient ladies with brains, sass, and (in several cases) very little they wouldn’t do. Here are my Top 10 Ladies of c19 Fiction You Should Absolutely Know…

Lyndall (from Olive Schreiner’s The Story of an African Farm) “If the bird does like its cage, and does like its sugar and will not leave it, why keep the door so very carefully shut? Why not open it, only a little? Do they know there is many a bird will not break its wings against the bars, but would fly if the doors were open?”

Helen Graham (from Anne Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall) “You may have as many words as you please, – only I can’t stay to hear them.”

Maggie Tulliver (from George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss) [full scene here] At last Maggie, with a violent snatch, drew her hand away, and her pent-up, long-gathered irritation burst into utterance. “Don’t suppose that I think you are right, Tom, or that I bow to your will. I despise the feelings you have shown in speaking to Philip; I detest your insulting, unmanly allusions to his deformity. You have been reproaching other people all your life; you have been always sure you yourself are right. It is because you have not a mind large enough to see that there is anything better than your own conduct and your own petty aims.“

Lady Sibyl (from Marie Corelli’s The Sorrows of Satan) “Oh no, it doesn’t,” she declared—“I have seen so many like it. And I have read so many novels on just the same theme! I assure you, I am quite convinced that the so-called ‘bad’ woman is the only popular type of our sex with men,—she gets all the enjoyment possible out of life,—she frequently makes an excellent marriage, and has, as the Americans say ‘a good time all round.’ It’s the same thing with our convicted criminals,—in prison they are much better fed than the honest working-man. I believe it is quite a mistake for women to be respectable,—they are only considered dull.”

Lady Lucy Audley (from Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret) My lady’s face was so much in shadow, that Sir Michael Audley was unaware of the bright change that came over its sickly pallor as he made this very commonplace observation. A triumphant smile illuminated Lucy Audley’s countenance, a smile that plainly said, "It is coming—it is coming; I can twist him which way I like. I can put black before him, and if I say it is white, he will believe me.”

Gertrude Lorimer and nearly the whole female cast (from Amy Levy’s The Romance of a Shop) ‘We all have to bear things, Conny; often this kind of thing, we women.[…] You have no end of pluck. One day you are going to be very happy.’ ‘Never, Gerty….’ ‘There are other things which make happiness besides–pleasant things happening to one.’ ‘What sort of things?’ Gertrude paused a minute, then said bravely: ‘Our own self-respect, and the integrity of the people we care for.’ ‘That sounds very nice,’ replied Conny, without enthusiasm, ‘but I should like a little of the more obvious sorts of happiness as well.’ Gertrude gave a laugh, which was also a sob. ‘So should I, Conny, so should I.’

Lady Isabel Vane (from Mrs. Henry Wood’s East Lynne) I shall get in for it, I fear, if I attempt to defend her. But it was not exactly the same thing, as though she suffered herself to fall in love with somebody else’s husband. Nobody would defend that…. But this was a peculiar case. She, poor thing, almost regarded Mr. Carlyle as her husband. The bent of her thoughts was only too much inclined to this. The evil human heart again. Many and many a time did she wake up from a reverie, and strive to drive this mistaken view of things away from her, taking shame to herself. Ten minutes afterward, she would catch her brain reveling in the same rebellious vision…. You may, therefore, if you have the pleasure of being experienced in this sort of thing, guess a little of what her inward life was. Had there been no [other women] in the case, she might have lived and borne it; as it was, it had killed her before her time, that and the remorse together.

Perdita Winstanley, and Mrs. Bell Blount (from Eliza Lynn Linton’s The Rebel of the Family) ‘I do not wish to be provoking,’ said Perdita, coming nearer to her sister and speaking earnestly; ‘I only want to be myself, and honest.’

Lucy Snowe (from Charlotte Bronte’s Villette) Thus, there remained no possibility of dependence on others; to myself alone could I look. I know not that I was of a self-reliant or active nature; but self-reliance and exertion were forced upon me by circumstances, as they are upon thousands besides… [and the difficult, rebellious, unconventional woman par excellence…]

Catherine Earnshaw (from Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights) ‘I wish I could hold you,’ she continued, bitterly, ‘till we were both dead! I shouldn’t care what you suffered. I care nothing for your sufferings. Why shouldn’t you suffer? I do! […] the thing that irks me most is this shattered prison, after all. I’m tired of being enclosed here. I’m wearying to escape into that glorious world, and to be always there: not seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it through the walls of an aching heart: but really with it, and in it. Nelly, you think you are better and more fortunate than I; in full health and strength: you are sorry for me—very soon that will be altered. I shall be sorry for you. I shall be incomparably beyond and above you all.’

For a full list of mad, bad, and independent c19 fictional ladies, as well as some nonfiction and recent critical material, click the link! And then browse the women tag for more quotes and profiles.

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imayoyo · 9 years

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Blind loyalty is simple; the problem only begins when the world makes you open your eyes. Sakura-centric, AU, pre-timeskip.

miraculously caught the 20th chapter 30 minutes after it was posted and remembered I never recc’d Loyalty

this is one of those stories i initially brushed off bc the intro didn’t work for me but i came back too a few weeks later and then spent the next two days cramming into my brain with both hands b/c Sakura as a spy!

so many warnings on this!!

#screams at the top of her lungs for the next twenty years over this fic

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imayoyo · 9 years

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Do you think you're a good person? he wrote in hard, spiky letters, You're not. You're a torturer, Hermione Granger. His comments made her sad and angry and resentful but, ultimately, Hermione was ready for them. Anything he said to her, she'd already said to herself. And, increasingly, Hermione was coming to understand that she didn't need to be a good person to respect herself. Good people didn't always get results.

“The Two Body Problem” by Tozette

#i am so predictable

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imayoyo · 9 years

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Update - The Two Body Problem - Chapter 7

“What does it even matter who my parents were?” she snarled. She whirled on Ron. “Why do wizards even care? And you,” she snapped at Harry, “your mother was a muggleborn! Was she not a good witch?” “We don’t!” Ron yelped, looking a little panicked. “I didn’t say anything?” Harry said, sounding mystified. Hermione scowled at both of them. “Well,” she said firmly after a second, feeling awkward and a little silly, “good.” The boys shared a careful look. Ron opened his mouth, but Harry kicked him in the ankle. “Er,” said Harry. “Is this about your research?” Hermione, seeing a way to explain her outburst, slumped onto the couch beside Ron and heaved a huge sigh. “Yes,” she admitted. “Some wizards have some really foul opinions about muggleborns,” she said sourly. “Well,” said Ron reasonably, “not all wizards.”

Read it here, and then reblog this so I can corrupt more young minds. That’s what you want, right? More young minds corrupted? Wh– no? A… are you sure?

#here for it #a genuinely fun story

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imayoyo · 9 years

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we wants the #9

Augh! I don’t have anything that I’m actively working on, but here’s the entirety of the first part of That AU Where Jim Morita Is Captain America that I never finished revising or wrote part two of.

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imayoyo · 9 years

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He’d thought all that remained was for one of them to find the courage to ask.

an the eagle fandom classic

He wants to speak, to offer. He tries for some weeks to gather the words together and finds he can’t; how can he say, over a dish of beans, over dosing a goat with a bad cough, that he’ll spread his legs for Esca for a few kisses, that he’d rather be shamed than lie alone in a cold bed.

#f:the eagle

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imayoyo · 9 years

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Gong Li as Severine

You start with the bed. A mattress, really, locked up in a room that smells hot no matter what the temperature, because at that age you haven’t learned fine-point words, gentle swaying words, acid engraving words. All you have is your body and the bed, to sink deep into like it’s your armor.

You start with the bed low to the ground, and it gets higher, it grows legs and a headboard and a canopy and ripe pillows to dig your nails into. Your bed grows until it fills up the room and then there’s a sweaty-shiny car ice-skating through the streets with you inside, sweaty-shiny leather car with mirrored wood and death-silent engine. The car takes you to a bar that glowers and pulses against your skin even if it’s a restaurant or a hotel, they’re all just bars, black cars and black bars. Sometimes the cars are red and arched, sometimes the bar is diamond-sunny, like it’s forced all the light in the world into its skin.

The car takes you back, only this time the space is a little smaller, a little hotter, and you press your nail-points against the glass, tossing what small light you’ve squeezed from the bar onto the streets, onto the night-lamps, because the sweaty-shiny-silent car is taking you back to the bed, the swollen-shrink-swelling bed, the mattress where you started, two inches above ground that blacks your feet.

#fine-point words

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imayoyo · 9 years

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Secret History - Donna Tartt Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Richard Papen/Henry Winter Characters: Richard Papen, Henry Winter, Charles Macaulay, Francis Abernathy, Edmund "Bunny" Corcoran, Julian Morrow (Secret History) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe Summary: When Henry comes back from Italy early and saves Richard's life, he sets things in motion that neither of them would've predicted.

#my trash baby richard #i came for incestuous twins and had to leave bc richard #stressed me the fuck out #but i still love that little shit

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imayoyo · 9 years

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In order to cement a truce between the two villages, Konoha and Iwa exchange recently graduated academy students. Fortunately, if anything were to go wrong, Haruno Sakura was just average enough to risk losing.

seriously obsessed with this, read the entire thing in a 24 hour period like an idiot and now i’m dying, the hiatus is killing me

i desperately need deidara and sakura to reunite and for both of them to be conscious this time and not on the brink of death

#tho probs one will be dying bc that's how this series works #which is actually one of my favorite things about this story #kids getting into fights #even with serious training #do actually get injured even when the mission is a relative success #child abuse cw #abuse cw #ninja'ing is scary and devastating #a general warning for extreme violence and trauma

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imayoyo · 9 years

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To be a leader is no easy thing.

It is amusing, however, that this leader has always wanted to be a leader. Considering all that rot about the best leaders not wanting to lead, it is interesting how popular this one is and was.

Oh, but he was crafty. He played the fool or the grandfather or the mentor, without ever truly being any of those things, because at heart, he was a leader. Leaders make difficult choices, as they must, but this leader…well, his choices had never been difficult in the sense that they were hard to do.

It was only that they were hard to bear.

Take the boy, for instance. What boy, you ask? Oh, well, any boy.

There was the soulless one, who was allowed into Hogwarts even after his murdering, because it was better to be within these walls than without it.

Or the other boy, the friendless one, who was allowed to consort and to bully and to isolate himself, because it was a lesson for others, and because, in the end, there was a desperation in him, and desperation can be wielded when the desperate inevitably break.

Or the last boy, the favoured one, who had to live with the lowly and the abusive to soften the heart, to make him love this world more than he could ever love the other one.

Evil? No. Wrong? Perhaps.

But think how it might have become, had their leader not chosen so. Think of the soulless boy, who would lose all he held dear and rise to power before he could be corralled? Or of the friendless boy, if he were admonished and miserable, and so never became desperate enough to salvage. Or of the favoured boy, who would leave the world that hates and loves him by turns, who was made to be soft and to die and then return.

These choices were made, and these difficulties born, because he was a leader.

The greater good is all that matters. You would do well to remember that.

- Transmission of Former Headmaster Phineas Nigellus Black to Current Headmaster Neville Longbottom in the year 2021

(written and submitted by the lovely petrichorlore. I adore ‘Character A’s perspective on Character B’ stories, and petrichorlore pulls this off beautifully here. By sketching out a meta on Dumbledore, she cleverly gives us a view into Phineas Nigellus and the Slytherin perspective, a masterful misdirection that is beautifully executed.)

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imayoyo · 9 years

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Mr. Rosier taught his son how to walk, fly, and fish for Lobalugs. They went to seaside towns and for brisk country strolls, and into London to tour the magical wings of the British museum. They saw sorcerous puppet shows in Venice each summer, strolling afterwards along brilliantly-lit canals; and they sat for portraits in Parisian studios, collecting records of each wonderful moment, each happy memory, which they would then bring home and arrange on the wall, a joyous map of lives well-lived.

Mr. Rosier’s son grew merry and wicked and spoiled and sinister. And he died rather than lose those memories. And on the wall, each image of the loving, frivolous father seemed to shrivel up, to curl in on himself, grieving.

They grieve there still.

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imayoyo · 9 years

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Now Fawley — that old substitute who Slughorn, in his lazier moods, had sometimes dragged in for a guest lecture — had a daughter. And this daughter had married a Muggle, and Fawley hadn’t even said anything to her about it, hadn’t cast her out or cursed the child that resulted from her union, hadn’t fought this erosion of the blood, this insult to Mr. Nott’s social statics. For this Fawley had to pay. So he was lured out under pretense of a party, with an untraceable letter doused in Mrs. Malfoy’s perfume (curious, Dark, the base of which was jasmine grown in starlight, the better to make wizards feel as though they could never refuse her) and charmed to disappear as soon as he’d read it, charmed by the careful hand of Mrs. Malfoy’s elder sister.

And there was another unexpected guest at the party, a repellent person, a person with glittering black eyes and one Muggle parent, who seemed not to have been reared in starlight, but rather to have clawed his way in by fits and starts. And everyone thought it would be very funny if it should be he that made Fawley pay. Even he thought it would be very funny.

This was a surprise to Fawley, who remembered him as scowling, studious, hunched over a cauldron, usually the butt of the joke. Fawley had noted the sallow hand waving impatiently in the air during lectures; had seen the furious corrections to that old windbag, Borage; had watched the black eyes hunger after some kind of greatness, all of which seemed to promise that someday this person might learn that even the very delightful things in life, such as parties and starlight, might be tossed over for something bigger.

Fawley had seen potential. Not good, you understand. Not yet. But potential.

"I don’t fear this," Fawley told him, “I will continue to love my daughter; she’ll know that I loved her, because I do not renounce her. She’ll see this as a kind of greatness, even. But you? Once you do this, you cannot undo it. Whatever you might become, it will be marred by this. You will be marred by this."

But Snape did not listen to him. Snape had great potential for evil as well as for good. And so whatever he would make of himself, whatever he might reach for and claw after in the coming years, it would always be marred by this. Always.

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imayoyo · 9 years

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Chapters: 5/? Fandom: Fargo (2014) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con Relationships: Lorne Malvo/Lester Nygaard Characters: Lorne Malvo, Lester Nygaard, Molly Solverson, Gus Grimly, Mr. Numbers, Mr. Wrench, Don Chumph, Dmitri Milos, Stavros Milos Additional Tags: Rape/Non-con Elements, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Threats of Violence, Stockholm Syndrome, Kidnapping, Manipulation, Mild Language, Minor Character Death, Assassins & Hitmen, Spoilers, Violence Summary:

Having been released from the hospital, Lester wholly intends to make an honest effort to turn what's left of his life in the right direction. That is, of course, until a certain hitman for hire darkens his doorway once more, keen on seeing that Lester doesn't waste the opportunity he's given him to become something more than a simple insurance salesman.

Lester sees now what he should have seen the night he first met the man:

Lorne Malvo is the devil.

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imayoyo · 9 years

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But can you imagine that Drift with Stacker and Chuck? Memories of Tamsin, Luna, countless others, Mako with tears on her cheeks Then and Now ("so proud to have watched you grow"). And Angela and Max and watching Herc try (fail) to step up and uncle Scott and being ' raised in a cockpit'. And as Stacker activates the bomb that will kill them ("clear a path for the lady") coming to the realization that Blood does not make a Family. *Pacific rim-feels*

The Drift draws its own connections.

Stacker tells Chuck that he had Chuck pegged as an egotistical jerk with daddy issues from the first day, but they’ll Drift together all right, and it’s true. Their neural handshake is clean and deep. Partially, it’s because they share memories of Herc and Mako; partially, it’s because they’re disciplined, experienced Rangers. Stacker remembers when Drifting was hard, not like these modern adaptive PONS interfaces that read your pattern and adjust accordingly. He remembers when the neural keys were hard-wired and you had to clear your mind of everything and recite the same sixty-four bit sequence over and over and you couldn’t think of anything else during the synch sequence or you’d introduce error into the Drift. You don’t have to do that these days, but he hears Chuck doing it. Old protocols. Raised in the cockpit of a Mark-I and stepped straight into the cockpit of a Mark-V.

But there’s another connection between them: Stacker stabs a man at twelve and burns down a building for his father. Once inside Chuck’s brain, he feels that call-and-response jolt, when you mesh with someone, but find a little piece of yourself already there.

Pentecost understands what it means to be as angry as Chuck Hansen.

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imayoyo · 9 years

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I don’t even know who I’ve BECOME anymore.