Recs: Women Creating Their Story

[rachelmanija]

This is for a possible Sirens presentation. The theme this year is "retold tales."

Can you recommend to me fantasy media or myth in which female characters, in some sense, alter reality by telling stories about it?

This "altering reality" doesn't have to be magic in itself; the ultimate example is Scheherazade, who changes the world by telling stories. There's also Martha's world-changing storytelling in Doctor Who.

The other examples I thought of were magical: Paperhouse (girl creates spooky new reality by drawing it), Fudoki (a dying princess of the Heian court writes a story about a cat who becomes a woman; she may or may not create a reality in which the story is true), The Secret Country (kids create a fantasy world, then travel to it and find that it is and isn't as they imagined), The Tricksters (characters from a girl's lush fantasy narrative show up, again not exactly as she pictured them), Voices (Annals of the Western Shore) (spoilery but sort of fits), Witch Week (the entire climax depends on a girl telling a story which alters reality.)

Can you think of others? Especially, examples from myth and folklore, and examples which aren't about white girls?

ETA: If you rec something, please explain how it fits.

Comments

[oyceter]

I don't know how much this works, since there isn't much actual storytelling or writing involved, but I feel like Utena is very much about Utena trying to change the narrative of fairy tales by becoming the prince, and in the movie, she and Anthy literally break out of the screen via naked car forms. Kind of edge case, but mostly the frame of the episodes and the silhouette puppet narrator girls in each episode reminded of this.

[cereta]

I wanted to thank you for mentioning Fudoki here. I'm reading it right now, and am in utter bliss.

[cereta]

Whoops, thread fail. Sorry.