What I like to see in stories
Watching a film again and thinking about things I like to see in films and read in books.
In this film the third character, the best friend type, absolutely has her own life going on. She is one hundred percent a Hero of Another Story. The film where she is the main character and these two fools are just nonsenses she has to deal with in her day is completely clear and easily imaginable. There are several fics. Justice for best friend secondary-type characters!
There's a tv show that ten years ago was my whole heart and they had a character who - I'm almost certain - only existed offscreen. The main cast just borrowed Moira's stuff or complained Moira was tying up the phone line, and so on. I'm too sad about that show to ever watch it again so cannot fact check this. In any case, it's an idea I love. Combined with the above. I fully imagine Moira offscreen saving the world.
There are things we collectively have, for reasons I assume to do with the capitalist patriarchy, hidden from history. And even now, from sight. Women smoking. Women having hair on their bodies. Women loving one another. Women.
(Reminder to self: This is not supposed to be a list of complaints this is supposed to be a list of good things.)
The good thing: women. Also, in the long book I'm still reading, The Corner That Held Them: nuns. I'm not going to say "nuns behaving badly" because it's too easy. Just being themselves. My understanding of nuns comes largely from the savage maunts in Wicked the book. The idea that nuns might be bickering, criminal old women with a great many small dogs is not new to me. Women just being.
Also, another book I'm reading, Her Secret Service, about women in British intelligence. Women overlooked. At the time, and still now. But being brought forward and considered and appreciated.
So this turned out as, What I like to see in stories: women. And I'm okay with that.