#that my semi-breaks from this one in particular has been good because I've been able to allow myself to dive into things rather than endles

[thornedswan]

It's strange for me having not been on this blog for a good bit, consistently that is. I hope each and every one of you could find a small joy in your day to carry with you. Remember to be gentle with yourself even when everything else comes down hard. You deserve nourishment just as much as anyone, you are not the exception.

[lee-scribbles-and-doodles]

My Top Ten Overlooked Movies With Female Leads In No Particular Order

Note: When you see this emoji (⚠️) I will be talking about things people may find triggering, which are spoilery more often then not. I mention things that I think may count as triggers so that people with them will be aware before going in to watch any of these.

Edited: 3/16/21

Hanna (2011)

So, before I get into why you should watch this movie, I just want to take a moment to say why it's near and dear to my heart. Growing up as a queer kid in the early 2000s, seeing portrayals of people like or similar to myself on anything was rare at best. It was mostly in more "adult" movies or shows that my parents would occasionally let me watch with them that I'd see any lgbtq+ rep at all. Often times they were either walking stereotypes, designed to be buried, evil, or all three.

Then here comes this PG-13 action thriller with a wonderfully written main female lead who, at the time, was close to my age, and who got to kiss another girl (her very first friend, Sophie) on screen in an extremely tender and heartwarming scene. To say the least, it was a life changing moment for me personally.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, Hanna is a suspenseful movie about a child super-soldier named, you guessed it, Hanna (played by Saoirse Ronan) and her adoptive (?) father Erik Heller (played by Eric Bana) exiting the snowy and isolated wilderness of their home and taking on the shadowy CIA operative, Marissa Wiegler (played by Cate Blanchette) who wants Erik dead and Hanna for herself for mysterious reasons.

It also has an amazing soundtrack by the Chemical Brothers, great action scenes, and it has an over arching fairytale motif, which I'm always a sucker for.

⚠️ Mild blood effects, some painful looking strikes, various character deaths, and child endangerment all feature in this film. However, given its PG-13 rating, a majority of viewers are presumably able to handle this one. Still, be aware of these going in.

Sidenote: It's recently gotten a TV adaptation on Amazon TV, although I have not watched it, and do not know if Hanna and Sophie's romantic/semi-romantic relationship has transferred over.

A Simple Favor

A Simple Favor is a "black-comedy mystery thriller" centered entirely around the relationship between two mothers, the reclusive, rich, mysterious, and regal Emily (played by Blake Lively), and the local recently widowed but plucky mommy blogger, Stephanie (played by Anna Kendrick). When Emily suddenly goes missing, Stephanie takes it upon herself to find out what happened to her new best friend.

It's a fantastic and entertaining movie throughout, with fun, flawed and interesting characters. The relationship between the two female leads is also implied to be at least somewhat romantic in nature, and they even share a kiss.

⚠️ The only major warnings I can think of is that the movie contains an instance of incest and one of the main plotlines revolves around child abuse, although both of these potentially triggering topics are not connected to each other, so there is thankfully no csa going on.

Edit: I legitimately forgot there was drug use in this movie until now. So, yeah, if that's a trigger, be careful of that.

I Am Mother

I became mildly obsessed with this movie when it came out. I Am Mother is a sci-fi film that centers entirely around a cast of two woman, and a female-adjacent robot who is brought to life on screen with absolutely amazing practical effects.

The plot is such, after an extinction-level event, a lone robot known only as Mother tasks herself with replenishing the human race via artifical means. She begins with the film's main protagonist, Daughter. Years go by as Mother raises her human child and the two prepare for Daughter's first sibling (a brother) to be born. However, on Daughter's 16th birthday, the arrival of an outsider known only as Woman shakes Daughter's entire world view. She begins to question Mother's very nature, as well as what's really going on outside the bunker she and her caretaker call home.

⚠️ This movie features child endangerment and reference to child death.

Lilo and Stitch

When I decided to add a single Disney film to this list I initially thought it was going to be hard but almost immediately my brain went to Lilo and Stitch, and specifically about the relationship between Lilo and Nani.

On the surface, this film is about a lonely little girl accidentally adopting a fugitive alien creature as a "dog," but underneath that the story is also about two orphaned sisters and the older sister's attempts to not let social services tear them apart by stepping up as the younger sister's primary guardian. Despite its seemingly goofy premise, Lilo and Stitch has a very emotional and thoughtful center. It's little wonder how this movie managed to spawn an entire franchise.

Despite the franchise it spawned (or possibly because of it), I often find that Lilo and Stitch is overlooked and many people only remember it for the "little girl adopts an alien as a pet" portion of its plot, and I very rarely see it on people's top 10 Disney lists.

⚠️ This movie could be potentially triggering to people who were separated from their siblings or other family members due to social service intervention. There's also a bit of child endangerment, including a scene where Lilo and Stitch both almost drown.

Nausicaä and the Valley of the Wind

Unlike the above entry, I did struggle a little bit with picking a single Studio Ghibli film. Most media of the Ghibli catalogue have strong, well-written, unique, and interesting female leads so selecting just one seemed like quite the task.

However, I eventually settled on this particular film. In recent months, Princess Nausicaä has become my absolute favorite Ghibli protagonist and I'm absolutely enchanted by the world she lives in.

Set in a post-apocalyptic world overun by giant insects and under threat of a toxic forest and its poisoness spores, Nausicaä must try to protect the Valley of the Wind from invaders as she also tries to understand the science behind the toxic forest and attempts to bridge the gap between the insects and the humans.

For those who have never seen the film, I think Nausicaä's personality can best be described as being similar to OT Luke Skywalker. Both are caring, compassionate, and gentle souls who are able to see the best in nearly anyone or anything. She's an absolutely enthralling protagonist and after rewatching the film again for the first time in well over a decade she has easily become one of my all time favorite protagonists.

Whenever I see people talk about Ghibli films, they rarely mention this one, and when they do mention it, it's often in passing. In my opinion it's a must watch.

⚠️ This movie contains some blood, and the folks who either don't like insects or who have entomophobia may not appreciate the giant bugs running about throughout the movie. (Although most insects do not directly relate to real life bugs, and are fantasy creatures).

A Silent Voice

A Silent Voice is an animated movie adaptation of a manga of the same name. While I've never had the pleasure to read the manga, the movie is phenomenal. It covers topics such a bullying, living in the world with a disability, the desire for atonement, social anxiety, and depression in a well thought out manner that ties itself together through the progression of the relationship between its two leads, Shoya and Shouko. It's also beautifully animated. Although very popular among anime viewers, I've noticed that it's often overlooked by people who watch little to no anime. So I suppose this is me urging non-anime viewers to give this film a chance.

⚠️ As mentioned above, the movie deals with bullying, anxiety, and depression (with this last one including suicidal thoughts and behaviour). If discussion of those topics are triggering to you, than you may want to proceed with caution or skip this movie all together.

In This Corner of The World

Another manga adaptation, this one taking place during WWII-era Japan. In This Corner of The World follows the life of a civilian Japanese woman, Suzu Urano, as she navigates simply living and her new marriage as the wartime invades nearly all aspects of everyday life. I think this movie is a good representation of what it must be like to be living as civilian in a country at war where the fight is sometimes fought on one's own soil. It was also an interesting look into pre-50s Japanese culture in my opinion. It's also beautifully animated featuring an art style I don't see often.

Despite it being well known among anime fans, I never really see it be brought up, even among said anime fans themselves.

Side note: I've seen many WWII dramas centering around civilians but they've almost always been about American or UK civilians. This was the first movie I'd seen that features the perspective of a Japanese civilain.

⚠️ Features the death of a child and limb loss. There's also a disturbing scene featuring a victim of one of the atomic bombs near the end.

Wolf Children: Ame and Yuki

This film follows Hana, a Japan-native woman who fell in love with a magical shape-shifting wolf-man, and her trials with raising their children, who can also magically shape-shift into wolves, on her own. It's a very heartfelt movie about a mother's love and the struggles of doing right by your children when you have limited resources to actively guide and care for them. All the characters feel unique and alive in my opinion. Also, the animation is so good that my sister and I initially mistook it for a Ghibli film.

Again, like the previous two anime entries, I don't see it ever brought up outside of anime circles.

⚠️ There's some child endangerment present in the film, although none of it is the fault of Hana as far as I can remember.

Roman Holiday

Roman Holiday is about the fictional Princess Ann (played by Audrey Hepburn), who while on a whirlwind tour of Europe, finally reaches her breaking point over having her entire life be one big schedule and all her words and actions being rehearsed. In the spur of the moment, she runs away in hopes of experiencing what life is like for other women. Unfortunately, she was previously given a sedative, meaning she doesn't get too far before it takes effect. Fortunately, she is found by the kind reporter Joe Bradley (played by Gregory Peck). Believing her to be drunk and unable to get an address from her (because she has none) he ends up taking her home for safety's sake and allows her to sleep off her suppose drunken stupor. The next day, he realizes who she is, and decides to take her on a fun sight seeing trip across Rome in hopes of getting the big scoop. Along the way, they begin to fall for each other.

This is my favorite black and white, old romance film. I think the relationship between the main characters is absolutely beautiful and I have a lot of fun watching it.

⚠️ I'm not entirely sure what kind of warning this film would need. However, it was released in 1953, so values dissonance will probably be at play for many viewers to at least some extent. For example, early in the film Ann is given sedation drugs by her doctor for her behavior, something that is very unlikely to happen today. Also, Mr Bradley deciding to take Ann home to keep her safe rather than call the police or an ambulance is a very pre-90s decision in my opinion.

[ninawritesastory]

So, I started following you because your posts on Creek are fantastic and have fueled headcanons for days but I've recently stumbled into enjoying Style (I'm new to this fandom) and a tag on one of your recent reblogs leads me to ask: what do you think needs to happen in order for Style to work? What growing up and experience do you think they need? And, in the end, how do you ultimately see them once they've achieved that?

Holy crow, thank you so much! I’m glad you’re enjoying all of the Creek, and I’m glad you’re getting plenty of headcanons out of it. Half the time I feel like I’m just rambling nonsensically into the void and none of what I’m saying makes any sense, so it’s always nice to hear that it’s making sense to someone! xD

And welcome to the South Park fandom, by the way! I think this is one of the chillest, least toxic fandoms I’m part of (so long as you stay away from. like, the Kyman vs. Style ship wars; maybe it’s calmed down a bunch, but it used to be fairly…interesting) and there are TONS of awesome artists and writers, as I’m sure you’re discovering. I hope you have lots of fun and find some good stuff.

Now, thing about Style is that, after the events of You’re Getting Old/Assburgers in particular, there’s a clear shift in the maturity levels between Kyle and Stan. The main problem here is that, for all intents and purposes, Kyle is a lot like Cartman. The key difference is that Kyle is always convinced he’s morally superior while Cartman doesn’t really give a shit about moral superiority.

There have been multiple instances throughout the show where Kyle has demonstrated a definite lack of emotional sensitivity to the point where I’d consider it largely canon that he has trouble empathizing with others. His treatment of Stan in You’re Getting Old and Assburgers is pretty much what had me pushing back my realm of feasibility for the Style relationship. Kyle can’t empathize with Stan’s developing depression; he outright says that Stan’s worsening mental health is toxic to him. And while I can understand that, to some degree, the fact that Kyle was willing to abandon Stan once his depression was starting to worsen really turned me off from canonical Style.

I have depression myself, and I know from experience how shitty it is to have the people you care about turn their backs on you because you’re no longer smiling and laughing at the same stuff you used to. Depression fucks with you in ways that drastically alter who you are. And if you decide to seek out treatment and keep up with it, who you become as you recover is fairly rarely who you were before you spiraled. If you’ve ever seen Inside Out (which has a FANTASTIC way of showing what depression feels like), think of the Personality Islands going dark and crumbling away. It’s a lot like that: what interested you, what you valued, what you loved, you’re likely to lose your connections to those things and even once you begin recovery there’s a chance that you won’t be able to reestablish those interests, or at least to the same strength that you had them before. Depression more or less chews you up and spits you out, and when you start recovering, you’re essentially a blank slate in terms of your interests.

And Stan…never actually gets any real treatment. Personally, I was really confused when Stan’s obvious descriptions of depression were immediately linked by Mr. Mackey to Asperger’s Syndrome. (Which made it really difficult for me to keep up with the rest of the episode, because it kind of felt like they just wanted to make the Ass Burgers joke and went from a depression-focused storyline to an autism-focused one.) But, the only “treatment” Stan gets at all is alcohol. It’s literally poured down his throat without his consent. Even once the episode comes to a close, Stan never receives any actual treatment and so has to rely on the only “solution” he was exposed to.

But, anyway, from those episodes onwards, there’s been a distinct imbalance in Stan and Kyle’s relationship. Their “Super Best Friends” status is starting to feel more and more superficial. Because Stan is fairly emotionally intelligent. He’s highly empathetic, even if he can be self-centered on a semi-regular basis. And Stan is definitely in the processing of growing up just a little too fast due to his issues with depression, addiction, and substance abuse. He’s taking responsibility for himself at an age when he really shouldn’t have to—at least, not in those areas.

Meanwhile, Kyle doesn’t really have anything pushing him to grow. (Prior to last season, at any rate.) He’s ten and there’s nothing in his immediate experience that is forcing him to think more maturely. The closest he ever comes is with Ike, but since Ike is not someone he has to take care of on a regular basis, any maturity he shows in those moments is fleeting and kind of superficial. Kyle doesn’t have any reason to reevaluate how he relates to people, his empathy is severely underdeveloped, and he has a hard time understanding anyone else’s point of view.

In other words, Stan’s in the process of maturing. Kyle (prior to last season) is nowhere close. It’s possible that Kyle’s experiences with Heiman and the nuking of Canada may help push him into that phase of his development, but I don’t think I can really say that definitively until the next season comes out.

So, for what I feel needs to happen for Style to work. On Stan’s end, he needs to get some actual treatment for his depression. He seems to have gotten the whole addiction and substance abuse thing more or less under control thanks to his chat with Satan, but I’m not sure if his depression has been managed as effectively. I also think he needs to have a Come to Jesus moment in terms of his relationship with his dad. Honestly, I heavily empathized with Stan in Ass Burgers when he was finally making progress in dealing with his mental health only for Randy to yank the rug out from under him at the last minute. I just get the sense that Randy’s presence in Stan’s life is essentially what keeps Stan from progressing in terms of his mental health and development. That whole, “Stick to what you know” thing isn’t going to help Stan because sticking to what he knows involves a flash of booze stashed in his underwear drawer and no actual attempts to seek either medication or psychiatric help. So Stan needs to develop enough to pull himself out from under Randy’s influence.

For Kyle…Kyle needs to mature emotionally. He needs to learn how to empathize with other people and get out of his self-centered focus. I think he may be on the way to that, if he learned his lesson from the M.A.C./Canada nuking situation. I also think that what would help Kyle most is just getting out of South Park and away from Cartman. Everyone says college is pretty much a different world from grade school, and in a lot of ways they’re right. Depending on what college you go to, your likelihood of being in classes with people you know from grade school is slim to none. The structure in college is also different; a lot of it relies on you being accountable to yourself and your coursework. The mix of people you interact with is almost never the exact same sort of mix you grew up with. Which would go a long way to helping Kyle develop the necessary self-awareness needed to make the Style relationship work.

The way I see it, Kyle and Stan having some sort of a falling out in middle school or high school. They don’t hang out that much anymore, their friend groups shift enough that their daily interactions are minimal, and they develop apart from each other for the first time in their lives. They go their separate ways after graduation—Kyle to college and Stan to the military—and don’t really call or talk or anything after leaving South Park. Give it at least a semester, better a year or so, and they reunite during break. Kyle’s done a shit ton of growing up, Randy’s shadow over Stan’s life is drastically reduced, and they’ve have a chance to grown into themselves. Kyle’s got a better understanding of mental health, Stan’s got a firmer grip on his depression, and they’re finally back on even ground. That’s when a romantic relationship between the could work out.