#make the yuletide gay 2009

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[secondbeatsongs]

Movie Night: Make The Yuletide Gay

today (Sunday, December 10th 2023) at 5PM ET, we will be watching Make The Yuletide Gay in the second beat server! join us!

[bengiyo]

Comfort Films Tag

Rules: List 7 of your comfort movies, then tag 7 people.

Tagged by @callipigio

1 - Shelter (2007)

I often joke around here about how I’ve been watching queer cinema for over half of my life at this point, and it’s easy to recommend this film. This is a coming of age film about a guy who gave up art school to become the primary breadwinner and caregiver for his family. However, when the older brother of his best friend returns to their town to collect himself, our artist and he reconnect and find something special between them. Great use of a young actor in this shores up the caregiving aspects.

I’m probably going to rewatch it now. Because it was produced by Here! TV, you can only legally watch it via a subscription to their platform. I own it on DVD because I fell in love with it and knew I needed to keep it forever.

2 - Big Eden (2000)

Big Eden. Oh, Big Eden. This is the film equivalent of a warm blanket and a tight hug. It’s about an artist named Henry Hart, who is preparing for a big exhibition in New York when he’s called back home to Montana because his uncle has had a stroke. We are greatest with the most queer-friendly town to ever exist as Henry manages his old angst about his straight best friend as the local general store owner also secretly pursues him. It’s absolutely lovely.

3 - The Blues Brothers (1980)

Luna has great taste, because this is one of the best films ever made. What was originally just an SNL bit turns into a fun road film about getting the band back together so that two brothers can raise enough money to pay the back taxes owed by the orphanage they grew up in. We also run over Illinois nazis in this movie and demolish dozens of cop cars. Cab Calloway, James Brown, Carrie Fisher, Chaka Khan, Paul Reubens, and Aretha Franklin are in it. John Candy orders orange whips. This is the kind of film I would watch with my dad any time it was on.

4 - Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)

This is one of the most man movies ever made. I don’t know any woman who wants to sit down and watch this film, but me and boys will spend an entire afternoon on this film in a heartbeat. The sexual tension between Russell Crowe’s and Paul Bettany’s characters goes unremarked on this website in a way that lets you know for sure this hellsite is dominated by femmes, because those two have definitely fucked. At least twice. It’s 1805 and oceans have become battlefields!

5 - Clue (1985)

A movie based on the board game of the same name should not have been this good, but it instead goes on to become a camp masterpiece. Many people will end up remembering Tim Curry for Rocky Horror or even Muppet Treasure Island, but this is still one of his favorite performances for me. This film is batshit and I love it. 

6 - Camp (2003)

Speaking of camp films, let’s talk about one of the best of all time. I know we often talk about the bad singing in Thai BL, but I unironically love all of the musical theater in this film. I regularly listen to this soundtrack, and have been for over 15 years. It’s a film about a bunch of weird theater kids who get to escape the bullying and hellishness of their lives for a few weeks during the summer, where they get to put on a bunch of classic plays. It’s so camp. I love this film because it was difficult for me to find queer films that had happy components with them, and this little movie has a wide array of queer kids in it.

7 - Make The Yuletide Gay (2009)

This was the first queer film I ever watched that had a happy ending that was also a comedy. Prior to this, I think I had watched Beautiful Thing (1996), Edge of Seventeen (1998), Get Real (1998), and Bent (1997). Most of those films ended resolved or sad. Yuletide is a silly little gay film of almost nonstop innuendo about a guy who goes back into the closet when he returns home for Christmas, but hijinks ensue when his boyfriend shows up unexpectedly. It’s an annual watch for me around the holidays, and I usually host people for it. 

Also, Adamo Ruggiero is in it! He played Marco on Degrassi: The Next Generation.

This was fun! I think most folks have been tagged that I know, but I’ll tag @warningtothecurious​. If anyone else does this, please tag me back if you do this! I want to know what films you all return to.

[averyqueerchristmas]

I've been putting together this list of Queer Holiday films for a while now and I'm honestly surprised at the amount I have found. Now I haven't seen most of these, a lot of these have Queer side characters and not main characters (I'll be sure to mention which ones are which). I currently have over 40 Holiday films that feature a Queer character, I'll obviously not be watching all of them this year but I'll watch a good bit of them and post my thoughts about the representation and how much said Queer character is actually shown in the movie and whether or not it should be on this list. (Apologies if any of these are wrong, again I haven't seen most of these). I’ll add to this list if I find more. Obviously the ones you don't want to pay for you can probably find *ahem* elsewhere..

Some Of My Best Friends Are... - 1971 (I believe this can be found on Youtube) - Gay, Lesbian (Main).

Home For The Holidays - 1995 (Redbox, Amazon , you have to pay) - Gay (Main).

What's Cooking - 2000 (Tubi) - Lesbian, Gay (Main).

Holiday Heart - 2000 (Tubi) - Gay (Main).

8 Women - 2002 (DVD) - Lesbian, Bisexual (Main).

Tokyo Godfathers - 2003 (Tubi) - Trans (Main). (There is Transphobia in this but that doesn't put Hana down, she's great. In the Dubbed version she is voiced by a Trans Actress).

Rent - 2005 (HBO Max) - Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual (Main).

Imagine Me & You - 2005 (AppleTV, Redbox , you have to pay) - Lesbian, Bisexual (Main).

The Family Stone - 2005 (Starz Subscription, Hulu Premium, Amazon Premium) - Gay (Main).

Regarding Billy - 2005 (Amazon , you have to pay) - Gay (Main).

Breakfast With Scot - 2007 (Vudu, SlingTV , you have to pay) - Gay (Main).

Make The Yuletide Gay - 2009 (Amazon Premium) - Gay (Main).

Everybody’s Fine - 2009 (PlutoTV) - Bisexual (Main).

Scrooge & Marley - 2012 (Vudu, Amazon , you have to pay) - Gay (Main).

Red Lodge - 2013 (Amazon , you have to pay) - Gay (Main).

Carol - 2015 (Tubi) - Lesbian (Main).

Tangerine - 2015 (Paramount+, Showtime Subscription) - Trans (Main).

Shared Rooms - 2016 (Tubi) - Gay (Main).

Anna And The Apocalypse - 2017 (Tubi) - Sapphic (Main-ish).

We Need A Little Christmas - 2017 (Youtube) - Lesbian (Main).

Lez Bomb - 2018 (Tubi) - Lesbian (Main).

Christmas Around The Corner - 2018 (Vudu, Amazon , you have to pay) - Gay (Side/Background).

Holiday Help Desk - 2018 (Amazon , you have to pay) - Lesbian (Main).

Season Of Love - 2019 (Tellofilms , you have to pay) - Lesbian (Main).

Let It Snow - 2019 (Netflix) - Lesbian (Main-ish).

Turkey Drop - 2019 (Youtube) - Lesbian (Main-ish).

The Postie - 2019 (Amazon , you have to pay) - Lesbian (Main).

City Of Trees - 2019 (Amazon , you have to pay) - Lesbian (Main).

Moonlit Winter - 2019 (Tubi) - Lesbian (Main).

Twinkle All The Way - 2019 (Amazon Premium) - Gay (Possibly Side but idk).

Ghosting: Spirit Of Christmas - 2019 (Hulu Premium) - Sapphic (Main).

I Hate New Year's - 2020 (Vudu, Amazon , you have to pay) - Lesbian (Main?).

A New York Christmas Wedding - 2020 (Netflix) - Lesbian (Main).

Happiest Season - 2020 (Hulu) - Lesbian, Gay (Main).

Will You Merry Me? -2020 (Lesflicks , you have to pay) - Lesbian (Main).

The Christmas Lottery - 2020 (BET Subscription, Hulu Premium, Amazon Premium) - Lesbian (Main)

Dashing In December - 2020 (Amazon , you have to pay) - Gay (Main).

The Christmas House - 2020 (Prime) - Gay (Main).

The Christmas Setup - 2020 (Hulu Premium, Amazon , you have to pay, if you’re in Canada this movie if free on CTV) - Gay (Main).

Friendsgiving - 2020 (Netflix) - Several Queer characters (Main).

Christmas With The Darlings - 2021 (Philo Subscription, FuboTV Subscription) - Lesbian (Side)

Christmas At The Ranch - 2021 (Tubi, Prime, Peacock) - Lesbian (Main).

The Syd Family Xmas Eve Game Night - 2021 (Apologies I don’t know where to find this, they have a website though) - Lesbian (Main).

Silent Night - 2021 (Amazon Premium) - Lesbian (Main-ish).

Christmas ...Again? - 2021 (Disney+) - Gay (Main-ish).

An Unexpected Christmas - 2021 (AppleTV, Amazon, Vudu , you have to pay) - Lesbian (Side).

A Picture Perfect Holiday - 2021 (Lifetime) - Lesbian (Side).

Christmas Is Canceled - 2021 (Amazon Subscription) - Sapphic (Side)

You Make It Feel Like Christmas - 2021 (Peacock Subscription) - Lesbian (Side).

Every time a Bell Rings - 2021 (Amazon Premium) - Lesbian (Main-ish).

Single All The Way - 2021 (Netflix) - Gay (Main).

The Christmas House 2 - 2021 (Amazon , you have to pay) - Gay (Main).

Under The Christmas Tree - 2021 (Hulu) - Lesbian (Main).

A Jenkins Family Christmas - 2021 (BET, Hulu Premium, Amazon Premium, you have to pay) - Gay (Main).

The Bitch Who Stole Christmas - 2021 (Amazon , you have to pay) - Gay (Main).

The Holiday Sitter - 2022 (Hallmark) - Gay (Main). (Releases Dec.11)

Merry & Gay - 2022 (AppleTV) - Lesbian (Main).

Spoiler Alert - 2022 (In Theaters) - Gay (Main).

Looking For Her - 2022 (Tubi) - Lesbian (Main).

A Christmas To Treasure - 2022 (Lifetime) - Gay (Main).

The Christmas Clapback - 2022 (BET+) - Lesbian (Side-ish).

Something From Tiffany's - 2022 (Prime) - Lesbian (Side).

[beverlygifs]

Make the Yuletide Gay (2009)

[x]

[meneatyoghurt]

You know the 2009 comedy Make the Yuletide Gay? Well...

"Henry, darling. My best mate in the whole world. Why are you dressed like your brother?"  That's where the jumper came from. Philip bought it for him a few years ago and he never wore it. Except that one time when he went to a fancy dress party as 'provincial dad'. "Oh Christ, it's not that bad is it? This is—it's comfortable, it's winter wear. It's winter." "It's just…not really your style, is it? What's brought on the rugby shirt and frumpy knitwear? You know those half-zip things give me the ick." That makes Henry zip it up, even more self-conscious than he was a second ago. And then immediately pull it down again when the feeling of wanting to crawl out of his skin claws its way up his throat. "I'm going home for Christmas, aren't I? I'm trying to, I don't know, play down the gay." "Haz. Really."

I don't know that it will truly become anything, but I've done a quick 1k of mostly dialogue so far and I'm having a lot of fun. Especially looking up Percy Pig merch.

[queerstuffonscreen]

Make the Yuletide Gay (2009)

89 min.

Country: USA

Genre: Comedy, Romance

Language: English

The holidays get overly festive as Olaf "Gunn" Gunnunderson, an out-and-proud gay college student, crawls back into the closet to survive the holidays with his parents. But when his boyfriend, Nathan, shows up at their doorstep unannounced, Gunn must put on a charade to keep the relationship a secret. With pressure mounting from all sides, will Gunn come out before the truth does?

Watch on Dekkoo

[1esbrarian]

if anyone's looking for a gay Christmas movie, check out Make The Yuletide Gay

A gay student who is out at college but not to his family receives an unexpected visit from his boyfriend while at home during the holidays.

[oakleaves]

HoliGAY Movie Masterpost

A Masterpost of LGBTQ+/Queer Holiday Movies

Make the Yuletide Gay (2009) Red Lodge (2013) Tangerine (2015) Let it Snow (2019) Season of Love (2019) The Christmas Setup (2020) The Christmas House (2020) Dashing in December (2020) Happiest Season (2020) A New York Christmas Wedding (2020)

Upcoming 2021 Films will be added in a follow-up post ;~) **~ let me know if any of these links is broken/not working and/or if I missed one!! ~ **

[delightful-mirth]

🎄❄🌟 My Holiday Movie List

🌟❄🎄

(Thank you @anewtry11 for your recommendations 🤗)

Part One: LGBTQ Christmas Movies 🏳️‍🌈🎄

Happiest Season (2020)

Single All The Way (2021)

The Christmas Setup (2020)

Dashing in December (2020)

Breakfast With Scot (2007)

Make The Yuletide Gay (2009)

The Stone Family (2005)

Part Two: Live-Action Movies 🌟

Home Alone (1990)

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)

The Holiday (2006)

Elf (2003)

Love Actually (2003)

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

Miracle on 34th Street (1994)

While You Were Sleeping (1995)

Trading Places (1983)

A Christmas Prince (2017)

A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding (2018)

A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby (2019)

The Spirit of Christmas (2015)

Merry Kissmas (2015)

Noelle (2019)

Godmothered (2020)

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018)

The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017)

Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey (2020)

A Castle for Christmas (2021)

Part Three: Animated Movies ⛄

Klaus (2019)

The Polar Express (2004)

A Christmas Carol (2009)

Arthur Christmas (2011)

Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas (1997)

Barbie in the Nutcracker (2001)

Part Four: movies that are only partially set during Christmas time 🎁

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944, live-action)

Little Women (the 1933, 1949, 1994 and 2019 versions, all live-action)

Lady and the Tramp (the 1955 animated original and the 2019 live-action remake)

Part Five: movies with a snowy and wintry but not specifically christmassy setting 🌨

Eight Below (2006, live-action)

White Fang (1991, live-action)

The Call of the Wild (2020, live-action)

The Snow Queen (1957, Soviet animated film by Soyuzmultfilm)

Togo (2019, live-action)

Balto (1995, animation)

Frozen (2013, animation)

Anastasia (1997, animation)

Beauty and the Beast (2017, live-action)

The Polar Bear King (1991, live-action)

Three Wishes for Cinderella/Three Hazelnuts for Cinderella (1973, live-action)

The Twelve Months (1956, Soviet animated film by Soyuzmultfilm)

Twelve Months (1980, anime film co-produced by Toei Animation and Soyuzmultfilm)

Sailor Moon S: The Movie (1994, anime film)

Part Six: Short films, specials and miniseries 📺

Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983, animated short film)

Olaf's Frozen Adventure (2017, animated short film)

Little Women (2017, live-action miniseries)

The Disney Family Singalong (2020, TV musical special)

Hawkeye (2021, live-action miniseries)

[tangledbea]

I'm beginning to see all these Christmas rom coms now. But do you know if there's like a Christmas romance related thing with a gay couple?

And here I thought you were going to ask me about the one Jeremy Jordan was in last year. XD

I've never personally seen one, so I had to look this up, but I found stuff!

Happiest Season (2020) - Happiest Season follows the story of a woman who brings her girlfriend home for the first time over the holidays, but there's a catch: She hasn't yet told her family she's queer. Cue all the drama!

Dashing In December (2020) - In this sweet flick, a man goes home for the holidays to convince his mom to sell the family ranch, never imaging that he'll have his mind changed (and his heart stolen) by a cute new ranch hand who has big dreams of saving the property.

New York Christmas Wedding (2020) - What happens when an angel visits a bride-to-be right before her Christmas Eve wedding? She discovers what might have happened if she hadn't denied her feelings for her childhood friend, and that's exactly what goes down in this cheesy—but nevertheless groundbreaking—romance.

The Christmas Setup (2020) - The Christmas Setup revolves around a guy who (thanks to his meddling mom) gets the chance to start a holiday romance with a secret high school crush. But just as things are heating up, that crush gets a job offer across the world, forcing the two men to have the dreaded what-are-we convo.

Make the Yuletide Gay (2009) - When a college student who's openly gay at school goes home for Christmas, he must decide whether he's ready to open up about his sexual identity to his family—and to tell them that his visiting roommate is actually his boyfriend. Make the Yuletide Gay walked so Holiday Season could run.

Carol (2015) - Set in New York City during Christmastime in the early 1950s, this drama follows the affair between a young shop girl and an older woman going through a divorce, and what begins as a chance encounter in a department store blossoms into a life-changing romance.

Seasons of Love (2019) - Three pairs of women experience changes and challenges in their relationships leading up to Christmas and before New Year's Eve in this rom-com, which is kinda like a queer version of Love Actually, tbh.

Ghosting: The Spirit of Christmas (2019) - In this absolutely bonkers movie, a woman learns about the perils of texting and driving the hard way, and in the afterlife, she must find a way to make things right with her ~true love.~ Oh, and that true love may just be her bestie.

Red Lodge (2013) - Entitled The Unattainably Perfect Gay Christmas on Amazon Prime, this flick follows a man who—after two years in a relationship—decides to propose to his boyfriend right before Christmas...but unfortunately, he doesn't get the answer he expected.

[queermoviechristmas]

Make The Yuletide Gay

Title: Make the Yuletide Gay Year: 2009 Media: Indie with the soul of a TV Movie Rated: Never officially rated but I’d put it in the PG-13 bracket Category: Queer Main Characters Queer Rep: mlm Starring: Keith Jordan, Adamo Ruggiero

Plot Synopsis: “Olaf "Gunn" Gunnunderson, an out-and-proud gay college student, crawls back into the closet to survive the holidays with his family. He keeps his cool as his quirky Midwestern-hearted parents try to set him up with his high school sweetheart, Abby. But when his boyfriend, Nathan, shows up at their doorstep unannounced, Gunn must put on a charade to keep the relationship a secret. With pressure mounting from all sides, will Gunn come out before the truth does?”

Thoughts: This is not technically a made-for-TV Christmas movie, but it has the budget, and more importantly the soul of a made-for-TV Christmas movie. It might even have less than the standard budget of a TV-movie? And it really shows. I actually think the leads are great, and have decent chemistry. I especially loved seeing the actor who played Marco on Degrassi. But the acting from the other characters can almost be painful sometimes. The parents are a full-on parody of Midwesterners. There are good really emotional scenes, but also some jokes that honestly just make me cringe. And it swings wildly between the two, never deciding if it wanted to be an over the top comedy or a heartfelt romance. It seems really inspired by TV Christmas movies, but also there are a lot more references to sex and drugs than you’ll find even on lifetime. Speaking of sex, oh my god the sex jokes. They are constant. The amount of double entrende they fit in one movie is almost impressive. It’s not that I have anything against sex jokes, but these ones just seemed out of place and awkward. Without the constant awkward jokes I would call this an amazing movie.

It is a movie about coming out, and for the most part I think that aspect is handled well. Except for an old trope with the parents that I always sort of hate. It’s emotional but uplifting, with a romantic happily ever after, which is what you want from a Christmas movie. 

Also this movie came out in 2009. Over a decade before the mainstream Networks even thought about making gay Christmas movies. For so long this movie was all we had. It’s truly a trailblazer.

It’s sort of killing me to rate it so low, I’ve gone back and forth on a number a bunch. I think if I had reviewed it even a year ago I might give it a higher score. But with the increase in other queer Christmas movies coming out, Make The Yuletide Gay is not our only option anymore. So I can’t overlook some of the flaws in quality.

However I do hold a very special place in my heart for this movie. I wish they had been successful in funding a sequel, which they turned into a novel instead.

Rating: 2.5 candy canes

[olderthannetfic]

Hey, sorry to ask this, but a few days ago I saw a post/discussion about the history of original work on ao3 (i.e. how and when it was allowed). I thought it was in my likes, but it's not, and I thought you had reblogged it recently, but I didn't find it. I was wondering if you have seen this discussion around? Or where I can find more about it? This specific post talked abt how who defended original work on ao3 were not the BNFs, if that helps.

That was me running my mouth in the reblogs of something or other. It’s just the one comment.

But what’s that you say? Some tl;dr about a pet topic? Don’t mind if I do! ;) (To be honest, most of this debate happened years ago, and a lot of the long meta was by me back then too, so…)

Okay, so, the situation with Original Works is actually super interesting and a microcosm of early years OTW wank.

This is going to be even more tl;dr than my usual. To try to summarize very briefly:

There were two big cultural factions. One thought “original” was the opposite of “fan”. That one was in charge of OTW. It was hard to get voices from the other side into the debate because they already felt excluded from OTW.

This divide broke down more or less into Ye Olde Slash Fandom on the “it’s the opposite” side and anime fandom on the “WTF?” side. Americans on one side and a lot of non-US, non-English language fandom on the other.

I. Media Fandom, Anime Fandom, and Early OTW

I went to that first fundraising party that astolat threw in New York City back in… god… 2007? 2008? I wasn’t on the Board or any official position until the committees got started later, but I was around right from the very beginning.

Whether you’re looking at volunteers or at people who commented on astolat’s original post, there were always a variety of fans from a variety of fannish backgrounds. People aren’t absolutely in one camp or another, and fannish interests change over time. If you go dig through Dreamwidth posts to find who was actually participating in this debate at the time, half of them are probably in the other camp now.

If you think like that sounds like a preamble to me making a bunch of offensively sweeping generalizations and divvying fans up into little groups, you’d be right! Haha.

I.a. Ye Olde Media Fandom

There are a lot of camps of people who like fanfic. One of the biggest divisions has been Ye Olde Media Fandom vs. anime fandom. Astolat’s social circle–my LJ social circle–was filled with people with decades of fannish experience and a deep knowledge of the Media Fandom side of things.

Those fandom history treatises that start with K/S zines in Star Trek fandom in the 70s and move on through the mainstream buddy cops like Starsky & Hutch to the more niche, sff buddy cops like Fraser and Ray or Jim and Blair are talking about Media Fandom. I try to always capitalize it because the name is lulzy and bizarre to me unless it’s a proper noun for a specific historical thing. It was coined as a rude term for “mass media” fandom aka dumb people who like, ughhhh, Star Trek, ughhh, instead of books. This is a very ancient slapfight from the type of fandom you find at Worldcon, often called “SF fandom” or plain “fandom”.

(Yes, this leads to mega confusion on the part of some old dudes when they find Fanlore and fail to understand that “fandom” there refers to what these people would call “Media Fandom”. They think only they get the unmarked form. But I digress…)

Media Fandom is a specific flavor of fandom. It’s where the slash zines were. It’s where the fans of live action US TV shows were. It’s the history that acafans have laid out well and that tends to get used to defend the idea of a female subculture writing transgressive and transformative fanfic. On the video side, Media Fandom is where Kandy Fong invented vidding by making Star Trek slideshows.

(Kandy’s still around, BTW. She’s usually at Escapade in L.A. Ask her to tell you about the dancing penises sketch in person. She’s hilarious.)

Astolat and friends had been going to slash cons for years. They founded Vividcon. And Yuletide. That meant that when astolat said “Hey kids, let’s put on a show!” we all jumped to help. This is a lady who gets things done.

From a Worldcon perspective, or even from an older Media Fandom perspective, this group was comparatively young, hip, and welcoming. Their fandom interests were comparatively broad. Just look at Yuletide!

In fact, yes, let us look at Yuletide… [ominous music]

I.b. Yuletide sucks at anime

From the very first year (2003), Yuletide mods have asked for help with anime fandoms, been confused about anime fandoms, or made bad judgment calls about anime fandoms. They’ve fucked up on Superhero comics and plenty of other things over the years, but anime has been the most consistent (well, and JRPGs, but there’s so much overlap in those fic fandoms).

There was already bad feeling about this. There were years of bad feeling about this.

I.c. Where are the historians?

Academic study of fanficcy things pretty much got started with Textual Poachers and Enterprising Women. Other acafans who are well known to LJ and later Tumblr are people like Francesca Coppa who wrote a very nice summary of the history of Media Fandom. These are not the only academics who exist, these academics themselves have written about many other things, and by now, OTW’s own journal has covered a lot of other territory, but to this day I see complaints on Tumblr that “acafans” only care about K/S and oldschool slash fandom.

There were years of bad feeling about this as well.

I.d. What kind of fan was I?

Now, by the time OTW got started, I’d moseyed over to not only a lot of live action US TV but a lot of old-as-fuck US TV that is squarely in the Media Fandom camp. But once upon a time, I was a weeaboo hanging out with my weeaboo friends in college. I learned Japanese (sort of). I moved to Japan. Livin’ the weeaboo dream!

More importantly, I used to be a member of a lot of anime mailing lists back in the Yahoo Groups days. I didn’t realize what a cultural gap that would cause until the original works issue came up on AO3.

I.e. Anime Fandom, German-language Fandom, Original M/M

Once upon a time–namely in that Yahoo Groups era–there was an archive called Boys in Chains. It was where you found The Good Stuff™. Heavy kink and power exchange galore! It was extremely well known in the parts of fandom I was in, even if you weren’t on the associated mailing list. It contained lots of fic, but it also had lots of original work.

Around that same era, I was on a critique list called Crimson Ink, which was mixed fic and original. The “original slash” and “original yaoi” crowds mixed freely and were in fanfic spaces. Remember, this is like 2003. You’re never going to get your gay fantasy novel published in English in the US. A couple of fangirl presses started around then, but they died an ignominious death after their first print run.

Fanfiction.net used to allow original work before it spun that off into FictionPress. We forget this today, but if you were an early FFN person, the separation wasn’t so great either.

Meanwhile, German-language fandom was hanging out on sites like Animexx.de, a big-ass fic archive that prominently mentions also including original work. I have the impression that Spanish-language fandom was similar too.

Shousetsu Bang*Bang was founded in 2005. It was a webzine for original m/m, but it was entirely populated by fanfic fandom types.

In all of those kinds of spaces, there was a lot of “original” work that was kind of slash or BL-ish and seen as fannish if it was posted in the fannish space. These weren’t anime-only spaces. They were multifandom spaces where it was seen as obvious and normal that a couple of huge fandoms like Harry Potter would dominate but that everything else big would naturally be anime.

While fans from every background are everywhere, I found that the concentration of EFL fans living in Continental Europe, South America, and Asia was much higher in this kind of space, even the exclusively English language part of it, than in my US TV fandoms.

II. AO3 Early Adopters

AO3 went into closed beta in 2009. In 2010, it was open to the general public (albeit with the invitation queue it still has). But not everyone was interested yet. Just like fandom is loath to leave the dying, shambling mess of Tumblr, fandom was loath to leave dwindling LJ/DW circles or was happy enough on Fanfiction.net. I used to see a lot of posts like “Why are you guys trying to STEAL fanfic from the original! FFN is enough!”

I literally could not give away the invitations I had. No one wanted them.

So who was on AO3? Obviously enough, it was all of us who built it and our friends. So that means a bunch of oldschool Livejournal slashers coming from fandoms like Due South or Stargate Atlantis.

The queue was open. Anyone could make an account. Everyone was welcome. In theory…

But more and more, there started to be these posts about how “AO3 Hates Anime Fandom” and “FFN is for anime. AO3 is for Western fandoms.” and “If you guys actually wanted anime fandom on there, you’d invite us better and make us more welcome.”

At the time, I found these posts obnoxious. People aren’t purely in one sort of fandom or the other. No one was stopping anime fandom from making accounts. No one was banning anime fandom. If there wasn’t much from old fandoms, that was because old fandoms seldom move.

Things began to change. Trolls on FFN forced the Twilight porn writers out, creating enough fuss and brouhaha to mobilize people who would rather have stayed put. AO3 got big enough that randos found it by accident. Original work started to pop up, posted by people who’d never looked at the rules and had no idea it was not allowed.

III. History of AO3’s Policy

I had argued for allowing “original work” during the initial discussions about the ToS. On one side of this issue was me. On the other, everyone else on the committee.

I was overruled.

Open Door started importing old archives to save them. Boys in Chains was hugely important to fandom history from my point of view. It was slated to be imported… maybe. Except that Boys in Chains is half original. AO3 was happy to grandfather in those stories, but the final archive owner felt, quite rightly, that it would be unfair to tell half of the authors they were welcome in the new space while spitting on the other half.

I was pissed. I had been pissed since being overruled the first time. To me, the fact that it should be allowed was so blatantly obvious that it was hard to even explain why.

(To be honest, this difficulty in explaining why and the even greater difficulty in figuring out the source of that difficulty is what held the discussion back for so long. When every assumption on either side is completely opposite, it’s hard to communicate.)

I felt betrayed. It would be like if you helped build something, and everyone was suddenly like “Well, obviously, we can’t allow m/m. It’s not normal fanfic.”

So we discussed it again and, again, it was me vs. literally everyone else. And still the “AO3 is only for Western slash fandom” bitching rose in volume and more and more people complained of feeling excluded from the new fandom hub. Finally, the committee agreed to open the issue up for public comment and get some more input. I was a fool and neither wrote nor proofread the post. It went out phrasing the question as allowing “non fannish” work or something of that sort.

I was furious. The entire point of the whole debate was that I saw some original work, the original work that belongs on AO3, as inherently fannish. And now this had been presented to the AO3 audience as something completely different. Think pieces were popping up in the journals of everyone I knew about diluting AO3’s mission and how we needed to save AO3 from encroachment. Public opinion was very negative. That’s both because of how the post was phrased and because OTW die hards at the time were mostly from the same fannish background. This tidal wave of negativity meant that there was virtually no chance of changing this poisonous rule. And if the rule didn’t change, the people who wanted the rule change were never going to show up to explain why it mattered.

If you’ve been reading my tumblr, I think you can guess what happened next.

I posted a long post to my Dreamwidth. It was a masterwork of passive aggression. In it, I wrung my hands about how simply tragic it would be if AO3 had to delete all of the original work… like anthropomorfic.

Now, I think anthropomorfic counts as fanfic as much as anything else, but I also knew that it fails most rigorous “based on a canon” type definitions of fic and, more importantly, it’s a favorite Yuletide fandom of many of the people on the side that wanted to ban original work.

That’s a nice fandom of yours. It would be a pity if something happened to it. 

Yup. Passive aggressive blackmail. Go me. Suddenly, there was a lot of awkward backtracking and confused running in circles in various journals. The committee agreed to table the idea for a while but not rule out the idea of allowing original works in the future. We agreed to halt all deletions of original work. If a fan posted it, the Abuse Committee (which I was also head of at the time) would not delete that work even though it was technically against the rules.

Time passed. The people on the negative side got tired. I wanted off that committee and had wanted off for ages, but I was damned if I was going to leave before ramming through this piece of policy. Grudgematch till I die! (Look, I never said I wasn’t a wanker.)

After a while, some other fans came forward with more types of “original work” as evidence that it should be allowed. These were from parts of fandom none of us on the committee knew a damn thing about.

This new evidence combined with the gradual accretion of original stuff on AO3 without the sky falling eventually led us to quietly rule Original Work a valid fandom. There was never even a big announcement post. I slipped a word to the Boys in Chains mod myself.

IV. What Were They So Afraid Of Anyway?

So why were people so resistant? Seems like a dick move, right?

Not exactly.

I mean, I was enraged and waged a one-woman war to change the rules, but the other side wasn’t nuts. The objections were usually the following:

I just don’t get why it would be allowed. It never was in my fannish spaces.

Most of our members don’t want this.

Most of the examples of things that ought to be included are m/m. We are privileging m/m if we allow it, and AO3 already has a m/m-centric reputation that can feel exclusionary to some fans.

AO3 is a young, shaky platform that can barely handle the load and content we already have. If we open to original work, we’ll be opening the floodgates. The volume of posting will be so high, it will drown out the fic we’re actually here to protect.

Protecting stuff that doesn’t need protection because it’s not an IP issue would dilute OTW’s mission.

If we allow it, idiots will try to turn AO3 into advertising space, posting only the first chapter and a link to where you can pay to read the rest.

If we add another category of text before we add fan art, that’s a slap in the face of the fan artists we are already failing.

These arguments all make perfect sense in context.

Obvously, the issue with the first two is that different fannish communities have different norms. I knew that a very large community disagreed with the then current AO3 policy, but since so few of them were around to comment, it seemed like a tiny fringe minority.

The m/m thing is… complex. M/M content with zero IP issues is at risk. It is always at risk in a way that even f/f is not (though f/f is also always at risk). Asking for m/m to be exactly equivalent to f/f or m/f in numbers, tropes, whatever is ignoring the historical realities. In our current moment of queer activism in the West, we treat all types of queerness as part of one community with one set of goals, but once you get to culture and art or even more specific activism, this forced homogenization is neither useful nor healthy.

OTOH, AO3 really did have PR problems related to the perception that we gave m/m fandom the kid glove treatment. That objection wasn’t coming from nowhere.

AO3 was shaky. It was tiny when I first brought up this argument. Hell, it wasn’t even in closed beta the first time we discussed this. Part of what made the quiet rules change possible was AO3 organically getting much bigger and OTW having to buy many more servers for unrelated reasons.

The “floodgates” thing was put to rest by tacitly allowing original work before the rules change. We had a period to study how fans actually behaved, and as I predicted, only a small amount of original work got posted. It was indeed mostly things like original BL-ish stories or original work that had been part of a mixed original/fic fest, exchange, zine, etc. Currently, the “Original Work” fandom on AO3 only has 76,348 works. That’s pretty big compared to individual fandoms but tiny compared to AO3’s current size.

The commercial argument was spurious because commercial spam had been against the rules from the very beginning. OH THE IRONY that nowadays AO3 has all these idiots trying to post the first chapter of their fanfic and then direct you to where you can buy the rest.

AO3 has plenty of fanfic of public domain works. One of the problems with gatekeeping original work is that any way you try to distinguish it (not based on a specific canon, not an IP issue, etc.) will apply to some set of obviously allowable fandoms.

As for fan art… OTW has failed fan artists. They needed protection as much as or even more than fic writers. Just look at Tumblr! If we had succeeded at making DeviantArt but allowing boners, fan art fandom could have been safe all these years. Or when Tumblr inevitably shat the bed, we could have scooped up all those people instead of them scattering to twitter and god knows where.

OTW has failed vidders too, at least in terms of preservation. I know I’m not the only one who thinks this. Other major people from like the first Board and shit have discussed this with me offline. Doing some kind of vidding project, possibly outside of OTW is on a lot of our to-do lists. But at least one of OTW’s biggest victories has been that copyright exemption. OTW has demonstrably done really positive things for vidders that other organizations and sites have not. As a vidder, I never expected to see good hosting for the actual video files, and I’m quite content.

But fan artists… yeah. That argument makes sense at least from a place of frustration.

BTW, for the love of god, if you’re a n00b to OTW stuff, please do not reblog this post excitedly telling me that hosting fan art is on OTW’s road map, so yay, good news. Someone always does that, and it’s so irritating. I haven’t been involved in OTW in years, but I used to be, and I know what is on the roadmap. The couple of you who do heavy lifting on sysadmin and coding and policy things are welcome to weigh in as usual. I know none of us like that we can’t host fan art. It’s not what we intended.

Nonetheless, I found this argument to be the perfect being the enemy of the good. If we can save more text now without losing much of anything, we should do it. The fact that we’re fucking up on the fan art front is not a reason to spread the misery around.

V. Is “Original” the Opposite of “Fanfic”?

Okay, so that tl;dr above is why “BNFs” were on one side and “nobodies” were on the other. BNFs from one cultural background founded OTW. BNFs from the other cultural background weren’t even aware that the debate was going on.

But what was the underlying philosophical problem in even having the conversation?

It took me a long time, but I finally worked it out: We had two completely different ways of categorizing writing, and they were so baked into how we phrased questions that everything ended up being unanswerable to the other side. Here is what I came up with:

Schema 1

Fanfic - based on someone else’s IP

Original Work - the opposite

Schema 2

Non-Fannish Work - School essays, stories you are writing to try to sell to a mainstream publisher

Fannish Work Type 1 - based on other people’s characters directly (i.e. fanfic) Type 2 - based on tropes or whatever (“original slash” and the like)

Now, in the current moment when half of Tumblr just got into Chinese webnovels and the m/m ebook industry is thriving in English, original, tropey, BL-ish work is no longer different from “things I am trying to sell”. But this is how the divide was circa 2005 on fannish websites, and it’s the divide that was driving this internal OTW debate.

VI. Let’s Summarize the Camps One More Time

So, again, the debate makes perfect sense if you understand who was involved.

On the mainstream “But that’s not fanfic? I’m confused?” side:

Big US TV fandoms in English

Fandom historians of K/S–>buddy cop slash–>SGA, etc.

Americans

On the other side:

Anime fandom

“Original slash” fandom that had already been chased off of everywhere

People upset that AO3 wasn’t farther on translating the interface and supporting non-English language fandom.

People upset about US-centrism in fandom

Yes, I am very white, very American, and by now very into old buddy cop shows, but this was basically how the breakdown worked. It meant that something that looked like a minor quibble to one side was really, really not.

[bengiyo]

Our Dining Table Ep 6 Stray Thoughts

Last week, both Minoru and Yutaka were feeling down. Minoru felt Yutaka pulling away after that horrible encounter with the brother, but didn't know what to do or say. Meanwhile, a former classmate with a crush on Minoru showed up to tell him to abandon Tane, and showed her true colors immediately when she got irritated with Tane. Thankfully, our two leads ran into each other at the grocery and Tane insisted they make magic: stir fried rice and ramen. Yutaka showed again his casual love and regard for Tane, causing Minoru to swoon again and place Yutaka in the most comfortable sweatshirt he could find. Everyone has finally cheered up a bit.

It's Christmas!

Of course Yutaka only remembers being neglected during the holidays. Why did they even adopt him?

I'm gonna need them to feed the poor dad in one of these episodes.

I love seeing both Yutaka and Minoru learn more food skills.

I just love how Minoru swoons every time Yutaka takes care of Tane.

Oh, Tane. Thank you for inviting Yutaka because your older brother was stumbling over himself. So important to me that Tane has picked up on how much Minoru likes Yutaka too.

One of my Christmas traditions is to host a watch party for Make The Yuletide Gay (2009).

I don't like the warning about overwork right before the Christmas party.

Tane is so adorable oh my goodness.

38.5 C is a pretty high fever. Now the Christmas plans are dashed. This is about to get sad!

Honestly, they are definitely dating at this point. Minoru ran all the way over to make sure that Yutaka was alive.

He made an udon dish his mom made when they were sick. I'm just gonna lay down and cry for a moment.

I think Yutaka asking for Minoru to stay might be the first time we've seen Yutaka ask them for something.

Oh no we got an age-appropriate actor to represent toddler!Tane in the funeral flashback.

Gosh that was so gentle. Minoru opened up about how hard his mom's passing was, shared that spending Christmas with Yutaka was important to him, and the way he stressed that he would listen well to Yutaka's story melted something in me. That was so tender.

Oh, Ueda Dad, you are so good. Tane worrying that Yutaka might die is so sad, but a strong sign of how important Yutaka has become in their lives. The dad knows what is growing between Yutaka and Minoru, so he knew they needed time alone.

Oh my God they got the same scarf for each other. I'm going to cry again.

Yutaka is going to tell his story next week!

Honestly, how do I pretend to be a normal person after that episode? I've known how good Inukai is from the previous roles we've had in BL, but I was not prepared for how good Iijima is, too. Theirs is quickly becoming one of my favorite dynamics of all time.

[averyqueerchristmas]

Make The Yuletide Gay (2009) || ⭐⭐⭐/5 || Mini Review || Romantic Comedy || "Olaf `Gunn' Gunnunderson, an out-and-proud gay student, locks himself back in the closet to survive the holidays with his parents. But when his boyfriend Nathan shows up unannounced, Gunn must put on a charade to keep the relationship a secret."

The innuendos are cheesy as hell but I laughed at every one so here's that.

This dad is a such mood. Man smoked all his brain cells away. He also looks like Jared Padalecki 😂

I want to also clarify that in this movie they use Cher's son's (who is a Trans Man) deadname, but it is not purposeful misgendering as this movie was released months before Chaz Bono came out as Trans. Just wanted to add this.

Totally knew the parents had a bet, that was great 😂

That kiss at the end was really sweet.

This was a really cheesy movie but I liked it.

This movie is on YouTube if y'all wanna watch it.

🎅🏻❤🎄☃️💚🤶🏻

[akylk0]

Много сказок, романтика и камни.

                           Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty (2008)

Сначала дизайн персонажей не понравился, но позже поняла, что так надо. Хотя двухмерная анимация в сказке более выразительная. Слушая рассказ, сочувствуешь девочке. Конечно, это не та жесть из неотцензуренного оригинала, но тут грозная зеленая фея в штанах из одуванчика даже не прокляла Красавицу, а просто зажарила всех молодых и прекрасных молниями за то что не пригласили и смеялись над её возрастом.

                                            Make the Yuletide Gay (2009)

В комментариях одной группы перечисляли необычные праздничные комедии о парах и кто-то назвал данный фильм. Думала "Сделай Рождество голубым" шутка наших прокатчиков, но лишь это перевод оригинала. Даже не знаю, что вышло странней. Что вообще решилась смотреть подобное или что фильм понравится даже больше традиционных. Завязка такова: главный герой приезжает из колледжа на Рождество к родителям, незнающим о его ориентации, но тут внезапно на пороге возникает его парень, который не в курсе о секрете от родных. Всё выливается в череду двусмысленных ситуаций из-за незнания семьи правды. Вроде нечто похожее будет в фильме с Кристен Стюарт. Надо будет сравнить их позже.

Сразу отмечу недостатки фильма. Во-первых, он дешево снят. Не очень приятная картинка, статичная камера, титры будто сделанные из интернетовских картинок. Но подобное и абсолютно неизвестные актёры даже придаёт некий реализм и своё очарование. Во-вторых, юмор. Часто он довольно грубоватый и очевидный. Шутки про то кто снизу, когда речь зашла о кровати; встречающий незнакомых людей голым укуренный отец главного героя; пугающий туалетный наблюдатель и слишком наигранное падение сына от реплики отца прилагаются. Ещё в русской версии почему-то на заднем плане всё время играет канал ТНТ. Сначала думала это радио или включенный телевизор у героев, но русская речь была слышна очень часто. В одной сцене даже забавно наложилась. Там мужик смотреть нечто, говоря что болеет за лысого, а перед этим как раз комендант из "Универа" отчётливо слышалля. На этом минусы закончились.

Судя по тому как он снят и комментариям под видео, где его нашла, это проект "для своих". В отличие от популярных медиа, которые показывают ситуацию в слишком позитивном свете ("С любовью, Саймон") или наоборот нахрапом вводят подобных персонажей, сразу в лоб почти приказывают: "сочувствуй им", здесь проблемы раскрываются более естественно и потому персонажам сопереживаешь. Также в отличие от более коммерческих проектов, никто не показан в одной гамме. Папа шатена постоянно накурен, а мама имеет типичную вражду с соседкой. Родители брюнета почти игнорируют его и всячески отталкивают от себя и других людей, но при этом всё равно хоть как-то поддерживают отношения. В сцене ссоры шатен кричит своему парню, что не признаётся не только потому что боится изменения отношения семьи, но и ещё материально зависит от них. Но больше всего его пугает возмож��ое отчуждение. Работая в организации, помогающей лицам нетрадиционной ориентации, он своими глазами видел как непредсказуема реакция родных на подобные признания. "Религиозные фанатики принимали детей с распростёртыми объятиями, когда либеральные родители в лучшем случае рвали любые контакты".(с) Ёлки-иголки, хотела бы я такой сериал.

Было много и действительно весёлых моментов. Чего стоит как мама оценила трусы "друга сына" и как изменился характер подруги детства, когда она всё узнала. Опять-таки, она совершенно не злилась, только пошутила чего он её время тратил, пока она скромницу разыгрывала. В финале попробует после неудачной свиданки поцеловать приятеля, но оба признают, что ну никак. Она забавно покидает фильм, подмигивая на прощание. Также понравилось, что в отличие от более привычных фильмов топящих за "мы одна семья и ни у кого нет никаких тайн друг от друга", девушка и брюнет более трезво озвучивают мысль, что некоторые вещи лучше не обсуждать с родителями.

Ещё тут самый шикарный каминг-аут. Замученный постоянным сватовством матери подруги детства, шатен пригубив алкоголя и разозлившись озвучивает кто он и что с ними сидит его возлюбленный. Происходит немая сцена, в ходе которой чувствующий некую вину и вспоминающий свою семью брюнет зачем-то бросает : "А я тоже гей...Впрочем все и так уже поняли...". Это неловкая неуместная фраза такая реалистичная реакция. Но пауза пугающе затягивается. Мама выразительно молчит в сторону папы, папа молча встаёт к кухонному шкафу, возвращается и...протягивает радостной жене сотку, потому что они с первого класса ребёнка поспорили. Шутя обещает вычесть шокированному сыну эти деньги из наследства. Они на удивление спокойны и просят надеть сына свои настоящие вещи, а то выглядит стрёмно. Мать даже тут же возобновляет вопросы о внуках. Поддавшись моменту брюнет звонит своей семье, оставляя сообщение на автоответчик, что у него появилась новая семья, которая его ценит (даже мешок леденцов ему подарили, хотя он был незваным гостем. Вообще, подарки у них судя по шляпе смешные), но он благодарен им, что тогда не выгнали в своё время, им надо серьёзно поговорить и он их всё равно любит. Жаль, сцена после титров не переведена, но огорчёнными они не выглядят.

Вывод: неожиданно, но было довольно мило и легко смотрелось. В некоторых моментах кино даже более искреннее, чем более профинанси��ованные коллеги.

                                        Попутчик (Vandronik) (1990)

                                               (Не удержалась.)

Оригинальное название похоже на имя персонажа фентази. Вандроник-король воров. Вандроник-спаситель Альденгезии. Вандроник-предатель. Так и не поняла чей больше проект. Везде указано очень много стран Евросоюза. Пыталась гуглить, что выпустил Голливуд в то время для сравнения спецэффектов, но кроме "Вспомнить всё" ничего не попадалось наглядней. Может они и тогда были устаревшими (сегодня уже совсем), но хранят некоторое очарование и показывают как выкручивались авторы ради красивых сцен. Странно, но читая в детстве несколько сборников Андерсена никогда не попадалась эта сказка. Увидела её только в каком-то мультсериале по мотивам, там ещё спутник был одет как пуританин. В отличие от оригинала, где Попутчик был этаким призраком, тут обыграли несколько иначе. Хотя первоначальная материализация на фоне кладбища вызывала ассоциации с оригинальным сюжетом. Видимо так хотели намекнуть на мрачную сторону сил персонажа.

История начинается с обычного деревенского парня-пастуха. Красивого и молодого. Он возился себе с барашками, пока однажды его батя не неудачно подрубил топором дерево. Умирая, он завещает сыну одну золотую монету, странный рубин размером с сердце и долги. Потому что ферма и всё остальное принадлежит ростовщику. Тот даже не дал ему взять хлеба в дорогу. По пути герой встречает арабского принца, идущего к принцессе и двух богатых пьянчуг, не давшим ему поесть яблока и использующим его как подставку под мишень. Принцесса заколдована, только ответивший правильно на три её загадки расколдует её и получит её руку и сердце. Загадки у неё в стиле : "Что у меня кармане?". То ли нормальные уже закончились, то ли это сделано, чтобы точно никто не выиграл. Укрываясь ночью от дождя в церкви, он спасает от разграбления некий гроб с трупом, выкупая его у разбойников за единственный золотой-приданное матери. Те решив, что им мало пытаются убить его, но тут является некий волшебник, похожий на отца нашего пастуха. С ним они начинают путь к принцессе. После испытаний в виде атаки наложенных на кадры ястребов, загадочной красавицы, странной пожилой женщины, которые явно хотели отвлечь от пути и белого коня оказавшимся змеей, герои прибывает в замок. Там король, уставший от превращения в камень молодых людей показывает ему свой каменный сад и только звание не позволяет ему умолять отказаться от затеи. Парень задумался, но слова о том, что за любовь надо пострадать его утверждают в начинании. Вот тут чувства двойственные, понимаю чего имели ввиду, но именно такими словами часто нездоровые отношения оправдывают. Плюс в роман между ним и принцессой плохо вериться, они даже особо не общались. Наверно, она понравилась ему, потому что кучерявая как его прошлые подопечные. Девушка находится под чарами вполне эффектного колдуна с реально крутым троном. Оказывается, он ждёт именно парня с рубиновым кулоном, который сделает его Кощеем Бессмертным. Статуи же его как-то подпитывают.

Кстати о внешнем виде фильма. Очень красивые костюмы и актёры. Для одной сцен точно воссоздали средневековую ярмарку. Даже лоток с крысами показали. Благо откровенно игрушечными. Спецэффекты конечно сейчас устаревшие, но есть в них некая красота. Этот перемотанный обратно туман, летящие по небу всадники, красивый берег в сцене с великолепной лошадью с золотой уздечкой, странные мелифисенты-глашатаи, статуи с человеческими глазами, волшебный посох, вызывающий бурю. Другое дело, что для современного зрителя темп медленный, некоторым персонажам уделено больше времени чем хотелось. Когда герой говорит, что спутник ему как отец, веришь в подобное слабо, они почти не взаимодействовали как и с принцессой. Зато постоянно в кадре мельтешат разбойники и бухие женихи с прикольными ленточными рукавами. Кстати, роковая черноволосая красотка оказалась злодеем. Подобрали их очень похоже, но всё равно думаешь, а не трансвестит ли злодей часом? Кто знает как далеко он с другими кандидатами заходил. Битва с ним вялая. Видно, что театральный поединок. Как пастух сражаться научился? Или злодей больше магию с иллюзиями прокачивал? Но в итоге все счастливы, что особенно заметно по реакции двора и крестьян. Разбойники не получает наказание или раскаиваются. Только толпа над ними ржёт. После попытки украсть волшебный венок у героя, они пользовались его невидимостью. Глав.герой хочет разделить радость с волшебником, а тот оказывается тем самым странником в плаще, отдавшим ему рубин при рождении. Он читает лекцию о вреде бессмертия, чтобы вернуть камень на место сердца как тот колдун и испарится, оставляя задумчивого героя на фоне титров с невесёлой музыкой. Нафига была вся эта круговерть с камнем и как будет править теперь наш герой? Надеюсь на ещё живого короля и принцессу, всё-таки хороший человек из народа и хороший правитель понятия часто разные.

Вывод: это было бесспорно красиво, но многие вещи не прошли проверку временем.

                        Housekishou Richard-shi no Nazo Kantei (2020)

Привлекло название и синопсис, про ювелира, раскрывающего какие-то тайны. Обложка показалась похожей на яойные додзиниси, но списала на неудачный постер. Зря. Дизайн рисунка ещё больше заставляет вспомнить те самые комиксы. Честно, я искала аниме для фона, но оно даже этого слишком никакое.

Из плюсов отмечу одержимость знакомой главного героя камнями. В ней сразу просыпается кто-то со стержнем и что в отличие большинства японских сериалов социально неуклюжим показан именно персонаж японец. Главный герой простосердечен до крайности. Ричарду пришлось напоминать, что у них любая дискриминация запрещена и что не надо громко восхищаться странными одеждами, удивляться ценам, называть людей непривычной ориентации "такие как они" и рассказывать всё первому встречному о клиентах. Моменты, когда брюнет начинал расхваливать прилюдно красоту своего босса были в шаге от превращения в карикатурного кавказца, увидевшего блондинку. Искренность пришлось лечить очень двусмысленным смс-сообщением.

Меня хватило на 1-5, 7 серию и финал. Если первая история о бабушке-воровке и девушке для которой кольцо стало символом вынужденного замужества была ещё более-менее. В отличие от американских коллег, авторы эпизода не в лоб проговаривали как раньше людям трудно было. Вторая история уже настораживала. В другой, скрытность возлюбленной парня оказалась попыткой не быть лесбиянкой. Финал был открытым. История про кота удивляла только зачем было такую тайну из обычной предосторожности делать, портя невры ребёнку, который бы итак всё понял. Даже взрослый бы напрягся, скажи ему, что нечто привычное и важное ему пригрезилось. Остальные истории уже не так запоминались.

В финале был неплохой задел на драму про жуткого родителя, но и её просто решили, напугав неприятеля большинством. Даже без просмотра серий попробую пованговать, что Ричард некий бастард-аристократ, внесший разлад в семью и у них там какие-то скандалы со страданиями. Истории клиентов развиваются слишком сами по себе, оставляя ребят лишь наблюдателями. Не спасает ситуацию даже интересные сведения о камнях и ювелирном деле. Уж очень отвлекают речи персонажей. То ли они не могут понять их двусмысленность, то ли свою ориентацию. Также судя по финалу каких-то изменений со времён начала нет. Главный герой даже в отношениях с девушкой не определился.

Вывод: может любителям камней и около яойного фансервиса понравится, но очень уж данное произведение лёгкое.

                                                      Клаус (2019)

Никак не ожидала наткнутся на такой шедевр. Первое, что бросается в глаза это анимация. Авторы хотели вернуть интерес к классике и  у них получилось. Прекрасный город с колоритными персонажами, финальное преображение которого похоже на настоящую новогоднею сказку. Всё такое выразительное, а буффонада смешная. Будь то растерянные тормозящие псы, когда Джаспер внезапно летит до попыток последнего влезть через камин. Начинается всё довольно классически, болтливый избалованный главный герой ссылается в жуткий много веков одержимый враждой двух кланов город. Там случайно поднятый им рисунок оказывается у молчаливого лесоруба Клауса, который дарит одну из игрушек мальчику, одиноко сидящему в доме. Ребёнок получает подарок, а Джаспер смекает, что может выполнить озвученные отцом условия наказания, если вынудит писать детей Клаусу ради подарка. С заправским видом дилера он рассказывает детям о дровосеке из тёмных мест. Постепенно выдуманная им история обрастает деталями. Там быстрые перемещения в духе маньяков великана придадут ему мистический образ. Здесь любовь к сладкому и боязнь собак Джаспера дадут повод к печенью и носкам, а попытка старейшин кланов сорвать вручение подарков, родит историю о летающих санях. Желание главного героя досадить мерзкому мальчишке, создать историю о списках и принесёт поистине неожиданный результат.

Узнав, что надо быть хорошими, дети начинают делать добрые дела. Кто-то помог маме с бельём и его не успели облить помоями. Кто-то так увлекся чисткой снега, что прочистил всё соседям. Кто-то собрал ягоды, вместо того чтобы украсть и соседка сделала прежним врагам пирог из них. Кто-то всего лишь начистил кларнет и инструментом воспользовались для игры, а не разборок. Кто-то даже стал регулировщиком движения. Соседи мальчика из начала помогли его отцу при переломе ноги и вот он уже строит площадку на всех, пока волкодавы носятся с детьми, сам же он гуляет под ручку с соседкой. Ради писем детям пришлось пойти в школу, которая была рыбной лавкой, а единственная учительница немного поехала крышей. Благо изменения затрагивают её тоже. Редкий случай, когда понимаешь почему персонажи полюбили друг друга. Она его за то, что он вернул ей веру в людей и призвание, а он увидел в ней такую же измученную городом душу. Клаус тоже хорошо показан. Необычный образ. Он замкнутый, но добрый человек, переживший горе. Интересный контраст с привычным весельчаком. Своих детей у них с женой не вышло, зато он так искренне рад видеть улыбки детей. Также не могу не отметить паромщика. Единственный персонаж из города, кто доволен с самого начала. Мужик искренне веселится и явно получает удовольствие от издевательств над Джаспером. Даже ближе к концу специально подножку сделал. При всём этом, именно он в финале поняв ситуацию, нарочито детально "случайно" всё озвучил его отцу.

Глядя на характер главного персонажа и задачу с письмами, уже сразу понимаешь, что в третьем акте будет разоблачение лжеца, которое никогда мне не нравилось. После весёлых эпизодов тебя окунают в драму и начинают морализаторство. Здесь ещё даже нашлось место ссоре между Клаусом и Джаспером, но нет никаких долгих драм. Мультфильм будто сам понимает, что зрители много раз подобное видели. Такие эпизоды разбавляются светлыми сценами. После рассказа о жене Клауса, Джаспер мило беседует с эльфообразной девчушкой похожей на Лило и отводит её к Альве, где они вместе сидят. После разоблачения герой просто уходит с отцом, чтобы после беседы остаться на причале. Они не стали показывать разговор, чтобы не впадать в излишнюю сентиментальность. Зритель видит только как после слов паромщика он склоняет го��ову к сыну, садясь рядом. В этом есть что-то явно привычное им между ними. Даже финальный твист не совсем твист. Альва и лапландцы с Клаусом поняли план объединившихся врагов, и подготовили фальшивые подарки. Потому что дети всё выболтали в школе. Поэтому холодность старика понятна в течении всей сцены. Великаны от каждого клана женятся к ужасу их родителей, а странный морозный ветер, очень реалистично анимированный, который в течении всей истории явно помогал Клаусу, похоже действительно был духом его жены. Через 12 лет, герой стал совсем старым и однажды очень красиво ушёл в свет за любимой. Но стал возвращаться на Рождество, делая историю более соответствующей привычной о волшебном Санте. Мне нравится такой исход, потому что он одновременно показывает, что не всё вечно, делая это максимально мягко и светло. Так же он напоминает истории о святых. Они тоже после смерти могут явиться людям и помогают им.

Вывод: искренне надеюсь, что станет праздничной классикой.

P.S. Девочки-пронзальщицы морковками прекрасны при любом появлении, особенно в битве.