#single all the way gay holiday movie

[mikereads]

“The Christmas house” -2020

“The Christmas setup” -2020

“Dashing in December”-2020

“Spoiler Alert”-2022

“The Christmas house 2: Deck those halls”-2022

“Twinkle All the Way”-2019

“The Holiday Sitter” -2022

“Single All the Way” -2021

“Dolly Parton’s Mountain Magic Christmas”-2022

There are other movies, tv specials and short movies but these a few I just wanted to highlight. You can find most of these on a streaming platform. Hope this is in any way helpful.

[rogueddie]

Scoops Ahoy Steddie Fics

Important: READ THE TAGS! Also, leave a comment and kudos! These fics are amazing and I love them and I hope y'all do too 🍌

STRIKE TEN.

oaseas

Steve’s striking out. It’s the summer after his graduation, he’s working 9-5 at Scoops Ahoy, and hey, did you hear? He’s striking out. Enter Robin, her ‘you rule/you suck’ board, and a promise to romance the next girl through the door. Except, that’s no girl. That’s Eddie Munson.

Words : 16,075 Chapters : 1/1 Rating : Teen And Up Audiences

AO3 : x

two bros chilling in the mall (ten yards apart 'cause we're not gay)

Gues, peytra

Steve Harrington is just your average guy working a shitty part-time job in a stupid mall. Really! He's very normal, he promises.

Just across the way, Eddie Munson works at Legacy Vinyl. He hates his job, his life, and most of all he hates having to see King Steve every single day.

What could possibly go wrong?

Words : 91,993 Chapters : 34/34 Rating : Teen And Up Audiences

AO3 : x

Maybe You're the Boy From My Dreams

ZiraC

Steve and Robin often bitch at each other. It's just a part of their dynamic. What happens when Steve accidentally bitches at a customer instead of Robin.

Words : 5,264 Chapters : 1/1 Rating : Not Rated

AO3 : x

Raspberry Riddle

madaboutmunson (BCRichSweetheart)

Eddie meeting Scoops Ahoy Steve, sort of from Robin's POV

Words : 4,874 Chapters : 1/1 Rating : Teen And Up Audiences

AO3 : x

You know you're just my type

liionne

In the summer of '85, Robin and Eddie make a bet: ten dollars says Steve Harrington is straight, and Eddie has the whole summer to prove her wrong

Words : 7,287 Chapters : 1/1 Rating : Teen And Up Audiences

AO3 : x

Maybe He's Born With It

Zigster

The one where Robin, Eddie, and Steve all work at Scoops. Robin has convinced Steve that wearing a little mascara and lip gloss goes a long way in luring in customers and Steve believes her. Friendship and domestic holiday-time enjoyment ensue with plot twists abound!

Words : 40,100 Chapters : 23/23 Rating : Mature

AO3 : x

sorry to ruin what's probably supposed to be a plot twist, but this has non-human Eddie- fyi for those who don't like that sort of au

double dare

firefencer

Nancy & Eddie working at Scoops AU

Words : 23,422 Chapters : 13/13 Rating : Not Rated

AO3 : x

Tell Me, Baby, What's On Your Mind

KiaraMGrey

All Eddie wanted to do was stop by Starcourt Mall to pick up his friend from the movies. But now he has a seemingly drugged up Steve Harrington leaning in WAY too close. And… did he seriously just call him pretty?

Words : 2,126 Chapters : 1/1 Rating : Teen And Up Audiences

AO3 : x

purify our misfit ways

laundrybiscuits

“Edward Munson,” Robin says, eyes wide in a way that means trouble. “I sincerely hope your last will and testament is in order, because your mortal soul will leave your body when you hear who just got hired at Scoops Ahoy.”

Eddie and Robin survive the summer of 1985.

Words : 23,904 Chapters : 5/5 Rating : Mature

AO3 : x

You Are My Favorite Place

god_hates_tyler

Steve goes to his first day at Scoops Ahoy and meets one Robin Buckley. She notices how god awful he is with the ladies and bets him he can't get a date by the end of the week. Steve, not one to back down from a challenge, agrees. The only issue? Steve has been in a secret relationship with Eddie Munson for over a year now.

Words : 7,356 Chapters : 1/1 Rating : Teen And Up Audiences

AO3 : x

[blood-mocha-latte]

luztoye love languages - please give me in depth thoughts

>:)

i have soooo many thoughts on this and you are about to hear them. all. im breaking my knuckles and getting into this. all Love Languages Ranked In Order Of Strength. Luztoye Version <3

5 - words of affirmation:

first, with nicknames. toye tends to swing towards more traditional nicknames (sweetheart, beautiful, etc) and uses them pretty often

he feels like he's not exactly Great with talking, so putting what he can into words through nicknames is his best way to show luz what he's thinking without him becoming overly defensive

luz is. all over the map with nicknames. he ranges from the good ol' fashioned ‘no homo’ names (buddy/pal/etc) to the most unhinged nicknames he can think of (i.e. pillowcase) to Normal Nicknames. toye literally could not gaf less

ok and i mean like look. as far as weaknesses go, i think they're p far up there on the communication scale. these motherfuckers don't talk. u know that bit in himym where robin and barney never talk about their problems and instead just Fuck. bc that's what they do

4 - receiving gifts:

look. gift giving rarely crosses their minds. not because they don't care about it, but because they genuinely just don't think of it

when two people are in the same vicinity a lot/work together/are never separated - like in the army - there isn't a lot of room for grand gestures and gift giving and the likes

they settle into giving each other small things on holidays/birthdays (cigarettes, ticket stubs, etc) but it hardly matters whether or not someone says something or gives them something

3 - quality time:

melds into the above. they spend so much time together no matter where they are (from proximity in the army to post-war living together) that everything they do is in a love language, in a way

they'd watch a lot of movies. luz is literally obsessed with funny face when it comes out and has seen the gay divorcee Too Many Times. toye's favorite is you were never lovelier, he can quote most of the scenes. yes these are all fred astaire movies shh

they're the same way with music. they don't have a lot of money after the war, and what they can save goes into a turntable and whatever vinyls they can find.

it's mostly billie holliday (obviously). but there's a lot of duke ellington in there as well, and, later on, a bunch of eartha kitt.

2 - acts of service:

luz really, really likes working with his hands. he's obsessed with fixing things, and oftentimes, it's things that weren't even broken.

when he's stressed out, he tends to tear apart whatever he can find (the sink, the fridge, etc) and then trying to put it back together

this often translates into him subconsiously doing whatever he can to 'fix' toye

he doesn't even realize that he's doing it, really. toye does, but doesn't say anything, because he knows it's how luz finds whatever equilibrium he's working with

the general rule is that luz is able to fuck around with anything of toye's except for the crutches, the leg, or the chair. everything else is fair game

it almost is a game, at this point - the best way to tell what kind of day luz is having is by looking at the state of Disarray around the apartment

toye doesn't say anything about it, and it's often put back together the next day. when it's not, he puts it back together himself

1 - physical touch:

number one for luztoye always and forever for One Million Years. they r touchy, your honor.

most of their touches are small - hands on knees/shoulders, brushing along the backs of necks, etc. they're much more reserved in public, but those stick with them

i've included it in literally every single one of my luztoye wips, but toye is definitely the type of person to be like. Crush My Soul Back Into My Body.

luz is just genuinely a touchy person, all the time, and he tends to be uber touchy with toye. like a fucking octopus.

i could go nsfw sooooo quickly but like. i shall Withold and instead just say. i have Too Many Thoughts on this

thank you sooo much for the ask bestie! i truly had the greatest time contemplating this <33

[pelorsdyke]

making a new pinned post to say hi! if you like my writing or me and want to read more of what I do, you can find me here on ao3. I most often write for queer wlw ships, including:

robin buckley & nancy wheeler (stranger things): there’s so many of these I haven’t listed them all, but here are some of my favorites

until what I love misses me, and calls me in. (nye! nancy’s birthday! a proposal!)

see you soon (ronance’s time-traveling child! mindflayer!robin! both old married ronance and first kiss ronance!)

heartstrings (a three part celeb!robin au. long distance, secret identities, phone sex!)

me and my girlfriend playing dress up at my house (robin dresses nancy up in her clothes as revenge for her gf making her wear frilly high necked dresses)

in the cold clear light of day down here, everyone’s a monster (werewolf pack of robin, max, chrissy, and vickie. featuring nancy identifying werewolf robin on sight!)

my heart was irrevocably gone (regency ronance)

i will love you with too many commas, but never any asterisks (a lot of domestic fluff for established ronance)

but the cold light of stars (my alien movies au! one of the crowning gems of my ronance stuff)

marjan marwani & nancy gillian (911 lone star):

who will come into my kitchen and be hungry for me (test kitchen au)

and love isn’t a fact, it’s a hunch at first. (paul helps marjan come to terms with her feelings for nancy)

and your keys, your ring of keys (marjan starts to realize some things about herself, with the help of an oc. lesbian marjan)

underneath your hands I become poetry (some celebratory sex after tommy announces nancy will take over as interim captain while she’s away. inspired by the bts pic where nancy appears to be wearing a name tag that says captain gillian)

your essence is the ink in the word forever (nancy has tattoos. marjan notices.)

so swing your hips and do a little dip (nancy, marjan, and tarlos go to a gay bar)

I will do my best to get it right (nancy and marjan’s first anniversary plans go awry)

I’m gonna love you for a long time (marjan’s lesbian flag hijab, but also just like. 1k words of established fluff)

I’ve been under scrutiny (you handle it beautifully) (marjan and nancy are actors on the firefighter show austin 126. nancy may have a tiny baby crush)

lucy tara & kate whistler (ncis: hawai’i):

the room is empty, and the window is open (a spiderwoman lucy au, six parts up so far)

february, the thirteenth (kacy celebrates valentines day early, as per lucy’s way of handling holidays)

blue scooby-doo fruit snacks and unrequited love, probably (high school au kacy flirting)

sit down, breathe, and just listen (post-3.04, kacy talks about marriage and promises)

in response, your glorious laughter (a snapshot of a sweet married kacy early morning)

hear the desert wind roll by (kacy first meeting cowboy au, pwp)

one single thread of gold tied me to you (kai buys lucy a virtual meet-and-greet with her celebrity crush, kate whistler. it turns out they may be a little more familiar with each other than lucy’s remembering.)

as well as spemily (pll) and buffy x tara and jackienat (yellowjackets) and donnajoey (tww) and maggie x sophie (leverage) and henren and wayhaught (wynonna earp) and more!

[franklymyqueeridontgiveadamn]

Queer Christmas movie recs

Breakfast with Scot (2007) An absolutely delightful feel-good movie about a retired NHL player and his partner reluctantly taking in an effeminate boy they are extremely not equipped to handle, and eventually becoming a family. One of my favorite movies of all time. Content notes: homophobia, sexism, mild violence, bullying, brief vomit, shitty parenting but I promise they learn their lesson.

The Christmas Setup (2020) The first gay Lifetime Christmas movie, and it's exactly what you'd expect based on that. Big-city attorney visits his hometown for Christmas, falls for his high school crush, saves the beloved local train station from demolition. There's a really sweet element of queer history involved, and Fran Drescher is great as the nosy matchmaking mom. Content notes: dead dad backstory, hilariously inaccurate depiction of computer algorithms.

Single All The Way (2021) Another home-for-the-holidays romcom with a nosy matchmaking family, this one with a fake-dating premise and a Black love interest. Jennifer Coolidge makes a good kooky aunt, and the main character's love of plants is very true to the queer experience. Content notes: infidelity (not committed by the main characters), looks like I didn't take notes on this one while I was watching so there might be more I'm not remembering but nothing too major.

Carol (2015) Oscarbait '50s period drama with Rooney Mara as a young saleswoman and Cate Blanchett as an older divorcee. I actually didn't love this one the first time I saw it, but last year I got an urge to watch it again and if you're in the mood for cinematic eyefucking it will come through for you on that front. It's a little bit of a downer, lots of homophobia and societal obstacles and ennui, but it's a very pretty film with a... maybe not happy, but at least cautiously optimistic ending. Content notes: homophobia, custody conflict, blackmail, mentions of infidelity.

Happiest Season (2020) I do recommend this movie BUT you gotta go into it with the right expectations. It was billed as a feel-good Christmas romance and it is not that! It's the coming-out story of a closeted lesbian (Mackenzie Davis) who treats her wonderful girlfriend (Kristen Stewart) like crap instead of telling her family they're dating, and you will come out of it screaming about how the wonderful girlfriend should have ended up with Aubrey Plaza's character (which, by the way, Aubrey Plaza wholeheartedly agrees with at 3:36 of this video). But it's well-made, it's really funny, there are a lot of good characters and good moments—it's worth watching as long as you know what you're getting into. Content notes: homophobia, bullying of an autistic-coded character, and honestly I think a lot of the shit Mackenzie Davis's character pulls counts as emotional abuse.

Tangerine (2015) A low-budget movie filmed entirely on iPhones, set in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve, centering around a day in the life of two trans sex workers of color. Rough and gritty, hysterically funny, a little dark at times but not tragic. Content notes: transphobia, lots of infidelity, racism/slurs, mild violence, drugs, one very brief scene involving the death of a pet (not shown).

[mrfartpowered]

okay ik I haven’t posted much abt lize’s and my post-canon timeline but I wanna talk abt how the Weinerham Family (weinerhamily) celebrates the 4th of July!!! here’s what u need to know

Randy & Howard are gay married and have a set of twins, June & B (seen on @cunningweiner). Also their legal last name is Weinerham

Mort & Viceroy are gay dating. Hannibal and Marci are happily married as well. the four of them have some sort of polycule thing going on. No they can’t explain it <3 and neither can i

Debbie & Theresa are gay married and family friends of the Weinerhams/the Evil Polycule. they have a son, Dewey, who is a couple years younger than the twins

Heidi is gay dating Morgan and they are #childfree

Bash fucks off to Europe soon after graduating high school and Marci lets him “spread his wings” (he does not attend the family gathering)

they are a very weird, very big, oddly happy family

AND NOW!!! SILLY HOLIDAY ACTIVITIES BELOW THE CUT

Every summer the Weinerman clan & company spend a week at a McFist lake house out at Lake Papoose. The 4th of July usually falls in the middle or the end of these trips, and it’s a huge Thing™️ every time.

When the tradition began, Mort and Viceroy had recently started dating, and Bash was still obligated to attend family vacations. Heidi/Morgan and Theresa/Debbie would not join the group for a couple more years. Randy and Howard were together, but not yet married and not yet fathers. The first 4th of July on the lake, the two of them snuck away from the McFists + Mort with a handful of fireworks, stolen from Viceroy’s stash. They only meant to fuck around with some sparklers, maybe a couple fountains. But SURPRISE! Bash crashes the moment with a bigass Roman candle. Randy and Howard try to shoo him away and it turns into an argument. Mid-scuffle, the Roman candle goes off. A grassfire starts. No one gets hurt, but it’s safe to say everyone is a little peeved for the rest of the trip. Bash only attends one more lake vacation after that before fucking off to Europe.

In the “present day” — meaning, all the kids are born, all the couples are married, the tradition is firmly established — everyone gets along quite well, sans-Bash. Randy and Hannibal kinda grate on each other, even though neither of them can quite put a finger on why the other is so irritating, but their love for the collective family outweighs the annoyance. Heidi and Morgan make incredible cocktails for the adults. Theresa always makes the cutest, tastiest America-themed snacks and desserts. Viceroy and Marci chat for hours on the porch. Debbie and Howard gossip and watch bad Hallmark movies for fun. Dewey, June, and B always get into some shenanigan or other. It’s all quite domestic and fun. In this timeline they really are a weird, happy, tight-knit family. I could go on and on about how everybody interacts with each other but then this post would never ever end

Even bigger than the fireworks, though, is the Annual Weinerman-McFist-Weinerham-Fowler-Kang Paddleboard Tournament on the Water!

Okay, yeah, it’s a mouthful, but here’s the gist of it: on the lake directly behind the McFist lake house, a ways from the shore, two paddle boards are anchored, nearby one another, but far enough apart that they won’t crash. Anyone wanting to participate, whether child or adult, is randomly paired against someone else, forming a tournament bracket. Each pair swims out to the boards, armed with one of those foam jousting sticks. Then. They Fight. In order to move up in the bracket, you must knock your opponent completely into the water.

Why is it such a big deal for the Weinerhamily? Because everyone single one of them is a competitive asshole! Except for Marci and Viceroy, who referee the event. And in order to participate, you must bring something to contribute to the Victory Pile, which is a pile of the brucest prizes, all of which belong to the ultimate winner. And everyone always goes buck-fucking-WILD with the Victory Pile. Fine wines, Disneyworld tickets, $100 gift cards, gaming consoles have all been seen in the Pile.

For a while, the victor changed year to year…until Debbie’s first win. After which, she becomes undefeated. But this doesn’t deter anybody, no — they get MORE competitive trying to take her out. Nobody understands how she’s so good at it. They just know she packs a LOT of force into such a tiny body.

Hannibal’s usually out in the first round (unless he’s paired against a child), at which point he pouts for a while until he remembers that he can spend the rest of the Tournament heckling whoever took him out.

Howard is a force to be reckoned with — low center of gravity makes him hard to knock over! — and so is his girl, June, by sheer force of will. Morgan is also a powerful foe, while Heidi is quite average. Randy has quick reflexives, but is fairly easy to knock over once he runs out of energy to dodge. B usually ends up laughing too hard to actually fight, and Dewey is the youngest, so everyone knows he doesn’t stand a chance. Theresa plays quite casually once her wife starts winning the Victory Pile every year.

that’s really all I wanted to say abt this but PLS feel free to ask me or Lize abt this timeline/the Weinerhamily Lake Holiday in my asks or the replies of this post !!!!!!! happy America day or whatever

[allwaswell16]

One Direction fics that take place on a cruise ship as requested in this ask. If you enjoy the fics, please leave kudos and comments for the writers! You can find my other fic recs here. Happy reading!

—Harry/Louis—

⊹ I Was Made for Loving You by LHStylinson

(M, 127k, kid fic) Harry is on a cruise with his son, and meets a blue eyed man who happens to be a famous voice actor and singer for children’s animated movies.

⊹ You Make Lovin' Fun by @homosociallyyours

(E, 109k, girl direction) Harry is a 28 year old travel writer at a gay magazine who gets the assignment to go a lesbian cruise. 

⊹ It's a Better Place (Since You Came Along) by @phdmama

(E, 51k, magical au) When Harry Styles, a mid-level talent, Finder, and small business owner, sets off on the vacation of a lifetime with his best friend, Niall Horan, he has no idea the changes his life will undergo over the next nine days. 

⊹ Sail away with me by Star_Henderson / @tommosgun

(E, 47k, fake/pretend relationship) Louis and Harry are part of the entertainment team on board a luxury cruise liner. They hate sharing their four berth cabin with two other guys and would do anything to get a cabin of their own.

⊹ Drifting, Weightless by @dinosaursmate

(E, 41k, canon) Harry and Louis are exes with benefits until they're not, and the Mediterranean Sea might just be the perfect place to work through some unresolved issues.

⊹ Found My Hallelujah by crimsontheory / @ireallysawanangel

(E, 34k, hurt/comfort) Newly single, with the cruise tickets in hand, and his bags already packed, Harry brings along his sister instead. And maybe the cute bartender on the ship might just be the person Harry needs to help him put back together all of his broken pieces.

⊹ Whatever Floats Your Boat by larryftnoctrl / @the-larry-way

(NR, 24k, fake/pretend relationship) When Harry's mother convinces him to attend his ex's wedding, he must enlist support in the form of his handsome and charming best friend, flatmate and convincing fake boyfriend, Louis. 

⊹ It's You or No One by @softfonds

(E, 20k, movie adaptation) When Zayn suspects that his husband is being unfaithful, he sends Harry, a club singer, in his place on a cruise ship. 

⊹ Angel of Small Death and the Murder Scene by @lousmoonshine

(E, 20k, historical) So, naturally, it can only be the worst thing that could have happened to Louis when he gets stuck with Detective Styles trying to solve a murder during his supposed to be relaxing vacation over the seas.

⊹ Sail Your Sea, Meet Your Storm by kiwikero / @icanhazzalou

(E, 15k, strangers to lovers) The strangers to enemies to friends to pining to lovers fic where Louis is cynical, Harry is charming, and they have seven days to get their shit together.

⊹ play it back, spinning faster by  orphan_account

(E, 15k, vacation) All Louis expects from his Caribbean cruise is many frozen alcoholic drinks and an even tan. 

⊹ What Happens Next by @lululawrence

(NR, 5k, friends to lovers) a fic where Harry has to pick up the pieces and ends up on the couples cruise that should have been his honeymoon...with his best friend Louis.

—Rare Pairs—

⊹ Gay Cruise by Alice_Novelland

(E, 12k, Louis/Harry/Zayn/Liam) Harry and Louis go on a gay cruise where they have lots of; wonderful romantic moments, passionate sex and cute titanic references. They also run into Liam and Zayn.

⊹ Solo Holiday by orphan_account 

(T, 10k, Louis/Nick Grimshaw) Louis goes on a singles' cruise. He meets Nick.

[trungles]

Regarding your winter romcoms: just wanted to say you have truly IMPECCABLE taste in films (which is to say that we have the *same* movie taste), and it makes me love you/your art all the more. Any other suggestions? Ultimte favorite films? Do share!

HELLO, it has been a hot dang minute since I did one of these, and I'm pretty sure this question was dropped into my inbox closer to Christmas of 2022. So. Thank you very much for your kind words, anonymous, and apologies for the very long delay!

This is a fun question, though, so I really wanted to answer it eventually. Forgive the typos, grab your popcorn and your Red Vines (the best licorice-ish candy, I WILL FIGHT YOU no I won't but I love them), and let's go through my favorite comfort-watch movies. They're mostly rom-coms and coming-of-age movies for teens.

As a general caveat, I am not a big movie person at all. I know basically nothing about film. You will find no sensitive critique or analysis here. My favorite movies are all VIBES. I'm also not a big horror/thriller/bloody violence sort of person, so I don't watch many of those, which is weird because a goodly number of my dearest friends are horror film buffs. Also, I have made it a habit, in my adulthood, to go watch movies that I wasn't allowed to watch or didn't have access to as a kid. I'm a first-and-a-half generation immigrant to the United States, so my way of getting comfortable with American culture was to sort of approximate its vibes by absorbing its popular culture almost anthropologically? So in this post I'll maybe go over why I like it, and I might mention some of the things that have not aged super well because, as I'm sure you know, every single thing ever made cannot help being a product of the time it was made. I believe in being able to watch these things critically, enjoying them as they are, understanding that everybody's mileage may vary, and that not everything I like will be for everyone. I'm mostly including this bit because it's internet and people don't always know how to simply disengage with things they don't like.

In my Winter Movie post, I recommended The Holiday, When Harry Met Sally, Single All the Way, Moonstruck, and While You Were Sleeping, so I won't go over those again. Let's kick this off with something to help manage everybody's expectations.

The McG-directed Charlie's Angels movies, 2000 and 2003. Both of them.

I actually saw the second one first. It was one of the first PG-13 movies I ever saw in theatres, and it sort of just imprinted in my psyche, I think? They're just fun. They're real fuckin' fun. Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu, and Drew Barrymore have great onscreen chemistry, and the cheesy wire-fu sequences are so ham-fisted that they delight me. These movies know exactly what they are, and they're very up-front about being Movies, particularly the second one where every scene seems to have an Old Hollywood pastiche. The first one has a bit of very odd brownface moments that I did not love upon rewatch.

Singin' in the Rain, 1952

I saw this movie for the first time when I was in middle school, and I was absolutely obsessed. It was the very first time I realized that the movies had its own histories, and that there was a transition of culture when there was a change in technology. Also, I just loved watching Gene Kelly dance, for gay reasons. Plus, Rita Moreno is in it for a split second, and she's divine.

Clueless, 1995

This movie rules, I don't know what else to say. It's a fantastic Austen adaptation, and while I was too young to catch this in the 90s, it felt great catching up with this one as an adult. I think it also helped me contextualize what other kids were into in the 90s, so I retroactively feel less isolated from my peers. It's a weird sort of magic. It's also strange to me, in hindsight, that in 1995 there was an enormous hit teen movie where there is a gay character who is treated incredibly lovingly for the time? Like, no gay trauma, no homophobic bullying, no nothing. He's just there, and he gets folded into the rest of the story and remains important to the main character's life? I'd have loved that as a kid.

Shanghai Noon, 2000

The year 2000 was an incredible time for goofy action comedies, and this one was formative for me. It's extremely silly and embarrassing to admit, but this movie was the first time I learned about how Chinese railroad workers built the transcontinental railroads in the later 1800s. I first saw it as a rental from the local video store, and my parents let me watch it because my dad liked Jackie Chan movies. It's... very 2000 in its treatment of racial politics, but you could reasonably argue that not too much has changed since.

The Princess Bride, 1987

I don't need to explain this to anyone.

Four Weddings and a Funeral, 1994

God, you can see the accent on Hugh Grant's mouth. I don't know why I love this movie as much as I do. I came to it a bit later in my teen years, and I'd watch it again every few years. It's grown on me more and more as the years go on. It's the only British-American ensemble production that I really latched onto, and it's in no small part because the supporting cast is so much fun to watch.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 1953

This is one of my favorite movies of all time. I watch it probably three or four times a year. Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell star as two showgirls who embark on a cruise to France to work around the machinations of an old millionaire who refuses to let his son marry Monroe's character. It's got that iconic Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend number, and it has one of the best third-act thesis statement speeches I've ever heard in any era. It's a great old musical.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, 2008

This is a gem that I missed back in 2008 because I was graduating high school at the time and had other things going on (being queer at a Catholic high school in the 2000s sucked ass, btw, let this ol' geezer tell ya). Frances McDormand plays a conservative governess who can't hold down a job because she, being a preacher's daughter, is a morally upright Amelia Bedelia. Out of desperation, she scams her way into becoming the social secretary for a bubbly young actress played by Amy Adams, and they spend a wild and heartwarming day together where Frances McDormand's character navigates wartime, friendship, and romance. This is also the movie that made me develop an embarrassing crush on Lee Pace (not because Lee Pace is embarrassing, I just hate having crushes on famous actors because I know, at the end of the day, that they're just weird theatre kids who have money now). It's based on a novel written in 1938, and it's aged surprisingly well.

Sailor Moon SuperS, 1995

I borrowed the VHS for this movie from the library as often as I could in the second or third grade. It was the one movie I had memorized in my brain to the extent that I could just recite the dub to myself whenever I wanted. Plus, Chibi Moon was my favorite (do not @ me, I will fight you).

Waiting to Exhale, 1995

I don't know how I caught this one as a kid or which channel aired it, but Waiting to Exhale–starring Whitney Houston, Angela Bassett, Loretta Devine, and Lela Rochon–was something I saw pieces of when I was way too young to understand any of it, and it was a joy to revisit it as an adult. I've since seen it a few times. This endlessly gif'd scene pictured above is every bit as cathartic as it looks, and the soundtrack is incredible.

The Mummy, 1999

Yeah yeah, this is an incredibly unsurprising and safe pick, but the movie is so much damn fun, and Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz have the most belligerently bisexual energy ever shared between a heterosexual pairing. I don't know how else to explain it.

Sister Act 2, 1993

I saw this one on TV a lot, and I watched it from top to bottom every single time. I don't think I've ever actually seen the first one.

Adventures in Babysitting, 1987

I found this movie incredibly delightful, and I'm pretty sure I watched it in adulthood because I was looking for this movie I'd only seen in bits and pieces on TV as a kid or something. It stars Elizabeth Shue and a very young Anthony Rapp. Plot-wise, it's very much like Lord of the Rings if Gandalf were a plucky teen girl and the hobbits were a bunch of literal children. I'm not kidding. It's also an 80s movie about a bunch of white suburbanites who have adventures in Chicago, so there are a couple cringey moments, but by the standards of its time, nothing wildly egregious. Bonus points for a surprise appearance by strapping young Vincent D'Onofrio.

Pretty in Pink, 1986, and Some Kind of Wonderful, 1987, double-feature.

I put these two together because they're the same movie, but gender-swapped. They're both written by John Hughes and directed by Howard Deutch, so they have the same very ineffectual Reagan-era flattening of class consciousness. They're about a poor girl/boy protagonist who falls in love with a rich boy/girl. The protagonist develops a richer relationship with their beleaguered father character and develop a better understanding of themselves, kind of. John Hughes teen comedy-dramas are significant, I think, because they're some of the first blockbuster teen movies that took teens and their feelings seriously, wrote from their perspectives, and courted teens as an audience (for all kinds of historical and economic reasons between the 70s and the 80s, I'm sure, but I'm no expert). They're also more watchable than some of the other John Hughes teen movies; Sixteen Candles is basically unwatchable to me.

Porco Rosso, 1992

I told myself I could only pick one Ghibli movie for this list, and this is it. Porco Rosso might be my favorite Ghibli movie, which might seem like an odd choice for me. Like a lot of millennials who were teens when Spirited Away came out, I got really into the Ghibli catalogue in the late 2000s but had seen some Ghibli movies much earlier in my life. My first was technically Grave of the Fireflies. I was eight, and came away with the notion that if I left my little brother alone, who was five at the time, the adults around us would just let him die, so I had to watch him as carefully as I could. I became an incredibly anxious and overbearing older brother very early. Next, I'd see the Buena Vista release of Kiki's Delivery service, so I have a soft spot for all the Sydney Forest pop songs they inserted in the 90s dub of that movie. By the time I watched Porco Rosso, I'd seen most of the rest of the Ghibli catalogue, but it really stood out to me. Most of Miyazaki's protagonists are girls, but this one is a kids' feature about a middle-aged man with a pig's head. In hindsight, I think I loved it because it is one of those rare children's narratives that conflates femininity with practicality and masculinity with frivolous ostentatiousness. It's worth a watch!

Say Anything... , 1989

This is one of those teen movies where they take small, mundane problems and make them enormous, which I sort of love as a storytelling tool. John Cusack plays Lloyd, a high school underachiever who falls in love with the valedictorian, and you watch him experience true internal motivation for the first time in his young life. It's very cute! I think the thing this sort of teen movie gets really right about being a teenager is you don't really have a sense of scale for your problems at that age because all your problems are just problems you're encountering for largely the first time. Ione Skye's valedictorian character experiences a pretty devastating family issue with her father, but it's flattened into the same strata as her anxiety about flying, her first breakup, and her feelings of isolation and remove from her peers. Plus Lili Taylor is in this as Lloyd's best friend character, and she's great, just like in the next movie on this list...

Mystic Pizza, 1988

I couldn't decide which gif I wanted to use for this movie, so I just picked two. It's another slice-of-life teen comedy-drama, and it's real cozy. The performances from all the young actors are fantastic. Lili Taylor, Annabeth Gish, and Julia Roberts are great in this, plus you get to see strapping young Vincent D'Onofrio again, which is a treat. He gets to do a lot more in this one. At this point it's worth noting that 80s teen movies are obsessed with romances among young people across different social strata, and true to the Reagan era, the movies like to impress upon its audiences that hating rich people is the same as hating poor people (cue heavy eyeroll). This honestly explains a lot of things to me about today's political discourses, I think.

To All the Boys I've Loved Before, 2018

I enjoyed this Netflix movie so much that I watched it 16 or 17 times in the month after its release. It's fine, I'm fine. I don't know exactly what it was. I love rom coms. I've seen a ton of high school romance movies, and this one hit me really hard for some reason.

And that's everything I could come up with off the very top of my head. I think I hit something like 20 movies up there? Whew! That's my evening, but it was the only thing I could focus on for more than an hour at a time today.

[davekat-sucks]

I can tell you're lying about being raised in a Christian cult because you believe the vast majority of Christians support gays. Either that or your neurodivergency is flaring up again

It's actually a Jehovah Witness, but in a way, JW is an off branch of Christianity, just with more stricter beliefs such as not celebrating birthdays and various holidays, only being allowed to make friends who are also JWs, using the name Jehovah instead of God in every single part of your daily life you can get because it's his true name, can't watch/listen/play materials that go against the JW belief such as anime series about magic, movies about talking animals, and games that uses violence of any kind, pedophiles cannot be taken to court if they are JW due to the rule says they need a second witness to see if they committed the crime, so shit like cameras of pedos doing the deed does not hold up for court, and of course, trying to use the child to get other kids in school to recruited for the JW bullshit. Now JWs absolutely are NOT a fan of LGBT. They think it is nothing more than a 'phase' or just them being lead on by the 'devil'. But once they study under JW, they will be """""cured""""" to see the error of their ways. My parents freaked over the fact when me or my sister used to call ourselves tomboys as kids. To us, tomboy means girls who are cool doing boy stuff. But to my parents in their language, tomboy in Philippines means LESBIAN. And we were in grade school, mind you, who didn't know it means something else in another country. And if you question how I was able to do things like watch anime, read manga, or still watch Disney movies despite those things would be against JW belief, part of it was that my parents did not understand some of the media or know what most of it is about. All they know is that it keeps me calm and happy if I'm near it. Another is because I still continue to enjoy it as a media and separate it from my religion and life. Michael Jackson was able to have a music video about zombies and he was a JW. He was concerned that he would be sinning against Jehovah for it and wanted to DESTROY the Thriller music video, but was convinced not to do so since it's not like he is actually promoting witchcraft. And other famous celebs are religious and still play in movies/shows that have themes like magic or violence, but that doesn't mean they fully endorse it. You have every right to never answer the door to a Jehovah Witness if they do come knocking. But okay. Continue to make fun of me for my neurodivergence. Because that's how I am from the very day I was born. Tumor in my brain who has slow learning and development issues. I couldn't walk or talk as fast as other babies. I don't pick up on things as fast enough unless it is repeated or shown through me. Late bloomer is an understatement.

[rainboq]

Have one yourself, weirdo. 6: "You make every day worth living." ScottMarsh.

If there had ever been one constant presence in Brooke’s life, it had been the great crushing pressure of expectations. For as far back as she had memories, she could remember expectations being heaped upon her. At first it had been a challenge, a joy even. She’d learned to read a full year before her classmates. While her classmates were struggling with long division she could answer the questions in no time at all. She was smart, she was clever, and she was capable. It ought to have brought her praise and approval. Instead it only increased what had been expected of her.

Her parent’s dreams, and they were always her parent’s dreams, had ballooned from engineer to doctor, from family musician to concert pianist, and from diligent daughter to future breadwinner and retirement plan. So it was all the way through middle and high school that Brooke did not have a single moment to simply rest. Her days were an endless cavalcade of school, clubs, and after school activities. Piano lessons, taekwondo, and robotics camps. She wasn’t even able to get in much ‘normal’ TV. If it wasn’t educational, honing her mind and her body, it was a waste of her time, according to her parents.

So Brooke had started wasting time everywhere else she could. She didn’t spend lunches hanging out with friends, which quickly meant she had no friends, instead she sat in library’s computer lab. The school’s security was trivial enough to blow through, and from there the world was her oyster. She devoured the video games the computers hardware could handle, which meant mostly games from before the advent of the CD-ROM, and whatever shows and movies she could pirate.

What little life she had turned into retro video games, anime, and classic movies. Her parents scoffed, of course, but as long as her grades stayed high, they barely tolerated it as she shifted her wardrobe and collections of knickknack to reflect her new interests.

The pattern had held until she got her acceptance letter to Blackwell Academy. For the first time in a long time, she had been able to breath easy. She would have space, she could pick and choose what to do, she didn’t have to constantly cram every free second of time she had with crap. She could watch movies, play video games, make friends and go out with them, maybe even find a boyfriend.

Things would have gone to plan, if it hadn’t been for one mousy wallflower of a photographer.

Warren had seemed like a dream match. He was, to be blunt, a total nerd, sweet, and into all the same shit that Brooke was. After their first conversation she’d decided that she wanted to date him, because she felt like it was a good idea, but he seemed to only have eyes for the cute, doe eyed girl who still carried around a polaroid camera in the year 2013. At first, Brooke had thought she had been irritated that this Max Caulfield was standing between her and her potential man. But Max seemed to only want Warren has a friend, if that, and before November she was dating some blue haired punk girl, and said punk’s aspiring actress of a girlfriend.

It should have made her happy, her competition had been cleaned out in one fell swoop and she hadn’t had to lift a finger. Warren was firmly on the market, and even started showing interest in her.

But that grinding annoyance still tugged at her. Every time she saw Max with her precious little girlfriends going about their precious little dates and having the time of their lives she felt like she had bathed in poison ivy.

It had taken until after the holidays, and an attempt at second base from Warren, for the reality to sink in.

She hadn’t liked Warren, she never really had. She had liked the idea of him, and how her parents would have reacted to him. He was smart, he was probably going places. No, she had been crushing on Max. That, and she was jealous that Max got to like girls. As far as Brooke’s parents had been concerned, being gay was something White people did. In her family, she was expected to get over whatever her personal feelings might have been, marry some good man for the good of the family, have a good career, and give them good grandchildren.

As it had turned out, she wasn’t the only person with that burden placed upon her.

Kate Marsh had been the last person Brooke had ever expected to be anything other than straight. She wore a cross like a life jacket, she ran an interfaith and abstinence club. She had a picture of Jesus up on the wall of her dorm for fuck’s sake.

But when Brooke had her melt down over it, Kate had been the one to find her sobbing on the roof in the cold December air. She’d confessed to the same things that Brooke had been feeling. Her own feelings for the pretty freckled girl, her jealousy at Max being able to love freely, and the weight of her own parent’s expectations.

Hearing that, just knowing that she wasn’t alone, broke something in Brooke. By the time January rolled into February her and Kate were dating, in secret of course. Those first few months had been the happiest of her young life.

Kate didn’t expect greatness from Brooke, she didn’t expect her to achieve the best marks, to go to an ivy league college, or to make boatloads of money. All she expected from Brooke was for her to be herself. For the first time in a long time, she’d known a semblance of peace.

It hadn’t lasted, they were already bound for separate colleges on other sides of the continent from each other and that couldn’t be changed, so they had made a promise to each other that they should see other people in college, and if they were still single and wanted to after, they could try to make something permanent.

That had been fifteen years ago. Now Brooke had a gold ring around her finger and her last name had a hyphen and a ‘marsh’ appended to the end of it.

And Kate still held the same freeing lack of expectations, even if Brooke had done all those things anyways. They both had, to an extent. Dr. Kate Beverly Marsh-Scott was certainly a mouthful, but Brooke relished saying it. That and she lived for the the looks on people’s faces when Kate had to patiently explain to them that yes, she was in fact Dr. Marsh-Scott, and that Brooke Scott-Marsh was in fact her wife. The speed at which feet were inserted into mouths would have broken the sound barrier, were it possible.

“What’re you smiling about, my love?” Kate gently asked, a feather-light hand touching on Brooke’s forearm as she stood next to her in the kitchen.

“I was just thinking,” Brooke turned to face her beautiful wife, who smiled at her. Those gentle hazel eyes that she could get lost in all day shimmered in the light, “About us. How we got here.”

Kate’s smile brightened as she stepped closer, her other hand moving up to cup Brooke’s cheek before she planted a gentle kiss on her lips. “Those sound like some good thoughts. Any you’d like to share?”

Brooke made a humming noise in the back of her throat, like she wasn’t quite sure if she wanted to share it before grinning and giving Kate a kiss of her own. “Just about how you make life worth living.”

[teddybearsandlightningstorms]

for the folks that celebrate christmas, here's some queer cheesy holiday rom-coms.

since they are cheesy hallmark-like movies, some parts are cringey. but it's the cost of watching queer holiday rom-coms.

cute:

Dashing in December (mlm)

Christmas as the Ranch (wlw)

Season of Love (wlw)

Under the Christmas Tree (wlw)

The Christmas Setup (mlm)

not for me:

City of Trees (wlw)

Looking for Her (wlw)

Happiest Season (wlw)

haven't watched yet:

Merry and Gay (wlw)

A Holiday I Do (wlw)

The Holiday Sitter (mlm)

Single All the Way (mlm)

A Christmas to Treasure (mlm)

[watchinghallmark]

Okay, let’s dive into the Christmas 2022 LGBT representation and why it was horrible.

5 movies had gay characters:

We Wish You a Married Christmas - married gay couple, 1 kiss, both white

Jolly Good Christmas - married gay couple, no kiss, both white

Our Italian Christmas Memories - married lesbian couple, no kiss, interracial

Christmas Class Reunion - 2 single gay men who do not get together on screen, both white

The Holiday Sitter - 2 single gay men who do get together on screen, 1 kiss, both white

We only saw 1 gay couple meet and fall in love. Only 1. Last year, we saw multiple couples meet and actually have a featured storyline. See this gifset for reference. To go from that to what we got this year is incredibly disappointing and there’s no good way to spin it. Yes, we got a gay-focused movie with The Holiday Sitter which was a big step but that doesn’t make up for the glaring lack of representation in all the rest of the movies. 

Let’s compare to the rest of the year. During the Spring Into Love movie event earlier this year, 4 out of 5 movies had LGBT representation. There were 4 others throughout the year after that on Hallmark Channel leading up to the Christmas movie season. That works out to 8 out of 36 movies which is 22%. For the holiday movies, that stat goes down to 12.5% for both channels and to 12.9% if we just use Hallmark Channel numbers. For a network that keeps talking about being inclusive and wanting viewers to see themselves on screen... the numbers just don’t reflect that when it comes to LGBT representation.

[faintedincoils]

7, 10, 11, 12 & 34 ^_^

7) Are you the "token" queer person in your family? Nope! My sister and niece are both queer, and by their own description both my mom and her mom are on the ace spectrum, though they didn't have the language to label themselves that way. My mom's cousin is gay too.

Putting the rest under a cut because my answers got long. 😅🙈

10) Something that gives you gender euphoria (whether you're cis or trans): All of my cute, colorful, silly skirts. All through my childhood and young adulthood I was told by all sorts of folks that I was "bad at being a girl." Which was okay, because a lot of the time I didn't really feel like a girl, although I couldn't say what I did feel like. I had some broomstick skirts that were long and flowy and so much fun to spin in. I loved the sensation of wearing them. I didn't love how people would say it made it even more obvious that I wasn't a good girl, or that I looked or 'felt' weird in them. So I just stopped wearing them for the most part. Then as I got older I tried wearing them to work on occasion, which was just as bad or maybe worse. I kept getting comments on how dressed up or pretty I looked, or how they weren't used to seeing me looking so girly, or questions about if I was trying to find myself a man now, because if so this was definitely going to help. So I stopped again. Then a random patron at work one day gave me a hard time about wearing a pastel purple polo shirt, how it wasn't a good color on me and made me look even bigger than I already am. This is after years of wearing nothing but polo shirts and khakis to work, or jeans and t-shirts on the weekends, being as bland as possible and hoping nobody paid any attention at all to what I was wearing. I got so angry and so offended and so fed up that I was like you know what? I am going to make my off the wall, probably questionable taste and fashion everybody else's problem and I am going to be happy. So I bought myself two maxi skirts in very bold designs: a desert landscape and some flying griffins. Then I decided to finally buy the Maya Kern skirt I'd always wanted, even though a midi skirt seemed too short because it might draw attention to my big calves, which happened a lot when I was younger, and got my legs groped by strangers more than once in my 20's. And every single time that I wear any of those skirts or the other ones I've bought similar to them, I'm so so happy. I can twirl around in my midi skirts and they flare out around me! I can put my hands in my pockets and swish my skirts around and I feel like a fancy dancer or something even though I'm an awful dancer and won't actually dance around at anyone. And everyone compliments what cute patterns they are, or how happy I look wearing them, but nobody really says anything about me being girly. I don't know. That was a lot of words but I still feel like I'm doing a lousy job of describing it. Some days I feel like a girl, but the skirts don't make me feel like more of a girl. Other days, more frequently, I feel like not a girl. I feel nebulous, or like nothing, so far as gender goes. And even though skirts register largely as feminine, and I'm sure they help a lot of people feel more feminine, they actually enhance my neutral gender feelings. Somehow.

11) Favorite (or just one you love) piece of LGBT media: Oh wow, there are so many! I'll start by saying that I have a huge soft spot for pretty much anything put out by Wolfe Video in the early to mid-2000s. I probably need to watch a bunch more of their recent stuff honestly. Anyways, Make the Yuletide Gay is a fluffy holiday favorite I watch almost every year. Were the World Mine is the gay movie I would have killed for in high school. Camp is the one I got as soon as I graduated from high school; it and But I'm a Cheerleader came into my life at just the right time and I'm forever grateful for them. On a similar note, Mercedes Lackey and Tanya Huff's books will always hold a place in my heart for being so matter of fact and lovely with their gay characters, which helped me tremendously as a tween and teen. More recently, Cat Sebastian's books have been game changers for me in the romance field. Her queer characters are so varied and have so many lovely little idiosyncrasies, and even the romances that you assume are straight aren't, because her characters are often by or because gender and attraction are a little more complicated than what you're used to.

12) Name some queer artists/bands or songs you like most: I'll be honest, I don't really listen to a ton of music. Once podcast became a thing I switched over to them by and large for when I have time to listen to stuff. But Placebo was one of the formative bands in my early life and they were queer. I didn't listen to a ton of Green Day, but American Idiot looped in my CD player nonstop, and boy howdy did the line "maybe I'm the faggot America" resonate with me and get me all pumped up. And t.A.T.u's "200 km/hr in the Wrong Lane" was my entire experience for a year in high school.

34) What are you needing most right now (what would make your life easier or more fulfilling in regards to existing as queer)? It would be so nice if people would stop using so much gendered language and phrases about me or in reference to me. I don't mind she / her pronouns, but being called Miss or ma'am or lady skeeves me out a lot of the time. It doesn't bother me at all coming from some of my friends who aren't cisgender, because there's always an implied asterisk, so to speak, but from randos it's the actual worst even though I know they're probably just trying to be polite and don't think anything of it.

[redgoldblue]

Get to know me

I was tagged by @stephmcx and @itwoodbeprefect and @actingcamplibrarian, ❤️❤️❤️ 

3 Ships: Steve McGarrett/Danny Williams (H50), Starsky/Hutch (Starsky & Hutch), Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer (Leverage)

First Ever Ship: In a non-fandom sense, it would have been Fran/Max from The Nanny, who now I’m thinking about it may have very directly influenced the way I drift towards slowburns that are somehow simultaneously very fast-burns; in an at least semi-fandom sense (non-canon queer ship in a show that does and did have a fandom, although it took me a fair few years to come to it), House/Wilson (House MD). I’ve been watching The Nanny more or less my whole life so I can’t give a specific time on that one, but Hilson infected me at age six.

Last Song: Cleaning Windows - Van Morrison. my father played it in the car yesterday and now it’s stuck in my head.

Last Movie: Single All The Way..... what can I say it’s trashy Christmas rom-com season and I didn’t get to watching it last year. Falling For Christmas is next up. 

Currently Reading: The Henchmen of Zenda by KJ Charles - it’s a gay romance adventure alternate POV retelling of The Prisoner of Zenda, a classic pulp novel that I have. never actually read. I am obviously enjoying Henchmen anyway because it’s a KJ Charles novel and I greatly enjoy everything she’s ever written and recommend them if you have even the faintest leanings towards historical queer romance. 

(and the fact that two of you said the advent calendar. mwah 😘)

Currently Watching: ....i’m rewatching House MD. As you probably know if you’ve been bearing witness to my blogging habits. I’m also watching Abbott Elementary and Leverage: Redemption as they air, and Frasier and The OC. Latter two not as they air, obviously. And I’m rewatching The Nanny as I basically always am.

Currently Consuming: I finished my tea fifteen minutes ago. I keep meaning to get up and make another cup.

Currently Craving: sleep? I’ve woken up before 10am the last three days and we’re on holiday and had a Time of it last night trying to find a hotel at the last minute. 

edit: now craving spagbol bc i reread #gayspaghetticouple but any cravings for laughter i may have had have been fully satisfied.

Tagging: @magical-friends, @krysten-knitter, @faorism, @thomtrebond annnd i think anyone else I’d tag has already been picked up. you, dear reader, if you so desire.

[soul-wanderer]

The Noel Diary (a brief and belated review) (okay, we all know this won’t be brief, because these reviews are not ever brief)

The Good:

- Barrett being her usual cute self and a literal light in the darkness of this season

- Barrett singing, incredible as usual

- A cute dog, can’t ever go wrong with that

- Small town christmas vibes, kinda cute, even if it’s also kitschy

- The neighbour lady and her date/boyfriend, 10/10 would ship it again

- “If you said there was only one room left, this would be like a rom-com” was, again, kitschy, but given the tone of this movie I’ll allow it and give it a brief chuckle

- For half of this movie, Barrett’s (aka Rachel’s) outfits and hair were on point (you guess where you will find the other half of the movie)

- The overall somewhat diversity in this movie. I say that in direct comparison to Hallmark movies, because this movie definitely fits the Hallmark stereotype, even though it’s produced by Netflix, hence the attempt at diversity (hello menorah in the hospital and random gay folks and PoC)

The Not So Good:

- Why did he get the fireplace started that probably hasn’t been cleaned in forever

- How was that piano sounding so good? Mum was a hoarder and I assure you that piano hasn’t been professionally tuned in what? 20 years? Yeah, there’s no way that piano still played a single straight note

- I cannot officially criticise the stereotypes/clichés in a Netflix Hallmark movies, but if I could: goddamnit, they really shoved a lot of those down their viewer’s throats (white shirt in the rain, impromptu jam session, woman choosing the wrong guy, lonely writer, suddenly being alone at a public event, only one bedroom left, father and son reconnecting in an awkward manner, dude randomly showing up at her house and looking up at the window, and so on)

- Dude really needs a leash for his dog

- Why did Dude and father leave Rachel waiting in the cold car for so long? And how did they survive sleeping in a cold af car?

- Who messed up Barrett’s hair and outfits in the second half of the movie?! Choices were made and they were not good choices, at all

The Bad:

- His weird stalking when she accidentally left the connecting door of their hotel rooms ajar. Seriously, wtf

- Dude looking for/meeting up with Rachel’s biological mother?! That looked a lot like overstepping boundaries, what was he trying to achieve anyway?

- We see him meeting her bio mum but not her?! Which makes this extra strange

- I don’t want to make assumptions here, but I feel like the bio mum was miscast looks wise (not acting wise, the acting was great) and I have a thought or two about the process

- Dude showing up at her house on christmas day/eve, despite fucking knowing that she’s still engaged. It might have been cute if she had been single, but she wasn’t. What was he trying to achieve there? Yeah, she cheated on her fiance and they were obviously trying to reconcile, but even if she chose the safe option over the “being happy” option, it wasn’t his place to insert himself into their relationship like that. That’s not cool, guys (gender neutral), so please don’t ever do that. Write a letter, for what it’s worth, but don’t basically stalk an engaged person

- The final parts seemed rushed, mostly because they spent too much time fulfilling clichés, but I wasn’t expecting a cinematic masterpiece anyway

In Conclusion:

It’s a Hallmark movie, only it is not because it’s produced by Netflix. But don’t be fooled, it’s still very much a Hallmark movie. Watch it if you generally like Hallmark movies but are fed up with the overall whiteness and lack of diversity of Hallmark movies. Or watch it if you generally hate Hallmark movies but are willing to watch some kitsch for the holidays (or any other day of the year). Don’t expect too much plot wise but other than that it does have it’s sweet/cute/funny moments and Barrett’s performance is a solid 9/10, but that’s due to the fact that no one can genuinely portray that many clichés without it looking a little, well, cliché. Overall it’s an easy watch and despite hating Christmas and Hallmark movies (I know, I know), I did not have a terrible time watching this, so that probably speaks for itself

[princesscolumbia]

A quick-and-dirty non-squint-o-vision version (I like this, but I had to pop it out in a separate tab and zoom in to make sense of what I was looking at):

Tags are Tricky...a quick and dirty guide

1. Canon

How does it relate to canon?

Alternate Universe

Canon Compliant

Canon Divergence

Crossover

Fix-it Fic

Future Fic

Missing Scenes & Codas

Pre-canon/Backstory

2. Format

Is it something other than a story?

5+1 Things

Art

Dialogue-Only

Epistolary

Online & Social Media

Podfic

Poetry

Songfic

Texting

3. Tone

How does it make you feel?

Angst

Crack

Fluff

Humor

Hurt/Comfort

Pining

Smut and PWP

Whump

4. Relationship

Describe the relationship

Platonic

Coming Out

Families

Friendship

Siblings

Getting together

Amnesia

Body Swap

Childhood Friends

Different First Meeting

Drunken Confessions

Enemies to Lovers

Fake Dating

Flirting

Friends to Lovers

Huddling for Warmth

Meet-Cute

Miscommunication

Road Trips

Roommates

Sharing a Bed

Slow Burn

Soulmates

Strangers to Lovers

Trapped in Elevator

PG-13

Cuddling

First Kiss

Kissing and Making Out

Sexy times

A/B/O

Dirty Talk

First Time

Kink

Roleplay

Sex Pollen

Sexting and Phone Sex

Voyeurism

Commitment

Arranged Marriage

Established Relationship

Honeymoons

Infidelity

Jealousy

Kid Fic

Long Distance

Relationship

Pregnancy

Weddings & Proposals

5. Theme

What is the theme?

Activities and Interests

Baking and Cooking

Camping

Celebrations

Crafts and Hobbies

Drinking or Getting High

Fashion

Holidays

Pets

Piercings and Tattoos

Religion

Sports

Theatre and Dance

Yoga

Adaptations

Fairy Tales

Historical

Reality Show

TV/Movie/Book Adaptations

Character Driven

Anxiety and Mental Health

Introspection

Queer Themes

Jobs

Artist

Celebrities

Crime and Suspense

Firefighters

Lifeguards

Media and Journalism

Medical

Military

Musicians

Pilots

Politics

Retail

Royalty

Teachers

Other worldly

Apocalypse

Fairies

Ghosts

Magic and Fantasy

Parallel Universe

Sci-fi

Shapeshifters

Superheroes

Supernatural

Tentacles

Time Travel

Vampires

Witches

Zombies

Places

Bookstores & Libraries

Coffee Shops & Restaurants

College

Flower Shops

High School

Summer Camp

Wineries

Note: These are examples, not a definitive list, but I hope the categories are useful.

(Commentary below the cut)

I'm going to introduce a few more categories to this list:

Meta-type

What's the relationship of the contents of the story to the main timeline of the source material?

Alternate Universe

Crossover

Fusion (Fusions are NOT crossovers)

Continuation

Divergence

Isekai

Multiverse

Meta-fandom

"Fandoms" that have no centralized source material that have spontaneously generated from the interaction of multiple online communities

A/B/O - Also "Omegaverse" and variants

Time Loops

Furry

S.C.P.

Gender and Sexuality

Does the fic include Alphabet Mafia connections/connotations?

Transgender

Queer

Gay

Lesbian

Sapphic

Transwoman [character]

Transman [character]

NB

Enby

Non-binary

Genderfluid

Cis

Comphet

Kinks

We've all got 'em, which kinks does your fic cover?

BDSM

Humiliation

Air games

Oral

Note: There's no way to make a comprehensive list for this category in a single Tumblr post.

Citrus Scale

Kickin' it old-school; how tart is your fic?

Banana (Absolutely nothing sexual about this whatsoever, even kissing isn't a thing here, and holding hands might be scandalous)

Orange (Minor touching, nothing you might get arrested for, almost entirely SFW in all ways, 100% consensual across the board, PG-13 and up without question)

Lime (The equivalent to 'soft-core porn,' blatant sexual acts depicted though not explicitly described, characters have rounded third base and are getting ready to slide into home, you might have to show ID to prove you're of-age to get into the movie theater showing the fic on screen)

Lemon (THE NSFW tag, smut, absolutely describing the naughty bits and all the dirty actions)

Genres

Did you get your peanut butter in my chocolate? Are you a regency purist? What genre does your fic fall into?

Romance

Sci-fi

Mystery

Fantasy

High Fantasy

Urban Fantasy

Western

Samurai

Horror

Thriller

Don'ts

Don't do these things. Ever.

Tiktok-ify your tags - "sanitizing" your tags to "get past the algorithm." ("unalive", "k!nk") There is no algorithm, all you're doing is breaking the tagging system if you do this

Tag spam - adding tags to your fic that don't apply to your fic

Tag jam - adding as many tags as possible in hopes that someone, somewhere will find your fic. All this does is create a massive, unreadable block of text that defeats the purpose of the tagging system

Suggested edits to the infographic

This is entirely my opinion:

Alternative Universe, Canon Divergence, Crossover, and Future Fic should be removed from the "Canon" section

A/B/O is not exclusively about sex/smut and should be separated from "Sexy times"

Remove the "Other worldly" section. 90% of the listed terms are genres and the others can go into other sections

Definitions Needed

Sometimes y'all forget that your experience is not universal. WTF are these?!

5+1 Things

Podfic

Songfic (Is this a fic told in song? A fic that has a song in it?)

PWP

Whump

Final note: Never, EVER use A/B/O without the slashes. Ever. I'm not even joking about this

I kind of suck at tagging, so I made this infographic to help make it easier.