#because i believe that queer is inherently subversive and therefore the major grom queer rep is kinda almost perfect in my eyes

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thanks for the response! (i had the propaganda question) still haven't seen movie so will wait before digging for those spoilers but definitely curious about the writers/artists comments regarding the comic and arcs you mentioned! it's fascinating that the creators are able to pull off what seems like a very queer-coded relationship despite even in spite of extreme censorship which i think is very different from queerbaiting (again, not having seen/read the source material) but there's been a lot of recent discussion in fandom spaces about this with respect to chinese media as well so am very interested to learn about how creator intent faces off against state censorship and what people end up still picking up on after the fact :) thanks for your thoughts!!

of course!! i'm very eager to discuss anything Major Grom-related to the best of my abilities (and i leave room for doubt and correction because i am fairly new to the fandom, fyi). here's a brief summary of some relevant info; i won't be including creator names and links here so it's not searchable, and also because it's all in russian (again i can do it in dm's). AND i'm sure you can find it out on the Bubble Comics website!

re: canon text itself. according to official extras, one of the characters was initially supposed to be a generic bodyguard type, but the story required him to become a more important companion for the antagonist; to be very brief here, he ends up essentially what the antagonist values most in his life and is narratively mirrored to the protagonist's girlfriend in one of the story arcs. it all comes down to a very pointedly dramatic, tragic, and emotionally charged moment for Igor Grom with his gf, and Sergey Razumovsky with his bodyguard. you know. a very casual bro moment for the latter pair, obviously.

re: creator feedback. the main artist & co-writer of the series has a multitude of what you'd call fanart pieces of these two characters in, like, a romantic relationship. i can't quite say they're canon since they're not included in the actual printed versions, but nothing in the comics contradicts or discredits the possibility of these scenes existing in the canon universe throughout.

the main writer/producer/Bubble Comics owner used to be very much against any kind of non-canon shipping, but he's radically changed his opinion over the years, which he expressed just recently in one of the official Bubble Comics podcasts. him and chief editor/producer are both very open to fan content and encourage any type of fan interpretation, which, to me, doesn't come off as pandering to the audience as much as it does as genuine gratitude and understanding of how storytelling and fandom spaces work. kudos to them from me for that.

as a side note, i do have some uhh uncertain feelings about the chief editor recently being a bit too eager to support the queer ship in question. some people see it as sort of queerbaiting wherein he's playing into the hype, but to be honest he seems like a geeky guy himself who's just generally very comfortable with his own sexuality. do whatever you will with that. i think he's allowed, maybe would be cool to tone it down a bit, but also, maybe not. it's all within reason, i guess.

re: queerbaiting & censorship. here's the part i dread discussing the most because the very concept of queerbaiting is a bit blurred in fandom discussions. i personally believe it becomes even more complicated in places like russia; like you mentioned, i do think this specific case is something other than queerbaiting. like, how are you supposed to do queer rep in mainstream media if you can get prison time for doing it? i think it's very much the case of context and reception, and if you look at the core fanbase, it's got a lot of queer people and/or folks who support the opposition.

of course, it's important to examine the authors of the content and their possible motives: the aforementioned main writer/company owner is linked to pro-state publications through his relatives, so yes, his money does come from the state, technically, at least in part, or at least that is what some people believe and i have no way of proving either point. still, i personally differentiate that from Bubble Comics being state-sponsored (like, FondKino did not sponsor the Major Grom movie, and FondKino sponsors so much of mainstream russian cinema). some people don't, and i guess i get their point. i firmly believe i'd go insane if i filtered every creator i've ever been interested in through the lens of absolute moral purity especially in russia.

but i circle back to the fanbase aspect of it: at some point i think it's equally important to look at interpretation and reception of content as well as its creators. if queer people find themselves relating to the story and the characters, i think it's doing something right.

maybe not though. maybe we are all just being tricked into consuming pro-state propaganda because we are obviously all idiots and my donations to medusa and doxa and ovd-info are nonexistent and dissolve into the air <3

#sorry for that last part. i just. have seen a lot these past few days jcnjsdc #very interesting what you mentioned abt chinese content creation too! i know nothing about this so its super interesting #just the whole discussion around what it is to depict queerness and to do it 'right' is i think one of the banes of my existence #yeah i also! should say that this is all my opinion and my interpretation. and i am notoriously a bad queer #because i believe that queer is inherently subversive and therefore the major grom queer rep is kinda almost perfect in my eyes #again im very opinionated and very bad. love complexity in my fiction can afford consuming bad queers and cops in stories i read for fun #also! i guess i didn't really answer the escaping censorship part of this but #it is complicated for me. i don't know how that works. i don't know what's considered gay enough to warrant state attenition #it's all reasonably deniable in both comics and the movie so i guess that's the answer #as far as creator endorsement goes idk! genuinely! jsyk for example the actors are also very chill about queer ships in interviews so! idk! #maybe it's okay as long as it's not on federal tv. maybe. am not a lawyer am not even a social activist. so. yeah. sorry abt that jdcjsdbv #major grom fans what do we think about this. do we agree. votes #major grom #майор гром #mine