I think you're absolutely right. I mean this is part of why I've been getting into The Locked Tomb stuff because even though there really isn't anything explicit going on between the main characters yet there does feel like there's more of that intensity where a lot of other F/F feels tepid. But possibly it's easier to get there when the main plot is necromancy and literal cannibalism is on the table... though all things considered I've seen some remarkably tepid vampires.
I am trying to think why Vi/Cait felt tepid to me even though they're literally fucking on screen. I think Caitlyn as an object of desire doesn't make much sense to me. She may be physically attractive but she's just... I dunno, wooden, and Vi's arc of constantly pushing the same familial pain button for her got really boring and made her a flat character, to the point that their relationship felt like it had no payoff even though it's the ship upon which the whole show turns. Probably that the sex scene is in a really odd place narratively does not help. Which sucks. But possibly that's more a complaint about what a shitshow season 2 is than it being a particular example of tepid lesbians.
As for this
And it's just so wild to me because again I have to ask -- are people just worse at reading now? Does the idea that "well they can put in canonical gay rep so we don't have to read between the lines" really dominate so much that even without supposedly more queer-friendly progressive mores around polyamoury and queer sex don't allow us to read all of that into the texts we're engaging with?
I want to believe that the answer is 'yes' but I also think a big part of it is that there are actual straight people engaging with these stories. I mean how often do we see "oh they were really good friends and roommates"? I think that might be the answer to the second question, too. These spaces have been, in effect, "contaminated" by "normal" people who cannot see beyond what is spoonfed to them, and they have been given the bandwidth to broadcast their opinions into spaces that weren't overtaken by them, kind of like business school freshmen shouting down a literature professor's analysis and us being forced to take them in as "equally valid". I want to say people have gotten dumber but I think it may be more the idiots have broken down the gates because gatekeeping is out of vogue.
Anyway a big problem with the whole "now we can have explicit gay relationships" is that explicit relationships are often written very poorly and uninterestingly in general. If we keep using Arcane, the straights get so excited about Jinx/Ekko when there is literally no there there. Singed and Ambessa had more chemistry onscreen! To a really disturbing number of straight people a relationship is two characters, one you find attractive and one you can project yourself on, and put them next to each other and have some really contrived slapdash 'romance' plot tacked on and it becomes a love for the ages. What Sam and Frodo had was special -- who the fuck is Rosie Cotton? etc.
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Date: 1/5/25 03:10 (UTC)I am trying to think why Vi/Cait felt tepid to me even though they're literally fucking on screen. I think Caitlyn as an object of desire doesn't make much sense to me. She may be physically attractive but she's just... I dunno, wooden, and Vi's arc of constantly pushing the same familial pain button for her got really boring and made her a flat character, to the point that their relationship felt like it had no payoff even though it's the ship upon which the whole show turns. Probably that the sex scene is in a really odd place narratively does not help. Which sucks. But possibly that's more a complaint about what a shitshow season 2 is than it being a particular example of tepid lesbians.
As for this
I want to believe that the answer is 'yes' but I also think a big part of it is that there are actual straight people engaging with these stories. I mean how often do we see "oh they were really good friends and roommates"? I think that might be the answer to the second question, too. These spaces have been, in effect, "contaminated" by "normal" people who cannot see beyond what is spoonfed to them, and they have been given the bandwidth to broadcast their opinions into spaces that weren't overtaken by them, kind of like business school freshmen shouting down a literature professor's analysis and us being forced to take them in as "equally valid". I want to say people have gotten dumber but I think it may be more the idiots have broken down the gates because gatekeeping is out of vogue.
Anyway a big problem with the whole "now we can have explicit gay relationships" is that explicit relationships are often written very poorly and uninterestingly in general. If we keep using Arcane, the straights get so excited about Jinx/Ekko when there is literally no there there. Singed and Ambessa had more chemistry onscreen! To a really disturbing number of straight people a relationship is two characters, one you find attractive and one you can project yourself on, and put them next to each other and have some really contrived slapdash 'romance' plot tacked on and it becomes a love for the ages. What Sam and Frodo had was special -- who the fuck is Rosie Cotton? etc.