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Another kind of "no heterosexual explanation" moments
TFV's post on "no heterosexual explanation" moments, where it is hard to come up with an in-canon explanation for a certain character's behavior unless it's them being in love with another character, got me thinking about another kind of moment I experience periodically.
It's the moment where my own tendency to read queer subtext in everything blinds me to the fact that there is really obvious textual queerness going on. I am so used to thinking of the way I read queerness into everything that sometimes I just don't realize that it's not just me.
Case in point: the blowjob scene in Nico and Dani. I thought it was just an awkward film about two teenage boys who were maybe getting each other off a little bit, no homo here unless you're a slasher! And then... blowjobs! (Honestly, I still sort of think that my university's Spanish department selected its films with an intent to troll the firsties. Poor little bb!epershand was like "Did you just fade to black and keep the screen black for like a minute while keeping the blowjob noises on? European film, you... you confuse me.")
Dumbledore's "outing" was another one of those moments for me. Because... of course I'd been slashing Dumbledore/Grindlewald, GAY OLDER MENTORS is my favorite trope. But finding out that JKR also slashed them came at me out of nowhere.
Editing this to add one more example: in Farthing it took me way too long to figure out that all those intense conversations about what kind of tea people drank that sounded like obscure euphemisms for homosexuality? Were obscure euphemisms for homosexuality. ("Do you like INDIA tea or CHINA tea? Personally, I like China tea... with lemon. You look like a man who... also likes lemon in his tea.")
So, what are your "being a slasher made me not notice obvious canon queer characters" moments? What are the texts that you only belatedly realized didn't need queering?
It's the moment where my own tendency to read queer subtext in everything blinds me to the fact that there is really obvious textual queerness going on. I am so used to thinking of the way I read queerness into everything that sometimes I just don't realize that it's not just me.
Case in point: the blowjob scene in Nico and Dani. I thought it was just an awkward film about two teenage boys who were maybe getting each other off a little bit, no homo here unless you're a slasher! And then... blowjobs! (Honestly, I still sort of think that my university's Spanish department selected its films with an intent to troll the firsties. Poor little bb!epershand was like "Did you just fade to black and keep the screen black for like a minute while keeping the blowjob noises on? European film, you... you confuse me.")
Dumbledore's "outing" was another one of those moments for me. Because... of course I'd been slashing Dumbledore/Grindlewald, GAY OLDER MENTORS is my favorite trope. But finding out that JKR also slashed them came at me out of nowhere.
Editing this to add one more example: in Farthing it took me way too long to figure out that all those intense conversations about what kind of tea people drank that sounded like obscure euphemisms for homosexuality? Were obscure euphemisms for homosexuality. ("Do you like INDIA tea or CHINA tea? Personally, I like China tea... with lemon. You look like a man who... also likes lemon in his tea.")
So, what are your "being a slasher made me not notice obvious canon queer characters" moments? What are the texts that you only belatedly realized didn't need queering?
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Eugénie Danglars is strong and independent and musical and she doesn't want to marry the man her father has engaged her to, and she'd rather spend time with her pretty tutor Louise--and at this point, I'm thinking, "yeah, I get it, nineteenth-century lesbian subtext" But then Eugénie disguises herself as a boy, and she and Louise run away together. And then, the next morning, they are discovered in an inn, sleeping in the same bed. And it's like, "... huh. That is not really subtext anymore." (The last we see of them, they're departing again, together--they get a happy ending!)
It was obvious that Eugénie was supposed to be kind of gay, but I had no idea that in 1844 it was even done to have actual gay romance. It didn't occur to me that Eugénie/Louise could be the canon pairing.
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