from the outside looking in, or "be happy with your scraps": yuri don't belong here
To preface i'll have to say that this isn't an issue that is only present in gacha spaces or gaming as a whole and that i might just be talking to the void as the world keeps moving against progress, but lately i've been noticing this situation getting significantly worse and all i can do is watch.
But this "genre" (if we can even call it that) feels very antagonistic towards queer women and not just from your usual Gacha Grail suspects, but queer communities too are starting to show an uncomfortable contempt that is sad to see
I'll go over some recent events that have left me sour and maybe that way i can be told if it's all in my head or not:
- Reign of Nightfall released recently in CN as a joseimuke game, meaning it's made with a female audience in mind but isn't as strict as the otome genre can be, case in point having women show attraction towards the main character. You'd imagine this would be a game that different communities could enjoy due to having something for everyone but there's numerous complaints about the sapphic aspects of the game, controversy around the main character catering to the male gaze (because obviously pretty women just are made for men alone) and people advocating for the removal of the female cast in favor of more self inserting or BL.
- Not sapphic but the LaDS fiasco has been used endlessly to punch down on women as a crazy fanbase that isn't worth the trouble and a rampant amount of misogyny and generalization because people post screenshots of CN players being homophobic, therefore all must be.
- Sandrone and Columbina having a weirdly high number of detractors in queer spaces, seeing as they are pushed in the game you'd expect the AetherMains to be annoying about it but there's so many husbando players and yaoi shippers that need to say every single time how exhausted they are with Sandbina and wishing it was a couple that fit their preferences, instead of celebrating diversity and queer representation.
- On that last topic, ANYTHING yuri gets tons of toxicity from the self inserters and husbando players alike, immediatly calling it male gaze and dismissing it as bait for straight men leading to lesbian erasure from both parts. Tsaritsa x Ronova recently has been a ship that suffers from this, close the level of Arlefuri being constantly denounced 3 years ago.
- Silver Palace not even being released but already under heavy scrutiny due to its gender ratio and characters with big boobs being present making it by default a male gaze self insert haven, even though we can't judge it due to not being available and taking a lot of inspiration from Reverse 1999 along with releasing a trailer that is a callback to Rondo across countless kalpas and AcheSwan from HSR, with the female main character.
i've kinda lost the plot at this point i'm just tired of how it keeps getting worse and worse for lesbians, to the point that other parts of the queer community in the gacha space are growing more jaded and hostile towards us