Nose dive off the sanity train
OTALIA
Seriously, I’m eating, drinking, and sleeping this stuff. I am unashamed in my desire to talk about it and spread the word throughout the masses, like some kind of weird Guiding Light missionary. Just to clue some of you in about my lack of shame; I work with college students. I have roughly sixteen 18 to 21 year olds that I supervise on a daily basis, and they all know the inner workings of Olivia Spencer and Natalia Rivera’s love life. Not that most of them want this information, especially some of my guys, who have a tendency to look nervous and slowly slink away from me. I just can’t seem to help myself.
What is it about this story that has so captured my attention? These are a few things about Otalia that I think are made of win:
Slow build-up - Olivia and Natalia have gone from enemies, to reluctant co-workers, to people who help each other out, to even more reluctant housemates, to best friends, to being in love. It’s taken over a year. That’s like eons in soap opera romance.
The Angst - The will they or won’t they went on forever, and honestly it’s still evident. Sure they’ve admitted that they are in love with each other, but Friday was the first time in over a month that Olivia and Natalia were in a room together without one of them bursting into tears. And let’s be clear… they still haven’t shared a damn mutual kiss! (There was a guerilla kiss that Olivia landed on Nat back in March, but I’m not counting that).
The Writers - I will cop to the fact that I’m a writing snob, and that logically soap opera writers have in the past not even been a blip on my radar, but I have got to give it up to the writing staff on GL. As a member of the queer community I am so impressed with how things are unfolding. This relationship has been free of labels, protests, and sensationalism. It’s a love story, plain and simple. Also, some of the dialogue has simply blown my mind.
The Actresses - Crystal Chappell is in a word… HOT! Dude, the woman is gorgeous. There are moments when words actually can’t describe it. Jessica Leccia is also attractive. She’s got these cute little dimples and sometimes I just want to reach through my tv and squeeze her. The two of them together have this unbelievable chemistry. Also they have both embraced their queer fans and spoken with nothing but respect and excitement about the roles they are portraying. Class acts, the both of them.
The Fic - The sheer abundance of fanfic that has spun out of this fandom over the last two months is mind-boggling. I was in my own little slump, unable to finish any of the in progress stories sitting on my zip drive. This fandom yanked three fics out of me in three weeks. There’s just something about the story that calls to us. I have been breaking all of my rules of reading as well. (Rule 1: no unfinished stories, Rule 2: no present tense, Rule 3: no message boards, lj and websites only). The broken pieces of these rules are as I type this littering the floor of my living room. I swear to God that both Wonko and Dinovia are going to kill me dead. I’m up to checking 15 times an hour for updates, minimum.
These are but a few of the reasons that my still (for the moment) rational mind recognizes. And before anyone goes and teases me for my obsession, can I just say you should go check out some of the Otalia clips on youtube…