That's a really interesting way to look at it, being like a pulp novel. I always thought it was more of Tosh being so keen on someone's undivided attention and common interests that she wouldn't really care what bits came with it. A lot like Suzie I think Tosh just needed someone to talk to, someone to stand beside her and not dismiss her -as she saw Gwen and Owen so readily do, unconsciously or not, with the pendant- but Mary was rather intent on seducing her from the get go XD So maybe a bit of column A with a bit of column B. I wouldn't put it past the writers to have Mary exude some sort of sexy pheromones but not say it directly.
I think it depends on how much you see what Mary does to Tosh as manipulation (one would assume through telepathic knowledge of her mental state) in order to get her into bed. That's pretty much how I saw it, and that immediately brought to mind, for me, associations with Evil Lesbians seducing innocent straight girls.
It's just that we are never given any reason, either before or after that episode, to believe that Tosh is anything other than straight. That episode bugs me on so many levels, but it's that level of Mary using Evil Lesbian Manipulation to get Tosh into bed that bothers me the most.
But (partly because Tosh is woefully underwritten) we get very little information on who she fancies. We see her pine after Owen and her relationship with Tommy in TTLM, but that doesn't strike me as enough information to establish her as definitively straight. Though, tbh, part of the reason I prefer to think of her as bi (other than fic purposes, obv) is that it makes GBG marginally less squicky if there's a chance she was attracted to Mary anyway.
Exactly my point, yeah. Seeing her as bi makes that story less gross, but it's really the only reason I'd like to think that she's bi. Just like I liked thinking there was more to Jack/Ianto than sex, because seeing it any other way made it sexual harassment in the workplace for me. But I was wrong about that one, so you never know.
I'm sure the writers were more or less writing along the lines of louiex's answers, and not really aware of any sort of lesbian negative subtext presented there. I've got her labelled in my head as bi for my own peace of mind, so as far as the Tosh that I write is, that's what she calls herself. I'm not too sure about canon!Tosh. If you take it as a one-time "yeilding to temptation" thing, it is squicky.
The fact that I have no idea how to answer the poll is just a product of TW's cautious approach to characterisation and continuity, I think. Either answer works because they never wanted to cut off a possible future storyline - but really that just means neither answer is remotely satisfying (with added discomfort from defining bisexuality as not-making-your mind-up, instead of qualifying as a genuine active choice).
Greeks... is squicky as all hell, and the Evil Lesbian Converting The Innocent trope is definitely a big part of that, but I didn't get an 'ick, ladyparts!' vibe at the conclusion. They didn't follow it up in any interesting or meaningful way to redeem it either - but then this is Torchwood we're talking about.
The really fail-y thing about that episode, to me, was making Mary evil in the first place. It would have been pretty interesting to have Tosh fall in love with an alien in a female form. Maybe if Mary had initially wanted to get her transporter back, but found that she loved Tosh and wanted to stay with her... that would have been such an awesome ongoing relationship storyline. Plus, I thought Tosh deserved to have someone care about her romantically who wasn't a frozen soldier or a memory alien
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Greeks... is squicky as all hell, and the Evil Lesbian Converting The Innocent trope is definitely a big part of that, but I didn't get an 'ick, ladyparts!' vibe at the conclusion. They didn't follow it up in any interesting or meaningful way to redeem it either - but then this is Torchwood we're talking about.
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