and the Korra one was even completely unintentional, the writers just kinda realized it was developing over the course of the series and decided to go all in on it

That explains why I got absolutely zero romance vibes from those two until season 4. Don’t get me wrong, Korra is obviously a bi queen, but I wasn’t getting any gay subtext and was pleasantly surprised when it came out of nowhere. Still came less out of nowhere than her dating Mako tho