dear universe

[kindkit]

Please send me a show in which everyone is lesbian, gay, or bi. Not a show like Queer As Folk or The L Word that's specifically about a queer community, but an ordinary show that's about space adventures or pirates or demon fighters or cops or lawyers or boring white suburban middle-class couples. Just, all of them are LGB (some of them could be T, too, because that would be awesome, but they're also L, or G, or B). No straight people. Even the incidental characters with just one or two lines have to be wearing a Pride button or something.

A show like that might, just possibly, begin to make up for all the shows (even now) without any queer characters, or the ones where the queer characters are speedily killed off, or the ones that queerbait and then say "Nope, these characters are straight," or the ones that have an unspoken quota system for queer characters so there can only be so many.

I eagerly await your response in this matter.

Sincerely,

Me

Comments

[kindkit]

I've heard very good things about Black Sails. I actually watched the first few episodes but bounced hard off of the grim-n-gritty, everyone betrays everyone tone. Then I started watching the Exorcist.

But I've since heard that the later seasons of Black Sails are different and much better than S1, so I might give it another try.

[sovay]

But I've since heard that the later seasons of Black Sails are different and much better than S1, so I might give it another try.

That is also what I've been told, for what it's worth: it remains a violent show, but not a grimdark one. Also, postcolonialism.

[edit] Apropos of nothing except queer characters, did I remember to recommend you KJ Charles' Spectred Isle (2017)? I do not know your mileage on speculative fiction; it is probably closer to secret history than alternate history in that its world appears to have had our World War I, but the facts of the War Beneath the War are not known to the general public even though they are the explanation for the wartime and postwar boom in spiritualism, theosophy, other forms of the occult—the veil between this world and the rest really was ripped thin on both sides, and we are now seeing the effects. One character's profession is to deal with these effects, the other just puts his foot into the uncanny and the next thing he knows his life is filled with things he wasn't expecting, like this distractingly hot other man. The romance evolves out of the pursuit of the mystery. Both men were soldiers and differently fucked up by their experiences in war. Every now and then someone says something that is phrased too much like 2017 instead of 1923, but on the whole it was just really solid as both a mystery plot and a romance where I care about the outcome. The next book in the series appears to concern entirely different characters, but the ending of Spectred Isle is open enough that I assume its protagonists will eventually return. I hope so; I liked them. I guess the story has some straight characters in it somewhere, but they are not the point.

[kindkit]

Ooh, that sounds like very much my kind of thing. I've read other KJ Charles books and liked them (though I am apparently That Person who reads m/m romance for the plot--I tend to skim/skip Charles's sex scenes because they're usually some flavor of BDSM, which is not my kink).

Oh, I also meant to thank you for recommending that Ian MacDonald book. I haven't had a chance to read it yet but it's on my to-read list!

[sovay]

I've read other KJ Charles books and liked them (though I am apparently That Person who reads m/m romance for the plot--I tend to skim/skip Charles's sex scenes because they're usually some flavor of BDSM, which is not my kink).

There's a little of that in Spectred Isle, but it manifests mostly in conversation: one of them really talks during sex.

Which else by Charles do you recommend? I came at Spectred Isle cold—from internal references I figured out that it's in the same continuity as The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal, but haven't looked into that one yet.

Oh, I also meant to thank you for recommending that Ian MacDonald book. I haven't had a chance to read it yet but it's on my to-read list!

I'm glad! I saw the announcement and pretty much thought of you.

[kindkit]

I like all of Charles's stuff that I've read, but there are some I like particularly. Think of England is good--it's got a traumatized ex-soldier and a country house murder plot. I also like A Seditious Affair, a middle book in the Society of Gentleman series but readable as a standalone if you like. The protagonist is a working-class radical and there's a lot of focus on class and politics. My favorite is perhaps An Unseen Attraction, the first of the Sins of the Cities series--the characters feel more fully realized than in some of Charles's other books, and while you can sometimes feel the effort Charles is making to be inclusive and progressive (for example, one of the protagonists is a man of color who is also on the autism spectrum), I like the result. I've heard good things about the rest of that series but I haven't read them yet.

[sovay]

My favorite is perhaps An Unseen Attraction, the first of the Sins of the Cities series--the characters feel more fully realized than in some of Charles's other books, and while you can sometimes feel the effort Charles is making to be inclusive and progressive (for example, one of the protagonists is a man of color who is also on the autism spectrum), I like the result.

Thank you! I'll look for these.