1. Julie D says:

    I think we also need to look back at the Speculative Love series from a few years ago. “Kissyface” is generally not the main attraction of scifi and fantasy anyway; while it may be mentioned or even form one of the emotional cores of a story, if one really wants romance, one should go to romantic stories. For Doctor Who in particular, there is a long history of downplaying romantic relationships in the Classic Series. Davison (Five) wasn’t even allowed to hug his companions in case fans got the wrong idea. Compare that to Ten’s relationship with Rose!
    Doctor Who isn’t supposed to be about romance–it’s “all of time and space, everything that ever happened or ever will.” So either they’ll downplay Bill’s sexuality or they’ll push it at the expense of good stories. Either way, somebody’s gonna get ticked.

    • ionaofavalon says:

      This is true. I mean I liked the Rose subplot (though to be fair, I prefer Nine over Ten) but romance (of any sort) shouldn’t be a big draw in sci-fi. Romantic subplots abound in shows like Deep Space 9, but never did the whole series revolve around them. A few individual episodes yes, totally, particularly in the Kira/Odo saga (which I found to be very well done), but never the whole show. And besides, Ten mooning around after he lost Rose was a bit much in my humble opinion. He became a completely different man, I suppose that is realistic, but the whole show began to be about “I’ve lost my true love, what shall I do?” If Moffat’s smart, he won’t pull that sort of stunt again for any sort of romance, gay, straight, whatever. Ten’s sorrow did drive the story at the expense of perfectly good stories, and I hope not to see that again.

      • Julie D says:

        Ditto. Any companion who came after Rose was always going to be Not-Rose to some fans, but the Doctor loses people. It hurts, it’s hard, but he has to keep moving, cause that’s how it is.

        • ionaofavalon says:

          I feel like the Doctor should love every person who shares his box, not romantically, of course, but he should love them all and be upset by their leaving. What I’ve seen of Twelve’s sorrow over the Ponds is what I’m saying. He carries them all in his hearts, a special little spot just for Rose, sure, but not just her.

          • Julie D says:

            Exactly. I mean, Eleven’s speech to Colonel Manton in “A Good Man Goes to War” is very protective, very fierce, and still based on friendship and not romance. “Trying to get to me through the people I love” doesn’t have to be romance.
            There’s a post going around about how when the Empire tried to get to Luke Skywalker, they did it through his friends, not a love interest….

  2. notleia says:

    I’m going to take a moment to say I don’t know why a live-action Ghost in the Shell needs to exist, especially when it’s just rehashing the other movies’ plots. We had that, it was called Solid State Society, and it was a definite downgrade from Stand Alone Complex.
    Anyway, I think it’s gonna happen by means of the Yuri-on-Ice route (more like Yaoi on Ice, amirite). People generally watch romance-driven shows for the happy-nice-time feels (Speaking of, WHERE’S MY NATSUME’S BOOK OF FRIENDS REVIEW, BURNETT?) I think most non-romance-driven gay points will be mostly by mentioning route, but that’s not really any different than a lot of het relationships in non-romance, they usually just mention if it’s brought up at all.

  3. notleia says:

    Random update: I got around to watching Yuri on Ice, and it’s got some nice music that I wanted to share. This song is “In Regards to Love: Agape,” and it only shows a fanart of Yurio looking bishounen and so is SFW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt_VZ13voCQ

  4. Nicholas Smith says:

    I’m sorry… but sexuality diversity is natural, sorry to disappoint. You seem to be wearing blinders about what is really at issue here… and that’s “Why do you care?”.

    LGBT aren’t promoting a belief, we just want to live our lives like everyone else.

What do you think?