Ho Yay and intent

My understanding is that this Trope is specific to unintentional examples. From that, I have two points of confusion. First, the The Last of Us list Ellie and Riley as examples, but even that entry states that their story ends with them kissing, and thus is neither unintentional nor subtext. The other one is the Ho Yay and Ship Tease pages for The Legend of Korra. This seems to be going by Word of God, cataloguing examples from books one and two as unintentional Ho Yay and books three and four as intentional ship tease. This is obviously out-of-universe logic, as in-universe no change occurred in the characters' sexualities. Is this correct?

Ho Yay is about what fans interpret of what isn't actually there, which means unintentional subtext. If it happens in the work, it's there. If two characters are kissing it's definitely past interpretations and into text. If a couple does get together later on, it should be treated as intentional, unless Word of God says otherwise.

Ship Tease is also about subtext, but it can still be about a couple that will get together later in a series.

But all in all, I think this family of tropes is a mess, mostly because of Shipping Goggles.

edited 13th Jun '18 4:08:57 AM by AnotherDuck

There's also Homoerotic Subtext, which can overlap with Ship Tease.

Ho yay can be intentional on the creator’s part if they are in on the joke. Smallville, the trope maker by proxy of Television Without Pity’s recap is a good example. The people behind the show were well aware of how Clark and Lex’s interactions could be read.

Xena, is another example of the powers that be, being aware of the lesbian subtext and putting stuff intentionally.

I agree with you that when it ceases being subtext it’s no longer ho yay.

Clark and Lex are an example of ho yay

I thought Ho Yay is supposed to be unintetional subtext and Homoerotic Subtext is for intentional teasing. The lines between the two may be blurred

Xena always seemed more Homoerotic Subtext, given how it wasn't always used for comedy.

I'm pretty sure Xena started as Homoerotic Subtext and evolved into just Ship Tease.

• Ho Yay is unintentional and exists entirely in fans' minds.
• Homoerotic Subtext is intentional but does not necessarily indicate a canon relationship.
• Ship Tease is when the creators outright intend fans to 'ship the characters, whether they plan to in canon or not.

Between Homoerotic Subtext and Ship Tease, I would only list any given example once. Choosing which is the more applicable can be somewhat difficult: in both cases, the creators are aware of doing it, so the main difference seems to be that Ship Tease is general and Homoerotic Subtext is for gay or lesbian relationships.

Edited by Fighteer on Jul 19th 2018 at 2:44:25 PM

The bottom of Homoerotic Subtext has this line: "It also does not cover any Ship Teases or actual homoerotism, where the characters may indeed be gay or bisexual for each other." So, that would mean it if the relationship eventual goes beyond subtext and becomes explicit attraction, it becomes Ship Tease, right?

Edited by TheMountainKing on Jul 19th 2018 at 5:04:03 AM

Yeah, that would be right. Subtext is when there is no actual relationship despite appearances; tease is when a relationship is either potential or actual.

As with many tropes, the minuscule difference between Ho Yay and Homoerotic Subtext is going to make sorting challenging at best and impossible most of the time in that case. Given that only those directly stated by Word of God to be intentional in tone can be put under the latter as is indicated on that page, there would be instances that are quite obvious it's intentional but still put under Ho Yay because there was no confirmation. Like an Old Married Couple comes to mind.

I would question though why the trope is named Homoerotic Subtext. Without giving me the definition, I would say that Ho Yay is more for visuals and Homoerotic Subtext is more for dialogue/writing, hence the "subext" part. So if somebody lands on top of someone and it looks questionable then I would say it's an example of the former, but if somebody says something and what they said could be interpreted differently, I would classify it as the latter.

Edited by BreadBull on Aug 15th 2018 at 8:41:19 PM

Pretty much.