Needs Help: Ho Yay

Probably. I haven't seen Steven Universe, but it sounds like the RWBY example: Not an instance between a canon couple, but also definitely intentional and more than just Queer People Are Funny.

To clarify, I meant Homoerotic Subtext, not Ho Yay.

Pearl's feelings for Rose go past subtext, so yes, that should probably go.

I kind of had a brain fart when I made my previous post and referenced that post in Foe Yay's Image Pickin thread (in response to Discar's post there). I referenced this thread in the Image Pickin thread, but forgot to actually link to the Image Pickin' thread in this thread, because it has a crowner regarding the images and quotes on the page's subpages.

While the crowner is technically unanimously in favor of removing the quotes and images, it never got the minimum amount of votes required for consensus (I think it pretty much stalled at seven yeas and no nays).

I don't think Shinji/Kaworu is "too canon". That's a textbook example of Homoerotic Subtext to me. They never actually kiss/enter a relationship, but their attraction to each other is heavily implied.

I think things like Word of Gay etc are actually a good way of distinguishing -Yay from -Subtext. We could potentially require Word of God as a way of distinguishing between the two.

Did the Shinji/Kaworu, Togo/Yuna, and Ymir/Krista get moved elsewhere? The Togo/Yuna examples were originally under Ho Yay before being moved to Homoerotic Subtext. Should they go under Ship Tease? Maybe HomoeroticSubtext.Wicked should also be moved to Ship Tease.

Where would something like Kumiko/Reina of HoYay.Sound Euphonium be listed under? It's too intentional to be Ho Yay — it's even been confirmed that certain scenes were written similarly to teenage love — but they're also not intentionally attracted to one another. The idea of them liking each other as more than friends is never brought up.

Edited by Pichu-kun on Nov 27th 2019 at 6:26:16 AM

Kumiko/Reina sounds like subtext - and purely subtext.

Another thing I have to worry about now is that Incest Subtext isn't YMMV, yet is filled with examples I doubt are intentional:

• This remake of an 80's Folger's commercial has a reunion between a guy who came back from for Christmas to his younger sister. In the original this is innocent Big Brother Worship due to her young age, but the remake ages her up and makes her actions seems rather flirtatous.
• If Frozen were rewritten as a romantic love story between Anna and Elsa, very little would have to change. The whole film is about them repairing their relationship, Elsa hiding her powers can easily be read as an allegorical coming-out story, she has serious Power Incontinence for the first time when Anna announces her engagement (when it's established this happens because of pain and fear), the trolls' song about how love is used to heal and help others (intended to be about to Kristoff) makes much more sense in reference to Elsa, the act of True Love that saves Anna from being frozen is her attempted Heroic Sacrifice to save Elsa, and her "I love you" to Elsa is more romantic than any interaction she has with Hans or Kristoff. Hell, even the merchandise ships it. Also, it's really common for these Disney movies to end with the princess kissing or embracing her lover, Frozen ends with Anna kissing Kristoff but then going ice skate holding hands with Elsa, Intertwined Fingers and everything.

Of course, I also have to ask if this is even subtext any more than the Square Peg, Round Trope page mentioning Brokeback Mountain having Ho Yay listed when the homoeroticism is front-and-center:

• Loads in Oreimo. Being that Brother–Sister Incest is the Elephant in the Room of the series, which results in a constant Will They or Won't They? between Kyousuke and his sister Kirino. The anime turns it up a notch, the manga turns it up even further.

I haven't seen the show, but scenes like this push this beyond subtext, unless there are specific moments earlier on that I'm missing.

Edited by Brainulator9 on Dec 15th 2019 at 11:10:03 AM

Can you have a page dedicated to one ship? The Ho Yay section for Kumiko/Reina is too big for Homoerotic Subtext without serious trimming, but I don't think any other pair has similar subtext, so I don't know if it should have its own subpage.

I agree that Shinji/Kaworu is definitely Homoerotic Subtext.

It might be relevant to note that a previous IP thread for Homoerotic Subtext ended up with a BUPKIS ruling, because it was determined that images alone couldn't properly convey whether or not a moment was subtextual, a genuine moment of gay Ship Tease, or Ho Yay.

Since Twiddler removed Pearl's feelings for Rose and Mystery Girl from Homoerotic Subtext, shouldn't the note on HoYay.Steven Universe calling Pearl/Rose Homoerotic Subtext be changed? I'd also like to restore Kaworu/Shinji.

I changed the note. Pearl/Rose isn't one-sided, but I'm not sure Official Couple applies either, so… that's why I changed it to what I did.

If it has enough content to split off, I don't see why not.

Uh, hey there.

I’m migrating here from the Ho Yay clean up thread. I moved Yuna/Togo and Yumi/Kuri from Homoerotic Subtext due to both being confirmed on one side.

Shinji/Kaworu I know is kind of debatable, but it’s certainly intentional, therefore going beyond Ho Yay, and, although they don’t actually date, they still very much admit to loving each other, and I guess I, despite not exactly “supporting” the pairing, just really cannot see how that falls under Homoerotic Subtext as opposed to Ship Tease, given that the nature of that love clearly has potential to become flat out text, if it’s not that already.

I had a nasty encounter with an Anti-Shipper fairly recently, and largely was driven to delete K/S as a means of stopping their little rampage. I do genuinely apologise for that, but I did do it with improving the wiki in mind.

No, although I like K/S for what it is, I really don’t “support” it exactly, as basically every relationship in Eva is very, very unhealthy given the state of most of the cast, so please don’t think I’m an obnoxious shipper like the aforementioned anti accused me of being. I just think you can really only go so far and still qualify as “subtext”, especially as the WONDERFUL thing known as censorship has forced plenty of canon LGBTQ+ characters to be Not Too Gay.

I think we need to look at the wider problems with this trope. As I see it there are several:

1. Most users have absorbed as Common Knowledge a misdefinition of the trope where it includes all "gay moments", regardless of intentionality/canonicity. This means that more bad examples keep getting added. 2. How to determine if specific examples are intentional or not. We need some clear rule to apply, which I'm not sure exists. 3. This YMMV, so it should ideally be about moments noticed by the fandom at large, but many are purely things picked up on by one individual troper.

Honestly, if I had ultimate power I would probably just cut Ho Yay completely, but it's probably too ingrained in the site;s internal culture to do that.

It's too ingrained in fan culture to do that.

What about making it example-less Fan Speak then?

to cutting all Ho Yay examples. We already have a cleanup thread, so what's the problem?

The concept of Ho Yay— a communal fanon in which every same-sex pair who shows the slightest hint of mutual affection is clearly totes gay for each other— is certainly ingrained in fan culture.

I can't say I've ever heard the term used anywhere but here, though.

Well, the problem is that determining whether or not something is unintentional or intentional when it comes to things like this is really hard, and it bleeds into the other tropes as well.

...Also that thread really needs to be moved to the Long Term forum, so people actually remember it exists and use it.

Relevant: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/HoYay https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Citations:HoYay

Huh. I stand corrected.

I think I found the root of the problem when I found that, though.

We define Ho Yay as unintended homoerotic subtext, whereas the rest of the Internet defines it as homoerotic subtext period, regardless of creator intent. I still maintain my initial line of thought expressed in the beginning, but I might wanna keep the Fan Speak pages around for something.

Hmm... Perhaps we could make Ho Yay fanspeak, and then create an entirely new trope about unintentional subtext?

Edited by Crossover-Enthusiast on Dec 17th 2019 at 4:13:43 AM

That'd fix one problem, but still wouldn't fix the issue of not being able to tell what is and is not unintentional subtext.

We could just make Ho Yay fanspeak and then just not create a new trope for unintentional subtext.