Misused: Ambiguously Gay

If people are actually conflating the two (please show some examples of what you mean) then it's misuse plain and simple.

Also, both can be exploited and misused by shippers, but are heavily based on objective text so it shouldn't be hard to identify which examples are guilty of that.

I am thinking about removing examples involving child characters from the ambiguously gay category. I am talking about examples like Brandon Higsby from As told by ginger as the example says he is there because of stereotypes like being girly looking and liking pink but he is a kid who is growing up.

Child characters are not exempt from Ambiguously Gay, but neither are they exempt from misuse and shoehorning. Bring up the specific example in an appropriate place such as "Is this an example?" for evaluation.

(I'm surprised there doesn't seem to be a cleanup thread for Ambiguously Gay/Bi.)

You know Twiddler, I think a cleanup thread for ambiguously gay and ambiguously bi is a great idea. It would allow for more efficient discussion on character examples and reorganize them.

A clean up thread seems long overdue at this point. If we do make Ambiguously Gay YMMV, wouldn't it be identical to Ho Yay?

Nope. Ho Yay is about unintentional subtext between two characters.

So if Ho Yay is about a character coming off unintentionally gay and Hide Your Gays is about a character who is meant to be gay but isn't officially confirmed, what will Ambiguously Gay cover?

I already went into more detail on the last page about the difference between Hide Your Gays and Ambiguously Gay. I'd say Hide Your Gays is specifically for characters who are pretty obviously supposed to be gay but for technical reasons not to the point that it's beyond all doubt. Whereas Ambiguously Gay is for characters where there's good reason to think they're gay because of stuff that happens in the story, and not just the viewers having a vibe or seeing them as too close to another character of the same gender. Some instances of Ambiguously Gay characters might be gay for real, some might not to be. But the work doesn't make a hard statement either way. There's also going to be some overlap between the less obvious examples of Hide Your Gays and the more unambiguous examples of Ambiguously Gay but they're technically describing different things.

Okay, but that seems like we're saying Ambiguously Gay is a subjective trope. If that's the case, how is it different from Ho Yay?

Again, Ho Yay is about unintentional gay relationship subtext, not about whether or not characters are actually interpreted as gay. It's the same distinction between Ho Yay and Ambiguously Bi, except the sexuality is different.

Let's see if this helps:

• Alex and Bob are both claimed to be straight by the work. They share a Held Gaze. Fans say "hey that's gay". This is Ho Yay, since the Held Gaze was not meant to be anything more than platonic but the fans read into it.
• Alex never dates women, likes campy stuff, and is very close with Bob. But the work never comments on his sexuality. Fans say "hey all that adds up to him being gay". That is Ambiguously Gay since there are indicators within the work that indicate homosexuality.

I would say that's a thin distinction. The only real difference is that the former was unintentional, while the intention behind the latter is unclear.

A character does not need to be Ambiguously Gay nor be in Hide Your Lesbians for Ho Yay to happen. Ho Yay can happen to any two characters of the same gender character no matter what their orientation is. Ho Yay means characters getting into situations that look gay in the eyes of the audience.

Right:

• Ambiguously Gay is about the character exhibiting signs that they're gay, but the work never making it clear. A lot of the times, this can be intentional, especially in works where characters aren't "supposed" to be gay- the creator has to rely on subtext and let the fans fill in the gaps. For this reason, I don't even think it's subjective, especially since Ambiguously Bi isn't either.
• Ho Yay is for subtext between two characters, which makes it look like they're in love or are having sexual tension. The characters can still be gay and have Ho Yay, or they can be straight as a line and have Ho Yay, and they can be anything and everything in between and still have Ho Yay. Or to put it another way, Ho Yay is like having LGBT Shipping Goggles. The creator didn't intend to make these moments gay but fans think they're really gay. It's subjective since it's all based on fan perception.

I'd argue what constitutes signs that a character is gay is subjective. What one person considers solid proof a character is gay, another person might consider shippers reading too much into things. As for cases where a character is meant to be gay, but it's never confirmed, isn't that covered by Hide Your Gays?

See, you're thinking of it in terms of relationships, where we're discussing it in terms of the character's sexuality in isolation. Not every Ambiguously Gay example involves gay relationships, and Hide Your Gays is about hiding gay relationships, not individual gay characters.

Right. Ambiguously Gay is centered around single characters and Hide Your Lesbians is for relationships (sometimes the love is one-sided but still requiring multiple characters).

Edited by AlleyOop on Feb 3rd 2021 at 5:03:33 AM

For example, an Ambiguously Gay character may show a conspicuous lack of interest in the opposite gender, or be described as a Confirmed Bachelor or other Gay Euphemisms.

Would this be a legit example from Animal Crossing for the Jock type villagers?

• Ambiguously Gay: They say questionable things from time to time like swooning at the thought of buff construction workers or complimenting a Lazy villager's midriff showing. They also start swooning at the thought of Cyrus.

Edited by Klavice on Feb 13th 2021 at 7:24:53 AM

I'd say so. Those are all concrete dialogue actually within the game and not just fan interpretation, and it's still ambiguous because it's very much a No Hugging, No Kissing kind of game.

So, what's left to do here?

Right now I'm waiting for progress on Gender-Nonconforming Equals Gay (how does one monitor a TLP draft without creating an external bookmark, by the way?) so we can discuss examples listed under Ambiguously Gay during its old definition which might better belong over there.

Go here, click the thumbs-up button on the draft. That will bookmark it. See the "Sort By" / "All" / "" buttons at the top? Click the thumbs-up one to view your bookmarked drafts.

Clock expired; closing.