Does Not Illustrate: Ambiguously Bi

25.2 is way better than current.

25.2. I’d wager 25.1 is on the level of the current — could very well be interpreted as “likes men and women but doesn’t like labels, so not very ambiguous in practice”. 25.2 reflects the “has Ship Tease with both men and women” that the trope gets used for.

25.2, although the quality looks a bit off.

25.2 works.

25.2

Hard no to 25.2. It has the same problem that we ran into with the suggestions in the previous thread — if we simply show a character showing attraction to two characters of different genders, there's not enough context in the image to tell that it's illustrating Ambiguously Bi, instead of say, just Bi.

Edited by Mahoxy on Jan 5th 2021 at 8:15:29 AM

It's ambiguous if orange girl is showing attraction in those images.

Yeah, I can see the second panel having multiple interpretations. 25.2

Relying on multiple interpretations is exactly the problem with 25.2 — while a reader may interpret the character as Ambiguously Bi, they may just as easily interpret her as unambiguously bi or, for that matter, monosexual. I worry that leaving the pic up to readers' interpretation could end up contributing to misuse for characters whose bisexuality is either no ambiguous or not supported anywhere in the work itself.

Above all else, a trope page's image should clearly and unambiguously illustrate what the trope is, which becomes substantially more difficult when the trope itself is about something being ambiguous. With that in mind, I still think the current works well; the implication that she could be bisexual is clearly there, but it's left ambiguous within the specific context of those two panels.

In that case, keep the current and add to This Image Is Not an Example.

I think that the current is good.

Ehhh. Maybe if it was just the dialogue I could see it, but the Queer Colors push it out of "ambiguous" for me.

to current and add to This Image Is Not an Example

I just want to second the op and say that current isn't ambiguous at all. She has the Bi pride flag behind her for pete's sake.

25.2 is my first choice, followed by no image.

I'm fine with 25.2. I find the reasoning that "it doesn't illustrate Ambiguously Bi because it can also be interpreted as the character being actually bi" rather weak, because that just part of the ambiguity.

Current and 25.1 feel like the characters confirming their bisexuality to me, so no to those.

Edited by Snicka on Jan 4th 2021 at 8:12:21 PM

That she could be interpreted as unambiguously bi isn't the primary issue that I've been trying to point out; it's that there are multiple different possible interpretations with no indication of which one is "correct" for our purposes. I'd actually argue that the opposite interpretation — that she's unambiguously monosexual, presumably heterosexual — is more likely and more likely to lead to misuse. Yet, this interpretation is just as valid as her being Ambiguously Bi, if not more so.

I've said it before — just because the trope is about something being ambiguous doesn't mean it should be ambiguous whether or not the image illustrates it.

Yeah, to someone who isn't familiar with the work behind 25.2, the ambiguity could read as unintentional (which is Ho Yay) as opposed to intentional (which is this trope), thus contributing to the trope's misuse for Ho Yay.

Is the second panel intentional? I can't tell.

This is still an objective trope, which means that 1) the ambiguity has to be intentional, 2) the image has to illustrate that it's intentional. Something like one character being confused over another character's orientation (as the old image◊ for Ambiguously Gay showed) might do the trick.

25.2 works.

Reading this reasoning, I agree, it can be mistaken for Ho Yay instead of intentional tease between Sunset Shimmer and Twilight Sparkle (the orange and purple girl on the second panel, respectively). Is it intentional Ship Tease between them?

I've never seen this MLP work but I know we use blushing to indicate Ship Tease on ShipTease.The Legend Of Korra, as one example. (Then again the body language is a bit more teasey there.)

Edited by Synchronicity on Jan 5th 2021 at 4:24:16 AM

Word of Gay confirms that Sunset is bi, implying that there's intentional Homoerotic Subtext between her and Twilight's interactions.

Yeah, I never really got the "ambiguous" from the current. It would have at least worked better with the next panel of the source comic, where she brings up her boyfriend.

25.1 is a little better because it refuses a specific label, even if it's Talking Heads, but I'll bring in my example from the last thread, which is basically the same idea as the Sunset example.

Edited by mightymewtron on Jan 5th 2021 at 9:55:13 AM

For context, this is the full page for the current.

Still not crazy about , for largely the same reasons as 25.2.

Edited by Mahoxy on Jan 5th 2021 at 12:40:16 PM

You know, I'm starting to think we need to scrap the current pic and toss this on the BUPKIS list if it's causing this much trouble.