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Ambiguously Bi vs Ho Yay

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PhiSat Planeswalker from Everywhere and Nowhere Since: Jan, 2011
Planeswalker
#1: Jan 7th 2025 at 3:06:59 PM

Where do we draw the line between Ambiguously Bi and Ho Yay? Obviously Ho Yay is YMMV, but Ambiguously Bi is not. Where does one end and the other begin?

Oissu!
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000)
#2: Jan 7th 2025 at 3:09:44 PM

It begins and ends at creator intent. Ho Yay is specifically unintentional subtext. Ambiguously Gay and Ambiguously Bi, along with other tropes, aren't supposed to be accidental.

Yes, in practice this can be near impossible to draw the line, but that is the difference.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
PhiSat Planeswalker from Everywhere and Nowhere Since: Jan, 2011
Planeswalker
#3: Jan 7th 2025 at 3:54:16 PM

That is a very difficult line.

The reason I ask is I was watching Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory and Chuck Keith's interactions with Kou Uraki were coming off as a lot more touchy and flirtatious than I'd expect from even Heterosexual Life-Partners (Chuck hangs off of Kou very often and calls him "my dear" and "babe"). Keith isn't Ambiguously Gay since he flirts with women too and ends up in a relationship with Mora. It could be unintentional. But the OVA is a love letter to Top Gun, which was so infamously full of Homoerotic Subtext that executives took one look at it and demanded extra scenes be filmed to tone down the gay (yet audiences still noticed). So I really don't know in this case if it's intentional subtext or just an accident that came from emulating Top Gun.

I guess I also have a question about where Ho Yay vs Homoerotic Subtext is drawn. I guess Homoerotic Subtext needs to also have intent behind it, but how do we judge that? Right now the rivalry between Amuro and Char is under Ho Yay, but there is Word of God from Tomino that he noticed Amuro and Char come off as gay for one another. Does that make it Ho Yay or Homoerotic Subtext?

Edited by PhiSat on Jan 7th 2025 at 3:54:47 AM

Oissu!
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000)
#4: Jan 7th 2025 at 3:56:48 PM

We've been discussing this to death, including at TRS. To this day, yeah, nobody has a solid answer.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Reymma RJ Savoy from Edinburgh Since: Feb, 2015 Relationship Status: Wanna dance with somebody
RJ Savoy
#5: Jan 7th 2025 at 7:34:31 PM

I would love to see Ho Yay, Homoerotic Subtext and Ship Tease all merged together. As it is, any time a work makes a same-sex couple canon, everything has to be moved from the first two to the third.

Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.
UchuuFlamenco Since: Jul, 2017
#6: Jan 7th 2025 at 8:15:37 PM

My personal pet peeve is people putting examples of very much confirmed gay couples under Ho Yay. I've seen it a surprising amount of times.

[up] I can't really imagine merging them all into a single item, but I admit the more I try to explain the difference between the difference between them, the harder it gets.

An important difference I guess is how Homoerotic Subtext has a lot of comedic examples that aren't meant to be considered serious Ship Tease. I wouldn't really call Ship Tease the kind of examples that are pretty much just gay jokes.

Discar Since: Jun, 2009
#7: Jan 8th 2025 at 12:44:39 PM

My personal pet peeve is people putting examples of very much confirmed gay couples under Ho Yay. I've seen it a surprising amount of times.

Which is explicitly against the rules, by the way. It was decided that even retroactive examples (Korra/Asami was the big one) should be moved to Ship Tease. Or how She-Ra and the Princesses of Power has no Ho Yay page, because the creator made it very obvious that it was all intentional gay Ship Tease.

Edited by Discar on Jan 8th 2025 at 12:45:02 PM

Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000)
#8: Jan 8th 2025 at 12:45:36 PM

Well, yeah, of course it's against the rules given that Ho Yay is unintentional. People just either don't care or don't know about the "unintentional" requirement in the first place.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
king15 Have Faun Since: Mar, 2024
Have Faun
#9: Jan 8th 2025 at 3:26:42 PM

Ho Yay and Homoerotic Subtext are the same trope, except the former is for unintentional examples whilst the latter is for intentional examples. Of course, judging what is and isn't intentional is hard, though there are some clear cut examples of each. Ambiguously Gay and Ambiguously Bi is often how Homoerotic Subtext informs the characters. Is the narrative hinting at but not confirming same-sex feeling between characters? Then they are Amb Gay or Amb Bi. Are feelings of same-sex attraction in a work between characters clearly unintentional but still inferred by some in the audience? Then it's Ho Yay.

Edited by king15 on Jan 8th 2025 at 11:27:19 AM

Reymma RJ Savoy from Edinburgh Since: Feb, 2015 Relationship Status: Wanna dance with somebody
RJ Savoy
#10: Jan 8th 2025 at 4:01:56 PM

[up][up] Further complicating things is that in collaborative works, un/intentional is not a dichotomy. Many old films and shows had some actors and staff pushing intentional homoeroticism while the producers didn't notice or pretended not to.

Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.
StarSword Captain of USS Bajor from somewhere in deep space Since: Sep, 2011
Captain of USS Bajor
#11: Jan 8th 2025 at 8:07:04 PM

[up]Intention by the actor is still intention. C.f. Garak/Bashir in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Alexander Siddig called them "Star Trek's first gay couple" when the story was pitched, while Andrew Robinson said he played Garak as pansexual in his first appearance and then was told to tone it down.

Edited by StarSword on Jan 8th 2025 at 11:08:44 AM

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tropette Since: Jan, 2001
#12: Jan 8th 2025 at 10:27:40 PM

Sometimes in long running works it gets complicated. At the beginning of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, according to the creators, Mac was not intended to be gay until several seasons in, and he did not come out until the late seasons. However, even back to the first episode there is gay innuendo or subtext involving Mac, and it’s unclear where exactly the turning point was. And then it gets even more complicated since Glenn Howerton (who plays Dennis) has said that ALL the main characters are either “vaguely bisexual” or “a little ambiguously gay.”

Edited by tropette on Jan 8th 2025 at 10:28:24 AM

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