Word of Gay

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
(Redirected from Word of Straight)

When Word of God explains that a character's sexuality was actually gay or bisexual outside of the series, choosing to keep them Ambiguously Gay (or even less so) in the actual story.

This may be because of Media Watchdogs or fear of backlash. It can also be due to Conservation Of Detail. On the other hand, heteronormativity states you have to mention a character is gay to establish it if the story is vague. Most readers will assume a character is heterosexual when their orientation isn't developed in text. Thus, this may be a publicity appeal to a gay audience while not upsetting that part of the audience who feels uneasy about this. Or it could just be one big publicity stunt.

To LGBT fans and allies, it can often come off as a cop-out: Saying "Oh, guess what? Bob, whom we never hinted about in the slightest? Totally gay!" after the series is safely over is not an adequate substitute for having the courage to actually include LGBT characters. For extra frustration on the part of these people, expect this to happen frequently to characters who are dead by the series' end. Because of this, the creator will probably be labelled a Rule-Abiding Rebel.

It's notable that this trope, or more accurately the shocked reaction and the idea that there must be some scheme behind it, is a Double Standard. Many characters never express any romance or sexuality within a story, but if such a character is revealed to be heterosexual, nobody bats an eye.

There is an inversion of this trope, Word of Straight, mainly associated with Queer Media works. This is where a character whose orientation is undefined, under-defined or assumed to be gay, is revealed by the creator to actually be straight.

A Relationship Reveal is often another way to out an ambiguously homosexual character. Contrast Suddenly Sexuality.

Note: We don't require citations like That Other Wiki does. However, since this trope is about statements made by a creator about a work of media outside of said work of media, it is highly recommended that citations be provided.[1] We don't particularly want to slander anyone by accident, but more importantly, links allow for referencing full-context interviews and thus broader summations of the Word Of Gay, since we can get it straight from the God's mouth instead of secondhand.

No real life examples, please; for the same reasons that we make this request on this trope's supertrope Word of God.

Examples of Word of Gay include:

Anime and Manga

  • For Yuu Watase, creator of Fushigi Yuugi, the problem isn't that any of the series' characters might have been attracted to a person of the same sex. It's narrowing it down to which ones.

Arrow: The discussion suddenly turned yaoi.
Crowd: Yeah!! Yaaaay!
Watase: I heard there was a Tasuki x Nuriko one, but I want to read a Tasuki x Tamahome.
Arrow: What in the world was I saying...
But the truth was I really wanted to see a Nakago x Tamahome fic...but I couldn't say that.

  • Luke's relationship with Blake in Zoids Fuzors was pretty ... suspect throughout the series. It didn't help that they had a lot of amusing moments such as Luke telling Blake that he "wanted to show him something" while opening up his shirt. An interview with Luke's Japanese voice actor confirmed that Luke was indeed gay and attracted to Blake; however, whether the attraction was mutual is another matter.
  • While some other members of the production crew are infamously dodgy about the subject, according to an interview with director Masaki Tsuzuki (the creator of the Nanoha franchise) and the voice actresses of Fate and Nanoha, they are indeed lesbians. In this article, the two VAs mention that in 10 years, Nanoha will be a housewife for Fate. The original writer, Tsuzuki, also says Vivio "frequently keeps in contact with Fate-mama, as often as contacting the father who works away from home, with a communication tool."
  • Axis Powers Hetalia: Word of God says that Sweden is gay.
  • The My-HiME artbooks canonize one relationship that was somewhat ambiguous in-series: Shizuru and Natsuki find happiness together at some point after Shizuru's graduation at the end.

"Ultimately when the Battle had concluded, Natsuki again spoke affectionately to Shizuru who was graduating. Before one is aware, happiness will visit these two..."

    • The Spiritual Successor, Mai-Otome, was slightly better about it. The series played coy with their relationship throughout the series, but Drama CDs released after the series ended revealed that yes, they were a couple all along.
  • Apparently, Alejandro Corner from Gundam 00, according to this scene from the Special Edition. Lounging around an hotel room with his long hair down and wearing only a bathrobe? A-okay. Having his Right-Hand Hottie pop in, pretty much in white boxers and a midriff-baring top? Uhm. Inserting a flashback in which Alejandro kisses Ribbon on the cheek and hugs him during a conversation? ... That was the sound of millions of gaydars breaking, people.
    • Those scenes also made it clear (as if it wasn't already) that Ribbons didn't return Alejandro's affections. As much, he used himself as a Honey Trap to get in Alejandro's good side and use him in his plans.
      • What makes this really confusing? Word of God says that Innovades like Ribbons are genderless, even if they look more masculine or feminine (the sole exception being Anew Returner).
  • According to creator Kenichi Sonoda, Rally Vincent of Gunsmith Cats is a celibate lesbian.
  • Gankutsuou: Franz's voice actor affirmed in a DVD bonus that Franz is in love with Albert.
  • Code Geass: Rolo's voice actor Takahiro Mizushima has absolutely no doubt that Rolo is in love with Lelouch, as he explicitly mentions in more than one of his interviews about the character.
  • Yu Yu Hakusho: Sensui's Invisible to Gaydar with Itsuki by Word of God.
  • Sailor Moon's creator, Naoko Takeuchi confirmed that Haruka and Michiru are indeed lovers. Though it was pretty obvious.
  • Both subverted and applied in the superhero show Tiger and Bunny: For all the Ho Yay between the two main characters, the show's creator has stated that any relationship between them is up to the individual fan to decide. On the other hand, the show also features an openly gay hero, Fire Emblem, as a regular character.
  • According to his biography, Tsukiyama from Tokyo Ghoul is said to "love Kaneki above all other things."
  • The character designer and director of Wolf's Rain said in an interview that Toboe and Tsume being more than just friends may not have been entirely made up by fans.

Comic Books

  • Stan Lee has said that he thought of "Pinky" Pinkerton, the British member of Sgt. Fury's Howling Commandos and a David Niven Expy, as gay.
  • The vain Sunstreaker from the Dreamwave Transformers comics was apparently written as being gay, although (this being a comic aimed at teen fanboys) it was never going to be used in the story itself. Oddly enough, the Ambiguously Gay Tracks was not intended to be gay. What made this a Squick for many TF fans was that the writers pointed to the bio they wrote for Sunstreaker in More Than Meets The Eye. Read without this information, it makes Sunstreaker sound like a vicious assassin who can't switch off when he's around his allies. The Word of Gay turns it into a description of a creepy Depraved Homosexual.
  • Invisible Kid, from the "Reboot" continuity of the Legion of Super-Heroes. Element Lad in the Oneboot was the inverse of this trope—his switch-hitting was an Ascended Fanon after years of rampant fan speculation based entirely (at first) on his pink costume. Fan speculation probably dates back to the 1975 APA article by Jim Shooter where he says that Element Lad might be gay.
  • Creator Max Allan Collins had always said that one of the regular cast of Ms. Tree was gay. It was several years before it was finally revealed in story that it was Mr Hand.
  • Say what you will about the Sonic the Hedgehog story "Mobius: X Years Later", if anything, it gave us two things: Knuckles' kickass Guardian outfit, and the revelation that Rotor is gay. Yes, really; according to former head writer Ken Penders, he had wanted to write a gay character into the comic for some time, and had settled on Rotor, as a way of injecting the perpetually Demoted to Extra Hollywood Geek with some much-needed character development (though that explanation, in and of itself, brings on a whole host of Fridge Logic and Unfortunate Implications, in its own right). How did he get away with this? Executive Meddling; apparently Sega approved of the relationship, but ordered Ken to keep it low-profile, to avoid controversy. Unfortunately, his successor Ian Flynn has refused to follow up on this, beating Rotor down into the Extra spot again, refusing to comment on the Word either way (neither confirming nor denying it). What this means about his attitude toward Rotor in general and said Word in particular is open to interpretation, but it's safe to say that, at the very least, his stance essentially negates the original Word, at least for the current continuity.
  • Gail Simone has said that she considers Black Canary of Birds of Prey bisexual, just non practicing at the moment (and currently being freshly divorced from Green Arrow). She famously wanted to include a line where Canary called herself "75% heterosexual" but due to script confusion and placeholder dialog the line became "heterosexual to the bone" against her wishes.
    • Relatedly, she's also stated that there's a bisexual man in the Secret Six. She later revealed on Tumblr that it's Catman, and the next time she uses him in a book she plans to make it explicit, since the story arc where she planned to reveal it got Cut Short by the DC relaunch and the cancellation of the book.
  • Dini confirmed that Harley and Ivy in Batman are in an on-again off-again relationship. Given the sheer omnipresence of their Les Yay in every appearance this was hardly necessary of course.
  • Greg Rucka has confirmed that the sexual tension many readers saw between Carrie Stetko and Lily Sharpe in Whiteout was intentional.
  • Several writers have said that they consider Wonder Woman to be bisexual, though it's never been explicitly stated in a story.
    • Her sexuality is usually treated as an Elephant in the Living Room. She lived on an island with no men for most of her life, for Hera's sake.
  • Most Batman writers call the character straight, but Frank Miller has said that "he'd probably be a lot healthier if he was gay." It's a potentially confusing view of the character though, since Miller has also depicted Batman screwing Black Canary early in his career and later ending up admitting he's in love with his new female sidekick Carrie Kelly (at least 4 decades his junior), immediately after murdering his former-sidekick-gone-bad whilst teasing him with a string of nasty homophobic epithets. It only kinda makes sense if Miller is suggesting that Batman is a completely repressed and utterly self-loathing homosexual...
  • There's definitely a lot of subtext in Cable and Deadpool. There's also a popular rumor that Fabian Necieza (who wrote 48 out of the 50 issues) referred to it as a romance story, but no actual proof was ever given to it. Nicieza, though, was asked in an interview once who would he rather have as a roommate, Cable or Deadpool. His answer? Cable, because Deadpool would try to spoon him. Yeah.


Fan Works

  • In the extensive Alternate Universe Fic series Roommates, Bowser Koopa, Jr.'s nerdy brother Iggy Koopa is known to have a girlfriend, but also seems remarkably comfortable with gay topics (even where Rule 34 is involved). When Junior came out of the closet and revealed that Jojo had been his boyfriend, Iggy even affectionately asked which one of them was on top during sex. The Roommates session writer, TreIII, revealed separately that Iggy is actually not just straight, but completely straight—he has no latent same-sex leanings whatsoever that could make him in any way uncomfortable with gay people, so he can talk about it frankly in perfect personal comfort. It is actually modern LGBT common wisdom that arrow-straight people are usually the most comfortable around gay people (compare Daniel Radcliffe), and that most Heteronormative Crusaders are Armored Closet Gay/Bi and irritably expending greater effort suppressing or hiding same-sex tendencies (compare the large number of high-profile right-wing gay sex scandals).

Film

  • Plato from Rebel Without a Cause.
  • Gore Vidal intended Messala in Ben-Hur to be Ben Hur's former lover, and explained this to the actor playing Messala, but deliberately did not tell Charlton Heston (who played Ben Hur), since Heston would not have been receptive to the idea.
    • It was also an example of Enforced Method Acting: one wants to renew the relationship while the other pretends it didn't happen. By not telling Heston, they basically tricked him into performing as a character uncomfortable with the other man by making the actor uncomfortable dealing with the other actor.
  • Machine Gun Joe from the Death Race remake. He does refer to his "unique hobbies", though.
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Jack Sparrow is bisexual, at least according to Johnny Depp himself. Not that Sparrow is likely to admit that in the 18th century.
    • This seems to be a conflict between the actor and the writers. There is the part in the second movie where Elizabeth is disguised as a boy and he is repulsed when he mistakes her line "I'm looking for the man I love"[2] for a guy using pick up line on him
  • Director Louis Leterrier has openly admitted that he intended the protagonist of The Transporter to be gay. Of course, when the franchise was handed over to another director, Jason Statham instantly started making out with girls.
    • The gay thing must have been dropped when Cory Yuen took over as director for part 1, because he gets it on with the girl in that movie, too. It does explain Frank's suspiciously "fabulous" casual outfit pretty well, though.
  • The Turning Point: according to the writer, Arthur Laurents, director Herb Ross axed everything indicating Wayne's bisexuality and Michael's homosexuality. Laurents responded by putting all of the material into the novelization.
  • The theatre version High School Musical confirmed what everyone knew, Ryan is gay.
  • Martin Landau stated in interviews that he portrayed Leonard, Vandamm's henchman in North by Northwest, as a closeted homosexual who was secretly jealous of Eve Kendall's relationship with his employer. In the scene where he revealed to Vandamm that Eve was secretly working for the Feds, he commented, "Call it my woman's intuition if you will..."


Literature

  • Dumbledore from Harry Potter. Rowling outed him only after the end of the series, and as a result of a fan asking her if he'd ever found love himself. This created widely varying interpretations of her reasons for doing so: while some considered there was subtext about it in the last novel, others didn't believe it. There were also some more... "interesting" reactions. Another, more private outing occurred before this- during a scriptwriting meeting for one of the Harry Potter films, she handed back a script page in which Dumbledore spoke about a girl he "knew" once with a note saying "He's gay!" Several critics doubted that Dumbledore's sexuality was canon, relating to the Death of the Author concept. Author John Scalzi wrote a defense of Rowling's decision to reveal Dumbledore's sexuality in response to a critic.
    • Apparently, the script-incident actually provoked Rowling into stating this. There's also a rationale: He kept out of romantic relationships and such because he once fell for a man and neglected his family, resulting in horrible consequences and the death of his sister. Essentially, Dumbledore is gay, but a Celibate Hero. This is also why Dumbledore isn't a case of Bury Your Gays: he died not as a direct result of being gay, but to help his proteges.
      • This man he fell for was Gellert Grindelwald, who was the Wizarding World's equivalent of Adolf Hitler (and possibly the secret puppetmaster behind the real Hitler). That would probably scare anyone into a lifetime of celibacy!
    • It could also be interpreted as a case of Nobody Over 50 Is Gay, especially given that Dumbledore is 110 years old at the start of the series. However, it is also worth noting that the rest of the Hogwart's faculty is not exactly having a Glee-like romantic drama either.
  • Gene and Finny from A Separate Peace. The author was widely regarded to be closeted, and did not acknowledge the homosexual romance in the story till he was in old age.
  • Reggie Hodfaster from Lovesick was reportedly in love with his very straight best friend, Monti. However, this is hinted at early on and doesn't surprise many.
  • Given that many of Tamora Pierce's works were edited down to children's literature from more adult versions (or have changed over the course of the series in order to cater to a slightly older readership), there's quite a lot of this.
    • Lalasa in Protector of the Small was a lesbian, but Pierce didn't think it was important enough to put into the books. There is quite a bit of Subtext around her and her "friend" Tian, though.
    • Similarly, in Pierce's Circle books, Lark and Rosethorn were revealed late in the series to be lovers. Daja came out in The Will Of The Empress; this makes sense, since in the early books, she was nine.
    • In the original drafts of Song Of The Lioness, Thom and Roger had a more explicitly sexual relationship. The subtext is still there in the final version, though, what with the living together and dangerous codependency.
  • Feral from Soon I Will Be Invincible.
  • In His Dark Materials, it's briefly mentioned that there is a small minority of people whose daemons are the same gender as themselves, but no explanation is given for it. When a fan asked Philip Pullman if it meant those people were gay, Pullman replied that he hadn't thought about it, but he liked that reasoning. It does raise some questions about bisexuals, however. Maybe their daemons can be either sex?
  • Tom and Carl, the two local Advisory Senior wizards from the Young Wizards series by Diane Duane. They share a house but other than that could be mistaken for Heterosexual Life Partners. This is probably due to them being expies of the two major characters from her significantly less popular Door In To... series, in which the characters were explicitly lovers. They are also allegedly based on two friends of the author who are most definitely heterosexual.
  • The author of Wicked has said that he purposely hinted on "something" involving Galinda and Elphaba. What this "something" is, he said he "doesn't know". The musical adaptation is more clean cut about this, with many actors saying that this was a romance play and it even being said that some of the songs were based off cliche love lyrics.
    • Gregory has taken back his original claim.. Now just outright saying Glinda and Elphaba had a love affair.
  • Renly Baratheon and Loras Tyrell in A Song of Ice and Fire - George RR Martin has confirmed that these two were lovers. Though it's hinted that quite a few nobles knew but kept quiet—when Loras gets in Jaime's way, Jaime responds by telling him to step aside, "or I'll stick my sword somewhere not even Renly found." Game of Thrones, the HBO adaptation, has them being obviously lovers from the beginning, and even common folk from the other ends of the Seven Kingdoms know it.
    • Also, Jon Connington's feelings for Rhaegar Targaryen were a little more than just brotherly.
  • A recent fan interview with the authors of Havemercy has revealed the airman Luvander to be gay - and most of the airmen are gay or bisexual.
  • A Series of Unfortunate Events has Sir and Charles, in a very downplayed example. In The Miserable Mill, we are led to believe that they are simply business partners with an extremely lopsided distribution of power, with Charles being too meek to put his foot down to the more domineering Sir's cruel actions. They show up again in The Penultimate Peril, and the conversation the Baudelaires overhear is a lot more tender, as I recall with Charles timidly telling Sir that he cares about him, and trying to get Sir to reciprocate. When the hotel burns down, they're holding hands "so they don't lose each other in the blinding smoke". Then this (paraphrased) line from one of Lemony Snicket's love letters in The Beatrice Letters seals the deal: "I will love [Beatrice] until C realizes that S is unworthy of his love."
  • California Diaries has Ducky, who at best is Ambiguously Gay throughout the series (he shows no interest in dating girls, his female friends are all thirteen years old and platonic, and at one point he borrows a bunch of books by famous LGBT authors) but ghost-writer Peter Lerangis confirmed in response to a fan on Twitter that Ducky was gay.


Live Action TV

  • Though it was rarely played with on the show, Xena: Warrior Princess stars Xena and Gabrielle were at one point Common Law married according to creator Rob Tapert, however his opinion flip-flops.
  • Alicia Vega, minor (dead) Stargate Atlantis character, and a male supporting character (they will not say who). The series was originally supposed to hint at Vega's sexuality on-screen, and the relevent scenes were even filmed and can be found on the DVD's, but most of her scenes were deleted from her introductory episode for pacing reasons, getting rid of not just the hints at her sexuality, but most of her characterization in general.
  • Popular creator Ryan Murphy said that his plans for the third season would have included Sam realizing she was gay.
  • Gaeta and Hoshi from the 2004 reboot of Battlestar Galactica. They were only outed in second-hand webisodes shot after the series.
  • Hugh Laurie famously said he can easily see House getting it on with Cuddy, Cameron or Wilson.
    • Katie Jacobs, executive producer of House, once implied this too.
    • HL has also agreed when an interviewer called Wilson "the other love of [House's] life".
  • According to Andrew Robinson, he played his Star Trek: Deep Space Nine character Garak as bisexual. He certainly seemed interested in Bashir, though there doesn't seem to have been reciprocation.
    • Robert Hewitt Wolfe has stated that he wrote Garak to be attracted to Bashir, but Bashir never realized this.
    • Earlier, some of the show creators had said they originally intended to make Geordi gay on Star Trek: The Next Generation, but backed down from it. This may explain why he consistently had little luck with women; some of the earlier Expanded Universe novels are also dripping with Ho Yay. (In A Call to Darkness, when Geordi is ordered off duty to relax, he heads to the holodeck and activates his program of Ancient Greece, and spends a lot of time walking around holding Homer's hand and talking in rather intimate fashion.)
    • Dominic Keating said about Malcolm Reed: "God knows I played him gay!" No one's quite sure whether or not he's joking. However, Malcolm is easily the most-slashed character of the series in fandom. According to an interview, apparently B&B called him up and said "by the way...we're going to make your character bisexual." According to Keating himself, he thought it over, then went "Fuckit, I've played gays before" (And how!) and went for it. Executive backpedaling ensued, and they claimed it was "a joke" (Hence the excruciating "I'm straight, totally straight, totally not at all gay!" episode "Shuttlepod One". He's also claimed that when playing Evil Malcolm in "Through a Mirror Darkly": "I just made him gayer and evil."
  • And speaking of Star Trek, when Gene Roddenberry (creator of Star Trek: The Original Series) was asked about the Ho Yay between Kirk and Spock, he admitted "there is certainly some of that." [ And then there's the infamous, "We certainly believe the affection was sufficient for [a physical relationship], if that were the particular style of the 23rd century," which most slashers are convinced settles the matter altogether. There's also an analysis of the infamous footnote in the novelization of the first movie that suggests that you could in fact go either way on this.
    • In an inversion, George Takei (who is gay) specifically said that Hikaru Sulu is not, in response to many fans who assumed that because Takei was, that necessarily his character was also. Sulu also canonically has a wife and daughter, though the former has never been introduced.
      • This has since been Jossed by one of the Trek reboot movies, which showed Sulu with a male partner and daughter.
  • Q from Star Trek. Both one of the writers for the show and John de Lancie, the actor who played Q, thought he was in love with Picard. Of course, Q is naturally genderless, just takes on the male form when he's around humans, so it might be somewhat of a special case.
    • In the Star Trek: Voyager episode "The Q and the Grey", Q is all set to "mate" with Captain Janeway, and it is also revealed that Q has a girlfriend (another Q, of course). However, they both emphatically state that their relationship is not physical, but that's because the Q are above such things as sex. And gender, for that matter; the apparent gender of each Q is really just a matter of "lower" species' perception.
  • In discussing the Dumbledore issue on his online journal, author Neil Gaiman once mentioned in passing that "Neverwhere has two gay characters who are Out, as far as the book is concerned, and one major character who is gay but it isn't mentioned, simply because that character was one of many people in that book who don't have any sexual or romantic entanglements during the story." He hasn't actually named the characters, but an educated guess would suggest Hunter and Lady Serpentine as the two outed characters. (The hinted Les Yay between them is something that both of them look back on fondly.) The one whose sexuality doesn't affect the story is any fanfic writer's guess but is likely the Marquis De Carabas, largely because he bears a striking character resemblance to the Cluracan from Gaiman's Sandman, who is also gay. And because he's flamboyantly fabulous.
    • Another Gaiman example relating to his Babylon 5 episode "Day of the Dead": he has confirmed that the Les Yay many fans saw between Lochley and the ghost of Zoe, her friend during her "junkie teenage hooker" period, was intentional.
  • Doctor Who:
    • The writer of "Survival" complained that her intended lesbian subtext between Ace and Karra was lost in the broadcast version (though some fans will aver that the Les Yay is still visible if you look). By that point, several stories (including "The Curse of Fenric", written by the character's creator) had explicitly depicted Ace showing romantic interest in male characters, making this more "word of bi".
    • Ricky and Jake in "Rise of the Cybermen"/"Age of Steel", as revealed by RTD in Doctor Who Confidential. The deleted scene showing this is included in the DVD box set.
    • Steven Moffat has said that River is bi.
  • In Torchwood, Word of God states that all of the main cast are bisexual. Everybody on the cast has shown evidence of this apart from Gwen (who is in a long term relationship). She did once have a same-sex encounter, but that was under the influence of an alien, and as such she is (currently) Word of Gay.
  • According to Pushing Daisies creator Bryan Fuller one of the show's characters was gay. He later revealed that it was The Coroner who always let them in to see the body, and he has a crush on Emerson. Mmm-hmmmm.
  • In Jonathan Creek, Maddie's publisher Barry was gay, at least according to David Renwick. However, since his entire purpose in the story was to be someone Maddie could rant about Jonathan to, it never got mentioned. (There was one scene in Season Two in which Maddie would say "Who wants to go out with a mindless copulating machine who just wants to get at you with his seed drill?" and they would both get rather thoughtful, but it got cut for time.)
  • Graham Linehan and Arthur Matthews, creators of The Fast Show, have stated that the popular characters Ted & Ralph are both gay; Ralph is GAY gay, Ted is a more repressed gay.
  • Right-Wing Militia Fanatic Mike from Spaced was confirmed to be gay in the DVD commentary. Considering the Ho Yay-laden advances he makes toward best friend Tim, everyone seems to be perfectly fine with it.
  • Glee has kind of an odd case at the moment: ex-cheerleader Santana has already slept with and confessed her love for her best friend Brittany, but has so far refused any labels, and suggested she still has sexual attraction to boys. However, series writer Brad Falchuk has said that she is in fact a lesbian, even if she's not yet ready to say so.
    • She got some Character Development and is now, if not out, then at least admitting it to herself. And Brittany.
  • In Babylon 5, Emperor Cartagia. Series creator J. Michael Straczynski once asked actor Wortham Krimmer to tone down the emperor's fey behavior, to which Krimmer responded, "Well, Joe, he's bisexual, don't you know." When JMS gave an "oh really" sort of reply, Krimmer said, "Absolutely. He's the emperor. He can f--- anyone he wants."
  • Gus and Max in Breaking Bad. Their relationship is open for interpretation, but creator Vince Gilligan has stated that he thinks they were lovers.
  • In Heroes we have Zach. Unfortunately they didn't make it known to the actor until after he had been cast and his management was not happy about it, so the storyline never came to fruition, and he disappeared a few episodes afterwards anyway, due to the actor being cast in The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
  • In a post series interview, Daiki Kaito AKA Kamen Rider Diend was outed by his actor.


Radio

  • Hercules Grytpype-Thynne of The Goon Show.
    • Never mentioned on air because homosexuality was illegal in Britain in the 1950s, although Peter Sellers often played him as very Camp. He was "outed" in the official biography in the first volume of Goon Show Scripts, c.1972


Video Games

  • Jeff's roommate Tony in EarthBound. The game's subtext makes it fairly clear that Tony has a one-sided crush on Jeff, besides.
  • Kojima confirmed that Revolver Ocelot had feelings for Big Boss. Note that we say "confirmed" because the subtext was so blatant that most people had already made the not at all difficult leap. The part where Ocelot spends pretty much the rest of his life after meeting Big Boss working to fulfill his ultimate plan of destroying the Patriots, going so far as to brainwash himself and eventually die to achieve that goal was a bit of a tip-off, really. This wasn't unexpected as Everyone is gay for Big Boss.
  • Kevin Smith from Killer7 had a male lover according to the companion book Hand in killer7.
  • Dragon Age writer David Gaider stated that Wade, of the best smiths in the game, is in a relationship with his shop manager, Herren. Considering Wade's extremely campy behavior outside of his career choice and the ridiculous amount of Belligerent Sexual Tension in the dialogue between the two, it didn't come as an immense surprise.
  • The SaGa Frontier book Essence explains that Rastaban and Ildon are gay lovers.
  • Supposedly there's an interview somewhere with the writers of the Ace Attorney series stating that Miles Edgeworth just isn't interested in women but finds Phoenix Wright to look rather nice. This is backed up in canon by the fact that Edgeworth finds his Chick Magnet qualities somewhere between confusing and disturbing and the massive amounts of Foe Yay-turned-Ho Yay he shares with Phoenix.
    • Well, this article sort of touches on it, and the translated text is from one of the Gyakuten Saiban guides.
  • Venom from Guilty Gear is officially declared as so—in a drama CD, not in the games. The games' story modes heavily imply his devotion for Zato is actual love, but never say it outright.
    • Though his response to being jabbed in the backside by one of Faust's attacks (which elicits a different response from each character) is "Only HE can do that!"
  • Dr. Fetus, Big Bad of Super Meat Boy, has been stated to be homosexual via Twitter, but is INCREDIBLY deep in the closet, hence why he acts as hornily as a Middle Schooler on his own Twitter account.
  • The creator of Persona 2 admitted that his preferred pairing for the game was Tatsuya and Jun, and it had been his intention, had he had sole control of the script, that would have been the canon pairing from the get go.
  • Grand Chase's Ronan and Lass, while still ambiguously hinted, are apparently seeing more and more canon because of 'Word of God' sending out an art piece depicting them in a questionably innocent yet highly slashable position.
  • When doing the English dub for Persona 4, the voice actor for Kanji Tatsumi was basically told by Atlus that his character was gay. Despite that, in-game, the English dub is ambiguous over whether or not he really is.
    • In fact, the original creators have said that his sexuality was kept deliberately ambiguous in order to accommodate Rule of Funny.
  • Interviews with the makers of NieR confirmed that Emil is gay and sweet on the title character.


Web Comics

  • The author of Megatokyo infamously said one of the regular characters (without saying which) was gay. Just who has sparked enough debate to become a Running Gag on the forums. The most popular theory says that it's Sayuri.
    • Ditto for General Protection Fault, although not going quite as far.
    • In contrast, there's been hardly any debate at all since T Campbell said two of the new AEGIS recruits in Fans! were bisexual. This is probably because there's no shortage of gay and bisexual characters in the rest of the cast. It's also his word that outed Guth, after a half-joking comment followed by an off-panel discussion.
  • Speaking of T, in a conversation about the Depraved Bisexual trope, he talked about how it wasn't necessarily bad, especially if "played against non-depraved bisexuals or non-depraved people with bisexual leanings, like Penny and Aggie." The fans, naturally, pounced, although T didn't feel like he was revealing anything new (at a point where Penny was barely in denial, but a case could still be made for Aggie being straight).
  • From A Day of Lucy, The creator said this in one of the comments about Natalie.
  • Subverted in Las Lindas. Despite the vast amount of subtext, SoulKat has stated that Tootsie is not gay, and in fact merely wishes Alejandra were a man. SK has also stated that there has never been, nor will there ever be, any homosexual characters in the comic.
    • Ironically, in the bonus comics on site, several if not all of the characters are now gay/bisexual, though this is expressly stated to be fanservice and not canon.
  • Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name has Ples, whom Tessa has stated to be gay, though it's never come up. Him being old enough to be most of the other characters' dad and insane besides.
  • In a variation, while Kanaya from Homestuck has an obvious crush on another girl, she comes from a species where nearly Everyone Is Bi (another one of her teammates, when talking to a human, expressed confusion over the idea that humans have words for sexualities), leading to some readers saying that she can't possibly be a lesbian. The author has stated that some trolls are only attracted to one gender or the other, and Kanaya is one of them, but that doesn't stop people from insisting that she can only be bi. Note however this does not apply to pale romances, as she, at times, has been an auspistice for relationships involving men, as well as being suggested to be a moirail to Karkat briefly.
    • Dirk Strider however is concretely gay. He has feelings for Jake and they're somewhat mutual.
  • The creator of The Dreamer has stated that Samuel Warren is asexual.


Web Original

  • Although Raimi makes snarky allusions to it, the only confirmation of Benjamin Palmer of Broken Saints being a gay pedophile is in the DVD Commentary, by writer Brooke Burgess. Also, Raimi himself is implied to be bisexual (or of "ambiguous sexuality") in another commentary track by Burgess.
  • When Geoff Ramsey, one of the makers of Red vs. Blue and voice actor of Grif, was listing some of the things the casual fan would not know about Grif in a podcast, he finished with "And he's secretly in love with Simmons". He then added that it was probably obvious anyway.


Western Animation

  1. Whenever Word of Gay comes up, which it sometimes does in other example entries.
  2. she meant her fiance, Will