No Yay / Live-Action TV

• Are You Afraid of the Dark?: Peter to Danielle. He is shown in "The Tale Of The Captured Souls" to spy on Danielle and her family through his mirrors as part of his plan to steal their youth. The cameras include views of the tub in the bathroom and the bedroom. Does this mean Peter has watched Danielle and her parents undress when they're changing, or to take a bath, or when going to bed? He also lays on his bed when Danielle's in his room and she asks "What do you do for fun around here?" He responds "What do you wanna do?" He also calls her "lovely" and has No Sense of Personal Space around her. And when she does pull ups in his room randomly he says "I've always admired a strong girl."
• Arrowverse: Apparently, Green Arrow/Supergirl pairing is this. Other than the fact that the two headline separate shows, there's just something inherently off regarding the super-brooding manly man that is Oliver Queen hooking up with the bubbly, dorky Kara Danvers. The trope gets lampshaded in the Crisis on Earth-X crossover, which has Nazi versions of Green Arrow and Supergirl being married. When Kara finds out about this:
  Kara: His wife? Gross. (realizes that Oliver is standing beside her) No offense.
• Babylon 5: Ulkesh (Kosh II) and Lyta have a scene with somewhat sexual overtones, amidst a working relationship where Ulkesh was rather domineering and abusive to her in general:
  Lyta: "You didn't have to pull out of me so fast. You hurt me."
• Discussed in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, when Detective Boyle relates an anecdote about how he and a girl he had UST with ended up succumbing to their lust... while starring in a high school production of Annie as Daddy Warbucks and Annie respectively.
  Detective Boyle: We were supposed to hug, on stage. And at first, that seemed like nothing too. But by opening night, we were full-on making out.
  Detective Santiago: As Annie and Daddy Warbucks?
  Detective Boyle: Mmm-hmmm... the audience was not on board. Playwright sued the school.
• Becoming Elizabeth: Princess Elizabeth and her Lecherous Step Parent Sir Thomas Seymour are definitely this, to the point that the creators have insisted to squicked viewers that it is predatory, but the story is from Elizabeth's point of view and she does not see it as such. Viewers, including historians, have had mixed reaction to this explanation. Complicating matters even further is that fact that in real life Seymour's behavior toward Elizabeth was considered shocking and inappropriate, and most historians doubt that Elizabeth actually had a physical affair with Seymour.
• Buffyverse:
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Willow and VampWillow in "Doppelgangland". Had Willow not shot her, VampWillow (who's not only a vampire, but also creepily insane) was well on her way toward forcing the issue, which doesn't help the playful subtext that continues afterward.
    • Also Buffy and R.J, from "Him". Buffy is not only in her twenties while he is likely to be 16, but she's also working at the school R.J (and her little sister who also has a crush on him!) attends. At one point, Xander finds her straddling him on a school desk, making out deeply enough that it's clear that if Xander had been much later, it almost certainly would have escalated to sex. The fact that it only happens because she's under an extremely potent love spell at the time only makes things worse.
  • Angel: Adult Cordelia has sex with the teenage son of the man she's in love with, as said man watches (although she didn't know). What makes it even worse is that Cordelia knew that son as a baby, said baby having grown up in a parallel dimension with Year Inside, Hour Outside; and that Cordelia was possessed by an Eldritch Abomination at the time, so she wasn't even in control of her own actions. Thus, the whole thing was essentially rape via deception for both of them.
• The Cape: Fleming flirting with Tracey/Dice in her episode can feel more uncomfortable than the show runners intended, considering how she's younger than his daughter and he killed Tracey's father, and he keeps it up even after she makes her distaste for him clear.
• Community:
  • The episode "Physical Education" has a scene where Jeff has a pool match with his aging, overweight new billiards instructor. It features both of them getting naked and the instructor walking up to Jeff while both are still naked and then kissing him on the lips.
  • Although it was by far the Fan-Preferred Couple on the show during the initial run the Annie & Jeff ship has been seen in this way by many new viewers doing an Archive Binge on streaming platforms. The core reason being that Annie's age (a 19 year old who had just come out of rehab for an Adderall addiction) and lack of relationship experience (effectively none with little development during the run of the show), compared to Jeff (a world weary lawyer in his late 30's who is constantly bedding women his own age) is viewed as far more problematic to new audiences watching it over a decade later. They also dislike how it shows Jeff bouncing around between Annie & Britta, unable to pick one and stick to it while also having numerous girlfriend of the week type romances.
• On Defiance, it's hard to watch Stahma Tarr's scenes with her future daughter-in-law Christine McCawley without seeing them as attempts at seduction, especially after Stahma starts having a secret affair with local madam Kenya Rosewater.
• KC and Coach Carson from Degrassi: The Next Generation during Heart Like Mine Part 1 and 2. KC is fifteen and Coach Carson is his basketball coach. The guy does several creepy things. First, he gives KC the room key for his hotel room, so he can make out with Jenna, and then he walks in on them, saying, "Don't mind me." He also takes off his shirt a couple times in front of KC and invades his personal space, touching his shoulders a lot. Later, he gives KC beer and watches PORN with him. During the next episode, he shows him his gun, but the worst part is when he hires a prostitue to "help" KC get laid — pretty much insinuating that he wanted to have a threesome with KC and the hooker. When KC calls him a pervert, he replies by saying, "I didn't touch you!"
• Dexter: Dexter and the Icetruck Killer, both serial killers obsessed with murder almost to a sexual level, and brothers. Which was toned down for the TV series; the novel was even more blatant.
• Doctor Who:
  • The sexual tension between the Fourth Doctor and Leela is between two pretty sexy characters and quite enjoyable, apart from the incredibly uncomfortable power dynamic and the implication in Lungbarrow that Leela is the Doctor's mother via an incredibly round-about means. (This last part has been retconned out since.)
  • Played for laughs in "The Creature From The Pit" which featured a monster with a staggeringly phallic character design, and Tom Baker having an outrageous amount of fun exploiting that by playing his relationship with the monster as sexually as he could get away with. Particularly when he's looking at it while licking his lips and touching his mouth, going towards it and then seeming suddenly intimidated by the size. Or caressing it with his cheek with his eyes closed in ecstasy. Or putting the end of its big tentacle in his mouth and sucking on it.
  • The Master's sexual fascination with the Doctor in "The Keeper of Traken" would be standard Ho Yay if he wasn't a foul, rotting, seeping monstrosity at the time (while gently twiddling his fingers through the ends of the Doctor's curly hair).
• In The Fairly OddParents: Fairly Odder, Vicky, one of the returning characters from the original series, has a crush on Mr. Crocker for some reason, which is gross, since despite Vicky growing up into adulthood by the events of the series, Crocker is two decades older than her, at least.
• Farscape's Crichton/Scorpius and their blatant subtext falls between this and Fan Disservice. Hell, Scorpius/Anyone. There's even a sex scene at one point involving him and a woman with what look like twitching spider legs coming out of her head. And then there's all the Scorpius/Braca subtext...
• Firefly:
  • An extremely creepy one-way version of this between Jubal Early and River in "Objects in Space". Pretty much all of his lines regarding her can easily be interpreted as sexual in nature, and that's before you factor in the rape threats. Not to mention River's line, "You crawl inside me uninvited," which does NOT help things.
    • A decent case can be made for River and anyone on the show. She's seventeen years old, traumatized and brain damaged, and the extent to which she improved after the events of the movie is unclear.
  • Crosses the line from subtext to text in the case of Kaylee, to whom he coldly threatens rape as something he neither desires nor undesires, just a thing that he will do if she doesn't cooperate.
  • Hilariously, this is how the entire crew reacts to the prospect of Mal/Zoe. Even the shockingly crude, meat head mercenary Jayne. ("Now, somethin' 'bout that is just downright unsettlin'.") Even Mal and Zoe themselves react this way.
• In one episode of Friends, during part of an I Know You Know I Know type Gambit Pileup, it's Monica and Chandler versus everyone else (except Ross). Chandler and Monica want to keep their relationship secret, but Joey, Phoebe, and Rachel want them to reveal it. It comes down to Phoebe and Chandler trying to "seduce" each other, despite the fact that neither of them wanted to seduce the other. Eventually, they both lean in for the kiss, and it's plain on their faces that they do not want to. It's hilarious.
  • Also, the revelation that Monica and Ross (who are siblings) once unknowingly kissed at a party ... does not go over well. Ross: "You were my first kiss with Rachel?" Monica: "You were my first kiss ever?" Chandler: "What did I marry into???"
• Game of Thrones:
  • Due to the wide cast of characters and explicit nature of the show, it's no stranger to potentially Squicky pairings. However, a few top the rest, such as unironically shipping sadistic psychopaths like Joffrey and Ramsay with Sansa. These are the same people who gleefully murdered members of her own family and have either already raped her or threatened to do so.
  • Same goes for Ramsay/Reek, which has a few Ho Yay moments but is a Torture Technician and Stockholm Syndrome type of thing.
• Glee: Karofsky, Kurt's long-term bully, forcefully kissing Kurt. The shocked and horrified look on Kurt's face said it all.
• The TV version of Hannibal takes the subtext from the book and film and takes it up to eleven with Will Graham and Hannibal's relationship, with a significant part of the first season spent showing Hannibal Gaslighting Will and generally acting like a Stalker with a Crush. And season 2 just ups the ante even more, with the final episode of the season having Hannibal act like a jilted lover when he slits the throat of Abigail (essentially his and Will's surrogate daughter) before stabbing Will himself and leaving him to die. There's that squicky bit in the next season when Hannibal cuts open Will's head with the intention of eating his brain. The end of the series removes the "sub" from subtext completely and confirms the two have feelings for each other.
• Claire and Sylar in Heroes. Claire is underage, and Sylar is a serial killer who's been spent much of the first season stalking her. When they encounter one another again in Volume Five, he actually kisses her while holding her down with telekinesis, and tries to convince her that they were meant for each other. Claire's response is to maintain a full-power Death Glare throughout the encounter.
• Horatio Hornblower has, in the first episode, the very creepy Inquisition scene in which Simpson gets a couple of other midshipmen to pin Horatio to a table, then leans in way too close to him and asks him what his "dirty little secret" is, starting with "A fancier of other boys, perhaps?" Additionally, there's a lot of subtext and hints dropped ("You don't know half of what he's capable of"; "Jack's missed you, boy"; etc.) that before Horatio arrived, Simpson was sexually abusing Archie. Which of course just makes the Inquisition that much worse.
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia has roommates and Heterosexual Life-Partners Charlie and Frank. This wouldn't be so bad (if a bit gross considering their lifestyles)...except it's very heavily implied (if not outright stated) that Frank might be Charlie's biological father. This being Always Sunny, this is most likely intentional.
• The Nanny: In "The Nanny-In-Law", it's revealed that Niles had an affair with Nanny Mueller, Maxwell's nanny, when he was growing up. Lampshaded when Maxwell, after seeing them, stammers "I...I...I don't ever want to see that again!"
• Once Upon a Time:
  • Some fans feel this way towards the Les Yay between Emma and Regina, due to Regina technically being Emma's step-grandmother, killing her former love interest, and turning said love interest into a sex slave. Some feel like Regina comes off as abusive towards Emma, with her constantly belittling Emma and at one point using the dark one dagger to force Emma to try to admit something she didn't want to. Of course, Emma/Regina remains one of the most popular ships in the fandom, so this is far from a universal opinion.
  • Played Straight with Cora/Leopold. There's just something very wrong with Cora being involved with her daughter's future husband. Especially since she arranged Leopold and Regina's marriage.
  • Speaking of which, Regina/Leopold is universally despised. Whether it's due to the age gap, the fact that it was an Arranged Marriage, or if it has to due with Regina conspiring to kill Leopold and his daughter during the entirety of the marriage. The fact that Leopold had previously been engaged to Cora only adds to it. There's nothing in the show that indicates the relationship had any romantic leanings, indeed Regina was basically a babysitter, but still.
  • A brief in-universe example. Rumplestiltskin has had subtext with every single one of his students. Regina at one mentions there was always tension between them, and given his previous students include her mother and half-sister, everyone she tells is understandably and visibly disgusted.
• Oz had a few of these. Keller/Schillinger in particular is a good example with the kiss Keller gives Schillinger at one point considering that Schillinger is a creepy rapist and Keller a Depraved Bisexual murderer. Also Beecher/Schillinger with Schillinger raping Beecher and messing with his head.
• Parks and Recreation gives us this gem when Andy is assigning codenames to everyone.
  Andy: Also, from now on, we'll be using code names. You can address me as "Eagle One." Ann, code name: "Been There Done That." April is "Currently Doing That." Donna is "It Happened Once In A Dream." Chris, code name: "If I Had To Pick A Dude." Ben is "Eagle Two."
  Ben: Oh thank God!
• Rizzoli & Isles features Hoyt/Jane, seeing as how Hoyt is an ugly creepy Ax-Crazy serial killer after Jane and Jane is beautiful and terrified of him.
• The Sinner loves this trope so much that it's practically a Once a Season requirement:
  • Phoebe, being a sickly and bedridden teenage girl raised by overprotective parents, latches onto her older sister Cora as her only contact with the outside world. She develops an attraction to her that goes beyond that of a normal sibling bond and begins to live vicariously through Cora after she gets a boyfriend. After a few episodes, the Incest Subtext between them becomes straight-up text when Phoebe kisses her.
  • Harry and Vera share a strange amount of sexual tension even though Vera is a cult leader with an ambiguous and never-defined moral compass and Harry is a detective investigating a murder that she's implicated in, putting them at odds, not to mention the obvious age gap between them. It's heavily implied that something happened between them during a therapy session that Vera gave to Harry (which was most likely non-consensual), but nothing is ever shown.
  • Jamie has this with three separate characters: with Nick, whom he shared an extremely toxic and codependent pseudo-romantic friendship with, where Nick actively encouraged Jamie's worst impulses through twisted mind games; with Harry, who essentially takes over what Jamie's own place in his friendship with Nick was after the latter's death; and with Sonya, who becomes drawn to him after he breaks into her house and threatens her.
  • While CJ and Percy's short-lived romantic relationship was a good deal healthier than the other examples the show has to offer, it still doesn't change the fact that Percy was a deeply depressed and mentally fragile young woman who dated CJ partly out of the guilt she felt for having accidentally killed his brother.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has the dubious honor of sporting a case of No Yay so intense that the actress herself took issue with it and stopped it cold. The producers wanted Dukat, a mass-murdering war criminal, romantically paired up with Kira, the former freedom fighter whose people were the target of his genocide, and so subtext started appearing all over the place. Nana Visitor protested the move so vehemently that the planned storyline was soon dropped and they wound up as even worse enemies. So the producers revealed that Kira's mother used to be Dukat's lover during the occupation because of a Scarpia Ultimatum, which only made his interest in Kira even creepier.
  Nana Visitor: Playing Kira, I can't even entertain the thought. It's too disgusting.
  • These are the same producers that claimed No Yay and put a severe kibosh on Garak/Bashir. So two male best friends dating was apparently a lot more disgusting than a young woman and the mass-murderer of her people who is also a) married and b) old enough to be her father.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation:
  • In "Manhunt", Ambassador Troi, an old woman, comes onto several men, including Wesley, a teen.
  • In "Sub Rosa", Dr. Crusher dates an alien who's not only noncorporeal, but also slept with her grandma (plus several other female relatives of Crusher's) in the past.
• Supernatural
  • Dean and Sam run into the prophet Chuck, who's been unwittingly writing books about the brothers' adventures. They're understandably nauseated to find out that some fans ship them together, particularly Dean, who raised Sam from childhood.
    Dean: That's sick.
  • Sam/Dean is especially noteworthy for having enough fans agree that the incest was just too big a squick factor for them to overcome — while it was very popular in early seasons and still has a sizeable following, a good number of fans shipped it only because there were no other popular pairings to ship until the fourth season — that shipping their actors instead in Real-Person Fic became a popular way to indirectly ship Sam/Dean without having to justify incest or find a way to make them Not Blood Siblings. Although that method still came with its own unique issues of shipping two real-life celebrities together that not all fans were able to stomach.
  • Alastair's fixation on Dean, who Dean "studied under" in Hell.
  • Lucifer's interest in Sam, which includes implications of wanting to rape him.
  • Meg's interest in Sam and Dean which includes wanting to torture them and kill them while varying between beating them up and kissing them.
• This applies to the otherwise popular Beast Boy x Raven relationship in Titans (2018) . The characters are both supposed to be teenagers and roughly the same age but Raven is played by an actual kid whereas Beast Boy is played by a twenty-something who’s eight years older than her. Notably they’re not in an actual relationship.
• True Blood: Lorena/Bill. In "It Hurts Me Too" after Bill pins Lorena against a wall and tells her that he'll never love her, she kisses him. He does not react well to this, first going for her throat with his fangs, then responding to her urging him to make love to her by doing so extremely violently to the point that he leaves several cuts on her chest and twists her head around 180 degrees. Lorena loves every second of it, and dreamily says "Oh William, I so love you." Also, even after Bill tells Lorena multiple times that he hates her guts and can't stand the sight of her, she still has the nerve to ask him "When will we see each other again?"
• Victorious: Due to her constantly decreasing intelligence and childlike behavior, there's a section of the fanbase that doesn't think Cat is in the proper state to give romantic consent to anyone, and thus treat any pairing with Cat (canon or not) can be seen as this.
• The White Queen: Late in the series, Richard III starts flirting with his niece Elizabeth of York, to his wife Anne's disgust. Richard claims he's just doing it to insult his rival Henry Tudor, to whom Elizabeth has been betrothed. However, Elizabeth is portrayed as having a crush on her uncle and fantasizing about marrying him. Once Anne dies, the show portrays Richard and Elizabeth as falling in love and, in the American version of the show, having a sexual affair before his death. Viewers were squicked. Richard and Anne shippers were enraged, and historians were offended. To be fair, the plot is based on rumors which circulated at the time, but there's no evidence to support them and Richard angrily denied them.

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