Creators of cult children’s television show The Legends of Korra confirmed that the series finale of the show cast the protagonist in a same-sex relationship, something long suspected by fans but practically nonexistent in children’s television.

Bryan Konietzko and Mike DiMartino, co-creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender and the show’s spin-off series, The Legend of Korra, on Monday posted separately on their personal blogs to confirm that the finale’s last scene portrayed a same-sex relationship.

“You can celebrate it, embrace it, accept it, get over it, or whatever you feel the need to do, but there is no denying it,” Konietzko wrote. “That is the official story.”

The final shot of the series shows protagonist Korra and her friend Asami clasping hands in a two-minute sequence. DiMartino confirmed the relationship in a blog post, saying that in case anyone still thought it was ambiguous, he “wanted to make a clear verbal statement to complement the show’s visual one.”

The show has alluded to the romantic relationship and it is has been dutifully endorsed and examined by fans on the internet.

Konietzko said that “Korra’s spiritual arc” was not planned, like everything else on the show. He also emphasized that he did not want Korra to have to end up in a romantic relationship at the conclusion of the series.

He said that even while the idea of Korra’s relationship with Asami became serious to the show’s staff, they still only hinted at it because of an “unwritten rule” that they would not be allowed to depict a same-sex relationship on the show.

That all changed as the series finale approached, Konietzko said.

“But as we got close to finishing the finale, the thought struck me: How do I know we can’t openly depict that? No one ever explicitly said so. It was just another assumption based on a paradigm that marginalises non-heterosexual people. If we want to see that paradigm evolve, we need to take a stand against it.”

He said he was happy with the mostly positive reaction to the finale, but admitted it is not “a slam-dunk victory for queer representation,” but hopes that it inches representation forward.

“It is long over due that our media (including children’s media) stops treating non-heterosexual people as nonexistent, or as something merely to be mocked,” Konietzko said. “I’m only sorry it took us so long to have this kind of representation in one of our stories.”

In January, Nickelodeon’s prime competitor, Disney Channel, featured a lesbian couple, briefly, on its show, Good Luck Charlie. The voice of Marceline the Vampire Queen from Cartoon Network’s Adventure Time said in August that her character had previously dated Princess Bubblegum.