History Main / PlatonicWritingRomanticReading

* In the newspaper comic strip ComicStrip/BeetleBailey, the titular Private is supposed to have an antagonistic relationship with his superior officer Sargent Snorkel with Beetle getting on Sarge's nerves due to his constant slacking off and disrespect and Beetle being snarky and rebellious in turn. In practice, their hatred of each other to the point of hyper-focus ends up coming off as BelligerentSexualTension due to their tendency to hyper-focus on each other at any given time, behave [[VitriolicBestBuds far more casually and spend time with each other exclusively]] when they're not at each other's throats and sharing a heaping pile of moments together that [[NotWhatItLooksLike come off looking a LOT more suspect than the writers probably intended.]] It's to the point that the common joke among fans (And fan haters) is that Beetle and Sarge are secretly lovers in a "Don't ask, don't tell" era military with their frustrations and violence [[SlapSlapKiss simply being the means through which they can safely express their love for each other.]]

* This [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOQk_pWmisA remake]] of an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmuNpadhxo0&t=9s '80s Folger's commercial]] has a reunion between a guy who came back from for Christmas to his younger sister. In the original, this is innocent BigBrotherWorship due to her young age, but the remake ages her up and makes her actions seem rather...[[IncestSubtext flirtatious]]. It ended up inspiring some parody videos, and even fanfiction, to play up the incest angle even further.

!!Examples Subpages:

* ''Theatre/SundayInTheParkWithGeorge'' has perhaps one of the oddest examples out there, introducing a fumble between a man and an apparition of his deceased great-grandmother [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane that may or may not actually be there]]. The man in question, George, is the [[IdenticalGrandson identical great-grandson]] of painter Georges Seurat, and she seems to think he's him, but Sondheim probably should've thought before giving lines like "[[TriumphantReprise We have always belonged together]]" to relatives.

* In ''Theatre/HarryPotterAndTheCursedChild'', Albus and Scorpius develop a forbidden relationship with one another that involves them risking their lives for one another, defying other people's attempts to keep them apart, and is even paralleled at one point with Snape and Lily's relationship. Said relationship is ''supposed'' to be strictly friendship, with Scorpius asking out his actual crush Rose at the end, but some readers interpreted it [[HoYay quite differently]].

This trope isn't about writers [[DesignatedLoveInterest fumbling the treatment of some relationship they ''meant'' to put in canon]]. This is about a writer fumbling their treatment of something that wasn't supposed to be a romantic relationship at all, so fans look at it and go "huh, seems like there's something there." Regardless of how it happened, they managed to write a platonic relationship as a romantic one and now the writers are stuck dealing with the consequences. In minor cases, it will just be a popular FanPreferredCouple, but sometimes you'll have [[MisaimedFandom entire fanbases assuming]] [[ImpliedLoveInterest that's what the writer "really" intended.]]

Most people, after reading enough fiction, begin to have an idea of how relationships begin to fit together, and can spot a budding romance a mile off. Sometimes, though, the writers break away from these expectations and do something different. Normally, the writers figure out what the relationship between two people should be in a series, then they take the stock derivatives and toss in cues to clue the viewer into how things are between those two people. However, sometimes writers put too much BelligerentSexualTension into SiblingRivalry, or make the PlatonicLifePartners [[UnresolvedSexualTension a little too close,]] or toss a few too many LoveTropes at a pair that were only meant to be HeterosexualLifePartners.

* This [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOQk_pWmisA remake]] of an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmuNpadhxo0&t=9s 80's Folger's commercial]] has a reunion between a guy who came back from for Christmas to his younger sister. In the original, this is innocent BigBrotherWorship due to her young age, but the remake ages her up and makes her actions seems rather [[IncestSubtext flirtatious]]. It ended up inspiring some parody videos, and even fanfiction, to play up the incest angle even further.

[[/folder]]

This trope isn't about writers [[DesignatedLoveInterest fumbling the treatment of some relationship they ''meant'' to put in canon]]. This is about a writer fumbling their treatment of something that wasn't supposed to be a romantic relationship at all, so fans look at it and go "huh, seems like there's something there." Regardless of how it happened, they managed to pull off a Friendship Writing Fumble and now the writers are stuck dealing with the consequences. In minor cases, it will just be a popular FanPreferredCouple, but sometimes you'll have [[MisaimedFandom entire fanbases assuming]] [[ImpliedLoveInterest that's what the writer "really" intended.]]

[[WMG:[[center:[[AC:This trope is [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1551472304022339600 under discussion]] in the Administrivia/TropeRepairShop.]]]]]]

* ''Fanfic/{{Deserving}}'' manages to do this with ''[[{{Squick}} two toddlers.]]''

* "Girl Crush" by Little Big Town was supposedly not meant to sound like a bisexual romance song. The singer is jealous of her ex's new girlfriend. It would be bad enough that the singer is using the term "girl crush" [[YouKeepUsingThatWord incorrectly]], however the song is dripping with LesYay. With lyrics like "I wanna taste her lips/Yeah, 'cause they taste like you/I want to drown myself/In a bottle of her perfume" and "I don't get no peace/Thinking about her under your bed sheets/The way that she's whispering/The way that she's pulling you in/Lord knows I've tried/I can't get her off my mind", it seems like the singer is equally into both individuals.

* While WordOfGod has it that Miho from ''Webcomic/MegaTokyo'' isn't gay, she does seem to have a [[PseudoRomanticFriendship very close, intimate emotional connection]] with [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots Ping.]] Or rather, Ping has an emotional connection with Miho, but not vice versa, mostly caused by Ping being a naïve cutie and Miho being a ManipulativeBastard.
* [=Davan/PeeJee=] in ''Webcomic/SomethingPositive''. WordOfGod claims it was fumble initially but turned into [[TrollingCreator trolling the shippers]] after they started asking when they would get together. Eventually he made clear that the two would never get together, at least in part because [[WriteWhoYouKnow the "real [=PeeJee=]"]] is against the idea.

* FriendshipWritingFumble/AnimeAndManga
* FriendshipWritingFumble/ComicBooks
* FriendshipWritingFumble/AnimatedFilms
* FriendshipWritingFumble/LiveActionFilms
* FriendshipWritingFumble/{{Literature}}
* FriendshipWritingFumble/LiveActionTV
* FriendshipWritingFumble/VideoGames
* FriendshipWritingFumble/WesternAnimation

* "White Wedding" by Billy Idol, at face value, sounds a lot like incest. However, WordOfGod says that "little sister" was just supposed to be slang for "girlfriend" and is not ''actually'' about siblings.

This is highly subjective, of course. What may seem like obvious {{subtext}} to you might not be the case to another (in particular, a lot of plain old SiblingRivalry commonly gets [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation interpreted]] as BelligerentSexualTension). See also: HoYay, NoYay, IncestSubtext, HideYourGays, and TheNotLoveInterest. For the opposite of this trope, see DesignatedLoveInterest. For when heroes and villains seem unusually like a romantic couple, see FoeYay and FoeRomanceSubtext. Not to be confused with JustFriends, where a pair of friends have this dynamic intentionally to create sexual tension or ShipTease.

This is highly subjective, of course. What may seem like obvious {{subtext}} to you might not be the case to another (in particular, a lot of plain old SiblingRivalry commonly gets [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation interpreted]] as BelligerentSexualTension). See also: HoYay, NoYay, IncestSubtext, HideYourGays, and TheNotLoveInterest. For the opposite of this trope, see DesignatedLoveInterest. For when heroes and villains seem unusually like a romantic couple, see FoeYay and FoeRomanceSubtext. Not to be confused with JustFriends, where a pair of friends have this dynamic intentionally to create sexual tension or ShipTease.

This is highly subjective, of course. What may seem like obvious {{subtext}} to you might not be the case to another (in particular, a lot of plain old SiblingRivalry commonly gets [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation interpreted]] as BelligerentSexualTension). See also: HoYay, NoYay, IncestSubtext, HideYourGays, and TheNotLoveInterest. For the opposite of this trope, see DesignatedLoveInterest. For when heroes and villains seem unusually like a romantic couple, see FoeYay and FoeRomanceSubtext.

* MediaWatchdog bait in a [[AvoidTheDreadedGRating G-Rated]] series.

Most people, after reading enough fiction, begin to have an idea of how relationships begin to fit together, and can spot a budding romance a mile off. Sometimes, though, the writers break away from these expectations and do something different. Normally, the writers figure out what the relationship between two people should be in a series, then they take the [[LoveTropes stock derivatives]] and toss in cues to clue the viewer into how things are between those two people. When this trope crops up, however, it's usually the result of a writer breaking from the established relationship types and attempting to forge unusual bonds. To do this, they need to either re-use existing cues (and risk the viewer [[MisaimedFandom drawing the wrong conclusions]]) or create new ones (and risk the viewer drawing the wrong conclusions). Although sometimes a writer will pull it off, it more often leaves people with the completely wrong impression.

This trope isn't about writers [[DesignatedLoveInterest fumbling the treatment of some relationship they ''meant'' to put in canon]]--making it more sympathetic or less sympathetic than they intended (in nine times out of ten, the trope you get in that case is FanPreferredCouple). This is about a writer fumbling their treatment of something that wasn't supposed to be a relationship at all, so fans look at it and go "huh, seems like there's something there." Perhaps they accidentally made the protagonist and antagonist [[FoeYay a bit too chummy]], or put too much BelligerentSexualTension into SiblingRivalry, or even slipped off the tightrope of HeterosexualLifePartners. Regardless of how it happened, they managed to pull off a Friendship Writing Fumble and now the writers are stuck dealing with the consequences. In minor cases, it will just be popular {{Fanon}}, but sometimes you'll have entire fanbases assuming that's what the writer "really" intended.

The best ways to spot these fall into two groups--WordOfGod meddling and series dissonance:

* One or both of the characters in question is MasterOfTheMixedMessage.

This is highly subjective, of course. What may seem like obvious {{subtext}} to you might not be the case to another (in particular, a lot of plain old SiblingRivalry commonly gets [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation interpreted]] as BelligerentSexualTension). See also: HoYay, FoeYay, NoYay, IncestSubtext, HideYourGays, and TheNotLoveInterest.

Most people, after reading enough fiction, begin to have an idea of how relationships begin to fit together, and can spot a budding romance a mile off. Sometimes, though, the writers break away from these conceptions and do something entirely unexpected. Normally, the writers figure out what the relationship between two people should be in a series, then they take the [[LoveTropes stock derivatives]] and toss in cues to clue the viewer into how things are between those two people. When this trope crops up, however, it's usually the result of a writer breaking from the established relationship types and attempting to forge unusual bonds. To do this, they need to either re-use existing cues (and risk the viewer [[MisaimedFandom drawing the wrong conclusions]]) or create new ones (and risk the viewer drawing the wrong conclusions). Although sometimes a writer will pull it off, it more often leaves people with the completely wrong impression.