What is "innocent" in InnocentCohabitation?

Inspired by this question in the Page Quote thread, which asks if Innocent Cohabitation's current quote actually fits the trope:

"These two best friends decide to move in together, what happens next will shock you!
(Or not, considering all roommate fics end up the same anyhow.)"

— Summary of Cohabitation (And Other Disastrous Ideas)

Does Innocent Cohabitation simply refer to a character deciding to live with someone they aren't sleeping with/dating/engaged to/married, regardless of whether or not they actually sleep with them/date/get engaged to/marry down the line? Does it stop being an example if They Do? The line about Magical Girlfriends and the Unwanted Harem also makes it kind of muddy, since those tropes are implicitly about romantic/sexual relationships of some sort.

I always thought it was two people with compatible sexual orientations living together platonically. I don't know about including situations where they eventually fall for each other. The trope probably needs a wick check and TRS as the definition is very muddy.

Edited by MacronNotes on Jul 31st 2022 at 6:46:24 AM

At the least, I would think that stories built on the premise of people moving in together and ending up falling for each other (like the fanfic the quote comes from) wouldn't count, since the romance is the whole point in those cases.

I've been thinking of a potential Roommates To Romance trope to cover "the romance is the point" cases. It might also be able to cover cases where the romance may not have been planned from the start.

Edited by Twiddler on Jul 31st 2022 at 4:24:41 AM

I'm pretty sure the idea is that the potential for romance is, or at least can be, at least teased, if not actually present. For a while the description defined the trope as "The main character lives platonically with the romantic interest", which as noted on the discussion page came off as more than a little self-contradictory. Originally, the page not only had that line but also bizarrely claimed the trope to be anime-specific, presumably because of the popularity of the Harem Genre there, despite a Western live-action example being prominent enough that someone felt confident enough to add it as a Three Words: Zero-Context Example.

Edited by MorganWick on Aug 1st 2022 at 10:12:52 AM

Necro with the completed Sandbox.Innocent Cohabitation Wick Check. I divided usage between "totally platonic (even if expectations are mentioned)", "explicit romantic/sexual tension between roommates (even if onesided)", "mixed", "guy and girl live together", and "zce".

The usage is definitely all over the place and I want to take it to TRS on those grounds. I've already reserved a spot on the TRS Queue and am drafting the OP, but I'm also posting it here so we can discuss potential additions/refinement to the OP, question example sorting, etc. while the queue moves along.

The TRS is open now so closing this.