I know what you mean!! And to me it reads as very surface level friendship. Or maybe like the author doesn’t know how to portray true friendship and instead relies on what they see in media and other fics I love the diversity of age in fandom, but friendship is one area where I really prefer the older writers, bc they got the complexity down

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sometimes it even reads to me like the author doesn’t want to risk a friendship in the fic being more compelling and full of affection than the main ship, so the wryness and saltiness is injected to create distance enough that there’s no other closer option than the other lover. but i’m not afraid of polyamory I mean maybe i’m biased bc i’m aromantic and autistic so my understanding of friendships is just different than others. this sort of writing happens enough for me to notice it though

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