#once i'm done fleshing out their platonic love i might think about other variations

[magistralucis]

lib!Franck/Bob

(Finally something wholesome!)

The ship is my: single most platonic OTP of aksug hhhh they make me so happy I want to curl up and die

I consider this ship’s feelings: Mutual | Mixed | Strange | Awkward | Platonic | Sibling-like | One-sided | They don’t really like each other | It’s not quite sibling-like I think | The love is deep and real and consciously based on the understanding that they were strangers | Unexpected companions of the soul I suppose | The only sad part is that neither would have been each other’s first choice | But I don’t know like... is that a sad thing | Given that their past experiences are what permit both Bob and Franck to communicate what they want from each other | In the way neither of them succeeded with previous love/affectionate interests | Idk that seems very caring to me

I’d consider the relationship: Healthy | Awkward | Abusive | Doesn’t work properly | They’d never get together | Is this not the healthiest relationship lib!Franck is in right now | They haven’t seen Brodi in ages | And Sonny always comes with a slight wariness because literal heir of the new France | And David is a tsundere which is uh | Not unhealthy but | Unsettling | Yeah 1777 is the healthiest so far it’s all good

Children: No | Yes | They’d think about it | Irrelevant in this relationship

General Opinion: This is one of the most useful relationships in aksug to me. I will try to explain just one or two aspects for length.

I value lib!Franck/Bob greatly for many reasons. But the most important reason - and also the part where I started to see where this ship was going - was that it allowed me to depict Franck genuinely fucking up. The apology, the forgiveness, and the subsequent conscious attempts they make to not take Bob’s forgiveness for granted - dealing with all of those things, too. Yes, they were in a terrible state of mind at the time, and lib!Franck is pretty much perpetually unwell as it is. But making sexual advances on a friend - who had never shown romantic/sexual interest in them, turned out to be ace, and came a long way just to support them - was not ideal conduct. It wasn’t something Franck had to be told wasn’t ideal, however, and they apologized straight away; Bob in turn recognized that they were having a hard time, and that Franck wasn’t trying to hurt or force him into anything; mutual understanding was achieved. Lib!Franck became the second protagonist of the narrative when I realized that it was really interesting to see the workings of a dictatorship through a citizen’s eyes; Sebastian is in a place devoid of most minor consequences, but Franck is not, and I fear perpetually that I’m making it so that Franck is just carried along with the current without any agency or fault of their own. That is a problem. The scene(s) where they dealt with their mess-up in regards to Bob, however, were not scenes that caused this kind of worry in me. 

That was just the narrative aspect. Bob also allows for a discussion of the spiritual where the Justice pair are unavailable - especially geared to people who do not necessarily believe in anything. Franck doesn’t become Christian or anything as a result of Bob helping them, but I think they know genuine peace with each other, and whatever Bob leaves behind Franck knows to treasure or mull over for a long time. Season 3 will make more apparent the specific things Bob gets out of their relationship (stuff that Franck does not know about, at least), but rest assured that they remain kind and purely loving towards each other. I really like this pairing.