#platonic prongsfoot but with a dark twist

[pressedink]

saltburn au but james is oliver

James first saw him through his window.

His eyes had roamed the green, searching, before they landed on a tall laughing boy. He sparkled in the warm afternoon light, and James couldn't help but stare.

He was surrounded by a group of people, all chatting animatedly. James watched as they oscillated around him just itching for a chance to make him laugh, to compete with his witty banter. He remembers his eyes getting caught on that grin, full of perfectly pearly white teeth and oozing with perfection.

Sirius Black had a smile that rivaled the sun. Bright. Blazing. Incapable of staring at for too long but also impossible to look away from. He burned, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. But people wore his burns like jewelry; clambering for a chance to feel his touch, to have his full attention. It only takes a moment for a match to catch fire.

James loved him, he did. But he wasn't in love with him. Not really.

[soup-of-the-daisies]

this might be me being demi BUT i think the appeal of prongsfoot lies in the ease of it for me. there’s not a big difference between them as attached at the hip, ‘never saw one without the other’ best friends and them as romantically involved people. they might kiss more, and perhaps the/a sexual aspect wasn’t there before — or perhaps it was, but it’s almost deeper now — but that’s all. they’re already rocks for one another to lean on, already tell each other everything, already know every intricate detail that makes them them. their friendship is a naturally solid foundation for romantic involvement. they’re not boyfriends first, best friends second, but the other way around. their platonic love and romantic love aren’t separate entities: the latter is simply an extension of the former. being romantically involved doesn’t make their relationship more whole because they’re already whole regardless, and they don’t have to twist themselves into someone different to fit with the preferred partner.

for me, ships like wolfstar and jily are slightly shakier by comparison. still strong, but less solid. james canonically has to hide parts of himself for lily to want him; remus and sirius aren’t on true equal footing regardless of era. this doesn’t make the ships any less good or fun, but if only one part of the partnership is urged to change themselves for the other — and only does so when the other is present — there is, imo, an absence of comfort.

i don’t find person A saying, ‘i will humble myself before you’ without person B acknowledging and working on their own faults (or faults not being written as faults, but as effects of person A’s presence) a satisfying romance story; yet it is the implied canonical dynamic of jily (especially because lily’s personality is written so flatly), and also a very popular dynamic in a lot of wolfstar fanfic. in my experience prongsfoot revolves around knowing each other as intimately as possible and not caring about whatever dark thing they find, while (fanon) jily and wolfstar seem to be largely based on physical attraction and someone changing themselves for you.

and that is appealing!! plus, physical attraction and a decent friendship form a very valid, normal, and good basis for a romantic relationship. i personally just prefer that blurred-lines, intense intimacy, ‘whatever the fuck’-thing james-and-sirius have got going on lol