it’s kind of you to say that but it would be kinder if “writing ____ as a love story” meant noting somewhere, anywhere in the actual script, that a Love Story is in fact what is going on… and you’ve been clear that anything you say on your blog/twitter can’t be considered “canon” so… this can only ever be letters on my screen to me when everywhere else i’m still seeing fans argue about whether treating the show as a love story is “misinterpreting their friendship” “taking something away from platonic male friendship” etc.

Neil has, for thirty years, been very clear that he wants people to be able to read their relationship as any sort of loving relationship you wish. He’s a rare and stout proponent of Death of the Author.

So those arguments are pointless, because what he has been trying to tell you repeatedly is that whatever you read into that is valid. 

He’s not going to say “You’re all right and this group is wrong.” He hasn’t in thirty years, and isn’t going to now, and lemme tell ya as someone who’s shipped the Ineffable Husbands for two decades he’s been absolutely constant in saying “whatever you see there is valid. All perceptions of their relationship are valid. Everything is true.”

So if you are expecting him to come down and say “They’re gay men,” you’re gonna be out of luck. Because people have been trying to get him to say “They’re Gay” or “They’re ace” or whatever for three decades, and he has, again and again, said “If that’s what you see them as, then that’s true.” 

I’m getting tired of folk badgering the poor man and demanding that he validate their personal headcanons and no one else’s, when he is the rare author who will bless us all with a “Whatever you see is valid.”

i’ve never tweeted him or sent him any asks in my life. i’m just saying that statements like “i wrote it as a love story” feel hollow when the show itself is ambiguous. i don’t want him to come down and SAY anything! i want him to WRITE it if that’s what he truly thinks they are!

also, while i’m here, i’ll add that all the gay jokes about crowley and aziraphale in the show make me uncomfortable when there is no confirmation that they actually feel that way about each other, because they literally serve no purpose except to poke fun at the very idea of them being gay

But he did.

Watch the show. Read the book. Watch and read a romance. Compare the two, and you’ll find that it is absolutely 100% portrayed as a love story. The only thing that’s missing is the Big Dramatic Kiss, and a love story doesn’t strictly NEED a Big Dramatic Kiss.

Every scene of the two is dripping with it. Every little guesture and interaction they have is coded as falling in love. All of them. Like. Watch it again, watch the interactions, and it is incredibly blatant.

But they don’t kiss, and that seems to be the point where people stick on.

LOVE DOES NOT HAVE TO INVOLVE KISSING. Kissing is, actually, an incredibly small part of a love story, and only usually happens after you’ve seen them being in love with each other for awhile.

People have been reading this book and going ‘oh fuck they’re in love’ for thirty years, and Neil himself and Pterry back in the day has said “Oh yes. That’s because we wrote it that way.” So I don’t know what the hell you are reading/watching, because fandom as a whole for the last three decades has taken one look at the work and gone “Oh wow this is a love story.” They do not need to kiss or fuck for it to be a love story.

And as for the second, NEIL HIMSELF HAS SAID THAT IS TOTALLY COOL. If you see them as gay and make a bunch of gay fanart and fanfic of them, that’s fine! So is making art about them as ace, or personal meta about them as bi, or nonbinary, or some combination of those. That’s fine! Because YOUR INTERPRETATION is just as valid as everyone elses! That is the whole POINT!

So if some gay people want to make gay jokes about them because they relate to that, that’s cool! If ace people want to make ace jokes about them, that’s fine! It’s all fine! Go nuts! Have fun!