monsterfucker extraordinaire

guy of course is the easiest to see. he really is just the sweetest bundle of love and nerves, but he doesn't fall into the cliche of the innocent young bottom who is sweet and kind because he assumes the world is sweet and kind and has never experienced hardship or cruelty.

he is inexperienced in some ways, but he's not a naif, nor are his kindness and compassion unthinking or born of ignorance. they're actually pretty hard-won despite years of mistreatment and neglect at the hands of family and the scorn of society for what other people did when he was 8 years old, and through all his anxiety spirals to when he tries to understand and empathize with other people's points of view to predict the outcome of any given situation. he's not some effortlessly pure disney virgin. he's kind because he's put in the effort to learn how to understand where other people are coming from and to be kind in light of that knowledge.

and then philip is just. gentle is the word i keep coming back to. in fact the entire murder is very gentle with the frisby siblings, but philip especially. he's gentle with guy's anxiety, even goes so far as to try and side-step future anxiety spirals with reassurances when he sees a looming pitfall, and is so careful in reaffirming consent and lack of any judgment throughout all of their sexual encounters.

and it would have been so easy for it to come off as hokey, like the unbearably preachy sex scenes i occasionally see that seem to be written less as an expression of the characters' passions but rather like a sex ed pamphlet or an extremely explicit after-school special, there to educate on how to do sex morally.

but it doesn't, because all of the talk about consent isn't just thrown in to satisfy the purity police about safe sex, it's intrinsic to the characters and their journeys. for philip and the birdwits, growing up and having to teach themselves how to love in a world that doesn't love them or make room for their kind of unconventional relationships, and for guy to learn that he's allowed to be an active participant in his own life when previously his life has been all about what other people and society have done to him, to be allowed to say no, and crucially to also be allowed to say YES. and it flows so naturally from all of them that what could have been dry sex ed actually feels so sweet and intimate and right for them.

the way they treat the aromantic (coded at least even if they don't have the word for it) corvin is just. so good for me as an aromantic. so often people talk about aromantics (especially men) who still dare to want and have sex like we're some sort of predators, as though having clearly negotiated and consensual sex with someone is a deceit, is taking advantage if there's no ability to then fall in love with your partner. but while he does slut it up, there's no judgment (from the book or characters whose opinions we actually care about). in fact, his public reputation is pretty much exactly how a lot of people still talk about aro-not-aces today. but he's not a heartless devil using people, in fact the others talk about him as the one with the biggest heart and the most love to give, it's just not romantic love. he's not vilified because he wasn't able to reciprocate philip's youthful love, nor was his friendship treated as a consolation prize in their continuing relations. his (and john's) friendship is considered equally important to the blooming romantic relationship of the book.

ALSO ON THAT NOTE! POLYAMORY! and not just polyamory, but a rather complex polycule that blends boundaries between romance and sex and queerplatonic. that acknowledges you can have a relationship of friendship and sex that is just as important as one with romance and sex, or romance and NO sex, or even friendship but NO romance and NO sex, because philip tells guy that even if he took the sex out of his relationship with john and corvin in order to have sex only with guy, it wouldn't actually lessen the importance of his bond with them and that they would STILL be part of any relationship he entered because they were part of his heart. i just loved that it treated all these relationships as equals, sexual or romantic or platonic, they can be just as intense and committed as what we're told is the traditional relationship of 2 people in romantic and sexual love. and to see my own fuzzy 3-way qpr validated like that, and not in a way where it's shouted from a soapbox but in a quieter way built into the assumptions of the way the characters view the working of the world, was just. very good for me.

and it's not just the characters that are kind to each other. the book even extends its kindness to some characters who are antagonistic and drive us absolutely BONKERS. do i mean aunt beatrice? i absolutely mean aunt beatrice (and her reverend dent). guy and the narrative itself acknowledge that, as overbearing and thoughtlessly cruel as they were, and also a little bit selfish in their motives for "helping," they were still trying to help in the way their society would have told them is right and proper, even if we can also see that it's misguided. and while it doesn't undo the hurt, it also doesn't negate the help, because that financial help was actually quite vital when guy and amanda were growing up. it acknowledges that the motives do matter when it comes to things like possible future reconciliation, and even reveals aunt beatrice as someone who needs kindness and care herself.