Sem título

Uh no. A movie like this with a male, human protagonist who forms a friendship with an extremely non-humanoid alien who was basically assigned male by the narrative would not.... would not likely end in a romance between the two. Lol. Lmfao. If it DID end with a romance between the two, my mind would have been actually blown in the theater. And I guarantee that most people leaving said theater would have been weirded out by it. Because human characters forming romances with non-humanoid characters in fiction is usually used as an indicator that either the human character is a weirdo, that the relationship is unnatural and strange, or that we're supposed to laugh at the relationship. There are definitely exceptions, but by and large that's how that trope appears in fiction ime.

So grace and rocky's relationship ending at a deep friendship is vey literally the expected outcome. I'm not saying that as a bad thing, I love their friendship and how important they are to one another and I love this story, but a human and a non-humanoid aliens relationship staying within the bounds of 'friendship' isn't somehow more subversive and progressive than if it had included romance.

To be clear, I'm all for aro/ace headcanons for grace, and I totally get why this story in particular attracts those headcanons, but acting as though people who ship grocky (specifically eridian!rocky and human!grace) aren't in their own way participating in something subversive feels a little disingenuous.

And this is reflected in the numbers! On ao3, Grace & Rocky as a platonic relationship outnumbers Grace/Rocky by about three times. And even MORE telling, Grace/Simon (from Iron Lung) is over double the number of Grace/Rocky fics. If grace and rocky's relationship is so beautiful because of the absence of romance, then why does that not extend to the ship with two human dudes that doesn't involve the alien?

I'm 100% sure that tons of people who love aro/ace grace and platonic grocky are earnestly engaging with the fact that their friendship is framed as the most important relationship in, at least, grace's life, especially because the movie seems to pointedly subvert any romance between grace and stratt, which I would argue is the much more expected place for a romance to happen.

"Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream

Make him the cutest that I've ever seen

Give him the word that I'm not a rover

Then tell him that his lonesome nights are over

Sandman, I'm so alone

Don't have nobody to call my own

Please turn on your magic beam

Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream"

AND

"it's like another life that you live where crazy stuff happens, but it all makes sense. Kind of like today"