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Sometimes, you just wanna read your faves being platonic life partners, but that's not always easy.
From fics that are tagged as being platonic then immediately not actually platonic, to works that make platonic relationships the B-plot to the romantic and sexual main couple, or the few fics which do focus on platonic relationships only being a few hundred or thousand words long, it can be difficult to find fics where platonic relationships are explored meaningfully.
Whilst my exploration of the 'platonic relationships' tag started out as a response to a personal annoyance when a 65k fic I was reading of my faves being platonic life partners turned into it being very much not platonic at all, the positioning of platonic, queerplatonic, asexual, aromantic relationships and people in fics reveals a number of concerns, which reflect wider societal ideas about our identity, lives and communities.
The above tags are all ones from real fics I found, often tagging platonic themes alongside a tag saying it's not actually platonic, and indeed the characters have romantic and/or sexual goings on by the end of the fic. This is concerning because it suggests that platonic interactions are only worth exploring if it's to lead to something 'bigger' or 'better'. I've read many fics where characters are in committed platonic or queerplatonic relationships, only for the characters to later realise (usually after being told time and time again by friends that they must actually be in love or that they can't possibly be happy in a relationship without sex and/or romance) that they do actually have romantic and or sexual attractions for one another.
In these instances, the 'platonic' pair often discuss the time they spent in a platonic relationship was somehow a waste of time or not living their lives fully. The pair are also usually teased for their obliviousness or being too dumb to recognise their 'true' feelings, suggesting that other people have a better idea of your own feelings than yourself. I wonder if this plays into ideas around platonic relationships being seen as 'less mature' than romantic/sexual ones, and therefore if the idea of someone being in a platonic relationship could be because they're too immature/childish to realise 'real' attractions? But of course, these types of fics ensure to 'fix' this but ensuring characters get over their idiocy, obliviousness or immaturity to fit in with allo/amatonormative relationships structures and 'goals' instead.
Of course, attractions happen on a spectrum and having narratives about people who do later develop different attractions for a partner are much needed to represent demiromantic or grayace identities (and many more!), for example. There's nothing wrong with people later developing different attractions, or coming to understand their feelings differently than what they initially assumed! But when it's the majority of these 'platonic' fics which start platonic and swiftly move to being romantic and/or sexual, it implies that people who want to be in committed platonic relationships must be mistaken about their feelings, that platonic relationships aren't actually 'real', and instead that they're only a temporary stage before people realise their true (sexual and romantic) feelings and live happily ever after.
The discussions about characters' platonic relationships marks these relationships as being lesser, as people missing out, with disbelief that these types of relationships could exist or people could be happy in them, and with remarks of 'finally!' when it's revealed that the characters do experience 'normative' attractions to one another. A tag above says '[ship name] is only platonic this time.' Only Platonic. As though this is lesser? It's the idea of 'just friends' rebranded. But this echoes how society views platonic relationships as inferior, insignificant and unimportant, and it is tiresome to see these ideas reflecting in the spaces I go for escapism and to see myself and my experiences represented.
Fanfic and fandom has been a refuge for those seeking queer representations in times when these haven't been readily available in the mainstream, and one reason I love Ao3 is for the variety of representations that can be found of asexuality, aromanticism and (queer)platonic relationships - often written by authors who share these experiences - in numbers which cannot be found in any other medium. But the nature of fanfic cultures means there is a focus on sexual and/or romantic male/male fanfic, and not a lot of attention offered to other identities or experiences. Only around 1% of all works on Ao3 are tagged under 'asexuality spectrum' (the catch-all tag for asexuality-related tags), with even less aromantic or queerplatonic works (though it's worth noting that numbers may be slightly higher, as not all works with a-spec identities or themes will be tagged, and not all a-spec tags have been 'tag wrangled' to show up in the 'asexuality spectrum' or equivalent tag).
Fanfic cultures are not going to change overnight, but it would be nice to see more care when tagging platonic (or not platonic) works. These 'platonic', 'not actually platonic' tags don't help anyone. It makes the filtering to include or excluding platonic works unusable, which is a shame given useful Ao3 tagging systems usually are. I'd like to see more occasions where if the majority of the fic involves a pairing not being platonic, it simply isn't tagged as platonic. But also, I'd love to see more fics that give space to platonic relationships, to explore these platonic relationships meaningfully and with nuance, and ultimately for platonic relationships to be viewed as equal and with respect.