So insane about the platonic relationships in wolf 359. The way the character writing is so strong they don’t need to rely on romance to make any connection convincing, compelling, and above all else fucked up and codependent.
The way Eiffel and Minkowski just Get each other, regardless of their previous hatred of each other. We go from Minkowski hating Eiffel’s guts (valid) to them truly needing each other. With them being the only two they can rely on in deep space, it makes such a compelling narrative that has you questioning whether they would even be friends in any other universe. The way their stories work, they could even be your classic enemies to lovers (looking past some marriages and how their characters just. Aren’t.) but wolf 359 shows us that they don’t need that relationship status to have one of the most compelling and delightfully codependent friendships in the podcast. We get Hera squeeling over them calling each other “friends” for the first time, (same, hera, same), narratively treating them with the same level of respect as you would a romantic pairing.
Maxwell and Jacobi hit this similar beat for me, they have no romantic tension but have grown this reliance and deep trust in each other. The scene where Maxwell slaps Jacobi what has to be like 7 times in a row and cusses him out for flaking on her before they dissolve into giggles really defines their relationship to me. They’re horrible people. They know it. They’re monsters. Together. And besties yay! In other media their relationship may take a backseat, and while theirs isn’t the forefront it’s certainly never minimized in impact on their individual characters. These two go together, need each other. (They’re a set do not separate)
I’d even extend this to commonly headcanoned romantic duos like Kepler/jacobi and Hera/eiffel. The podcast doesn’t rely on romance, even if there’s implication, but gives us the strongest damned character relationships. The best possible use of characters in each others own and intertwined stories. The bone chillingly good codependency that can only be built by truly Knowing a person, even the horrible bits. Even liking the horrible bits. If this isn’t peak fucking over relationship anarchy I don’t know what is.
