I don’t want this to be something I don’t talk about because it does matter, but I also don’t want to partake in ongoing debates that I have watched turn quite nasty in some situations.
So here is what I shared on Reddit. Totally willing to clarify anything, but questions that even slightly come across as an opportunity to argue will be ignored. This is simply what I believe based on my personal experience and how I relate to Francesca:
(Loooong post of me waxing poetic about hard relating to Francesca:)
When I was 18 (closeted) I thought I was in love my best friend in college. I thought “He’s kind, patient, and attractive. He knows how I like my coffee. We can spend hours together just talking. He makes me laugh. Yeah this must be love. I want to kiss him, I guess.” We never even kissed because he was in love with his now-wife (who hated me at the time, which is fair for teenagers). I truly deeply love that man to this day, and I know now how deeply profound platonic love can be. If that fking boy died in his late 20s, I would be inconsolable. (I lost two of my boy friends in 2018 within 6 months of each other, and that was one of the worst years of my life.)
(cw: comphet bf) But then I had a boyfriend at 19, who I liked—he was nice, funny, liked taking me places. We kissed one night, then kept kissing because he was a good kisser and it was fun. Then we had sex. It was… not what I thought I was supposed to feel. I was in my head the entire time thinking, “Why am I not enjoying this?? What is wrong with me??” Blamed it all on romanticized love scenes misleading me, on my own nervousness like I was forgetting my lines on stage.
We eventually broke up. I came out as bi to most my friends by the next school year, and I flipped my ally status to bi in the campus queer organization. Although I had seen her before, I remember finally noticing the girl I would love for 5 years of my life. She was across from me in a meeting, and she said “Well, I put the bi in bitch,” and everyone laughed as I looked at her, I imagine, in the same way Francesca looks at Michaela. I was supposed to be running the meeting, and I absolutely fumbled the facilitation.
A couple weeks later we kissed on a rooftop, and it was like a chord struck in my chest without the unresolved dissonance that I felt kissing boys. We were shivering because it was cold, but I was also trembling because until then, I still thought I had romanticized everything and that poets were liars (as a poetry writer/lover, we still are but not intentionally). But feeling the truth of her lips against mine was an awakening. Even as we shivered, we dealt with it because we didn’t want to stop kissing each other under the night sky away from the party below us.
When we had sex, even when I didn’t have a pinnacle, her touch seemed to thrum through me. I suddenly knew what Whitman meant by “the body electric.” While achieving orgasm is absolutely fantastic, in my opinion, I realized the leisurely way in which we enjoyed one another’s bodies removed worry and there is a euphoria in touching and being touched without a proverbial finish line sight. It is not even about achieving that pinnacle. Being present in my own body and feeling the warmth and softness of another, feeling her pulse, hearing her breath? What a beautiful fucking gift.
I went on to date some men, but that electricity was always absent. I didn’t come out as a lesbian until 7 years after first coming out.
All this is to say Francesca loved John so much. I don’t see her reaction to their first kiss as being insulting; I think finding it offensive is rooted in heterosexism, as if even fictional men deserve reassurance from women at all times, that a woman expressing anything but a proper response is shameful, that a woman is expected to maintain a façade for men’s sake. (Ironic considering many who take offense to this claim to love Eloise, an adamant feminist who doesn’t hide her emotions at all.) I think Francesca felt how I did after that kiss—Oh… that does not feel as others told me it would. What is wrong with me? It wasn’t an active hatred but a concerning discovery, or lack thereof.
But John was still her best friend. They loved each other deeply. She found peace and safety in his company. He listened to her. He gave her space to hear her own voice. He gave her reassurances when she questioned herself. He knew when she was performing how she thought he wanted versus when she was being herself—because he loved her as she was. He understood her like no one else. And she loved him so much. Having often felt outside her family, he stood outside with her so they both could be heard. She loved him so much, she was constantly worried about being a good wife to him because that is how she was taught to express her love.
So when people say she has to be bi to have really loved John, I feel rather offended—How dare you deny the value and depth of my love in its various forms? But we do all feel very differently in relationships! There is no right way to feel, and you only owe yourself the honesty of your body and heart.
TLDR: I relate to Francesca a lot as a lesbian and think she is a lesbian. But Francesca will be 21/22 next season (an age I still identified as bi) and due to the terminology, I doubt we will have explicit confirmation. So I will not fault anyone for saying Francesca is bi, for relating to Francesca and believing her to be so.
I will, however, disengage from arguments about it. I have seen things get nasty with plenty of bi- and lesbophobia being directed at others. These arguments get tense and involve a lot of things close to the heart. With how much hate is outside of the franchaela fandom, I very much would like more people to put distance between themselves and this topic if it’s becoming regularly hurtful, or even block people if needed.
TLDR(Again): We are all here for franchaela and are all in agreement that franchaela is endgame. “Love is always a thing to be proud of.”