Regarding the supposed size difference between Joe and Nicky, I think people may be focusing a little too much on Luca’s other roles, because Luca actually has much more meat on his bones in TOG than in some others. Sometimes he’s very skinny and I can see more of a size difference between him and Marwan in those cases, but canonically there isn’t much of a difference. Marwan is definitely more jacked in the upper region, but he’s not Chris Hemsworth-as-Thor jacked. He just has more muscle tone.
Hm, I see what you mean but even when he is skinny he is still just as tall and just as broad-shouldered, aspects that a lot of people seem to downplay in fanfics. The size difference, the way many people write it for them, makes it seem like Nicky is smaller in frame and stature, when they’re built very similarly, and would be even if Luca was skinnier.
How beefy or not beefy they are in other movies shouldn’t really come into the discussion in the first place I think, partially because we are shown what they look like as these characters pretty definitely. hell, we even get a shirtless scene! The other part is that even if we didn’t get a shirtless scene it’s like... if you look at them standing next to each other, they like... take roughly as much space, like they’re just the same approximate size as people. even if Luca was skinnier and Marwan was at his most men’s health 2013 (which, like you said, is still way more just “athletic” than it is body builder/thor) , it still would not make sense to write Nicky as smaller than him, thinner sure, but not like “the big one and the small one” (and while i agree that marwan in the mens health workout video from 7 years ago is attractive, though am not an abs guy myself, fixating on it as THE look is a little weird from the fandom ngl. glad he didn’t have to dehydrate for this role)
The thing is it really just comes down to the tropes fandom/society/people put on gay male couples (yaoi tropes, “which one is the man and which one is the woman”, which one is the alpha etc, which all have an element of smaller “feminine” half and a bigger “masculine” half) and how that is then amplified when the couple in question is interracial with a white and brown person. It’s racism. There is really no other reason, if you actually look at the movie, to walk away with the impression that Nicky is somehow smaller. Would their suits be tailored differently and would they look a little goofy in each other’s tailored suits? yes probably, but will joe’s t-shirt really look “too big” on Nicky? no, and should the fandom keep writing stuff about that? also no.
look at them being cute and roughly the same size
In any case, it never made sense to me for people to really draw inspiration from their other roles that much, both men are chameleons and their physicality is s different in each role The way Primo carries himself is different from Mickey Miranda who is different from Nicky, who are all Luca putting on an air of control and calculation in his physicality but in such different ways (compared to like, his totally unhinged roles). The same goes for Marwan, the way Majid and Joe carry themselves, for example, is so different it’s sometimes hard to remember it’s the same person. This is not entirely relevant but I felt like gushing about how good they both are as actors lol,
