FanChats💬submit your prompts!It's trope discussion Monday! What do you think about Friends to Lovers fics? What makes them work for you? Can you recommend a good fic where the romance grows out of friendship? 
Katriina (at Bluesky 🦋)@FandomChats
I like them usually. But I'm really bad at giving any recommendations.
I like them usually. But I'm really bad at giving any recommendations.
Dr. Neon, PhD in Tragedy@FandomChats
A lot of my ships are best friends/childhood friends turned lovers, so yes, I love this trope. Also a very common trope in cmedia (look up green plum bamboo horse 😂)
I like it when there's no way to tell that the relationship has grown into lovers? Like there's no point in their relationship that can be pointed at and go "aha this is the shift." I love codependent childhood friends who go through literal flames of hell for each other. I love childhood friends who overturn governments together. I love childhood friends who are forcefully separated and then have to work their ways back to each other.
Sorry as always I do not have stuff bookmarked hahahah
A lot of my ships are best friends/childhood friends turned lovers, so yes, I love this trope. Also a very common trope in cmedia (look up green plum bamboo horse 😂)
I like it when there's no way to tell that the relationship has grown into lovers? Like there's no point in their relationship that can be pointed at and go "aha this is the shift." I love codependent childhood friends who go through literal flames of hell for each other. I love childhood friends who overturn governments together. I love childhood friends who are forcefully separated and then have to work their ways back to each other.
Sorry as always I do not have stuff bookmarked hahahah
villainous friend@geraineon @FandomChats all of these are good flavours!
Forestofglory@geraineon @FandomChats All of these things are great! (and not what I generally think of when I hear friends to lovers)
@Forestofglory mm, i just really like friendship stories and so friends to lovers is also like having all the friendship stories
@FandomChats friends to lovers seems like a really healthy way to start a relationship in real life, but I'm kind of indifferent to it in fiction.
my favorite part of romance stories is often the characters getting to know each other, its a great way for the reader to get to know the characters and to see why they should be together, and friends to lovers often skips that bit
☁@FandomChats Love it. It's like a comfort trope. Maybe because there's potentially a lot of pining involved? Not a big fan of the childhood friends to lovers though.
emilies to lovers@FandomChats I actually love friends to lovers. A lot of my favourite ships are "friends to lovers plus [some other complication]", like maybe it's estranged friends to lovers, or enemies to friends to lovers, or they even just drifted apart over the years but circumstances have brought them back together. The friendship part is a big part of the appeal and I want it dwelt on and given importance as more than just the on-ramp to romance. The familiarity and trust and enjoying each other's company is so great to me, especially if the friendship becomes so valuable and treasured that putting it at risk by making things romantic is a sincerely scary prospect. I want that "yeah I'd hide a body for you" energy not contingent on attraction
The issue is that there's little in-built conflict so it's a bit harder to do well than some other setups that come with in-built drama
charisu@FandomChats it's the basis for most of my ships, but I wouldn't say I'm drawn to it or actively look for it. In recent years I've grown an appreciation for fwb.
Today's fic rec sits on the ambiguous side but has the usual trappings of "ooh but this could change our relationship" 
Mais où sont les neiges d’antan? by natsinator
Popnev, Legend of the Galactic Heroes OVA (I recommend not reading past chapter 2 to avoid spoilers if watching DNT exclusively)
https://archiveofourown.org/works/28323351
@charisu @FandomChats ohh, a popnev! gonna bookmark to read later. Thank you!
@geraineon @FandomChats it's one of my favorites! There's not much content for them, but I feel every single fic for them is a banger as a result.
@charisu I don't go looking for LoGH fics very much. I really should!
Sad that there's not a lot of content for popnev though. They are great!
Sad that there's not a lot of content for popnev though. They are great!
Soph (they/them)@FandomChats One of the many flavours of ships that I love, yes! I love the thing where people can be important to each other in a variety of ways over the course of their life, and the dimensions of it might change but the fact of the connection doesn't.
this isn't something I specifically tag for in my bookmarks, or that I have specific fics immediately in mind to recommend, and I did a scan through a number of recent bookmarks to see if I could pull anything together - but my current fandoms don't seem to have a lot of the friends-to-lovers flavour! and I keep getting distracted to reread other fics instead lol. well, here's one strong rec at least:
- Never knew a part of you / you didn't set in ink, by BromeliadDreamsomg - the cai quan/shen zhui NiF fic, of course, omg!!! https://archiveofourown.org/works/52299565
@soph_sol that nif fic, so good!!
Laugh Out Loud Lauren@FandomChats I like it quite a bit, 'friends to lovers' feels more organic to me than 'rivals to lovers' fics do
I love the pining that's usually in'em too
I don't save fics 😅
Doubt 💖@FandomChats oh i love Friends to Lovers! But usually there has to be a really convoluted plot that gets in the way first, like they don't see each other for ten+ years, they end up on opposite sides of a war, there's a betrayal, etc. etc. Sort of like... Magneto and Professor X type relationship: friends, lovers, divorced for 60 years... you know how it is.
fangs 🗡️@FandomChats I can be picky with friends to lovers, but when a ship hits in the right spot it's one of my all time favourites. I love exploring the slow shift of a long time platonic relationship becoming something more, I love shared history and in-jokes and relationships where the people in them are this insular unit that nobody else can touch.
For once I do have a rec, here's one of my favourite AOS Kirk/Bones fics
https://archiveofourown.org/works/854195
Julia@FandomChats I love friends to lovers! It's basically canon for WangXian (although we're just discussing alternative views :) ). Looking at my bookmarks the tag seems to have little predictive value :D I think among the getting together fics, apart from short meet-cutes and tropey settings like arranged marriage, probably most are some variation of friends to lovers (or rivals to lovers), irrespective of the tags. I'll try to find some that focus a bit more on the friendship.
@FandomChats Here's a friends to lovers f|f WangXian fic where straight girl lwj is folded into wwx's queer friend group (and understands a few things about herself over time). I loved that aspect of the story, in addition to others.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/31883452
https://archiveofourown.org/works/31883452