Basic Trope: Two same-sex individuals in a relationship filled to the brim with Ho Yay or Les Yay, but are otherwise just friends.
- Straight: Alice and Claire are close friends, but their behavior often comes up as a more of a couple.
- Exaggerated: Alice and Claire live together, share the same bed, and even have sex, but claim that that's "just what friends do".
- Downplayed: Alice and Claire's friendship is just that, but is filled with Innocent Innuendo.
- Justified:
- Alice and Claire are as close as they are because they're blood relatives.
- Alice and Claire aren't in love, but that doesn't mean they can't be affectionate with each other.
- Alice and Claire both come from a culture that emphasizes open affection and care toward friends and thus come off as romantic for those not from there.
- Alice is The Tease who loves to participate in Gay Bravado with her best friend Claire, who plays along. Eventually, they start to sound and act Like an Old Married Couple everywhere out of habit.
- Alice and Claire are aro-ace and in a queerplatonic relationship.
- Alice comes from a Friendless Background, and her romantic orientation doesn't really differentiate between platonic and romantic feelings. While she only likes Claire as a friend, she thinks friends are supposed to be this close.
- Alice's mother was abusive, so Claire became close friends with her so she could feel the motherly love she never had.
- Inverted:
- Alice and Claire are said to be a couple, but But Not Too Gay is in full force.
- Alice and Claire say they're a couple, but actually hate each other.
- Subverted:
- Alice and Claire's relationship is platonic, but the romantic aspects are just Bob being a Shipper on Deck.
- Alice and Claire's relationship is initially platonic, but they decide to take it to the next level.
- Double Subverted:
- ...But it turns out Bob was right.
- They eventually break up, but they remain friends and still somehow have a lot of Les Yay tension between them.
- Their Relationship Upgrade turns them into Friends with Benefits, not lovers.
- Parodied: Alice and Claire get married, have a child, and have rough sex every night... and still claim to be "just friends".
- Averted:
- There is no romantic subtext in Alice and Claire's friendship.
- Alice and Claire are explicitly in a genuine romantic relationship.
- Alice and Claire hate each other's guts.
- Zigzagged: Alice and Claire are Vitriolic Best Buds whose relationship looks like The Masochism Tango.
- Enforced:
- Bait-and-Switch Lesbians
- Executive Meddling (particularly from Moral Guardians) caused the lesbian relationships to be downgraded to "special friends" during production.
- The story itself is in the Yuri Genre, specifically the type that emphasizes "purity".
- The culture that the story is set in (for example, Japan) has some Values Dissonance regarding lesbian relationships.
- In the original Japanese version, Yuri and Aiko are a couple. However, in the dub Alice and Claire are just friends, with the offending scenes saying otherwise edited...however not very effectively. So they're said to be cousins to mitigate(?) it??
- Lampshaded: "Is it me or are Alice and Claire acting more like girlfriends than friends?"
- Deconstructed:
- Alice and Claire really are a gay couple...however, they put on the "just friends" facade to avoid any homophobic harassment.
- Alice and Claire are legitimately close friends, but outside pressure and scrutiny cause them to wonder if they really are romantically interested in one another. Their attempts at trying to "promote" the relationship not only fail, but also damage their friendship.
- Alice is in love with Claire while Claire only sees Alice as a friend. When Claire begins officially dating, the intimacy of the friendship is jeopardized and things crash down.
- Alice and Claire's close friendship interferes with their love lives since potential lovers are either chased off or their current partners feel threatened by it, especially if neither Alice or Claire realize the potential mixed messages they are sending.
- Reconstructed: Alice and Claire become comfortable with how open they are with one another and accept them for it.
- Alice and Claire's friendship is stronger because of the trust and note that one does not need romance for the close intimacy.
- Alice and Claire are close friends, but their dynamic with one another is different with that of their lover/partner and shows the distinct needs and differences of each relationship, with a positive understanding on both fronts.
- Played For Laughs:
- Alice and Claire are both in a super Transparent Closet, so they hilariously fail to convince those around them that they're not lesbians.
- Claire is a Yuri Fangirl so even though she doesn't like Alice that way, she invokes all the Yuri tropes to spice up their relationship.
- Played For Drama: Claire has a one-sided crush on Alice, and interprets everything she says as romantic, but they can't be together due to Incompatible Orientation.
Me and Pseudo-Romantic Friendship are just friends! I swear!
