History Film / Zerophilia

* TransgenderFetishization: Averted, despite the heavy role of sex in the narrative and the DeusSexMachina being tied to gender changes; sex and arousal are mainly discussed in a down-to-earth (and often comedic) manner, and being a zerophiliac explicitly does ''not'' affect one's gender identity, meaning that the changes serve more as an outlet for Luke to explore his relationship with his own identity rather than the other way around. Luke's cisgender friends Keenan and Janine are also far more sexually experienced than him, and he ends up consulting them the most on matters related to sex.

* DoesNotLikeMen: Downplayed. Janine ''loves'' playing up the joys of being a girl to the point Keenan wonders if she actually secretly wishes everyone in the world were female, and she does seem to be attracted to girls as well (semi-jokingly offering at one point to sleep with Luca if she wants). That said, she's in a happy relationship with Keenan and is good friends with Luke, so she hardly seems to ''dislike'' boys and is mostly just aggressive about pushing back against the misogyny and male-dominated {{Fratboy}} culture around her. [[spoiler:During his JerkassRealization, Keenan genuinely worries that she might actually not want a man after all and that his NobleBigot tendencies had effectively made him her LastHetRomance, but she makes up with him quickly and says that she enjoys his macho masculinity in an OppositesAttract sense.]]

* SecondLawOfGenderBending: Downplayed and subverted. According to Dr. Catchadourian, [[spoiler:or at least if his words here are actually to be believed,]] a zerophiliac will only change if at least some part of them wants to (unconsciously or otherwise), so the fact Luke is capable of changing at all inherently suggests that, regardless of what he claims, he's not entirely against the idea of being female. However, this seems to apply strictly to whether they're feeling up to changing at the moment and not to their overall gender identity, so it's entirely possible for a zerophiliac to change while they're still questioning their identity but later decide that it's not for them. [[spoiler:Dr. Catchadourian's motives stem from the fact that he'd been desperate to make the changes stop back when he was still questioning but currently feels that staying as a woman was the wrong decision in retrospect, and Luke eventually decides that he'd rather not commit to a single gender at all.]]

* SecondLawOfGenderBending: Downplayed and subverted. According to Dr. Catchadourian, a zerophiliac will only change if at least some part of them wants to (unconsciously or otherwise), so the fact Luke is capable of changing at all inherently suggests that, regardless of what he claims, he's not entirely against the idea of being female. However, this strictly applies to whether they're feeling up to changing at the moment and not to their overall gender identity, so it's entirely possible for a zerophiliac to change while they're still questioning their identity but later decide that it's not for them. [[spoiler:Dr. Catchadourian's motives stem from the fact that he'd been desperate to make the changes stop back when he was still questioning but currently feels that staying as a woman was the wrong decision in retrospect, and Luke eventually decides that he'd rather not commit to a single gender at all.]]

* GenderBlenderName: Keenan is surprised to learn that Dr. "Sydney" Catchadourian, the doctor he'd contacted for advice on Luke's health concerns, is a woman. [[spoiler:As you might expect, he continues to use the name even after getting his male body back.]]

* OneTrueLove: Regardless of Luke's gender identity or whomever he's attracted to, it's made clear in no uncertain words that Michelle is the only one he's in love with and that he would do anything for the sake of her happiness. [[spoiler:Even after thinking their relationship is ruined for good, Luca still tries to send her wishes for Michelle's happiness and turns down a relationship with Max out of a belief that it would mean betraying Michelle; learning that they're actually the same person leads to her ''immediately'' starting a makeout session on the spot with him.]]

Right after losing his virginity, college student and [[WackyFratboyHijinx fraternity boy]] starts noticing strange things happening to his body and discovers that he has a rare genetic factor that causes him to [[GenderBender turn into a girl and back]] whenever aroused. Having already had been grappling with insecurity about his own masculinity, Luke initially insists on suppressing and having nothing to do with this new development... but soon enough starts finding himself becoming unsure about whether this is really the case.

** While Michelle's stance on Luke in turn is initially presented ambiguously, it eventually turns out that she sees Luke this way as well: far from having merely been giving him a chance, Michelle was very interested in Luke from the get-go [[spoiler:and had been desperately trying to get closer to him in both of her forms]]. Despite her occasional lashing out about feeling that their relationship isn't going to work, she ''does'' actually want to make it work, and she continues trying to reach out to him and subtly giving him chances to prove himself to the very end.

* AccidentalDeclarationOfLove: Inverted. [[spoiler:What finally convinces Michelle of Luke's loyalty is Luca admitting to Max that she finds him to be attractive but doesn't want to betray Michelle by dating him, even despite Michelle ostensibly having broken up with Luke for good. Luke didn't want to admit this to Michelle because he'd thought it would aggravate her fears of him cheating on her, but since they're the same person, this serves to both overturn her fears of Luke disliking her as Max ''and'' indicate to her that Luke's actual loyalty was never to her attractiveness or likeability, but her well-being.]]

* ManIFeelLikeAWoman: Discussed and averted. Janine tells Luke that turning into a girl to do this should be a boy's dream, but when Luke finally does his first transformation into Luca, she's mostly just mystified by it and even has trouble summoning up the stimulation to change back. The fact she feels surprisingly comfortable in her new form is an early hint that she might not actually be as against being a girl as she claims.

* BetterPartnerAssertion: Played for laughs; when initially asking Michelle out, Luke is such an InsecureLoveInterest that the best he can muster up about how he'll be better than Michelle's "amoeba" of an ex-boyfriend is that he can at least be a "paramecium" (it's way more evolved). In actuality, Luke is quite the InsecureLoveInterest; it's just that being better than a guy who had [[TwoTimingWithTheBestie cheated on her with her own best friend]] isn't exactly a high bar (and even then, it amplifies Luke's antsiness about the idea of "cheating on her" even further).

* BetterPartnerAssertion: Played for laughs; when initially asking Michelle out, Luke is such an InsecureLoveInterest that the best he can muster up about how he'll be better than Michelle's "amoeba" of an ex-boyfriend is that he can at least be a "paramecium" (it's way more evolved).

* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: While there are a number of other factors, Luke's biggest reason for refusing to acknowledge the idea of being anything but a straight male is that he believes Michelle would only want a "[[IWantToBeARealMan real man]]" and deserves nothing less, and he struggles to acknowledge the idea of even being attracted to Max because he sees it as betraying Michelle. [[spoiler:This is the main reason he [[PoorCommunicationKills keeps giving Michelle the wrong idea]] whenever she attempts to gauge how much he likes her or Max; she assumes his potential interest is based on what he claims to like or be attracted to without taking into account that he's willing to deny his own feelings because he thinks it's necessary to make her happy. She eventually figures it out when Luca tells Max that she's still wishing for Michelle's happiness regardless of whether they're together or not and even rejects something that she should theoretically want in every way (a relationship with a boy she finds attractive and openly likes her in that form) because she still believes it would hurt Michelle.]]

* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: While there are a number of other factors, Luke's biggest reason for refusing to acknowledge the idea of being anything but a straight male is that he believes Michelle would only want a "[[IWantToBeARealMan real guy]]" and deserves nothing less, and he struggles to acknowledge the idea of even being attracted to Max because he sees it as betraying Michelle. [[spoiler:This is the main reason he [[PoorCommunicationKills keeps giving Michelle the wrong idea]] whenever she attempts to gauge how much he likes her or Max; she assumes his potential interest is based on what he claims to like or be attracted to without taking into account that he's willing to deny his own feelings because he thinks it's necessary to make her happy. She eventually figures it out when Luca tells Max that she's still wishing for Michelle's happiness regardless of whether they're together or not and even rejects something that she should theoretically want in every way (a relationship with a boy she finds attractive and openly likes her in that form) because she still believes it would hurt Michelle.]]

* MentorInQueerness: Luke gets his information on zerophilia from Dr. Catchadourian, both in terms of the technicals of how zerophilia works and in terms of advice in how to navigate the questions of self-identity it brings. [[spoiler:Or so it seems at first, but even putting aside his plan to manipulate Luke into serving his own needs, he also causes Luke a great deal of trouble by projecting his own past experiences onto him, suggesting that Luke must feel the same TransEqualsGay fallacy that he'd fallen into in the past and pressuring him to make a decision on what he's "supposed" to be. This ends up being a very poor fit for Luke's specific insecurities, and the one who actually ends up helping him the most in the end is Michelle; thanks to her identifying Luke's zerophilia early and establishing clear investment in Luca as Max, Luca eventually becomes comfortable enough around Max to confide all of her actual feelings in him[[note]]To put things in perspective, if Michelle hadn't caught onto Luke's situation, started keeping tabs on him, and established an affinity with Luca as Max, Dr. Catchadourian would have still have pressured Luke into having sex with him, which would have left Luca at a loss for how to turn to anyone besides Keenan and Janine for support, and her relationship with Michelle would have probably been destroyed entirely because she wouldn't have any outlet to explain herself with[[/note]], and Michelle's precedent of having already figured a stable life balance and relationship with her own genderfluid identity allows Luke to join her and take her philosophy of living freely to heart.]]

* IJustWantToBeLoved: [[spoiler:Michelle's [[TheFirstCutIsTheDeepest emotional scars about her last relationship]] aren't as much about the cheating in principle as it is the fact that he disliked her enough to toss her aside, and her biggest mistake in figuring out Luke's potential attitude towards her is that she flirts with Luca as Max to see how she responds, taking every negative response as "Luke is turned off by Max" and underestimating how much he would consider it a cardinal sin to even ''think'' about anyone else. To her credit, Luke had been [[MasterOfTheMixedMessage incredibly unclear]] about his feelings and how much he knew about Max's identity, but it does seem that Michelle wouldn't have had a problem with Luke functionally cheating on her [[TwoPersonLoveTriangle with herself]] as long as it meant that he still liked her either way.]]

* IJustWantToBeLoved: [[spoiler:Michelle's [[TheFirstCutIsTheDeepest emotional scars about her last relationship aren't as much about the cheating in principle as it is the fact that he disliked her enough to toss her aside, and her biggest mistake in figuring out Luke's potential attitude towards her is that she flirts with Luca as Max to see how she responds, taking every negative response as "Luke is turned off by Max" and underestimating how much he would consider it a cardinal sin to even ''think'' about anyone else. To her credit, Luke had been [[MasterOfTheMixedMessage incredibly unclear]] about his feelings and how much he knew about Max's identity, but it does seem that Michelle wouldn't have had a problem with Luke functionally cheating on her [[TwoPersonLoveTriangle with herself]] as long as it meant that he still liked her either way.]]