#QPR phan

[aroacearchangel]

i’m going to say something that might be controversial and i’m sorry if this is cringe or whatever but i can’t sleep:

dan and phil are like. the perfect example of my ideal qpr. have they kissed. maybe. irrelevant. did they form an almost instantaneous soul binding connection within days of meeting in person. yes . are they literally soulmates, as proclaimed by mr howell himself. also yes.

did they design a house to live in together and still have separate closets. also yes . when they’re apart for even a few weeks they are soooooooo sad. i’m just. hooollyyy shitt.

in response to the age old question “are they dating or are they friends?”: does it actually change anything? they’re dan and phil :]

[tommyssupercoolblog]

There's nothing I hate more in the Phandom than people reacting to someone seeing it as queerplatonic with "umm just watch any of their videos lol" none of you actually fucking know what a queerplatonic relationship is if you think pet names, kissing, sex, "heart eyes", monogamy, living together forever, being soulmates, etc are exclusive to romantic relationships.

The whole point is that queerplatonic relationships are supposed to ignore all boundaries between "types" or relationships and be whatever the people involved want them to be. A queerplatonic relationship can be LITERALLY IDENTICAL TO A ROMANTIC ONE ON THE OUTSIDE and be queerplatonic if the people inside deem it so.

THEY ARE ALSO NOT EXCLUSIVE TO AROACE PEOPLE

Stop acting like calling them queerplatonic is the same as erasing all that shit because queerplatonic relationships can literally include that. If your argument is just "they do romantic things and aren't aroace" then you have a collosal misunderstanding of what a QPR is and are being an asshole!!!

In conclusion how about you just ignore them instead of reblogging their shit with nasty comments or taking screenshots or making memes about how they're "ignoring the facts" they aren't ignoring SHIT you're just ignorant

I've always seen them as romantic but I am this close to calling them queerplatonic out of spite. There is NO INHERENT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO WHATSOEVER BEYOND WHAT YOU CALL IT!!!

I understand that people are used to queer relationships being erased and can be jumpy about it but 1) their relationship is still queer either way 2) this doesn't actually erase or deny anything about their relationship nor make it "lesser" 3) if you're still so upset about it how about you block them instead of acting like the whole idea is some homophobic psyop

[astradyke]

hey so I've been a casual Dan & Phil fan for years but never really a part of the fandom. Recently started scrolling thru the tag and like...did I miss something? Have they actually said for real for real that they dated? Like I'm queer and tbh 2 gay guys living together for that long have to at least done *something* but I'm not an rpf person (no shade) but I do wanna be up to date on the Dan and Phil facts (phacts?) Obviously they're some kinda soulmates but tbh I know some queerplatonic soulmates who aren't *together* so idk if that's them or not. Am I missing receipts or is their relationship presumed given their whole situationship? Genuinely asking and no shade to your shipping intended.

hiya! i'll try to be succinct here but i might totally miss some things as a heads up :P

In Basically I'm Gay on the Daniel Howell channel, the same monologue that led to the description of them as soulmates also included the statement: "And that was when, through the magic of the Internet, I met Phil. And obviously we were more than friends, but it was more than just romantic [...] The relationship we formed, at that point, was something that I needed in my life." Despite "relationship" being a neutral, versatile term, the preceding sentence confirms they've been in an explicitly romantic relationship. along with that explicit confirmation, we also know from several other relics from 2009-2011 in particular that the two were at the very least actively flirting (I can retrieve a few formsprings for you that point to this if u want just lmk!). Additionally, in 2010, Phil made a privated video addressed to Dan that explicitly confirms a romantic relationship; this video was unprivated via a YouTube glitch in September 2011 and circulated heavily in late 2012. it was a serious incident that outed them and thus people don't talk much about it. I've never seen it in full-- it's pretty much off the Internet entirely due to copyright strikes-- and I really solely bring it up for context that they were dating at that period in time.

Basically I'm Gay only indicates a past romantic relationship, leaving their current one ambiguous, and both Dan and Phil's respective coming out videos state that they want to keep their personal dating lives private (both of these videos were released in 2019). Since then, though, there's one other explicit confirmation of their relationship-- I had a difficult time hunting down this exact interview in entirety, but my lovely mutual freckliedan helped me find the relevant screenshot:

[ID: In bold, the interviewer's text says: "So, just like a normal gay couple then?" Below, Dan's response is not in bold, and says, "Basically, yeah."]

I was able to find another screenshot at this post as well, which has the actual context confirming that they were discussing Phil previous to this. Now, obviously, this interviewer was a little forward in their questions, so I understand any reluctance in considering Dan's response-- however, Dan is a professional, and if he was sincerely uncomfortable with this line of questioning, I have faith in his ability to avoid answering it altogether. I therefore assume he knew what he was doing, and that this can be taken as a valid statement. This was from 2023 iirc.

Both of these excerpts-- from Basically I'm Gay and from this interview-- do suggest that Dan and Phil have a romantic relationship. On top of both of these more concrete confirmations, there's a lot more information/statements they've made public that corresponds with a romantic relationship, even if none of them are technically exclusive to romantic relationships.

A brief list: They've lived together for approximately 13-15 years, and bought a house together with a mortgage (for brevity's sake, I'll exclude other things that kind of pair with this). They make frequent sex jokes on their channel, several of which stating things about the other's sexual preferences. They recently went on holiday together, just the two of them, and given the tourism biz and how they discussed the holiday it seems like they were in a place intended for couples. Phil's sister in law, Cornelia, refers to Dan as an uncle to her child. They use pet names for each other. They frequently joke with the phandom, riffing off of jokes about their relationship (reacting to posts saying they are in a situationship, making a joke about having a joint toilet, etc.) This is most arguable, but it's highly likely that they share a bed as well (again, going off of the images/videos they've shown us of 'Dan's bedroom'). Lastly, other interviews with Dan include him being highly verbose about his relationship with Phil, but he's referred to him briefly as his "husband" in a long list of other words like "soulmates" and "just mates", ending with "who the fuck knows?", in one past interview (I have a picture of this but I can't attach it rn I can find it if you'd like though!)

It's not impossible that Dan and Phil's relationship isn't currently romantic, and even operating off of the assumption that it is, there's information we don't know about that (whether they're monogamous or polyamorous, for example, or whether or not they share a bed). It honestly just seems unlikely that their relationship is queerplatonic, given the past statements indicating that it has been romantic historically and the interview (+ supplemental evidence) suggesting that it currently is (I am very aware of the variation in QPRs, though, so I'm sympathetic to that interpretation from folks. However, I also understand that many explicitly romantic partnerships are considered to be QPRs-- in media or with real people-- in a way that contributes to gay erasure. It's nuanced and I am not the person best equipped to eloquently discuss it). Obviously, just to underscore here, we are not owed any information about their personal lives and the vast majority (if not the entirety) of the phandom just riffs off of the information they tell us, all of which happen to point to a romantic relationship. They clearly don't have any discomfort in us assuming this, and I personally don't believe they'll ever give us any more conclusive statement about their relationship any time soon, given that they've told us enough that the implication of a romantic partnership is pretty solidly there.

TLDR: Dan and Phil have "hard launched" (AKA released information that portrays their relationship as irrefutably romantic) 2-3 times. There is also other more indirect information that seems to confirm a romantic relationship, though if one wanted to, it could be read as non-romantic-- however, given those conclusive statements, and the current way they treat phandom commentary about their relationship (AKA not giving a shit), it is the effective conclusion that they are in a romantic relationship. Other conclusions, such as them being queerplatonic or them having broken up, seem to rely on a lot of critical assumptions, while the idea that they are in a romantic relationship is in line with their own statements as well as what we generally see out of them.

Thank you for your patience and your very kind ask! PS calling it "phacts" is funny as fuck, I did not utilize that verbiage here through my reply but you were a visionary for this. have a lovely one :D

PS. If any folks want to add, or if I missed something when glancing back over this and corrections are needed, please please please share! I am so deeply not a phandom history i am simply a little guy! much love

[dans-cliit]

dan and phil are my favorite couple who may or may not be a couple

[evermorepeyton]

maybe you would think so but no, they actually like each other that much

[tofugargoyle]

honestly at this point i almost hope phan isn't real cuz it would be so much funnier if they were just Like That™ for completely platonic reasons.

[shoelace-of-tvmblrclan]

Broke : Dan and Phil are secretly a couple

Woke : Dan and Phil are moirails

[infizero]

speaking my truth. dan and phil (regardless of how they actually define their relationship) are like a perfect example of a qpr if ur trying to explain to someone what that would look like

[emotoangel]

If i hear one more person call Dan and Phil a QPR I’m going to shoot myself (/nsrs)

tell me about it fr

how do you hear the obviously more than friends but more than JUST romantic speech and think they’re in a QPR 😭😭 please

(I could go on a 6 hour rant about that speech and the inherent ‘they were roommates’ implications of assuming that two gay men who have in every sense stated they are more than friends AND also romantic are queer-platonic but I won’t rn bc y’all don’t need to hear those ramblings😭)

anyway ofc everyone is entitled to their own opinions but respectfully I do not understand that one

[philsdrivinglicence]

When people say dnp are in a qpr I get it, I really do. But sadly, they are *like that* and so I can never agree.

The above is a beautiful description of a qpr - what dnp have is far weirder and they love to make us uncomfortable with their.... vibes.

Every video recently is like walking in on your parents, moments after they stopped making out and nobody's acknowledging it.

this is my favorite reddit relationships post ❤️

[themaskofreason]

on a scale of "i don't get what the shippers even see they're clearly just platonic buddies" to "they're hard launching the wedding on tour" how much of a phan shipper are you (i'm personally a qpr truther but i ship them for lolz)

as a 13 year old i ingested and created a lot of phanfic 😃 but now as an adult i am a believer in the "their relationship transcends societal norms and i will respect them and their soulmatey intertwined existences" level of the scale

[tremendouskoalachild]

height difference in canon thr couples

Zeen/Lula: no difference

Marlowe/Vellis: 5 cm

Yana/Kor: 8 cm

Kevmo/Marda: 10 cm

Alys/Svi’no: 10 cm

Xiri/Phan-tu: 15 cm

Jordanna/Syl: 16 cm

Adrens: 17 cm

Marchion/Ghirra: 20 cm

The Herald/Opari: 28 cm

Marda/Bokana: 28 cm

Raf/Alak: 53 cm

Dexter/Maz qpr: 63 cm

[tinogiehd]

why do i have to read phan takes like they aren't friends or lovers but a secret third thing or they're in a qpr IN 2023!! where am i 😭😭 people really fucking hate gay love 😭

dan and phil are married and I’m so serious

[your-old-sins-tournament]

OC NAVAL WARFARE

/ -- Romantic

*-- Unlabelled/Other

+ -- QPR

& -- Familial

HG^2 (Charlie "Chuck" Beaumont/Octavian "Tavi Osborne)

Tavi is a cringe-fail loser spoiled rich kid protegy who never properly developed any social skills aside from making people swoon over them. They fell off their god-complex high-horse so hard it landed them in prison for their parents' murder. (They got better, though!) (Tavi, not the parents. The parents are still very much dead.) Chuck has extreme middle child syndrome and enough guilt to strangle the horse Tavi just fell off of (figuratively) .They were so desperate for outside validation that their old girlfriend straight-up poisoned them and they thought nothing of it. Grades and success always meant the world to them until they met Tavi and discovered that reputation wasn't everything. Sometimes being "evil" can be fun, too. Between these two they could fill a lake with their self-loathing, and then fill another with their love for eachother. They are in it together to the end, along with the children they somehow manage to pick up along the way. (These two are technically Marvel/Spiderverse OCs, though they are very separated from the Canon. My partner and I have gone kinda nuts with them over the years, and their story now includes elements/characters from: Ouran High School Host Club, The Magnus Archives, Danny Phantom, Ace Attorney, Supernatural, Harry Potter (as a parody), and many more that I cannot recall.)

Tavi (or Octavian [They/Them]) is the child of two multi millionaire parents. Though they had quite the god complex as a child it was slightly dampened by their roommate/rival/friend Chuck when they got to college at the age of 16. Though they had many wacky adventures during their four years together, that soon came crashing down when their parents were murdered during graduation. So like any sane person they cut off all contact to anyone that they cared about and started getting a Doctorate (after they were miraculously proven innocent). From their they spiraled until they turned 28 and started working at their parents' old company were they run back into Chuck. Chuck (or Charlie [They/Them]) is the middle child of 8, being sandwiched in-between two sets of twins and one set of triplets, wants to noticed within the family. This is achieved when they manage to graduate highschool early and get a huge full-ride scholarship to MIT. They are lead to be roomed with the other 16 year old, Tavi. Through their four years of people assuming that they are dating (they would like to date the but they definitely don't feel the same [they do]) their time together was cut off when their mother had to got to the hospital where she would die a year later. Gets into a toxic relationship, or should I call it poisonous?, relationship with a girl named Gray. That relationship ends and they get a job at a big science place where they eventually reunite with Tavi. Though their relationship starts off very rocky they find bonding time after becoming villains against a common foe and starting a twitch together. Eventually they find a bigger bad and adopt the first villain together <3 (Technically they are Spiderverse/Spiderman ocs but do NOT follow canon very well. Their lore goes further down the rabbit whole but I feel like this gives a good impression of them both haha [I kinda got carried away is what I am saying])

Geheneres (Teneres/"Gehenna")

Ahem hem hem. These two hate the hell out of each other at first. Teneres starts attending this school in senior year because he’s a certified loser freak and in one of his classes he meets Gehenna. While Teneres acts like your typical cringefail cool dude tm who cannot tie his own shoe laces, Gehenna is this cold, quiet being who does not take Teneres well at all. These two fight over the smallest and pettiest things and even before they’re friends they give ex energy.

It’s also worth mentioning Teneres has the ability to control time (rewinding it, altering it, pausing it) and before this he *literally rewrote time itself* in his favor. Basically, before THIS timeline he was shunned by practically all society. He knew the date of his own death, as did the people around him, who never wanted to connect with him in fear of being heartbroken when he eventually died.

Excluding some certain things, he barely managed to escape his own predestined death, which angered the forces which put his fate in place at all. “Nuh uh”, to which Teneres went “FYM NUH UH” and rewrote time. In this timeline, everyone adored him… except for Gehenna.

Because Gehenna was the only one who knew of what he’d done.

But… there was a catch. Over time the two fought less and slowly became friends, hanging out after school was over and learning more of each other’s lives. Teneres learned Gehenna didn’t really come from a very… safe place, and often offered him to come stay at his place after school. Such acts were what warmed a previously cold, outwardly-emotionless Gehenna to him.

But it was also through these interactions that Gehenna grew concern for Teneres. He’d slowly begin acting… stranger, looking as though he hadn’t eaten in days, slept in weeks, acting more agitated and rude. This was because Teneres could feel his control slipping, his ability to keep the secret of all he’d done leaving him. Even still, Gehenna kept it. It was Teneres who confessed he’d messed with time itself, to the people like him he lived with.

And it was here Teneres practically threw himself into this manifested labyrinth of his own making, his body malforming into differing shapes and sizes and matters as the time he’d manipulated and warped essentially dragged across him like sharp nails. Thoughts of self-loathing and yet deep selfishness seeped into his mind and brought Teneres to the limit, where he took out his rage, sadness and fear on the world around him. He only wanted a world that would let him live, and he’d become the villain of his own story just to do that. But to him, it was worth it.

But not to Gehenna. You see, there was a reason he kept the secret, the secret of Teneres’s doings to time itself.

Gehenna valued Teneres’ happiness, just as Teneres valued his. He’d found a friend, a true friend, a person he’d even begun developing… stronger feelings for.

And it was him that was able to truly get to Teneres, in such a state of collapse. Gehenna told him what he did was horrible. It was cruel, unjust and selfish, so selfish. The most selfish thing one could ever do… and yet, he understood. He understood the extent to which Teneres went just to have a chance at being loved.

Gehenna didn’t want to fight. He didn’t want either of them to be hurt anymore… he just wanted them *both* to come home, and they could go back to when they were just arguing during class with each other.

(Lots of stuff I might’ve left out in regards to things (outside) their relationship but man do I have ADHD about these long haired men. Hope you enjoy my cringe…!)

[phregnancy]

Thank you for that QPR post! This annoys me so much. I know most of these people mean well, but how can they not see how "I think these two allo gay men are in a committed relationship but without the sex and romance" could come off as homophobic? It's fine if you're aroace and want a QPR but dnp have never indicated that it's something they want or are even aware of tbh.

i saw someone make a list of things that support their qpr phan theory and on it they listed the interview where dan acknowledged that he’s in a normal gay relationship and they said dan was forced into saying that by the interviewer so it’s not accepted as canon. the road to homophobia is paved with well meaning attempts at inclusivity

[phanfictioncatalogue]

Fic Titles Based on Lyrics (5) Masterlist

part one, part two, part three, part four

a wand and a rabbit (ao3) - CloudyPhan

Summary: just a silly little one part about a cute morning in the phouse.

all the stars are closer (ao3) - kay_okay

Summary: Eventually, he’ll grow to love this holiday as much as he loves the others -- Christmas with his family, and New Year’s with his best friends. His birthday elaborately planned down the hour to maximize time for celebration, and even pre-Valentine’s Pancake Days that will be spent laughing in the kitchen with the one he loves the most in the world.

But when we meet Phil he won’t know any of this. And it’ll take meeting Dan exactly three times before it’s even remotely clear that when the stars align as precisely as they did for him, you really should listen.

All You Did Will Be Undone (ao3) - INeverHadMyInternetPhase (BirbWatcher)

Summary: What 2009 phan would have looked like if they were ace and wanted to be in a QPR

be still my foolish heart (ao3) - t_hens

Summary: Phil is a bartender in a jazz club during the Prohibition and he's doing his best to live a plain, but safe life.

- that all goes out the window when a new jazz band is hired and the drummer, Dan, starts to capture Phil's heart.

bruises, on both my knees for you (ao3) - t_hens

Summary: this wasn’t how Dan had planned for the night to go.

But It Takes Someone To Come Around To Show You How (ao3) - Cutaehyung

Summary: Dan is born mute into a world where once in everyone's life your soulmate will say the specific words that are tattooed onto your body, and bring you together. These words will save your life in more ways than imaginable. Whilst Dan resigns himself to the fact he will never have a soulmate, fate has different ideas...

don't trust a song that's flawless (ao3) - The_Blonde

Summary: "Dan surveys their menu. It’s in Comic Sans and all lower case. Only one drink has a description because (1) he got bored halfway through and (2) left the menus until last so they got rushed out opening day. The description is “coffee and foam?” with a question mark that he forgot to take out but now maybe creates some mystery. Add “update menus” to the to-do list. Phil’s drinks all have descriptions, detailed ones. The descriptions also have cat puns."

Or: Awkwardness Squared - A Love Story.

give me all your hopeless hearts (ao3) - itsmyusualphannie (itsmyusualweeb)

Summary: Dan is a university student who doesn't believe in love, but when Valentine's Day rolls around, he feels himself suddenly falling for the boy who sits next to him in his writing 101 class. When they're assigned a project together, Dan has the brilliant idea to ask Phil out - for research!

give me toothaches just from kissin' me (ao3) - whiskers (robertmontauk)

Summary: “Hey- sorry to bother you, but is it okay if I sit here?”

Dan didn’t bother looking up from the chemistry textbook splayed in front of them, choosing instead to grab a piece of paper on the table and study it intensely. “Not interested,” they muttered with a quirk of their lips and a short head shake.

A pause, and then - “Oh. I mean? I-I didn’t think you were? But, uh, I’ll just. Find another place to sit, I guess. That’s-that’s fine.”

(alternatively: assumptions are dumb and love is dumber)

Hanging Out With Corpses (ao3) - parentaladvisorybullshitcontent

Summary: In which Phil is a lonely ex-vampire hunter living in the city and Dan's just a pretty guy who doesn't sleep and wears a lot of black...right?

HOT TO GO! (ao3) - ae121

Summary: Dan loves his roller skating job where he gets to sing and be silly.

He loves his boyfriend Phil, even more.

i thought of angels (ao3) - deletable_bird

Summary: I can’t believe I’m actually writing this. I don’t know why I thought this would be a good idea, but here I am.

i’m electric, a romantic cliché (me and you were meant to be in love) (ao3) -nardfx

Summary: “i really don’t know if i can do this.”

“you can do this.”

“okay, but what happens when everyone’s eyes are on me and they all know all of my secrets?”

or

dan and phil go to prom

no grave can hold my body down (i'll crawl home to her) (ao3) - antiadvil

Summary: Dani is missing. She comes back, but something is different.

AKA lesbian vampire hozier songfic

run away together, spend some time forever (ao3) - manchestereye (orphan_account)

Summary: dan howell, and his unexpected whirlwind romance with an angel of a human being. the only catch is that he's about to get deported...

The Good, The Bad, and The Dirty (ao3) - analester

Summary: a high school au in which dan and phil used to be best friends and are now enemies that hate each other's guts until it becomes something a little more complicated than they thought.

to intervene between me and this monster (ao3) - PoisonedMind

Summary: Phil gets assigned to Dan, a lonely human child. In theory, Phil has no reason not to fulfill his duty of being the scary monster under the bed. In practice, however, Phil has always been a little special and as it turns out, there might just be something about Dan that makes Phil not feel so alone himself.

And Dan? Dan just knows there’s something under his bed.

Too High, Can't Come Down (ao3) - calumthomases (orphan_account)

Summary: Phil never expected to be sticking his dick through a hole in the wall for some stranger to suck, and yet, here he is.

He isn't even that down for this. Personally, he's not really a glory hole person. Well, he's a glory hole porn person, but that's completely different.

who you are and who you've been (ao3) - kay_okay

Summary: The last day of summer seems like the perfect time to break into a public pool and make life-altering decisions in the middle of the night.

would it be a sin if I can't help falling in love with you? (ao3) - resurrectdead

Summary: “Hey.”

Phil reaches over the counter. Leaning one elbow on it, he puts a finger underneath Dan’s chin, gently tilts his head back up. Dan tries not to tremble. He darts his eyes up and they catch at his lips, stay there as he speaks. (He wants to taste them so bad.)

“I don’t know what kind of people you’re friends with,” he starts, “but if they aren’t nice to you, maybe you should consider switching them out for some that are.”

or: it's 1978, everything is a bad influence, catholicism makes you a bit sad sometimes and dan finds the answer to all his questions

you are the sun and i am just the planets (ao3) - fairytalelights

Summary: “I think this is really gonna be the year I find my soulmate, guys. I'm just gonna go around and touch as many soulmarks as I can until midnight. And no, Dan,” Phil holds up a finger as if he knows Dan is gonna say something, “I don't care about your stupid statistics monologue and that my soulmate might be on the other side of the world right now.”

Dan just glowers at him, suddenly for some reason in a much worse mood than he was a few seconds ago.

or, the one where soulmates meet on Valentine's Day, Dan and Phil just have a little trouble catching up.