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Valentine’s Day1 has a reputation. It shows up every February wrapped in red and pink, insisting it knows exactly what love looks like: roses, chocolates, candlelit dinners, a single designated person who receives all the affection. That version of Valentine’s Day isn’t wrong — but it’s incomplete. Love is messier, wider, stranger, and far more interesting than one box of candy can hold.
Love can be infatuation before it’s certainty. It can be the quiet comfort of a story you return to over and over. It can be devotion to a character who understood you when no one else did, or a song that still makes your chest tighten years later. Love can be choosing yourself. Love can be your pet waiting by the door. Love can be the way a TV episode, a movie, or a piece of music made you feel seen, held, or joyfully unhinged for a moment in time.
This Valentine’s Day collaboration is about expanding the definition. It’s about celebrating affection in all its forms — romantic and platonic, self-directed and communal, human and otherwise. These pieces aren’t reviews or rankings. They’re reflections. Small love letters to the media that shaped us, comforted us, inspired us, or simply made us feel something intense and real.
Each contributor chose a movie, song, or TV episode that represents Valentine’s Day to them. Not because it follows tradition, but because it captures a feeling: longing, admiration, devotion, joy, obsession, tenderness, or growth. Together, these blurbs form a mosaic of what love actually looks like when we let it be expansive.
So whether you’re celebrating with a partner, a friend, a pet, yourself, or a favorite piece of pop culture, this collection is an invitation — to recognize love wherever it lives, and to honor it in all its beautifully unexpected forms.
Joanna — “Like I Want Her: The Scene That Opened Me Up To The Possibility Of Romance”
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power — “The Heart” Parts 1 & 2 (May 15, 2020).
When I realized that I wasn’t attracted to men, I just assumed I was asexual. As an autistic woman raised in a conservative Christian home, I saw that as my only option. Then, early on in quarantine, I got Netflix for the first time, and checked out a little show I’d been hearing positive buzz about, She-Ra. When I reached the two-part series finale, there was a line that gave me pause:
“She doesn’t want me! Not like I want her.”
IMDb. “‘She-Ra and the Princesses of Power’ Heart Part 2 (TV Episode 2020) ⭐ 9.6 | Animation, Action, Adventure,” May 15, 2020.
I realized two things in that moment: I had a friend that I felt the same way about, and believed I could never tell her.
But with that realization, I also knew that I could fall in love, just not with a man. In the years since, I’ve come to terms with my own sexuality (and how it relates to my faith), and even if I haven’t been able to act on it yet, I will always be grateful for the show that gave voice to my feelings. It gave me hope that one day, I’ll be able to find that special someone.
Grey — “Escape Modernity, Embrace Romantic Sophistry”
Big Thief. “Simulation Swarm.” Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You, 4AD, 2022.
The song “Simulation Swarm”2 is a song by Big Thief, from their album Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You released in 2022. The song begins with a plucky guitar instrumental that rings perfectly through your headphones, and sets the tone for the song: not a deep cerulean, but a pastel cobalt.
Tinges of heartbreak and intense love flicker back and forth throughout the song, with Lenker proclaiming a relief in being invisible amongst nature; though, as the modern age would have it, being truly transparent isn’t as easy as one may like. Upon my first listen, I fell in love with the lyrics, so full of hope yet tinged with despair. I listened to it on repeat, over 100x, and it was my most repeated song of the year. The romance is inescapable, and I couldn’t help but think of my partner, with her hands intertwined with mine whilst singing:
“With a warm gush, now I wanna touch/Like we never could before/I'd fly to you tomorrow, I'm not fighting in this war/I wanna drop my arms and take your arms/And walk you to the shore.”
The music flares with cymbals crashing and electronic elements can be heard to accompany the burst of emotion.
Though sung somberly, Lenker’s voice is light yet absolute when conveying her convictions. To me, this song is poetically romantic not just due to my personal connection to it, but because I inherently believe Lenker: I believe she has felt this before, and what “this” is is left up to the audience to decipher.
And, for me, it represents love in its rawest, borderline obsession-like form — not just romantic love, but for life and nature itself.
Mariah — “A Tattered Letter To Ella”
“Lover Come Back To Me”3 by Rowan Drake (Dear, Ella)
Love can be short and bittersweet; it can also be a high that crashes and resurfaces, or a mess that is tangled and suffocating. Its meaning shifts as it evolves because it is real.
In Rowan’s “Love Come Back To Me,”4 he begs his lover for a second chance. The feeling is self-consuming, and he starts to shift the blame. His desperation drives him to say she’ll be doomed without him, and it is a provocation for them to give in.
The last line, however, is distraught, as his breathing trembles on the last word.
“I’m telling you, lover, that you’ll burn without me. So, come back to me.”
This song represents human-natured love without its camouflage. Valentine’s Day is the innocence and experience of love before time and society start to play a role. I see this song as the part that comes after love.
It is still love, just slightly yellowed and creased.
Brianna — “Love Can Be Free”
“Valentine”5 (2018) By 5 Seconds of Summer.
(“Youngblood”)
In any relationship, showing love to your partner doesn’t always have to be done by grand gestures. It can be nice and all, but that is not what it is all about. There is so much more to it.
The song “Valentine,”6 off of Australian pop rock band 5 Seconds Of Summer’s third studio album, shows that a happy, healthy, and comfortable relationship is not the result of romantic grand gestures that people do for their partners on days like Valentine’s Day but rather highlights the importance of creating a real, deep connection with your partner.
The lyrics,
“Throw balloons, teddy bears, and the chocolate eclairs away, got nothing but love for you, fall more in love every day, valentine,”
also add to this idea of not relying on these materialistic things and that love should be shown every day, not just on this one day. This song also explores the idea of love being able to meet in the middle and not hold so much expectation for your partner is more important.
As someone who has yet to be in a “real” relationship, listening to this song gave me a whole different perspective on the idea of love in a relationship. One day a year should not represent how you’re loved and you should not rely or hold high expectations… love should be laid-back and free.
And I am still holding onto hope that one day this love will find me.
Caitlynn — ““Good Luck, Babe!:”7 Loving Yourself By Saying Goodbye”
“Good Luck, Babe” (2024) by Chappell Roan.
This song feels like Valentine’s Day to me by showcasing what self-love can look like, even if the people around you call it “selfish” or “inconsiderate.” The song is about Chappell leaving a relationship that she realizes isn’t benefitting her in any way, which is showcased by her partner not saying she loves her at all.
It taps into a lot of sadness for me, but also triumph, because I recently had to cut contact with a toxic family member, and have been called every name for it by her other family members. I started feeling a lot of self-hatred due to those events, especially on holidays like Valentine’s Day.
Valentine’s Day has always been seen as the season of romance. But, because I can’t really feel much romantic or sexual attraction, I’ve always felt left out of the holiday and any celebration. It wasn’t until I started college and heard this song that I decided that it could be about love for yourself as well.
Laurel — “Love Leagues Apart”
“Pantyhose”8 (2014) by TV Girl.
This song perfectly encapsulates the sense of security that an item given by a lover creates. Over the years, gifts from lovers are integrated into your every day life. While you are partners, these items are used to close physical and emotional distance created by life’s many struggles.
The soldier in this song keeps something mundane close to him to make him feel protected: his partner’s pantyhose. Similarly to the soldier, I have often kept little gifts from my partners nearby. It’s made many difficult times seem just a bit easier, as if I am not alone when facing them.
Though they come from partners, these items do not lose their all of their comfort once the relationship has ended.
![Wang, Jeslyn. “TV Girl @the Wiltern [6/17/24].” UCLA Radio, July 16, 2024.](https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-thedailyfandom-org/2026/02/b60b58fe-tvgirl-5957-scaled-2560x1280-1.jpg)
In the song, the lover leaves the soldier with a simple note. Despite this, he keeps the charm, with the song saying:
"And he could feel the magic working/Keeping him from harm,/even though she didn't love him anymore/Ya Can't kill a lucky charm."
I find that even when a lover and I part ways, I still feel the same comfort from their gift. Sure, the memories attached hurt, but each jacket feels warmer and each plush feels softer with the knowledge that someone chose it for me with as much care as they could.
The comfort never leaves, because what is comfort but being understood by someone, even if they are no longer present.
Sabin — “The Resonance Of Souls & Its Defining Relationships”
Soul Eater (March 30, 2009) — Episode 51: “The Word Is Bravery!”9
There are few things I can give more credit to for changing my entire brain chemistry than the series Soul Eater. Written by Atsushi Ohkubo and adapted into an anime in 2008 by Studio Bones, the series is, ultimately, built on the backs of relationships. In order to fight the threats in their universe, characters must learn to resonate with each other to unlock their potential, literally reading each other’s souls in the process.
But what I’ve always found so utterly fascinating is how many forms this takes — some partner pairs are your typical romance, others more like siblings, family, best friends, or even colleagues. Though trust and respect define many of the relationships, others are deeply, deeply unhealthy.
While the series goes to great lengths to show that some unhealthy relationships need to be broken, it also demonstrates how they can be mended. Spirit Albarn and Professor Franken Stein are two such characters, former partners who fell apart years before the story began.
Their history is messy and muddled, leaving Spirit wary and distanced, while Stein backslides into an old, dangerous mindset due to manipulative forces as the series goes on, only broken out of it by the bonds he builds throughout the series. And yet, circumstances keep bringing them back together where they click into place, back in step, culminating in the final episode’s credits where they share a cigarette kiss, facing the sky in silence, shoulder-to-shoulder. Comfortable. Different, but together.
Personally, I’ve never been one for romance. But what Stein and Spirit share, and what the other characters in Soul Eater share, doesn’t have to be strictly romantic to matter, to be worth celebrating its highs and lows and growths.
Whatever “love” truly means, it’s messy, not always easy, but still love.
Footnotes
- Wikipedia.org. “Valentine’s Day – Wikipedia,” 2024. ↩︎
- Big Thief. “Simulation Swarm.” Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You, 4AD, 2022. ↩︎
- Genius. “Rowan Drake – Lover Come Back to Me,” 2026. ↩︎
- Genius. “Rowan Drake – Lover Come Back to Me,” 2026. ↩︎
- 5SOSVEVO. “5 Seconds of Summer – Valentine,” September 13, 2018. ↩︎
- 5SOSVEVO. “5 Seconds of Summer – Valentine,” September 13, 2018. ↩︎
- Wikipedia contributors. “Good Luck, Babe!” Wikipedia, January 23, 2026. ↩︎
- TV Girl – Topic. “Pantyhose,” May 12, 2022. ↩︎
- Wiki, Contributors to Soul Eater. “Episode 51.” Soul Eater Wiki, 2026. ↩︎