Whenever people point to Mary Shelley and say “a woman invented sci-fi you know” I just think “well, I mean, technically a woman invented the whole concept of authoring books as far as we can tell but hey who’s keeping track”
Hmm, well, thing is, Nepeta doesn’t fall diamond over heels with Equius because of how he looks? It’s more that he’s a nightmare at social interactions for all that he tries so hard, is super awkward and breaks the pencil and gets all flustered over it. Not to mention shoves John into Sollux by touching his shoulder and basically just failing at this interaction thing a lot.
It’s not so much of a ‘what I hunk I want to pap him into next week’ and more of ‘oh wow this guys tries so hard and fails even harder be still my bloodpusher’?
Regardless, I shall pay extra attention to this scene during the second draft to try and make this more clear somehow.