>>150976777
In retrospective, that makes sense, but he also focuses a lot on her specifically rather than all the humans, how she'll be happy next to him, and even fucking says "You turn my heart on", or in the dub I watched "You've won my heart" while making sparkly eyes at her.
Surely you could understand why that seemed like an overt act of romantic interest to me as a kid.
>showed elements of what often does, and ideally should, comprise romantic interest
He sure was being friendly, but while Finn was being just friendly with Marcy, he was actively crushing on PB, that was way more obviously what they wanted to show as Finn's only romantic interest, Marcy was explicitly just a friend.
Like, I could've seen their friendship perhaps developing into a romantic thing had the show decided to go that way, but as soon as Finn was over PB, he went straight to FP, Marcy was never even considered as a serious romantic option.