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Love For Dummies - The Top 50 Fictional Relationships Thread

Torzelbaum

????? LV 13 HP 292/ 292
(he, him, his)
And at this point I think I know who the top two will be but I don't know the order.

Also, the three comic book couples were all on my list:
#17 - Scott & Barda
#20 - Pete and MJ
#24 - Superman/Clark and Lois
 

Positronic Brain

Out Of Warranty
(He/him)
Today's post might be a bit later than usual - finding good references for one of them is proving to be a bit challenging, honestly.
 

Positronic Brain

Out Of Warranty
(He/him)


#2
Wesley/Buttercup
119 points • 4 mentions • Highest rank: #3 (Torzelbaum, Johnny Unusual)

Where no girl has gone before


Fandom: Star Trek: The Next Generation / Powerpuff Girls
Relationship type: sigh-ok-yes-why-not, canon-in-our-hearts
AO3 Factor: 0​

I was worried we would go the whole list without a single example of what we connoisseurs know as a “crack ship”, so I’m gladly surprised. I do find weird that so many of you voted for the same crack pairing but, hey, I am just the master of ceremonies, you drive the show, so if you guys say that this is the second most popular romantic pairing in Talking Time, so be it.

Of course, this means that finding anything about this pairing - media, fics, canon - is impossible, but I powered through for you guys. You all love this couple, so it’s the least I could do.

So. Wesley Crusher is the son of the Enterprise’s doctor, Beverly Crusher. He is highly intelligent, but he’s socially awkward and also very young. His idolizing of the crew doesn’t help. Many fans found him annoying, which is maybe why he was eventually written off the show by making him an omnipotent being who can travel across the stars instantaneously and at will. Hey, not a bad way to leave.

Buttercup is the (artificial) daughter of Professor Utonium. Also, like her sisters, she has superpowers, like flight and superspeed, and together they are the Powerpuff Girls. Buttercup is the strongest and fastest of the trio, which is an interesting combination when you are also the most short-tempered and quick to anger. In her defense, that also means that Buttercup gets Things Done, particularly if the Thing that needs to be Done is a buttkicking.

So why this pairing? Beats me. I do see the appeal of pairing the most bland character of STTNG with the most impulsive of the Powerpuff Girls - they have a lot to learn from each other. And hey, they both are superpowered, so they already have something in common.

I guess they could meet when Wesley visits Earth, landing in Townsville by accident (you know how easily is to get waylaid when you take the wrong turn in Saturn) and he gets bamboozled by Mojo Jojo, who convinces Wesley that the Powerpuff Girls, as artificial girls, are actually Borg drones, and they have to be stopped by stealing a weapon from Professor Utonium’s lab - but when Wesley teleports in, he runs into Buttercup, and while they are fighting their eyes lock and…

…uh, brb, need to post something in AO3.

uc
No barrier, as insurmountable as it might seem - like characters belonging to different multinational media conglomerates, is an obstacle for the shipper, or for love.



 

Positronic Brain

Out Of Warranty
(He/him)
Before you ask, yes, it's all a plot from Q, playing Mojo as a fiddle. Do you need to ask?

Anyway, I need to post this before somebody else steals the premise. I'll post the #1 in a couple hours, when I'm done.
 

Torzelbaum

????? LV 13 HP 292/ 292
(he, him, his)
Pos, I hate to say this but I think there was an error in your spreadsheet. Westley was who I had on my list.
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
Niiiiice.

Catching up a bit, I had Eleanor/Chidi on my list. They are, like many of our couples, freakin adorable once they work through all their baggage, and have some of the most striking character growth of anyone in here. The end of the series, to which their story is central, is heartrending and heartwarming in equal measure.
 

Positronic Brain

Out Of Warranty
(He/him)
Oh, OK, yes, I see it now. Dammit, I need to recalculate.

But why would you ship Buttercup with Westley? He's a minor character! He dies, like, in Page 5. Why don't you guys ship her with the Dread Pirate Roberts like everybody else? (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

EDIT:

#1 will be delayed, I need to fix this
 

Positronic Brain

Out Of Warranty
(He/him)


#2
WesTley/Buttercup
119 points • 4 mentions • Highest rank: #3 (Torzerlbaum, Johny Unusual)

Enjoy breathing while you can, WesTley


Fandom: The Princess Bride
Relationship type: sigh-ok-yes-why-not, canon-for-like-five-pages
AO3 Factor: 85

OK, so, I went over the votes and everybody voted for this ship. Weird. If you ask me this is even more of a crack pair, but fine, I am just the master of ceremonies, etc, etc.

So. Buttercup is a farmer’s daughter, one of the finest young women in the Kingdom of Florin. She likes bossing farmhand Westley around, who always responds to all he demands, unreasonable or otherwise, with “as you wish” - and then one day she realizes that a) whenever Westley says “as you wish” he is really saying “I love you” and b) she loves him back. So they cut to the kissing stuff.

The Princess Bride is a great book, adapted into a great movie by its author, William Goldman, and it’s a treasure of a story. It’s full of very memorable characters, great quotable lines and unforgettable scenes. But it is, above all, a book about love.

Love is what drives the characters - Buttercup finds that she can love again after getting her heart broken, and that allows her to defy the evil prince who wants to marry her (hence the title). Love is what drives our protagonist to face the direst perils and to come back fro the almost-dead. When our heroes have to storm the castle to rescue Buttercup, they need to recruit the help of medicine man Miracle Max, who only agrees to help them when Max's wife realizes they are doing it for true love - and it's his love for his wife what really makes Max help. And that’s the moral of the story, that the reason for everything is true love, and that you always must have fun storming castles.

It’s a pity that all this happens to everybody else, because Westley dies very quickly. Soon after they are done smoochin' he goes to the sea to seek fortune so he can marry Buttercup, only to be captured by the Dread Pirate Roberts, who takes no prisoners. But hearing of Buttercup’s beauty from Westley, the Dread Pirate Roberts travels to meet her, and here’s where all the true loving happens. Why would Buttercup love the man who executed her first love? Dunno, but I guess love forgives all. Or Buttercup likes the idea of Klingon Promotions in love.

uc
There’s no accounting for taste.


 
Last edited:

Torzelbaum

????? LV 13 HP 292/ 292
(he, him, his)
When our heroes have to storm the castle to rescue Buttercup, they need to recruit the help of medicine man Miracle Max, who only agrees to help them when Max's wife realizes they are doing it for true love - and it's his love for his wife what really makes Max help.
In the immortal words of Miracle Max: "True love is the greatest thing in the world. Except for a nice MLT - mutton, lettuce, and tomato sandwich - where the mutton is nice and lean and the tomatoes are ripe."

(Was it Max's love for his wife that made him help or his love of revenge?)
 

Rascally Badger

El Capitan de la outro espacio
(He/Him)
I keep forgetting to post in this thread when I get home from work. I have things to say about recent entries
 

Positronic Brain

Out Of Warranty
(He/him)


#1
You/Your girlfriend from Canada
167 points • 8 mentions • Highest rank: #1 (Dors Venabili)

Totally not a stock photo from CIRA (https://www.cira.ca/stock-images)


Fandom: Real Life
Relationship type: absolutely-canon-we-swear
AO3 Factor: 0
Yes, we get it, this totally should not be here. This is the fictional relationship list, and this is not a fictional relationship, so why is it here? And why did it place so high? Don’t worry, I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding, so just humor us for a bit, OK?

Yes, we all know you have a girlfriend in Canada we haven’t been able to meet. Yes, we have seen the photos, she’s really cute, and those are totally not stock photos, we believe you. It is unfortunate she works at a watermark factory so all her pictures always look weird, but I guess it makes sense, although, honestly, it’s not healthy for her to take her work home.

We know when she travels here and you disappear for weekends when nothing is at the movies is because you like to spend time alone with her because long distance relationships suck, and that's why you don’t introduce her around. We don’t take it too personally, really. We are sure you enjoy watching hockey games at your home and eating pancakes with maple syrup and hunting for wild moose. We just wish she hadn’t gotten you into Celine Dion, and we certainly hope she eventually broadens her taste and/or sends you some music besides that one album of hers you always play.

We also wish you’d stop trying to imitate a Canadian accent, it’s annoying.

Anyway, we’re glad you have a cool Canadian girlfriend you totally can’t introduce to us. But we’ll get to know her before you move to Canada to marry her and become a woodcutter or something, right?
uc
True love transcends borders.



 

Positronic Brain

Out Of Warranty
(He/him)
And that's a wrap! I'll just ask you to refrain yourselves from sharing lists, as I want to post full results tomorrow and I want numbers to be a bit of a surprise, OK?

Peace and love!
 

Positronic Brain

Out Of Warranty
(He/him)
OK, guys, this is now ridiculous.

I've been receiving a crapton of private messages from people swearing that they didn't vote for "You/Your girlfriend from Canda" because she totally exists. So they've shuffled votes around and now I have a new #1. sigh.

I'll post it in a bit.
 

Positronic Brain

Out Of Warranty
(He/him)


#1
Gomez/Morticia
122 points • 4 mentions • Highest rank: #1 (Torzelbaum)

Neat, sweet, petite)


Fandom: The Addams Family
Relationship type: marié-et-heureux, canon
AO3 Factor: 586
And the most loved fictional couple on Talking Time are Gomez and Morticia, from the Addams Family.

So the Addams are a spooky family (somebody would say kooky, but altogether ooky). They are weird - they live in a dark and creepy house, they appear to have supernatural creatures working in their household, they stockpile torture instruments and swords like they are going out of style. They see themselves as normal, though, even while they are filing the sharp points of their garden wall or cutting blooms off roses. In other words, they are the inverse of a normal American family.

Yet the husband and wife, Gomez and Morticia, love each other to pieces.

That’s the joke.

Gomez is the head of the household , a lawyer by trade and ridiculously wealthy, , and he’s a kid at heart, always finding silly things to do for fun, like playing with his model trains (he likes to cause trainwrecks). Morticia is a more traditional housewife, who enjoys classic activities like painting depressing pictures and knitting straightjackets.

And they do go well together. They have lots of fun together (they love dancing and trying to pierce each other in sword duels) and, even after fifteen years of marriage and two kids, drive each other insane (two words in french from Morticia will drive Gomez out of control). They respect each other, they love each other, they are the perfect family in spite of their love of the macabre.

There have been several incarnations (the original strip, the TV series, the movies, the direct to tv movie, the animated movie…) so they have a lot of staying power, and the strength of the relationship of Gomez and Morticia is always a solid rock. Having an old married couple who still love each other like the first day they met was rare in the sitcoms in the 60s, and it’s still a delight today.

uc
Normal is relative - and so is weird. Your family might be strange for standards, but as long as you work well together and love each other, all will turn out fine.

Having enough money to pass off as eccentric instead of insane helps, though.[






 

Torzelbaum

????? LV 13 HP 292/ 292
(he, him, his)
They were the first couple that came to my mind when I started making my list. I could try to say something about their relationship and why I picked them but their words to describe what they feel for each other are so much better than anything I could ever think of.

Morticia: So... you still desire me after all these years? The old ball and chain?
Gomez: Forever!
Morticia: I'll get them!

Gomez: To live without you, only that would be torture.
Morticia: A day alone, only that would be death.
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
They were the first couple that came to my mind when I started making my list.
Note, if we ever do best fictional moms and dads, Morticia ranks high and Gomez is my number one with a bullet. John Astin and Raul Julia are both perfect in the roles, with Astin playing him as a weird take on the TV dad and Raul giving him a debonair quality with more emphasis on his hedonism. I love that the Addams in theory seem like a mockery of traditional family values but the fact is they are great, accepting and understanding parents. You fucking know if their children came out as gay or trans, Gomez would be like "Outstanding!" and then they'd get grenades and play golf with them.
 

jpfriction

(He, Him)
Note, if we ever do best fictional moms and dads, Morticia ranks high and Gomez is my number one with a bullet. John Astin and Raul Julia are both perfect in the roles, with Astin playing him as a weird take on the TV dad and Raul giving him a debonair quality with more emphasis on his hedonism. I love that the Addams in theory seem like a mockery of traditional family values but the fact is they are great, accepting and understanding parents. You fucking know if their children came out as gay or trans, Gomez would be like "Outstanding!" and then they'd get grenades and play golf with them.
The new animated movies aren’t great but they do focus on Wednesday acting out and Morticia/Gomez just being supportive as all hell.
 

Rascally Badger

El Capitan de la outro espacio
(He/Him)
I am glad that Gomez and Morticia were on top. Even though they weren't on my list (which was 100% oversight and not intentional.

Going back a few days, Lois and Clark have long been a favorite pairing of mine. Especially in stories old from Lois Lane's POV. There is a series of YA books about a high school aged Lois who is getting friendly online with some kid from the backwoods of Kansas. They met on a forum talking about unexplained sighting of what could be an alien or man with superpowers. It is purely delightful and completely gets what makes the two characters so enjoyable.

As for Scott and Barda

barda.jpg


Also:

scott-and-barda-interrupted.jpg
 

Positronic Brain

Out Of Warranty
(He/him)
Just wanted to let you know closing posts will be late - we had a small scare with Young Adult Cat (she's fine, just an upset stomach) so I'm way behind on my chores for the day.

There is a series of YA books about a high school aged Lois who is getting friendly online with some kid from the backwoods of Kansas. They met on a forum talking about unexplained sighting of what could be an alien or man with superpowers. It is purely delightful and completely gets what makes the two characters so enjoyable.
I *love* those books. For you guys who haven't read them, it's Gwenda Bond's Lois Lane trilogy and they're fun. Amazon has a couple of short stories placed in the same universe for free to download, if you're into that. They are great stories (and Bond does a great job managing to keep the rogue galleries' antics to a threat level acceptable for a high school Lois and still worthy of a Superman series). It's a pity they didn't renew the license because her last book promised a new status quo that never materialized =(
 
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