Line #94 Main/TimeTravelRomance


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4	[[quoteright:350:[[Film/KateAndLeopold https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_35d3192f0_d2f6_4920_80aa_fd46a4c5e52f.png]]]]
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6	->'''Bill:''' We gotta go. This is a ''history'' report, not a ''babe'' report.\
7	'''Ted:''' But Bill, those are ''historical babes''!
8	-->-- ''Film/BillAndTedsExcellentAdventure''
9
10	TimeTravel provides all kinds of possibilities for a romance arc: some of them comic, some of them tragic, and some of them bittersweet. As a comedy trope, time travel can result in a culture clash between two otherwise suited people, since different times have different manners and mores. More dramatically, a time travel plot may force a protagonist to make a decision between [[YourUniverseOrMine returning home or staying in a different era]]. Time travel can also serve as a force which reluctantly separates the couple, if one must return to his or her original time. Time travel can sometimes result in the ultimate LongDistanceRelationship, if the couple tries to make it work despite the time barrier.
11
12	In some cases, LoveTranscendsSpacetime, and a couple separated by time are able to be reunited simply through ThePowerOfLove. Alas, this is not always the case with a Time Travel Romance. Sometimes separated lovers are separated forever. In other cases, they have to go through [[EarnYourHappyEnding a great deal of effort]] (using magic or science) to be reunited.
13
14	Of course, separation isn't the only possible source of romantic drama in a time travel plot. A Time Travel Romance may lead to TimeTravelEscape, if the object of affection needs to be rescued from a historically-necessary but unfortunate death. Love across time may also lead to MyOwnGrandpa, which could be played for either comedy or drama.
15
16	In many time travel stories, the cross-time romance is a subplot, rather than the main story. If the romance is the main plot of a work which involves time travel merely as a means of uniting, challenging, or separating love interests, then you're likely dealing with a ParanormalRomance. See also ReincarnationRomance and EternalLove, which describe other methods of extending a romance arc across time.
17
18	A strangely common subtrope involves one lover attempting to use time-travel in order to save their beloved from some kind of fate, [[TheDeterminator repeating the same series of events for what is often implied to be hundreds or even thousands of times without giving up]], all in the name of love.
19
20	Closely related to AgeDownRomance, which also involves two characters, who would otherwise be too chronologically distant, getting brought together through supernatural means. TimeTravelersBaby can be the result of this trope.
21
22	----
23	!!Examples
24	[[foldercontrol]]
25
26	[[folder:Advertising]]
27	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aluIeAj6CLA This]] 2012 advert for the UK Department Store John Lewis featuring a girl from 1925 the store's founding year, and a guy from 2012 romancing each other across a split screen.
28	[[/folder]]
29
30	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
31	* ''Literature/DateALive'': This is essentially why Origami has feelings for Shidou when they meet at the start of the series, even though he doesn't remember meeting her before. To give a brief summary, Shidou eventually travels back into the past and comforts Origami after her parents were killed, causing her to become emotionally dependent on him. It's complicated by the fact that multiple instances of time travel were involved, resulting in a major case of TimeyWimeyBall.
32	* ''Anime/ElHazardTheMagnificentWorld'' has [[RobotGirl Ifurita]] getting sent back in time thousands of years and taking TheSlowPath to get back to the main character Makoto, so he could go meet her for the first time. [[spoiler: Eventually Makoto finds out how to TimeTravel to her right after that point, and they're reunited.]]
33	* Happens in ''Manga/GoldenDays'' between Kei and Setsu and [[HoYay Jin and Mitsuya]].
34	* ''Manga/InuYasha'', with Kagome and Inuyasha. However, Kagome travels back and forth through the Bone Eater's Well located in her family shrine's back yard so often, they might as well live in adjacent towns. At least until the end, where [[spoiler: the Bone Eater's Well stops working and they are torn apart for ''at least'' three years. When the well starts working again, by the time of Kagome's highschool graduation, she has [[YourUniverseOrMine to choose]] between the Warring States Era and her own time -- she obviously decides [[IChooseToStay to stay]] in the past and marries Inuyasha.]]
35	* In ''Manga/KamisamaKiss'', this is actually what happened between [[spoiler: Tomoe and "Yukiji", as the Yukiji Tomoe fell in love with was actually Nanami all along]].
36	* Defied in ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi''. When Chao Lingshen says she's going back to the future, Negi implores her to stay with him and the others. However Chao notes that it sounds an awful lot like a romantic proposal and given that she's ''his descendant'', well...
37	* ''Manga/OnePiece'': [[spoiler:Toki]] from 800 years in the past falls in love with and marries [[spoiler:Oden]].
38	* In ''Manga/RedRiver1995'', a girl named Yuri Suzuki is thrown into the old Hitite Empire and becomes the concubine of one of the Hitite princes, Kail Mursili. Both are aware of the trope, and in fact Kail points out the HUGE inconveniences. [[spoiler: But in the end, Yuri decides to stay in Hattusa and officially marry Kail.]]
39	* Touta from ''Manga/UQHolder'', gets himself involved in a particularly convoluted one during his training with Dana. Because Dana's castle is [[PlaceBeyondTime separated from the space-time continuum]], Touta meets a younger version of Yukihime who calls herself Kitty. Touta immediately becomes infatuated with Kitty and inadvertently becomes her FirstLove despite [[{{Squick}} being adopted mother and son in the present]]. Things get complicated because Kitty can only be transported to Touta's time when Dana falls asleep and the time spans between their short meetings are much longer for Kitty than they are for Touta (to Touta it has been only one day, while for Kitty several years have passed). Knowing Kitty was suffering in the past and still feeling attached to her younger self, Touta tries to pick up the romance with present-day!Yukihime. Yukihime turns him down because she can't move on with anyone else as long as she loves Negi, but Touta continues to pine after past!Yukihime.
40	[[/folder]]
41
42	[[folder:Comic Books]]
43	* ''ComicBook/BattleOfTheAtom'': During the second fight with the Future Brotherhood in ''ComicBook/AllNewXMen'', the time-displaced teenaged Angel begins to take an interest in ComicBook/{{X 23}}. They go out on a wild date in issue 31, in which somehow Laura (despite her HealingFactor) gets wasted enough that she blacks out and Warren has to relate the events, and which is also heavily implied to have ended in sex. For most of the subsequent ten issues the nature of their relationship is left up in the air, primarily due to Laura's standoffishness on the matter. They finally have a RelationshipUpgrade to OfficialCouple in issue 40.
44	* ''ComicBook/IKilledAdolfHitler'': the main characters' romance revolves around the botched assassination of Adolf Hitler. Both characters have to walk TheSlowPath to end up together, alive, in the present, but as old people.
45	* In the ''ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes'', Brainiac-5 (Querl Dox) and ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} (Kara Zor-El). Brainy always falls hard for Kara as soon as he lays his eyes on her, and she likes him back. But he can't live in the 21st century and she can't stay permanently in the future. Her oftentimes prolonged absences have led Brainy to pull some truly ''dumb'' stunts.
46	* In the "Dead End Kids" arc of ''ComicBook/{{Runaways}}'', the team is sent back in time to 1907, where Victor falls in love with local girl Lillie. [[spoiler:It doesn't work out, and it's later revealed that their travelling back in time was a result of the machinations of Lillie's modern-day self, who had hoped that Victor would take her away from the brewing gang war of that era... which turned out to be an unforeseen consequence of the Runaways being sent back in time]].
47	* ''ComicBook/TheStranded'' has late 21st century space marine Doy and prehistoric cavegirl Lin.
48	* In the Belgian comic ''ComicBook/YokoTsuno'', when the group time travels to the Bruges of the Renaissance times, [[TheBigGuy Pol]] falls in love with the InnocentFlowerGirl Mieke. The group brings her to the modern times, so she and Pol stay together.
49	[[/folder]]
50
51	[[folder:Fan Works]]
52	* There are quite a few ''Literature/AliceGirlFromTheFuture'' fanfics shipping Alice with canon or original characters from the past, especially with her 20th-century classmates from ''Literature/OneHundredYearsAhead''/''Series/GuestFromTheFuture''. For example:
53	** In ''[[https://ficbook.net/readfic/1018344 Loving. Beloved. Unreachable]]'', Alice and Kolya Naumov fall in love during the events of ''One Hundred Years Ahead'', but afterwards they are only able to meet very rarely, whenever Alice is allowed to go back in time for half an hour or so. They both lead outwardly contented lives, each in their own time, and yet feel empty without each other.
54	** In ''[[https://ficbook.net/readfic/6423300 (Not) the Right Kolya]]'', Alice falls in love with Kolya Sadovsky, who, by getting employed at the Institute of Time, manages to move to the late 21st century for good and reunites with her.
55	* In ''Fanfic/BackToTheFrollo'', Danisha discovers [[Franchise/BackToTheFuture a time-traveling Chevy]], travels to 1480's Paris, meets [[WesternAnimation/TheHunchbackOfNotreDameDisney Judge Claude Frollo]], and falls madly in love with him.
56	* In ''Fanfic/DoctorWhoovesTheSeries'', [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Twilight Sparkle]] and Renaissance artist Leonard [=DiHoovsie=] fall in love.
57	* In ''Fanfic/HellsisterTrilogy'', ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} travels to the 30th century, meets Dev-Em while undertaking a ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes mission, and falls for him.
58	* "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4038483/1/A-Long-History A Long History]]" sees a teenage Rose Tyler meet the "teenage" (by the standards of Gallifrey) First Doctor when he comes to Earth as part of a field trip, to the extent that [[spoiler:the two marry and conceive a child, before other parties erase their memories to ensure that the Doctor will go on to play his role in future events]].
59	* In ''Fanfic/MementoVivere'', a ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' fanfiction, the romance between Auron and Rikku is a main plot point of the story.
60	* In the ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'' fic ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/31564853 A Little Red and Blue]]'', Sharon is inadvertently sent to the year 1944 by Wanda. She later meets the past Steve, introducing herself as "Kate". Despite her initial hostility towards him [[AbandonmentInducedAnimosity due to her timeline's Steve]] [[DeconstructionFic seemingly leaving her behind]] [[Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar after she had stolen his shield for him]] [[Film/AvengersEndgame to stay in the past with her aunt Peggy]], she [[DefrostingIceQueen eventually warms up to him and the past Steve develops feelings for her]]. Past Steve tries to convince her to come with him and be a part of the Howling Commandos which she eventually agrees to but is pulled back into the present. She comes across the present Steve who [[FixFic explains that he didn't actually stay in the past and affirms that he belongs in the present with her]], officially starting a relationship.
61	[[/folder]]
62
63	[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
64	* In ''Anime/TheGirlWhoLeaptThroughTime'', there's a potential romance between the main character Makoto and one of her closest friends, Chiaki.
65	* In ''Anime/VoicesOfADistantStar'', due to lack of FasterThanLightTravel, lovers are separated by relativistic considerations and light travel time.
66	* In ''Anime/YourName'', the protagonists are not only living in completely different places (Taki lives in Tokyo while Mitsuha lives in the countryside) but [[spoiler:are also three years apart, meaning both characters are time-traveling when they switch bodies.]]
67	[[/folder]]
68
69	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
70	* In ''Film/AvengersEndgame'', [[spoiler:[[ComicBook/CaptainAmerica Steve Rogers]] goes back in time to be reunited with an AlternateTimeline Peggy Carter. They get their dance and seemingly live happily for the rest of their lives.]]
71	* In ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartIII'', Doc Brown unexpectedly encounters love in the Wild West with a much younger woman named Clara. [[spoiler:They stay together and they travel through time together.]]
72	* The movie version of ''Crusade in Jeans'' used this. The original book version didn't though.
73	* ''Film/KateAndLeopold'' serves as a good example of a romantic comedy incorporating time travel as a way of creating a culture clash between the protagonists, an ImpoverishedPatrician from VictorianEngland and an OfficeLady from our time.
74	* ''Film/TheKnightBeforeChristmas'': Sir Cole is a 14th Century Knight who a good witch sends on a magical quest through time to 21st century small-town America. The quest mostly appears to be to fall in love with down-on-her-luck-romantically high school science teacher Brooke Winters.
75	* ''Film/TheLakeHouse'': Dr. Kate Forster and Alex Wyler fall in love via a trans-temporal mailbox. They live in the same spot, but two years apart.
76	* The Japanese movie ''Film/MyTomorrowYourYesterday'' has a unique take on this trope. [[spoiler:Both of the leads don't actually do any time-traveling per se, and they both experience time at the same pace. The twist is that their individual timelines move opposite from each other, so his future is her past, and vice-versa. They experience each day together, but when the clock strikes midnight, while he moves forward a day, she in turn goes backwards]].
77	* ''Film/SomewhereInTime'' is all about this, with a guy named Richard being so determined to meet the girl who was the model for a beautiful portrait that he ''basically psyches himself back in time'' to find her. [[spoiler: They're torn apart, and then reunite when he dies.]]
78	* ''Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome'' gave us Kirk and [[GirlOfTheWeek Gillian Taylor]], although it's very low-key compared to Kirk's usual romances. Apart from an Italian dinner cut short, a bit of flirting, and a hug, nothing happens between them. (This is probably because the part was originally written for Eddie Murphy.)
79	* The original ''Film/TheTerminator'' has Sarah Connor falling in love with her rescuer from the future.
80	* The movie version of ''Literature/TheTimeTravelersWife'' is all about this trope, as the time traveler hops around to different time periods at random and his wife meets him at different points in his life.
81	[[/folder]]
82
83	[[folder:Literature]]
84	* "Literature/AprilInParis" by Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin has two couples like this form after a lonely 15th-century alchemist Jehan starts magically summoning companions from other eras. Barry, an American philology professor who arrives from 1961, finds love with Bota, a Gallic girl from the Roman Empire, and Jehan himself with Kislk, an interstellar archaeologist from the 8th millennium AD. The whole point of the story is that the four’s loneliness and longing for love and friendship was so strong that it bent the laws of time.
85	* Miss Price decides to marry Emelius in ''Literature/BedknobAndBroomstick'', returning to the 17th century with him.
86	* Creator/ConnieWillis:
87	** ''Literature/{{Blackout}}'': Colin Templer searches spacetime for his lost time-traveling love
88	** ''Literature/ToSayNothingOfTheDog'': Ned and Verity [[FlirtingUnderFire fall in love during the course of averting the crisis]]. Somewhat of a special case, though, as in both cases the characters are time-travelers who fall in love with other time-travelers from the same future, in the past.
89	* Creator/HarryTurtledove's ''Crosstime Traffic'' series has elements of this, with a bit of StarCrossedLovers mixed in.
90	* In Creator/DianaWynneJones's ''Literature/TheCrownOfDalemark'', Maewen is transported back in time and falls in love with a boy she meets in the past. At the end of the novel, they're reluctantly parted when she returns to her own time. [[spoiler:Then he shows up in her time, and it's revealed that, due to his ancestry, he's TheAgeless]].
91	* There is a romance in Literature/{{Dinoverse}} like this. Time travel in that 'verse entails [[IntangibleTimeTravel possessing the bodies of whatever's big at the time]], and a girl named Patience ends up in the body of a hulking carnivorous acrocanthosaur, soon befriending and then being attracted to a [[AmplifiedAnimalAptitude bright native acro]] which she nicknames Green Knight or GK. Her host had made overtures to him before, but he hadn't been interested; he wanted ''Patience''. She had angst over how they could never be, since she didn't want to stay a dinosaur. He died trying to make a HeroicSacrifice to save one of her human friends - he failed - but it was okay, because he and the friend both ended [[SharingABody up in the human's body]]. This meant that Patience and GK could be together after all! ...along with the friend. Strangely, all three parties were okay with this.
92	* The premise of ''Literature/ElevenTwentyTwoSixtyThree'' is that Jake Epping, a high school teacher from 2011, steps through a [[PortalToThePast portal to 1958]] so that he can prevent the Kennedy assassination. However, since he's got about five years before the dreaded date comes around, he has time to get a job teaching again and fall madly in love with the school's HotLibrarian Sadie Dunhill. [[spoiler: Sadie ends up getting killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jake finds out that his mucking around in the past has made such a monstrous TimeyWimeyBall that he needs to undo all of it, making a new timeline where he never meets Sadie and Oswald never shoots her. Back in 2011, Jake finds Sadie, now a stranger over twice his age, and dances with her one last time, their love momentarily transcending the decades and universes now forever holding them apart.]]
93	* William M. Lee's short story "A Message From Charity" is about the telepathy-based romance between Peter Wood, a modern-day teenaged boy living one of the small towns surrounding Boston, and Charity Payne, a teenaged girl living in the very same town, but 250 years earlier. They never meet, except in their thoughts.
94	* ''Literature/TheDandelionGirl'' is about a man falling in love with a girl from the future. [[TearJerker Bring a tissue.]]
95	* [[spoiler: Rachel Weintraub /]] Moneta and Kassad in Creator/DanSimmons' ''Literature/HyperionCantos''. Like [[Series/DoctorWho River Song]], Moneta travels in a different time stream than Kassad, but she keeps meeting him during important training of his early years training under FORCE (but when they first meet she is in her late twenties, he is younger), which causes him to fall in love with her. She, on the other hand, has been in love with him long before, as ''Rise of Endymion'' divulges and even sends him off with a goodbye kiss with the admonition to be on the look out for her as he returns to his own time, [[spoiler: after having dying in combat with the Shrike and being taken by Moneta into the Time Tombs. Kassad's paradoxes in the time stream in connexion with Moneta are delineated in more depth on the work's page.]]
96	* Creator/RansomRigg's ''Literature/MissPeregrinesHomeForPeculiarChildren'' features Jacob going back in time and falling in love with his grandfather's ex, and having to make the decision of whether or not to stay. [[spoiler: He does. For a while, at least.]]
97	* This is part of the main premise of Diana Gabaldon's ''Literature/{{Outlander}}'' series.
98	* Creator/RobertAHeinlein employed this trope throughout his later novels.
99	** ''Literature/TimeEnoughForLove'' features protagonist Lazarus Long traveling back thousands of years to visit his original family in 1917 Kansas City, Missouri. Along the way, he meets, falls in love with, sleeps with, and breaks his {{Masquerade}} to his mother. They are parted by UsefulNotes/WorldWarI and him being MIA in combat, thanks to LoveMakesYouDumb.
100	** ''Literature/TheNumberOfTheBeast'' picks up this story where it left off, as Lazarus needs the help of the Burroughs family and their much more efficient time machine to rescue his mother from her reported death in the 1990s and bring her to his present time. After she is successfully retrieved and undergoes rejuvenation therapy, she joins his {{Polyamory}}.
101	** ''Literature/ToSailBeyondTheSunset'' has Maureen herself, now an operative in the TimePolice, stage the rescue of her own father from UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Britain, and also for the purpose of sleeping with him. ParentalIncest in mainstream SpeculativeFiction, thy name is Heinlein.
102	* In Creator/EdmondHamilton's ''Literature/TheStarKings'', a person from the 20th century swaps bodies with a prince from the far future. While there, he and a princess fall in love with each other (the princess is in love with ''him'', despite being unaware of the BodySwap). At the end, he returns to his own time and, depending on the edition, the princess either follows him by swapping bodies with a permanently comatose woman, or makes telepathic contact to say they are working on a way to bring him to the future physically ([[OrwellianRetcon setting the ground for the sequel]]).
103	* Vlad the Impaler and Elizabeth Bathory in ''Literature/CountAndCountess''.
104	* The Creator/MichaelCrichton novel ''Literature/{{Timeline}}'' has André Marek, a Yale archaeology researcher traveling to 1357 France with his associates. While getting mixed up in one of the many skirmishes of UsefulNotes/TheHundredYearsWar, he falls in love with the English noblewoman Lady Claire. When the others return to the present, the MiddleAges loving Marek decides to stay behind. In the epilogue of the novel, the others learn Marek married Lady Claire and sired children. His final words were "[[AGoodWayToDie I have chosen a good life]]."
105	* ''Tomorrow's Ghost'' by R. Chetwynd-Hayes, based around a romance between a Regency-era woman and a 1980s man.
106	* ''Literature/WarriorCats'' has a variant on this. Jayfeather travels to the past taking the place of Jay's Wing [[spoiler: who he is a reincarnation of]] and meets Half-Moon, who is in love with Jay's Wing. Later, [[spoiler: they come to genuinely love each other]].
107	* ''Literature/TimeAndAgain'' by Jack Finney: A New Yorker in 1970 (who [[FanOfThePast thinks Victorian women are hot]]) travels for a [[GovernmentConspiracy secret government project]] back to 1882, where he finds a girlfriend.
108	* ''Literature/{{Invictus}}'': Far's mother was a time traveler who fell in love with his father, a gladiator in ancient Rome.
109	* ''Literature/TheLicaniusTrilogy:'' Raeleth (who lived almost two millennia before the "present" of the trilogy) and Niha (who lived about twenty years before the "present") meet and fall in love as prisoners in the [[PlaceBeyondTime temporally displaced]] city of Zvaelar. Becomes tragic when the time bubble around Zvaelar starts collapsing and they have to flee, knowing that this will send each of them back to their own time and they will never see each other again. Fortunately, Raeleth left Niha SomeoneToRememberHimBy.
110	* ''Literature/ThisIsHowYouLoseTheTimeWar'' is the story about Red and Blue, two agents from warring factions traveling up and down the timestream in an attempt to rewrite history to their superiors' liking, [[EpistolaryNovel leaving messages for one another]] across time. It starts as taunting, but it eventually evolves into WorthyOpponent, then FriendlyEnemy, and finally into genuine love. [[spoiler:The messages are eventually discovered and Red is made to assassinate Blue, a plan that is foiled by their future selves, and they decide to team up and end the war by rewriting time around their relationship.]]
111	* Creator/DavPond wishes this could happen. Just read “[[Literature/WhyCantThePerfectGirlExistIn2022OrAComplaintToMyInnerLight Why Can’t The Perfect Girl Exist In 2022??? (Or A Complaint To My Inner Light)]]”.
112	* ''Literature/ThePsychologyOfTimeTravel'': Grace is a young woman in 1967. Half a century later, her colleague Bee's granddaughter is roughly the same age. Thanks to time travel, the two can meet and have a romance.
113	[[/folder]]
114
115	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
116	* ''Series/AgentsOfShield'': Season 7 has Daisy Johnson, an agent from the 2010's, hook up with Daniel Sousa, an agent from 1955.
117	* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
118	** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E4TheGirlInTheFireplace "The Girl in the Fireplace"]], the Doctor fell in love (or lust) with Madame de Pompadour (the French King's mistress) while they're separated by extreme NarniaTime. It verged on TheDulcineaEffect on his part, while she spent [[TheLostLenore the best part of her life in love with him]]. The Doctor offers to enlist her as a companion, and she accepts, only to find she's died at just 43 while waiting for him to get back. It was only a minute or two from his perspective, but six years for her.
119	** Then there's River Song, supposedly the Doctor's wife. She is also a time traveler but moves on her own. Though it was indicated at first that they are meeting in roughly reverse order, later episodes show that it's a little more complicated than that. For example, the Doctor is present at her birth, but though it's the first time she meets him, it's not the last time he meets her. The only point we know for sure is that the ''last'' time River meets the Doctor is in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E8SilenceInTheLibrary "Silence in the Library"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E9ForestOfTheDead "Forest of the Dead"]] [[spoiler:in which she dies.]]
120	*** The two have adapted by keeping diaries of their encounters with one another and comparing notes when they meet, to avoid accidentally revealing any information on events the earlier of the two hasn't experienced yet.
121	*** [[Recap/DoctorWho2015CSTheHusbandsOfRiverSong "The Husbands of River Song"]] is, from the Doctor's point of view, their last time together. The Doctor spends the next twenty-four (relative) years in seclusion until [[Recap/DoctorWho2016CSTheReturnOfDoctorMysterio "The Return of Doctor Mysterio"]].
122	** This trope has been zigzagged a lot with regards to the Doctor and Clara Oswald (WordOfGod, specifically Creator/PeterCapaldi, is that their relationship was a romance, just not a standard one). To explain in detail would turn this into a copy of [[Characters/DoctorWhoClaraOswald Clara's character page]], as well as the recap pages for a good portion of the episodes from Series 9 (2015) so best to just go there. However, one straight example of this to note is the Eleventh Doctor (as played by Creator/MattSmith) encountering one of Clara's many incarnations in Victorian London and falling for her in [[Recap/DoctorWho2012CSTheSnowmen "The Snowmen"]] (opening the door for the romance that followed).
123	** Then there's the Doctor's various romances with women across time, including Queen Elizabeth I, Marilyn Monroe, and (implied) Nefertiti.
124	* ''Series/TheFlipsideOfDominickHide'': Dominick is from the future and Jane is from the 1980s. They have a passionate affair which leaves Jane happier, but pregnant and Dominick more emotionally healthy.
125	* In ''Series/GoodnightSweetheart'', Gary, a down-on-his-luck TV repairman in a failing marriage, discovers a [[PortalToThePast time portal]] which leads to [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII 1940s London]]. Once there, he meets a young woman and they fall in love. And now suddenly there's no need to go through the trauma of a divorce in the 1990s, because he can have two separate lives...
126	* DC's ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'' has a few examples.
127	** Nate and Amaya in Seasons 2 and 3. He's a historian from the 2010's, she's a JSA member from 1942. Their relationship is literally DoomedByCanon, since Amaya is destined to marry another man in her own time in Zambesi, and her granddaughter ends up being the present-day superhero WesternAnimation/{{Vixen}}.[[spoiler: Ultimately, they are forced to part ways, with Amaya returning to 1942 to live out her destined life.]]
128	** Nate falls into this trope ''again'' in Season 4, by getting involved with another team-mate from another time - Zari Tomaz from 2042. [[spoiler: Once again, the relationship is tragically cut short, when a Legends mission in 2019 changes the future, rewriting Zari's past and erasing the version of her that Nate and the Legends knew. Slightly mitigated by the fact that Nate eventually meets the new version of Zari and they both become aware of their past relationship.]]
129	** Ray Palmer and Nora Darkh's relationship also technically counts, since the adult version of Nora he gets involved with comes from 23 years in the future (Nora being a pre-teen girl in the present-day).
130	** Sara Lance and Ava Sharp is a tricky example. [[spoiler: Ava believes she's a 21st century woman and has the memories to prove it. But it turns out that she's in fact a clone manufactured in the 22nd century with false memories.]]
131	* ''Series/{{Lost}}'' had the romance between Penny and Desmond, which was largely introduced during time-travel episodes.
132	* ''Series/MoonLovers'': Ha-jin, a woman from the 21st century, travels back to the Goryeo era and falls in love with Wang So, the future king of Goryeo.
133	* ''Series/{{Outlander}}'' is based on this trope: a woman accidentally travels back in time and has a PerfectlyArrangedMarriage with a Scottish Highlander, but it's 1743 and [[RetroactivePrecognition she knows the Battle Of Culloden is not far off]].
134	* Phil and Keely's romance in ''Series/PhilOfTheFuture''. Eventually played for drama as Phil and his family are sent back to the future.
135	* Jen and Wes in ''Series/PowerRangersTimeForce''.
136	** Their counterparts Tatsuya and Yuuri in ''Series/MiraiSentaiTimeranger'', AND Domon and Honami. The latter couple is revisited to TearJerker effect in ''Series/KaizokuSentaiGokaiger''.
137	* ''Series/{{Primeval}}'': gives us Lady Emily Merchant, [[spoiler: from Victorian England]], and Matt Anderson, [[spoiler: a man from the future]].
138	* ''Series/ScarletHeart'': Zhang Xiao, a woman from the 21st century, travels back to the Qing Dynasty and falls in love with Yin Zhen, the future Yongzheng Emperor.
139	* ''Series/SomedayOrOneDay'': Huang Yu Xuan, mourning her boyfriend Wang Quan Sheng, finds herself [[MentalTimeTravel travelling back in time from 2019 to 1998]], landing in the body of [[IdenticalStranger Chen Yan Ru and seeing a boy, Li Zi Wei, who looks exactly like Wang Quan Sheng]]. [[spoiler: And then Zi Wei finds himself travelling from 2003 to 2009 to Quan Sheng's body, [[StableTimeLoop meeting and developing a relationship with Yu Xuan until the events of his death, and thus Yu Xuan's time travelling, play out.]]]]
140	* In the Korean drama ''Series/SisyphusTheMyth'' [[spoiler: Gang Seo-Hae, a time-traveler from 2035, falls in love with Han Tae-Sul from 2020. Their relationship causes a significant dilemma for Tae-Sul, as the BadFuture they are trying to prevent will result in the woman he loves being [[RetGone erased from existence]].]]
141	* James T. Kirk has another tragic example in the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "The City On The Edge Of Forever." Kirk is sent back to [[TheGreatDepression Great Depression]] [[BigApplesauce New York City]] through a NegativeSpaceWedgie TimePortal. There, he meets and falls in love with Edith Keeler, a kind-hearted, visionary shelter worker. The tragedy is that unless Keeler dies, [[GodwinsLawOfTimeTravel the Nazis will win World War II]] and Starfleet will never exist. The punch is all the worse in the end, as Kirk has to personally intercede to prevent Dr. [=McCoy=] from saving Keeler's life. The FridgeLogic in this one is quite hard, because there were many obvious options to save Keeler without harming history- including ''simply taking her with them back to the future'' (Since she was supposed to die, this would not have changed history, except to go from "killed by a car" to just "missing forever... but then Kirk couldn't be TheCasanova and kiss an alien every week!) Also, the Guardian of Forever basically says that time would only correct itself when the same conditions (in this case, Edith Keeler's death) were achieved. The fact that Kirk fell in love with her makes it a bigger sacrifice. Had she not died, they wouldn't have gone anywhere.
142	* ''Series/StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds'': Played with as La'an gets trapped in twenty-first century Toronto with an [[spoiler: alternate timeline James T. Kirk]] and they both have to cope with being in their mutual past and figure out where their timelines diverged and how to stop that divergence. They fall for each other as they do so.
143	* The ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' subverts it. The Season 7 episode ''Time After Time'' introduces Chronos, the Roman god of time. He is afflicted with involuntary time travel that occurs randomly, to random places. He can control the destination, but only if he sacrifices three people, and even after arriving at his destination, the random jumps will eventually reoccur. He ends up falling in love with a woman in the 1940s and starts sacrificing people to get back to her, but doesn't tell her. She's absolutely horrified that he's been murdering people (including her friends) to try and stay with her.
144
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146
147	[[folder:Radio]]
148	* ''Radio/JourneyIntoSpace'': In ''The Return from Mars'', the ''Discovery'' becomes trapped in a time warp. Jet falls in love with Cassia, a native of the planet Tribos [[spoiler: which turns out to be Earth in the far future]].
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150
151	[[folder:Video Games]]
152	* [[PlayingWithATrope Played with in]] ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'', where [[spoiler: the Second Generation Characters are all time travelers [[TimeTravelEscape who fled from a]] BadFuture where [[OmnicidalManiac Grima destroyed the world]]. Now for the most part, they cannot fall in love with the First Generation characters, averting this trope... except for [[PlayerCharacter the Avatar]], who is a friend of the First Generation characters and a potential parent of the kids in his/her own right. And to top it all off, such a pairing will give these future children their own KidFromTheFuture: Morgan (who can also be the future kids' [[PromotionToParent little sibling]]). In this case though, none of them actually want to go back to their original BadFuture -- and even if they ''did'' want to return, that's a feat which may be impossible to do anyways since Grima trashed everything. [[note]](Though one DLC in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'' has [[PhysicalGod Good Anankos]] managing [[WorldHealingWave to fix the lands themselves]], so who knows now.)[[/note]].]] The fandom is split on whether this is a good move story/gameplay wise or a ''really'' {{squick}}y deal, since [[spoiler:while the future kids are close to the Avatar's age (in fact, some are implied to be actually ''older'' than some of the potential First-Gen spouses), they are marrying someone who was at least two decades their senior in their original timeline, while their "current day" selves haven't even been born yet (with the exception of Lucina, and she's still only an infant)]].
153	* Happens every so often in ''VideoGame/GardensOfTime'', even when in-story these types of romances are ''not allowed''. There are two huge examples of the trope:
154	** [[spoiler: [[HandsomeLech Richard Wakefield]] found himself in AncientEgypt, right when UsefulNotes/CleopatraVII was about to commit suicide. He felt sympathy for the lonely and desperate Queen, dissuaded her from killing herself and entered a romance with her. Bad thing, Cleopatra had a FaceHeelTurn and became a Time Traveler herself, causing LOTS of messes.]]
155	** [[IronLady Eleanor Lansing Purlieu]] meets [[KnightInShiningArmor Sir Geoffrey]], supposed to be one of Myth/KingArthur's Knights Of The Round Table, and they also become involved. [[spoiler: Then Geoffrey dies in an HeroicSacrifice, Eleanor [[LoveMakesYouCrazy almost loses it]]...]]
156	* ''Shippu VideoGame/MahouDaisakusen'': Kickle & Laycle have this dynamic. In the end, they both go back to the future, to Kickle's time period, and Laycle becomes a part of the family.
157	* ''VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonAndTheUnwoundFuture'': [[spoiler:Claire]] and Layton have this going on. [[spoiler:Claire was thought to have]] died in an accident involving a time travel experiment, but she ended up [[spoiler:being sent ten years into the future instead.]] Unfortunately, as it was still experimental, this results in molecular instability, and they are ultimately forced to go back to their own time... in other words, [[spoiler:back to the time machine explosion that would kill her.]] [[NotSoStoic Even Layton takes off his hat in tears.]]
158	--> '''[[spoiler:Claire (JP)]]:''' It appears my time is up, at last. It was nice to see you again. It ended so suddenly; my... [[TitleDrop last time travel]].
159	* This can happen in ''VideoGame/TheSims3'' if one has the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Into The Future]] Expansion installed. One can travel to the future and end up dating someone who lives there, and eventually even bring them back to the present time. Depending on how one goes about this, the spouse from the future may eventually even return to the future to find [[TimeyWimeyBall their own descendants living alongside their original family]].
160	* Romance isn't quite the main focus in most books of ''VideoGame/DressUpTimePrincess'', but a good many story paths involve forming a close relationship with one or the other of each book's possible love interests all the same. It really hits this trope during the branches of "Queen Marie" that focus on the Marquis de Lafayette - unlike Fersen, whose star-crossed romance with Marie Antoinette was already established before the events of the story, the narration suggests that the player character's feelings for Lafayette are much more her own than Marie's, and Lafayette's "Sail into the Future" ending has Marie assuming the player character's own name for her new life together with him in America.
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162
163	[[folder:Visual Novels]]
164	* Considering that it calls itself "A Time Traveling Otome Game", ''VisualNovel/AreaX'' is obviously this, as the heroine can travel to different timelines and romance a different guy in each one, with the LoveInterest of her time being the only aversion of this trope. [[spoiler:Sort of--further time-traveling shenanigans mean that which romances count as this is a lot more complicated, though Yuras will always count, along with at least one other LoveInterest.]]
165	* ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight''; Saber and Shirou. Saber is [[spoiler:Myth/KingArthur]] and was summoned to the present by the Holy Grail, while Shirou is from the modern era. This eventually leads to a rather BittersweetEnding, until the Realta Nua UpdatedRerelease first made them StarCrossedLovers, then proof that LoveTranscendsSpacetime upon their (impossible) reunion.
166	* ''VisualNovel/IkemenSengoku: [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Romances Across Time]]'' has its main character get unexpectedly sent back in time to the Sengoku era of Japan where she makes the acquaintance of Nobunaga Oda and other famous Sengoku warlords and has to deal with CultureClash and developing feelings for one of these warlords in spite of Sasuke cautioning her against letting love cloud her desire to return to her time. She ''can'' avert this trope, however, by falling for Sasuke instead who came from the same time as her.
167	** Cybird, the company that made the above game, ''loves'' this trope in general. They've also created romance games where the heroine gets sent back in time to Japan's Bakumatsu period (''Destined to Love'') or to 19th-century France (''Ikemen Vampire'').
168	* [[spoiler: Rosemary and Crow's route]] in ''VisualNovel/RoseOfWinter''. Whether or not it works out depends on which ending you get.
169	* In ''VisualNovel/HashihimeOfTheOldBookTown''[[spoiler: Between Minakami and Tamamori. Minakami traveled back in time ten times to save him, while Minakami did it 23 times. And Tamamori's distant future self is also responsible for creating the timeline in which they currently live, where their romance is not doomed in the first place.]]
170	* Between Sigma and Diana in ''VisualNovel/ZeroTimeDilemma'' and the backstory of ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward''. When he first meets her, she's already known him for days. When she first meets him, [[TheLostLenore he hasn't seen her alive for decades]] and built a gynoid[[note]]aka Luna[[/note]] in her image. [[spoiler:Complicating this even further are their [[SuperNaturallyYoungParent 20 year-old daughter]] and ''124 year-old son'' who both don't even get born in the timelines that either ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'' or the GoldenEnding take place in]].
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172
173	[[folder:Webcomics]]
174	* In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', [[spoiler:Dirk Strider and Roxy Lalonde exist years into the future relative to Jake English and Jane Crocker, but are still capable of communicating with them with such ease that the latter two aren't even aware of the time difference. Despite this, Dirk has fallen for Jake, who in turn has shown himself not at all entirely opposed to pursing this. It seems likely that the two would be able to meet up within Sburb, however.]]
175	* Played with in ''Webcomic/ManlyGuysDoingManlyThings'' in the relationship between The Commander and Jonesy, who simply thinks he is a particularly creative liar or delusional, but is subsequently proved wrong about this.
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177
178	[[folder:Western Animation]]
179	* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/OneHundredAndOneDalmatiansTheSeries'' features the main cast (and [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg Cruella]]) arriving in a time and space-transcending village cursed by a witch as a response to Cruella's ancestor's harshness. The witch's spell reduces all [[ItMakesSenseInContext but Cruella and Spot]] to become mindlessly happy and never want to leave. During their stay, Lucky meets up with a carriage pup named Rebecca and becomes smitten with her, seemingly because of the spell. When the spell is broken and the main cast are making their escape before the village disappears, Lucky shows legitimate feelings for Rebecca when he asks her to come with them. It's shown to be quite mutual, but Rebecca chooses to remain to keep an eye on Cruella's ancestor. And because it wasn't enough of a BittersweetEnding, LaserGuidedAmnesia kicks in, leaving Lucky completely unaware of her existence not long afterwards.
180	* ''WesternAnimation/DinosaurTrain'' has an [[ExaggeratedTrope extreme example]]; The Conductor -- a Troodon, one of the ''last'' dinosaurs, is in a relationship with Erma -- an Eoraptor, one of the ''first'' dinosaurs. They live nearly 200 million years apart -- [[TimeAbyss the same time difference as it would be if, say, a Stegosaurus started dating a HUMAN]] -- but it's very clear that they love each other.
181	* Time travel plays a role in Fry and Leela's WillTheyOrWontThey relationship in ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}''. Fry is also [[spoiler:his own grandfather by having slept with his grandmother in a trip to 1947 Roswell]].
182	* In ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueUnlimited'', Supergirl falls in love with Brainiac 5 of the ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes when they go into the future, and she stays there to be with him when the rest of the heroes go back.
183	* Happens in season 5 of ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'' with Jack, who is from the past, and Ashi, from the future. [[spoiler: Ashi takes Jack back in time to kill Past Aku, thus ensuring that he won't take over the world in the future. Unfortunately, because Ashi is Aku's (future) daughter, she is [[RetGone erased from existence]] at hers and Jack's wedding.]]
184	* ''WesternAnimation/SheRaPrincessOfPower'' episode "Darksmoke and Fire" had Adora sent over a hundred years into Eternia's past by a plot of Hordak's. While there, she meets Tarvan, who grows to adore her. She has to leave him behind when Granamyr returns her to the future.
185	[[/folder]]

Context Main / TimeTravelRomance