Pair the Suitors

They've both picked scissors.
Original by Komik Grontol.

In which a Love Triangle results in the two suitors, who had previously been competing over the same person, developing romantic feelings for each other instead. Might happen in a Harem Genre romance, if two of the leftover suitors end up together.

At least one character in the love triangle needs to be gay or bisexual for this to work. For that reason, it's most commonly seen in works with lots of LGBT characters, such as Fanfiction, New Media, and the yaoi/yuri genre.

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Examples:

Advertising

• In Long Long Man, Chi, who is dating Tooru, spends most of the series dealing with her conflicting feelings for Long, who seems to be interested in her. You probably figured this out just by what page you're on, but the twist in the final commercial is that Long only ever had eyes for Tooru.

Anime and Manga

• In Cardcaptor Sakura, one of the initial sources of Syaoran's rivalry toward Sakura is that they both have crushes on Yukito. Once Syaoran realizes that he's more attracted to Yukito's moon-based magic than Yukito himself, he starts crushing on Sakura instead, and they end the series as the Official Couple.
• In I'm In Love With the Villainess, when Rei is reincarnated as the protagonist of her favorite otome game, she rejects pursuing the game's intended male love interests in favor of Claire who's supposed to be the "rival" character competing with her for the males' affections.
• The Twist Ending of an arc of School Mermaid. Two girls go into the school at the same time to try to use the mermaid flesh to make the same boy fall for them. When dawn falls the only mermaid they killed has the wrong name, forcing both of them to cast the spell on each other instead. They instantly transform from hated enemies into a lovey-dovey couple.
• Implied in My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, as I Expected, in which both Yui Yuigahama and Yukino Yukinoshita are (secretly) in love with Hachiman Hikigaya, but the former has a close friendship with Yukino... too close for many of their close ones, at the point Hachiman once mistook (with a purpose) her last name for "Yurigahama." Subverted when Hachiman and Yukino become a couple.
• We're Supporting Actors: Himeyumi sees the princely Oujiyama and later bad boy Wakikawa as potential boyfriends and future husbands which she believes are fighting each other for her love. In actuality, the two couldn't care less about her in that regard since they are gay and in a relationship this whole time as Himeyumi had first found out the hard way when she caught the two doing the nasty.
• In ×××HOLiC, Doumeki and Kohane are two of the many people interested in Watanuki. They're shown to be married after a Time Skip, although it's implied that they got together not out of love but to have children who could continue Doumeki's family legacy and protect the now-immortal Watanuki.

Fan Works

• Light and Dark The Adventures of Dark Yagami: Desk Lady and the girl from the bus are both interested in Dark but then have sex with each other. Subverted when the girl from the bus ends up with Dark in the end.
• Inverted in My Immortal: Vampire and Draco used to be a couple, but broke up and are now both in love with Ebony.
• In the Harry Potter fanfic The Red Knight, it's revealed that Violet Potter (fem!Harry) used to date Ron, who also had an affair with Hermione. After he betrayed them, leading to their deaths, they went back in time and became a lesbian couple.
• Marigami Stories: If the title didn't give it away, the fic is about Marinette and Kagami as a couple. In the canon show, both were competing for Adrien's affection. In fact, Kagami at one point calls Adrien a fool for not recognizing and reciprocating Marinette's affections.
• Several Spy X Family fan comics tease Yuri and Fiona hooking up.
  • In this fan dubbed comic, originally by sagagumi (at the 0:00-2:26 mark) Yuri is babysitting Anya, and they run into Fiona. Fiona has the idea to Honey Trap Yuri and get Loid's approval, but in the they end up sympathizing with each other over how they can't have the person they're in love with and decide to spend Christmas together, though Anya fears they'll wander into the Forgers' Christmas party.
  • In this fandubbed comic, originally by Boz Kun, during Yor's birthday party, Fiona and Yuri watch jealously as Loid lovingly puts a necklace on Yor. When they yell at Yor and Loid to "just get a divorce already!" they think that the other insulted their beloved by calling them a bad spouse, but Yuri and Fiona clarify that they believe Yor and Loid don't belong together, and decide to make an alliance. After spending a passionate night together they ask "what now?"

Film

• The premise of Plan B: Bruno plans to steal back his ex-girlfriend Laura by seducing her bisexual new boyfriend Pablo. He intends for his seduction to be faked, but it doesn't end that way.
• When in Rome: Beth ends up with an Unwanted Harem as a result of a love spell gone wrong. After the spell is broken, two of her suitors are last seen flirting during Beth's wedding.

Literature

• At the start of Carry On, Simon is dating Agatha and has a passionate hatred of his roommate/nemesis Baz who has his eye on Agatha too. However, it turns out that Simon's passionate hatred of Baz is actually passionate Belligerent Sexual Tension and Baz has really been in love with Simon all along and only pretended to be interested in Agatha to push Simon's buttons. By the time the novel starts, Agatha is fed up with magical adventures and is glad to put distance between herself and them, leaving them to fall for each other.
• Exaggerated in Iron Widow. The love triangle between Zetian, Shimin, and Yizhi is resolved when all three of them enter a loving, happy polyamorous relationship together.
• In The Love Interest, Caden and Dylan are two teens groomed from birth by a secret organization to become the perfect love interest for a girl destined to become famous someday. They're expected to compete for the girl's affections in a classic "Nice Guy vs. Bad Boy" battle with the loser being killed off, but they fall in love with each other instead and choose to defy the organization so that they can be together.
• At the beginning of Anthony Horowitz's James Bond novel, Trigger Mortis, Bond finds himself in a relationship with Pussy Galore when he is introduced to Logan Fairfax, who is to teach him the finer points of automobile racing in preparation for his next assignment. He ends up with neither woman, who instead pair up and leave for America together at the end of the first act. Somewhat of a downplayed example; it's clear James' and Pussy's relationship has nearly run its course, and while there is certainly some mutual attraction between Logan and James, she is extremely hesitant to pursue a relationship with him. Consequently, the degree to which either woman could really be considered James Bond's "suitor" is up for debate.

Live Action TV

• Hannibal has a double version— in season two, Hannibal and Alana Bloom are a couple. Will has some mutual interest with Alana, but has sex with Margot. Both couples split up, and in season three, Alana and Margot become a couple, while Will and Hannibal have a romance. Slightly subverted, in that it's strongly implied Hannibal always liked Will, and only had sex with Alana to make Will jealous.

Puppet Shows

• Spoofed in the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre's "Period Drama" sketch. Two Regency rakes fight over the same woman until she dies in a tragic accident. One of them notes that as Regency rakes they're obligated to seduce somebody, and since there are no other characters in the sketch, they start making out with each other.

Theater

• The Merry Wives of Windsor ends with (among other things) Miss Anne Page giving her two parentally-approved but comically inept suitors the slip and running away with a much more charming (and younger) man. The 21st-century remake The Very Merry Wives of Windsor, Iowa, set just after Iowa's legalization of gay marriage, has young Miss Anne Page coming out as straight and marrying a young man...leaving behind her two (still older, and not quite as inept) lesbian suitors, who seem quite happy with each other.

Video Games

• Plumbers Don't Wear Ties, a Dating Sim game: if you pick the Gay Option your character can end up with his romantic rival.

Webcomics

• Gay love triangle version in Boy Meets Boy: Skids loves Mikhael, Tybalt tries to seduce Mikhael, and eventually Skids and Tybalt end up together.
• Attempted in Friendly Hostility: After his much-older girlfriend dumps him, Paolo hits on her ex-husband, Leslie, but Leslie turns him down, saying Paolo is just confused about what he wants.
• Homestuck has Dave and Karkat both competing for the attention of Terezi, with the subtext between them mostly Played for Laughs. After John's Cosmic Retcon, however, neither seem particularly interested in getting with Terezi and instead spend most of the story's later arcs growing closer to each other. By the end, they are very heavily implied to have become an item.
• Ménage à 3:
  • While "romantic" is a bit of a stretch, after Yuki and Sonya's disastrous competition for Gary's affection and after they also served as rivals for Zii, the two of them realize that they have more fun with their rivalry and have a long period where they just keep egging each other on for hate-sex.
  • Also used as a quick gag later on. Two opposite-sex coworkers compete over who can take Peggy to bed, which ends when Peggy declares that she wants a threesome. Unfortunately, the second they get into bed the coworkers realize that they loved each other all along and promptly forget about the frustrated Peggy.
• Questionable Content: Elliot and Clinton first meet each other as rivals for Brun's affection. While Elliot becomes aware of his attraction to Clinton early on, he doesn't reveal his feelings until Brun turns them both down. Clinton eventually decides he reciprocates, and they end up together.
• In Korean yuri webcomic Wish You Were Gone, the protagonist Guk-Hwa finds out her boyfriend is cheating on her, and dumps him, only to end up in a romance with the other woman.

Western Animation

• The first season of The Legend of Korra features a love triangle between Korra, Asami, and their mutual love interest Mako. Both girls date, and later break up with him at different points in the show. The series finale ends with Korra and Asami becoming a couple.

Real Life

• Scientists found a rare left-coiling snail they named Jeremy. Because its shell coiled counterclockwise, the opposite direction of typical snails, its sex organs could not align with others. Two other left-coiling snails were found but they proceeded to mate with each other instead of Jeremy.
• Somewhat blurring the lines between this and Live-Action TV, two contestants from the Australian version of The Bachelor fell in love.

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