FanPreferredCouple Cleanup

I dunno if the usage has changed elsewhere, but platonic love is defined on Wikipedia as love that isn't sexual, not "friends that are of different genders."

I think most people use it to mean love between friends or family? Since romantic love isn't platonic, but it also isn't necessarily sexual.

Yeah. I think they mean just friends here.

Anyways. Any opinions on the comic examples on the pervious page?

I would recommend changing it to "friends" then.

I mean there's romance in movies or shows where the characters don't have sex, so totally makes sense. I mean a trope like Like Brother and Sister clearly is of the platonic nature bordering on familial.

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Oct 11th 2021 at 9:56:57 AM

So I on the OUAT tree I thought Swan Queen could use a rewrite. So I changed it from:

• Despite multiple writers, including the creators, constantly stating that it's not the direction they're taking the show and never was, the Foe Yay-turned-friends pairing of Swan Queen (Regina/Emma), is a popular fan couple, so much so that Swan Queen has made it into the Final Four in every Zimbio poll since 2014, beating out canon pairings Captain Swan, Snowing, and Rumbelle each time. Unfortunately, and possibly because of above Word of God, there's a good number of Die for Our Ship folks amongst the shippers.

To this:

• Despite the creators constantly stating that it's not the direction they're taking the show and never was, the Foe Yay-turned-friends pairing of Swan Queen (Regina/Emma), is a popular fan couple, so much so that Swan Queen made it into the Final Four in every Zimbio poll since 2014, beating out canon pairings Captain Swan, Snowing, and Rumbelle each time, and still dominates fanfiction for the show years after the show ended. On Archive of Our Own and Fanfiction Dot Net, it tops both of their canon pairings, Emma/Hook and Regina/Robin Hood, as well as all other ships from the show on either site with over 13,000 (AO3) and 15,000 (FF.net). (Making it the second most popular femslash ship on AO3.) Unfortunately, and possibly because of the above Word of God, there's a good number of Die for Our Ship folks amongst the shippers.

I feel like it give a better picture of the popularity. Any thoughts?

Good expansion as I said before.

I'm going to try to make an effort to consolidate Fan-Preferred Couple examples for the Marvel Cinematic Universe onto the main MCU page, as there is inconsistency between properties at the moment. The universe has many characters, and there have been people shipping any character with any other character. Since the MCU launched in 2008, there's also been a lot of time for preferences to change. How do we deal with ships that used to be fan preferred couples, but have waned in popularity?

What do I do about fan preferred couples that are also Ships That Pass in the Night? There are a few ships that are quite popular despite the fact that the characters involved haven't met. Bucky Barnes/Darcy Lewis being a big one.

Edited by VerySunshine on Oct 14th 2021 at 7:16:45 AM

Darcy can't have one. She has one love interest who isn't even referenced the next time she appears at least in my opinion. Little hard to call that creator preferred but other wise characters who have never met but are still more popular than the canon one are fine to list. Any ship that is: A) non canon. B) Has canon competition. And C) Is more popular then said competition is fine to list.

Also here is what I do with the MCU the films I go by general most popular. Like say if Doctor Strange had a serious love interest, him/Tony would be listed. The main exception is Steve where both him/Bucky and him/Steve is listed because it's also Tony's most popular.

Now when we count tv show. I treat each as it's own thing. It would be unfair to discount Coulson/May and Peggy/Angie because of the fact that the movies are better known.

Edited by Bullman on Oct 14th 2021 at 9:27:32 AM

The MCU has a page right here: Marvel Cinematic Universe. I've fleshed it out in places, and tried to remove examples that didn't fit the current criteria, but it seems pretty decently consistent across the franchise as is.

Anyway Bucky/Darcy, as popular as it is for Ships That Pass in the Night, would not count for this trope. Partly because it's not even among the top 10 pairings for the character, partly because it's still somewhat dubious whether either character truly has a canon pairing to speak of for the FPC to be preferred over. Bucky gets some mild token Ship Tease with a handful of women, most of all Sarah Wilson, but that's about it, and Darcy has that minor boyfriend who is never referenced again.

Edited by AlleyOop on Oct 14th 2021 at 10:34:26 AM

Yeah Bucky also doesn't have a love interest and even then him/Darcy is not the most popular for either.

Speaking of which what is Darcy's most popular ship?

Yeah, from what I know, Bull's judgment is probably fitting. Heck, I remember thinking Bucky would be paired with Shuri.

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Oct 14th 2021 at 7:41:55 AM

So everyone cool with my rewrite above? I do wonder if this is needed:

"Unfortunately, and possibly because of the above Word of God, there's a good number of Die for Our Ship folks amongst the shippers."

I mean this does do a lot of that, but so does any ship listed here. It comes with being a popular non canon ship.

Edited by Bullman on Oct 14th 2021 at 9:43:39 AM

Probably not, if there's anything worth saying about the Die for Our Ship reaction in the first place then it's better off spun into its own entry.

Edited by AlleyOop on Oct 14th 2021 at 11:34:33 AM

So here it is without it:

• Despite the creators constantly stating that it's not the direction they're taking the show and never was, the Foe Yay-turned-friends pairing of Swan Queen (Regina/Emma), is a popular fan couple, so much so that Swan Queen made it into the Final Four in every Zimbio poll since 2014, beating out canon pairings Captain Swan, Snowing, and Rumbelle each time, and still dominates fanfiction for the show years after the show ended. On Archive of Our Own and Fanfiction Dot Net, it tops both of their canon pairings, Emma/Hook and Regina/Robin Hood, as well as all other ships from the show on either site with over 13,000 (AO3) and 15,000 (FF.net). (Making it the second most popular femslash ship on AO3.)

Yeah sure. The Die for Our Ship entry can probably exist on its own without the blurb in the FPC entry.

I already separated entries about the Die for Our Ship stuff and removed it from the entry. Really it's just the classic case of shippers attacking the canon romances and is not relevant to the entry for this trope.

Edited by Bullman on Oct 15th 2021 at 11:09:43 AM

Also while I am on an OUAT kick here's this from Once Upon a Time in Wonderland:

• Fan-Preferred Couple: Even though Alice and the Knave are meant to be Platonic Life-Partners, there is still a sizable "Knalice" community nonetheless.

By all accounts this is false. The most popular ship for each is the Canon Ones, Alice/Cyrus and Knave/Red Queen. Particularly the later.

So this is a cut. Thoughts?

Sounds a straightforward cut to me. Go ahead!

Okay done.

Your judgment is probably correct Bull.

Hi, there’s an example I want to bring up. It’s from the Dragon Prince, and concerns the main couple of Callum and Rayla. Having been a fan since the first season, I actually think it fits even though it’s the official couple.

Basically, what happened was that the creators didn’t start out with Rayllum as the end goal relationship. The fans were shipping it long before the creators began shop teasing them. However, the chemistry between the two was so good the creators did ultimately change their plan and so Rayllum became canon.

So it’s an odd case but I’d say it fits since it was fan-preferred even before the creators decided to make it canon.

Did either have a love interest before hand? If so yeah. Just so long as it wasn't the OG goal and had canon competition before hand. It would be fine as long as you make it clear that it's canon now. But it needs a canon love interest before hand to count. Because this trope is for a non canon one being more popular than the canon one. And I mean more than just Ship Tease, like an Official Couple.

Edited by Bullman on Oct 17th 2021 at 12:03:00 PM

Yes, Callum’s initial love interest was Claudia. I’ll rework the current entry to reflect this.

I don't know Dragon Prince, so I can't comment.