FanPreferredCouple Cleanup

From Downton Abbey:

• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • Mr Carson and Mrs Hughes, who according to Word of God initially had no romantic interest in each other but were shipped voraciously by a significant segment of the fandom anyway. Jim Carter (Carson) has made no secret that he is a Shipper on Deck while Phyllis Logan (Hughes) is more undecided. Upgraded to canon as of the Series 5 Christmas Special.Did they have canon ones before hand?
  • Isobel Crawley/Dr Clarkson was this for quite a long time. Upgrading it to canonical was set into motion during the 2012 Christmas special.Same as the above.
  • There is a large (and still growing) portion of the fandom that ships Mr. Molesly/Miss Baxter - even Thomas, of all people, is a Shipper on Deck for the couple (albeit in his own way).'''I am reasonably sure this is legit ship tease and as far as I can tell they don't have love interests.
  • Oddly enough, following Matthew's death, Evelyn Napier seems to be a favorite (though highly unlikely) choice for Mary instead of either of the two new suitors introduced. Seems fine but her most popular seems to be Matthew.
  • Atticus and Rose are much more preferred by fans then any of Rose's other pairings. Thank God they're canon. And what a lovely wedding! It's canon. Well then that's a cut.
  • In the sixth and final season, Tom and Mary suddenly took off as a wildly popular pairing. By this point the two of them could easily be described as best friends, and given their shared history, joint partnership in running the estate, mirrored roles as single parents, and obvious affection for each other, many thought it was a logical outcome to their character arcs. At the time the show was pushing for Mary/Henry Talbot, but it contrasted badly to scenes of Mary and Tom communicating without words, spending nearly every waking moment together, and the odd sense that all of Tom's speeches about how Mary should hook up with Talbot were actually about him. Again her and Matthew seems more popular.

Anyone more familiar with this show want to comment?

Also from Live-Action TV:

• Stranger Things:
  • Hopper and Joyce is treated as the One True Pairing, both in and out of universe as they clearly have some Unresolved Sexual Tension going back to their high school days and Hopper and Joyce still get together to smoke in the first two seasons. There's also the fact Hopper is the Papa Wolf and Joyce the Mama Bear for the main kids and generally are much more competent at partnering than every other adult, and many characters even comment on their chemistry, if not mistake them for a couple. Bob, Joyce's boyfriend in Season 2, was Doomed by Canon for getting in the way of the pairing. In Season 3, they were about to go on a date, only for it to get dashed by Hopper performing a Heroic Sacrifice to lock the gate, but the Season 4 trailer confirms that he survived. This seems creator preferred.
  • Zigzagged with Nancy, Steve and Jonathan. Throughout the first season, fans were inclined to prefer Nancy with Jonathan rather than her jerky boyfriend Steve and were upset that Nancy stayed with Steve in the season finale. Then in the second season, Nancy's relationship with Steve disintegrates and she finally hooks up with Jonathan. Steve, having gotten some Character Development and taking more than a few levels in kindness, treats it as I Want My Beloved To Happy, which ironically caused a group of fans to believe Nancy should've given Steve a second chance and Steve befriending and helping the kids well helped matters. This just like ship to ship combat. Plus Steve seems to be shipped more with Billy.
  • A number of fans find Mike and his Puppy Love obsession with Eleven more than a little annoying and actually wish Eleven could be paired with one of the other kids like Lucas (who gives her the Bridal Carry) or Max since it's shown they were getting close in Season 3. Eleven also has moments with Eight/Kali, her Foil and Evil Counterpart. Eleven/Mike seems more popular.
  • There are those in support of Madwheeler (Mike/Max) ending up together because of their fighting about El strongly coming off as Belligerent Sexual Tension.See the above.
  • Steve/Robin supporters, even with the reveal that the latter is gay, hope that it will then be revealed that she is actually bisexual so they can still be together after all.This doesn't mention a creator preferred couple and him/Billy seems more popular while Robin's is with a Heather?

My suggestion is to cut this and maybe make an entry for Steve/Billy even if I don't like that ship. Thoughts?

Also these from Literature:

• Septimus Heap: Septimus/Jenna and Marcia/Silas, in spite of the fact that Septimus and Jenna are siblings and that Silas is married and has seven kids.Does the former have canon competition?
• Skulduggery and Valkyrie from Skulduggery Pleasant is popular but also rather polarizing due to Valkyrie being underage and some other... obvious limitations.Does this have canon competition?
  • As of The Dying of the Light Valkryie outright states she loves him, causing Valduggery shippers everywhere to go completely nuts. However, it’s not overly clear if she meant it in a romantic way or platonic way. Either way, she’s eighteen at the time, so it removes the issue of her being underaged. This is not helping it's case.

Edited by Bullman on Nov 20th 2021 at 10:22:32 AM

I don't know any of those shows... They're kinda ZCE for lacking the "canon couple" part. Doing TRS cleanup, I usually consider ZCE misuse.

@Bull Can't really comment on Septimus or Downton Abbey, but with a quick glance at the latter's notes, you're probably right.

@Bull again As the one who did the Madwheeler and Stobin entries for Stranger Things, even I gotta admit you're right about all those though.

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Nov 20th 2021 at 10:07:43 AM

For the Downton Abbey examples:

• cut, neither Carson nor mrs Hughes had a canon pairing before they got together.
• keep, Isobel had some ship tease with dr Clarkson, but ends up with Lord Merton instead
• cut, neither of them have canon love interests
• cut, less popular then both Mary's canon ships and Mary/Tom
• cut, it's canon
• not sure. Her most popular ship is with Matthew, which is canon, but he dies halfway through the series after which Mary gets a bunch of new love interests and eventually ends up with Henry Talbot. Mary/Henry is the second most popular Mary ship on ao3, but he was very unpopular in the fandom and it seems that most fics with that pairing just have them as a background relationship while the fic is about something else. The next most popular pairing is with Tom, which seems to be more popular in the fandom, but like I said it has less fics, so it would be pretty hard to prove.

The final one might be fine if the other is indeed hated by the fandom, but why was Matthew killed off was it because the creators didn't like him or the actor wanted to do other things. I ask because this is on the Live-Action TV page:

• Despite Matthew dying at the end of the 2012 Christmas special, Mary/Matthew remains much more popular than the other possible Mary ships that the writers have tried to introduce.

I get the feeling this is a misuse.

Edited by Bullman on Nov 21st 2021 at 9:55:50 AM

iirc, Matthew was killed because his actor wanted to leave the show, so that's probably misuse yeah

Yeah, it sounds like it's reaching.

Okay most of the misuse are cut. I didn't know what to do with Tom/Mary, so I decided to leave it for now until I can find some more information.

Edited by Bullman on Nov 21st 2021 at 10:40:00 AM

I plan to write Steve and Billy later today. future you know this show better then me any chance you can do it before me along with the How To Rock example.

As a side note I removed this from Life Is Strange

• Fan-Preferred Couple: Max and Chloe ("Pricefield") by an overwhelming majority despite Max's status as a Launcher of a Thousand Ships.

This is just plain canon.

And this from Life Is Strange 2:

• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • Sean and Lyla have gotten some traction due to their close relationship despite, or perhaps because of, the lack of romantic undertones and if Sean decides to call Lyla before he throws away his phone, they both are practically on the verge of crying. Episode 5 has Lyla and Sean giving each other a long and very emotional hug along with hand holding should Sean and Daniel surrender at the border and Sean made an effort to contact Lyla on Episode 1 and 2, pushing this even further.
  • For the same-sex shipping, there's Sean and Jacob since after learning about the latter's experience with conversion therapy and having a lot in common, a lot of fans like to have them as exploring their attraction to their own sex not to mention that a lot of fans see Jacob as a healthy alternative to Finn for those who don't like him.

Both canon options seems far more popular, though I would be willing to readd it if someone can provide a place where they are bigger as I couldn't find one.

From Live-Action TV:

• Jeff and Annie from Community evoked this reaction. The various Season 1 DVD commentaries indicate that the pairing was a natural evolution of the characters and actors chemistry and also a reaction to the growing popularity of the pairing among the shippers. In the 2011 E!Online poll they were named the 2011 TV's Top Couple narrowly beating out the more well known TV pair of House and Cuddy from the Fox series "House". Do they have a creator preferred one.
  • Before they became an official couple in Season 4, The Troy and Britta pairing fit this trope as well mostly as a result of being Ship Mates with Jeff & Annie. Troy/Abed seems more popular and this is canon.
  • Abed and Annie have a small but vocal fandom. It helps that the character's actors Alison Brie and Danny Pudi are real life best friends and have a good rapport. However, Brie has gone on record as not fully supporting the ship herself.Same as the above but remove the canon part.

Thoughts? Maybe add Troy/Abed?

Yeah Max and Chloe strike me as One True Pairing material more than anything.

Yeah I would have moved it there if the entry wasn't zero context. I will have to do one from scratch and that will take me a bit.

Edited by Bullman on Nov 21st 2021 at 1:16:50 PM

Jeff/Anne might count.

Well I've heard that Jeff/Britta was meant initially to be the official couple and that the early episode where Jeff and Annie are suddenly attracted was meant to be a one-off joke but they eventually decided to play it upwhen it gained popularity.

Yeah that might be enough to keep it, if the other was originally meant to be the canon one. What to do about the others, though?

x6 Both Max x Warren and Max x Chloe are technically equally canon (because of player choice) but the fandom clearly prefers Chloe over Warren. The thing is, so does the game. Chloe gets way more screen time and devolvement, and her relationship with Max is given much more narrative importance than Max's with Warren, even if the player romances Warren and not Chloe. Do we have a trope for something like this, a game with multiple optional love interests but the narrative clearly preferring one of them?

Yep. For games like that I don't list characters you can romance. Especially for Life is Strange when it clearly favors one and it's the same one the fandom loves.

For instance if we were to add one from Cyberpunk 2077, we couldn't list any of the actual love options. Luckily in the case of that game the most popular is V with Johnny, who you can't romance.

Edited by Bullman on Nov 21st 2021 at 6:55:19 AM

Developers' Desired Date.

Yeah, from what I know, Jeff/Annie makes perfect sense.

future are going to expand the How to Rock example soon?

Yeah I am. Sorry for the delay.

From The Man from U.N.C.L.E.:

• Fan-Preferred Couple: Napoleon Solo/Illya Kuryakin, naturally.

Now I feel like this could be like this could be like Kirk/Spock Napoleon is a notorious ladies man and similar to Kirk they really want you to root for them. Now that is about as far as this show with this premise can do for canon. Plus this show had just as musch influence on shipping as Kirk/Spock while actually coming before. If we do keep it we need to rewrite it.

It's definitely a valid historic example (Ilya was also one of the earlier examples of a guy with a large Estrogen Brigade, makes sense that it'd also pull in a lot of Yaoi Fangirls) but it needs more info to not be ZCR.

Edited by AlleyOop on Nov 22nd 2021 at 2:46:21 PM

Oh I can rewrite it easily just give a bit.