You’re grumpy. It’s adorable.
Tracy loves when ladies kiss against a wall.
Me? I love the paradigm of a relationship where one person is sunshine and kindness, and the other just wants you all to die. Not to say I don’t adore a cute sunshine couple (like Willow and Tara) from time to time, but when I get to brass tacks, I want to see one person who hates everyone and one person whom everyone loves.
That’s right, I’m Team Grumpy/Cheerful.
My one rule here is that they had to be real couples. Sorry, Jane Rizzoli, you’re out.
7. Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune – Sailor Moon
This one only works if you know that they’re a legit couple in the real versions. Sailor Neptune, the girly one, is our anti-hero who is nearly always cold and angry. Sailor Uranus, the one in the suits, is the nice one. Which I personally appreciate as a plot-twist.
I remember being very confused that they were cousins in the dubbed versions in the US.
6. Ruby and Sapphire – Steven Universe
Tracy would probably hurt me if I left them out. Ruby is a grumpy guardian. Sapphire is royalty. They’re fire and ice, red and blue, and brains and heart. Together they live as Garnet because they can’t be apart. Thanks to Tracy, I own the book of them falling in love and being together, and I have to tell you, it’s beautiful.
I think I may actually like them separate more than I like them together.
5. Paige and Alex – Degrassi: The Next Generation
Their relationship may have ended terribly, but Canada’s greatest bisexual over-achiever, Paige Michalchuk, was always inexplicably cheerful. Even when she was failing out of college. By contrast, Alex Nuñez had a rough life on the wrong side of the tracks and was pretty much angry all the time.
They were so cute in high school, weren’t they? In the end, they grew in different ways and made up as friends.
4. Carmilla and Laura – Carmilla
Who doesn’t love a good, sulky, vampire? Carmilla is a hundreds year old vampire, Laura is a human creampuff who knows Krav Maga. Carmilla has questionable sanitary habits (which makes sense – she can’t die), and Laura is totally type A/OCD. But fate threw them together in Styria, and they somehow manage to survive everything to be together.
I’m hoping we get a second movie.
3. Xena and Gabrielle – Xena
I will fight you that they’re a real couple. Xena was hamstrung by the times. Everyone, including the actors, claim that they were married, so everyone needs to just give up that one. Now, Xena is a reformed warlord whom no one trusts and really doesn’t like people at all, even though she’s trying to do good. Gabrielle is the Battling Bard of Potedia, a bright and sunshine darling whom everyone loves.
And my babies kiss a lot more than I remember.
2. Root and Shaw – Person of Interest
This may be a little stretch but Shaw’s Axis II personality disorder makes her mostly annoyed by people all the time. And she makes it perfectly clear she only hangs around with Team Machine for the dog. Until Root shows up. And Root is a cheery mayhem murderer who is basically Puck. She loves to antagonize Shaw, and once Root’s reformed a little, everyone likes her. They may not trust her, but they like her.
While the murder couple may have only gotten together on screen in Samaritan’s smut fic version of their lives, the fact that they also flirted like mad in the Machine’s version of the universe told us all the truth.
1. Gail and Holly – Rookie Blue
I knew when I started this, that my OTP had to be here. I am still salty about how this ended. We have Gail, a police officer known as the Ice Queen who has friends, but it’s pretty tenuous and she doesn’t seem to like them very much. And we have Holly, the medical examiner who is a nice and happy person. Together they filled multiple tropes: cop & doc, blonde & brunette, grumpy & happy, enemies to friends. All they missed was tall & small.
I will miss Officer Lunchbox forever.
That’s my list. What are your favorite grumpy/cheerful pairings?
