History StrangledByTheRedString / WesternAnimation

* In Season 2 of ''WesternAnimation/{{Stoked}}'', the first episode involved Reef and Lo pretending to be in a relationship as a subplot in an episode, including pretending to make out. At the end of the episode, the two decided that they enjoyed making out and made out for real, leading to the two of them sucking face uncontrollably in every episode their romance is involved in, {{derailing|LoveInterests}} the previously sweet Lo into a SpoiledBrat {{Tsundere}} and the previously chauvinistic Reef into someone who spends hours thinking up lyrics to love songs and poems. The vast majority of fans, unsurprisingly, hated the coupling, especially since the writers had spent most of Season 1 teasing and building up to [[FanPreferredCouple Reef/Fin]], only to strangle Reef and Lo with the red string in the very first episode of Season 2.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'': Hunter's crush on Willow comes out of nowhere, he does nothing but blush around her and it's never really said why he likes her in the first place whereas Willow shows no real sign of reciprocating his feelings or if she even really notices.

* From ''WesternAnimation/AllHailKingJulien'' [[EvilUncle Uncle King Julien]] suddenly falling in love with [[{{Gonk}} Zora]] in "King Julien is Watching You." There's absolutely no foreshadowing for any of this, he just sees her, and suddenly gives up his evil desire to regain his kingdom to be with her. Keep in mind this was a guy who has tried to kill his titular nephew many times and two seasons earlier attempted '''to blow up Madagascar with a missile''' since he couldn't get his kingdom back; it just seems like a massive AssPull by the writers to kill two birds with one stone (removing Uncle Julien as an antagonist and making Mort single again) [[note]] Mort had married Zora following the previous [[NewSeasonNewName "Exiled" season]] after charming her as part of his plan to help Julien defeat [[ArcVillain Koto]].[[/note]] before the GrandFinale.

* ''WesternAnimation/CapitolCritters'': Max has only known Miko for a day and suddenly calls her his world and wanting to go to Tokyo with her. However, Jammet, Trixie and even Miko herself tell him that they barely know each other and Trixie tells Max the real reason he wants to leave with them is so he can feel like part of a family again.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Dinosaucers}}'': It's never said why exactly Teryx has feelings for Ichy, as you could have made any of the other Dinosaucers the target of her affections and it wouldn't have changed anything. In the episode where the couple were to become official, Ichy was barely in it, Teryx didn't really come out and tell him how she felt, he didn't seem all that interested in her and their relationship was barely ever brought up again. Her past relationship with Genghis Rex was brought up more often than her current one.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Disenchantment}}'': Some fans felt this way about the romance between Bean and Mora. The consensus among them was that while the whole thing may or may not have been Bean's dream, the two characters didn’t get enough interaction with each other to warrant Bean developing such strong romantic feelings for Mora. Possibly justified as Bean is a teenager, and teens are well-known for mistaking crushes for love. It was also the first time Bean opened up and allowed herself to experience romantic attraction, and TheFirstCutIsTheDeepest. The handling of the relationship in Part 5 certainly didn't help alleviate fan concerns, showing that the two of them don't understand each other or their interests very well, Bean becoming completely unresponsive and uncaring of her friends following Mora's death, and then leaving Dreamland without saying goodbye to Elfo in the finale so she could be with Mora. It says a lot that some fans wished that Mora had stayed dead after Bean killed her instead of being resuscitated!

* ''WesternAnimation/FantasticFourTheAnimatedSeries'': Johnny Storm meets ComicBook/{{the Inhuman|s}} Medusa, drools over her for two and a half episodes, finds out she's married and winds up drooling over her cousin, Crystal, for half of ''one.'' In the end, the Inhumans' city is sealed off from the rest of the world. Suddenly, Crystal, whom he's known all of a few hours, was the love of his life, and he spends every episode after this -- ''literally every episode'' -- [[{{Wangst}} pining for her]]. (He does get her back in the end, though.) The writing team seemingly realized how bad the whole deal was and spoofed it ''hilariously'' in a later episode where Crystal sends out her BigFriendlyDog Lockjaw to try bringing Johnny to a place where they can be reunited. [[RunningGag They spend the whole episode going through several dimensions... and never find that spot]].

* ''WesternAnimation/GlitchTechs'': In "BUDS" it's revealed that Zahra has an insecure crush on Five. It comes out-of-nowhere and it's never addressed again unless you count the clip show episode "Find the Glitch" as in no other episode is her crush on Five shown or addressed, returning to her friendly but sassy personality.

* ''WesternAnimation/InsideJob2021'': Reagan in Part 2 with Ron. Goes from SlapSlapKiss in Episode 1, to SheIsNotMyGirlfriend in Episode 2, to ''desperately'' trying to get a RelationshipUpgrade in Episode 4, to [[CharacterDerailment considering throwing away her entire career, friendship with her crew ''and'' the promise of uncovering the Robes' secrets]] to go run away with Ron in Episode 8. Part 2 is effectively a RomanceArc with the usual shadow government antics as the B Plot, but with so many cut corners for Reagan it's distracting.

** Seasons 2 and 3 were severe cases of "We need some {{Romantic False Lead}}s, right here and now" without taking time to develop the reasons why our two main characters would be attracted to them. Adrien was interested in Kagami right in her introduction episode, but not only is it heavily implied that his attraction to her has more to do with her resemblance to Ladybug[[labelnote:note]]Like Marinette/Ladybug, Kagami is East Asian (Kagami is Japanese while Marinette/Ladybug is of Chinese descent) with black hair stylized as blue, and she is introduced wearing a red fencing suit (opposed to all the other fencers wearing white suits) calling Ladybug's red suit to mind, and she is also confident and a capable fighter like Ladybug[[/labelnote]], Adrien continued to flirt with and pine after [[OneTrueLove Ladybug]] as Cat Noir, even after getting together with Kagami. Luka, the other rival, was shown to have gained Marinette's affections from the start, but he did not appear to be much different from any other boy who had a crush on Marinette/Ladybug before like Nathanael and Nino, and yet, she showed no interest in them. In fact, he displayed not much more personality traits other than being a mellow NiceGuy for most of the seasons. Add the fact he appeared only in a handful of episodes too, making one wonder why he would have attracted Marinette's attention to begin with. It doesn't help that [[PutOnABus both Luka and Kagami were essentially tossed aside within the first two episodes of Season 4]] and have been used as little more than reminders that the Love Square is endgame. Thus causing both ships and the Love Square to become completely unbelievable in the process, with the latter teetering into RomanticPlotTumor territory.

* This is usually general consensus when it comes to pretty much every romantic subplot in ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2012''. Every single romance starts with one of the Turtles seeing a pretty girl, being in her vicinity for about 10 seconds, and then instantly falling in love and being fixated on her for the rest of the serise regardless of how much they actually interact or if they even have chemestry. It's particularly glaring with Donnie/April, as you can pretty much guarantee that any focus Donnie gets in the first 2 1/2 seasons will be about his StalkerWithACrush tendencies towards April, with April being a MasterOfTheMixedMessage who's feelings about Donnie tend swing wildly back and forth between ''one episode to the next.''

** Shiro and Curtis, a bridge officer aboard the Atlas, also the one OfficialCouple to be together by the very end. While the two do exchange dialogue from time to time it's entirely in the context of mission commands, to the point the latter is never named directly except in subtitles. Nevertheless the last shot of the show is of them getting married. Somewhat understandable since it is a last-minute AuthorsSavingThrow and ExecutiveMeddling made it difficult to put gay content in the show.

* ''WesternAnimation/SuperNoobs'': The romance between Tyler Bowman and Amy Anderson is considered by fans to be underdeveloped and half-baked. The aforementioned couple only got a couple of dates with one of them being forced and their relationship was only seldom mentioned in a few episodes. To make matters worse, Amy is regulated to being a DamselInDistress, making her look like a cheap parody of superhero girlfriends like Lois Lane and Mary Jane Watson. Some fans thought that her relationship with Tyler would get more development if she became of the Noobs. What makes this even more baffling is that neither Amy nor her relationship with Tyler is seen or mentioned by the time the season finale episode comes.

* In ''WesternAnimation/FantasticFourTheAnimatedSeries'', [[ComicBook/HumanTorch Johnny Storm]] meets ComicBook/{{the Inhuman|s}} ComicBook/{{Medusa|MarvelComics}}, drools over her for two and a half episodes, finds out she's married and winds up drooling over her cousin, Crystal, for half of ''one.'' In the end, the Inhumans' city is sealed off from the rest of the world. Suddenly, Crystal, whom he's known all of a few hours, was the love of his life, and he spends every episode after this -- ''literally every episode'' -- [[{{Wangst}} pining for her]]. (He does get her back in the end, though.) The writing team seemingly realized how bad the whole deal was and spoofed it ''hilariously'' in a later episode where Crystal sends out her BigFriendlyDog Lockjaw to try bringing Johnny to a place where they can be reunited. [[RunningGag They spend the whole episode going through several dimensions... and never find that spot]].