Loves My Alter Ego / Western Animation

Somebody who loves another's alter ego while disliking their civilian identity in Western Animation.

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• All Grown Up! has Chuckie creating a foreign alter ego named "Chongo" to impress a girl he likes. She's swept up by "Chongo", but is platonically nice to Chuckie when they finally talk to each other.
• In the Animaniacs short "Moon Over Minerva", Minerva Mink spurns the affections of the nerdy and unsophisticated Wilford Wolf, but goes crazy when the full moon turns him into a muscular, smooth-talking hunk. After finding out the truth from Wilford, she decides to stay with him because "some things are worth waiting for."
• Parodied in a special chibi style short of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Aang, Jet, Haru and Prince Zuko all battle it out for Katara's affection...only to find out she's already chosen the Blue Spirit, who's Zuko's alter-ego on the regular show but inexplicably a separate person here. Zuko faints, saying "I did not see that one coming."
• On Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Jaime spends one episode smitten with Huntress. The same episode has him escorted around Gotham University by Professor Bertinelli, whom he doesn't recognize and doesn't seem particularly attracted to. (Though perhaps that's because her Huntress outfit diverts attention from the face...)
• This has happened to Ben of Ben 10 on occasion. In the original series, he meets the tetramand female Tiny while as Fourarms, and she immediately starts hitting on him. Luckily, the Omnitrix times out, turning him back to human. "Saved by the beep!" Later in the episode, Tiny asks if he'll go back to Fourarms, to which he replies, "Never!" There's also Kai, who crushed on him when he unlocked Blitzwolfer but lost interest in him when he turned back to normal (despite this, the two ended up Strangled by the Red String in Omniverse).
  • In Ben 10: Omniverse, Ben turns into an Incursean to infiltrate their fleet, attracting the eye of Princess Attea. Due to the influence of Incursean DNA, Bullfrag (Ben's Incursean form) actually starts flirting with her! When all is said and done, Attea offers Ben the choice to join the Incurseans...provided he does so as Bullfrag.
• Big Hero 6: The Series: Karmi is in love with Hiro's alter ego, who she calls Captain Cutie. Meanwhile, Richardson Mole inverts this with Go Go, who he tries to woo and refers to her as "dream girl". The one time he talks to her while she's in costume, it's clear he couldn't be less interested.
• Cybersix: Subverted, Cybersix's civilian alter ego is her crossdressing as Lucas' best friend Adrian. Lucas is in love with Cybersix and vice versa... but then Lucas sees Cybersix go into Adrian's apartment and assumes they're lovers.
  • Don't forget Lori, a student at the high school who has a pretty open crush on "Adrian," but considers Cybersix to be a tramp (possibly not helped by the fact that she was the one who initially jumped to the "Cybersix/Adrian" conclusion because she tried to see Adrian in his own apartment). And then all is resolved in the final episode, when Cybersix hands Lori "Adrian's" glasses...
  • It's subtly hinted that Lucas might be bisexual and is also attracted to Adrian, regularly taking "him" out for dinner and at one point even invites him to go see a romantic movie. He even drops everything when Adrian got injured by the monster that turns invisible, sent to hunt down Cybersix, so he can take him to the hospital; and tells him sternly to stop making a fuss when he refused to go to the hospital.
• Danny Phantom
  • Paulina is attracted to Danny Phantom, but is disgusted to even be associated with Danny Fenton.
  • An Alternate Character Interpretation goes that Sam is this as well, as an odd variant that also knows his secret identity.
  • And since he is an expy of Flash Thompson above, Dash Baxter worships Danny Phantom while tormenting Danny Fenton.
• Dexter's Laboratory has a non-romantic example. Dexter experimented on a lab monkey, creatively named Monkey, in hopes of giving him superpowers only to get frustrated when all of it seemed to have no effect. In reality, the monkey gained a slew of superpowers and fights to protect the Earth as a superhero under the codename Monkey. Dexter remains oblivious to all this but frequently shows admiration for the superhero.
• The Fairly Oddparents episode where Timmy is "the Masked Magician" may qualify for this—Trixie Tang, who (usually) detests him, finds his eponymous alter-ego to be "a cute superhero!"
• In Freakazoid!, Dexter Douglas can't catch a break from the ladies, but they're all over Freakazoid. Freakazoid has a mind separate from Dexter, which occasionally caused him to actively mock Dexter for this. In the first episode, Dexter even turns into Freakazoid to make out with a girl who couldn't stand him—he even acknowledges how shallow it is, but he doesn't care. Freakazoid's girlfriend Steff won't even talk to Dex and when she found out the truth, she was at first incredulous, then thought it was funny more than anything else, and never brought it up thereafter.
• In Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, Phil is constantly trying to seduce Birdgirl—despite it being horribly obvious to everyone else that Birdgirl is Judy, his daughter.
• He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983): Teela has a crush on He-Man and dismisses Prince Adam as a lazy coward. Similarly, in She-Ra: Princess of Power, Bow likes She-Ra and ignores Princess Adora. (To be fair, both Adam and Adora deliberately show less heroism in civilian guise).
  • Inverted with Sea Hawk, who respects She-Ra but prefers Adora.
• On Hey Arnold!, Arnold's attraction to Helga (disguised as Arnold's French pen pal Cecile) in the episode "Arnold's Valentine." Helga even soliloquizes about it:
  Helga: He likes me. He really likes me! Ohh! (beat) Wait a minute - he doesn't like me, he likes Cecile. Well, not Cecile-Cecile, me-Cecile—so he does like me!. Oh, criminy, I'm a basket case!
• Rosemary the police dispatcher is smitten with Hong Kong Phooey, but couldn't care less about Penrod Pooch.
• Playfully inverted in an episode of House of Mouse: Clarabelle accepts a date from Goofy, but in his cluelessness, Goofy believes she turned him down. He later becomes Super Goof and does various heroic acts around the House of Mouse. After he saves Clarabelle from a meteor, he asks her out, but Clarabelle refuses — because she has a date with Goofy.
• Rio from Jem is torn between Jerrica and her secret identity, Jem—and he has a bad temper concerning those who deceive him. Inverted with Riot, who was introduced in the last season. He is head over heels for Jem but is vastly indifferent to Jerrica.
• In an episode of Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness, Tigress falls in love with the Midnight Stranger who is actually Po in disguise. When Tigress finds out who he really is, she leaves to throw up.
• Miraculous Ladybug:
  • This works both ways with the two main heroes: in their civilian forms, Marinette has a huge crush on Adrien, but becomes a flustered wreck whenever she tries to talk to him, leaving Adrien Oblivious to Love, though still friendly with her. However, when they meet in their superhero personae of Ladybug and Chat Noir, Adrien is the one flirting while Marinette is indifferent and underestimating his interest in her.
  • Resident Alpha Bitch Chloe is a variant with both main characters: she's been Adrien's friend for longer than anyone as well as his Hopeless Suitor and is a serious Ladybug fan to the extent that she owns a replica costume of the superheroine and forces her Beta Bitch to cosplay as Chat Noir, yet she hates Marinette enough to bully her for years before the start of the show and is largely indifferent to Chat Noir, a handsome, athletic teen in a tight leather-esque costume.
  • A further variant comes in the person of Gabriel Agreste, Adrien's father. While he is an absolutely atrocious father, he does seem to genuinely love his son. He is also the villain Hawk Moth, and as such unknowingly attempts to kill, mind-control, or otherwise defeat his son on an almost daily basis.
• In My Life as a Teenage Robot, Jenny falls for the Silver Shell, a robot suit piloted by Sheldon, who has a crush on her. He originally designed it so that he could act like a jerk and dissuade her from liking robot boys, but instead decided to take advantage of the changing situation.
• The Penguins of Madagascar: In "Otter Woman" Skipper falls for Arlene (Marlene in disguise due chlorine accident)
• A Pepper Ann episode had Pepper Ann become the mascot of her school's field hockey team. While performing in her otter costume, she managed to win over upperclassman Craig Bean. Pepper Ann continued to meet Craig in guise of the otter, but eventually decided to reveal herself to him. Craig subsequently admitted that he knew all along that Pepper Ann was the otter, and also acknowledged how ridiculous it would feel if it turned out he did love Pepper Ann's mascot self more than her.
• Inverted in Phantom 2040: police officer Sagan Cruz has UST with Kit Walker, but sees the Phantom as a glory-hogging jerk. Particularly when he used his "Good Mark" to deface a necklace Kit gave her. (It struck him as appropriate since it already symbolised their friendship, but it hadn't occurred to him that it looked like the actions of two separate people.)
• Phineas and Ferb plays with this in one episode. Isabella gets annoyed that her usual crush, Phineas, keeps disappearing when she needs him. Meanwhile she swoons over the Beak, the new local superhero, whom she follows around Lois Lane-style. Of course, the Beak is actually Phineas (and his brother, Ferb) in a robotic suit. Genre Savvy Candace calls out Isabella for her Genre Blindness when she eventually learns the truth:
  Candace: Congratulations, you just earned your "Uh, Durr" Patch.
• The Simpsons almost had a platonic example—apparently, in the early seasons, Krusty the Clown was going to secretly be Homer, with Bart disrespecting Homer but worshiping Krusty. This was deemed too complicated and eventually scrapped, with Krusty becoming his own character.
• Platonic example on South Park—Shelly loves the singer Lorde, unaware that "she" is actually her own father.
• In Spider-Man: The Animated Series Felicia was in love with Peter, but Black Cat was in love with Spidey. Eventually, Felicia decided not to pursue a relationship with Peter Parker so that her Black Cat persona would be free to be with Spider-Man. In the end, she left with a vampire, and Spidey went with Mary Jane anyway, but it was all very dramatic at the time.
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil: A very brief example. Star is clearly smitten with Marco in disguise during their dance, only to snap out of it when he surprises her by revealing himself.
• Daisy on Static Shock; Static lampshaded this once.
• In Steven Universe Rose Quartz aka Pink Diamond got this on both ends. The Crystal Gems loved Rose while they hated and feared Pink Diamond. The Gems of her court loved Pink Diamond while they hated and feared Rose Quartz for (supposedly) shattering her.
  • Kevin insantly develops a crush when he first meets Steven and Connie's combined alter-ego Stevonnie, but immediately drops it upon finding out they're actually just the fused form of two children.
• DC Animated Universe:
  • This version of Lois Lane gets a twofer in the original "World's Finest" crossover between Superman: The Animated Series and Batman: The Animated Series.
    Batman: It's ironic, you know. She likes Bruce Wayne, and she likes Superman; it's the other two guys she's not crazy about.
    Superman: It's a pity we can't mix and match.
  • Which is ridiculous because in Superman: The Animated Series Lois is attracted to Clark; she's just in denial.
  • Similarly, Catwoman loves Batman, but only considers Bruce a friend. He knows both her identities and, according to the "perfect world" illusion created by the Mad Hatter, would marry her, if Batman and Catwoman were out of the equation.
  • Batman Beyond: Inverted with Terry's relationship with Melanie. Melanie loves Terry, but is lukewarm to antagonistic towards Batman.
• On Total Drama Revenge of the Island, Mike's relationship with Zoey is continually impeded by his Split Personality, Vito, having make-out sessions with Anne Maria. Neither girl knows about Mike's condition at first and assumes that the personality they're into is the "true" one and the other is an act.
• Dark Action Girl Paige from TRON: Uprising hates "The Renegade", despite certain flirtatious remarks she makes during their confrontations. Yet she ends up developing an attraction to his civilian persona, Beck, upon getting to know him better.
• In The Looney Tunes Show, Speedy falls for Porky's dance partner (Bugs duisguised as a woman). Once he reveals who "she" really is, Speedy says that he was only being polite, since he considered her to be really ugly (Bugs does make a really ugly woman). Until it's revealed that he had a shrine, AND EVEN AN ENGAGEMENT RING.
• Sweet Polly Purebred (practically a Lois Lane Expy anyway) from Underdog.
• WordGirl:
  • TJ has a fanboyish obsession with Word Girl that seems to border on a Precocious Crush...but Word Girl is actually his (adopted) older sister Becky. In an episode where her family discovers her identity, he is mortified and throws away his WordGirl merchandise, unable to handle that his hero is also his painfully "ordinary" sibling. He even refuses to help her when the entire family is captured by Dr. Two-Brains. In the end, the family's memories of Becky as WordGirl are erased, returning things to the status quo.
  • Tobey has a Villainous Crush on Word Girl, but generally treats Becky either indifferently or as an annoying rival. Some episodes have him suspect that they are the same person, though by the end of them, events conspire to once again dissuade him of that theory.

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