Friends to Lovers

Tropes and genres
Related tropes/genres	Childhood Friends, Friends With Benefits
See also	Enemies to Lovers
Related articles on Fanlore.

Friends to Lovers is a common romantic trope, which involves two people in an established friendship becoming romantic partners. It is not uncommon for the relationship to be unexpected, that the characters never intended for there to be anything but friendship, but something happens to make them see the possibility of a romantic relationship. Stories using this trope may also involve UST and pining. In fanfiction many writers will take two characters who have a strong canon friendship and place them in a friends to lovers story, or longer stories may build a friendship between two characters, who are not canonically close, leading to eventual romance.

In the Fansplaining survey, Five Tropes Fanfic Readers Love (And One They Hate), Friends to Lovers was the most beloved trope among respondents. In contrast, Enemies to Lovers was Number 20 on the most beloved trope list.

Related Tropes

Enemies to Friends to Lovers

Although Enemies to Friends to Lovers and Enemies to Lovers can be thought as one and the same, that is not always the case. Sometimes two characters who are enemies, and have UST, pivot quickly into having a sexual (or romantic) relationship, skipping the step of developing a friendship first. For some fans this is satisfactory because they wish to see the pairing together, but for many the friendship component is crucial for them to accept and enjoy the pairing.

I mean I SAY I love the ‘Enemies to Lovers’ trope but what I really MEAN is that I love the

‘Enemies to Resentful Allies In A Time Of Crisis to Grudging Mutual Respect to Growing Fondness Concealed By Snark to Hurtful Betrayal to Slow Reconciliation With A Greater Understanding Of Each Other to Strange But Solid Friendship to Unexpected Feelings In A Time Of Crisis to Denying Their Feelings While Growing Closer As Friends to Epiphanies Of Love In The Worst Possible Circumstances to Mutual Pining to Unbearable Sexual Tension to Lovers’

trope

Examples

Canon

• Cory Matthews/Topanga Lawrence in Boy Meets World
• Ron/Hermione in Harry Potter
• Ichigo/Orihime in Bleach
• Many Fire Emblem pairings:
  • Marth/Caeda in the Akaneia series
  • Alm/Celica in Gaiden/Echoes
  • Leif/Nanna and Azelle/Tailtiu in the Jugdral series
  • Roy/Lilina and Wil/Rebecca in the Elibe series
  • Colm/Neimi, Franz/Amelia, and Kyle/Syrene in Sacred Stones
  • Ike/Soren, Boyd/Mist, Sothe/Micaiah, and Geoffrey/Elincia in the Tellius series
  • Stahl/Sully and Chrom/Robin in the first generation pretty much every second generation kid pairing in Awakening
  • A good number of pairings in Three Houses, but especially Ingrid with either Dimitri, Felix, or Sylvain in the Blue Lions house
• Kevin Arnold/Winnie Cooper in The Wonder Years (though it wasn't endgame)
• Aang/Katara in Avatar: The Last Airbender

Fanon

• Jessie/James in the Pokémon anime
• Stan/Kyle in South Park
• ChibiUsa/Tomoe Hotaru in Sailor Moon
• Sheith in Voltron: Legendary Defender
• Lissa/Maribelle in Fire Emblem Awakening
• Zack Morris/Jessie Spano or Zack Morris/Lisa Turtle in Saved by the Bell
• Cory Matthews/Shawn Hunter in Boy Meets World
• Riley/Maya in Girl Meets World
• Many Ace Attorney ships:
  • Clay/Apollo
  • Athena/Juniper
  • Phoenix/Edgeworth
  • Phoenix/Maya

Fanworks

Older, ^{Archived version} by LiviartFandom: ITDate: 8 January 2020Length: 3:33Medium: Fanart - AnimaticStatus: CompleteGenre: In-Canon Crossover, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers

(CW: Light Substance Use) I can’t believe this is done WOWIE my hand hurts A LOT,, also yay!! I’m finally using an editing software so that’s nice. I have Vegas movie studio 16 but I am still learning how to use it, so in the mean time I just used IMovie haha. This was so fun to make, and I really like how it turned out. I hope y’all do too :) - Song - Older by Ben Platt (Reddie)

Resources

• Friends to Lovers works on Ao3
• Recs tagged Friends to Lovers at Fancake