Burnsmithers

"I love you, Smithers."

- Burns to Smithers in "The Telltale Head"

"I value every second we're together from the moment I squeeze his orange juice in the morning till I tuck him in at night. He's not just my boss. He's my best friend, too."

- Smithers to Marge about Burns in "Brush with Greatness"

"As usual you've been the sober ying to my raging yang."

- Burns to Smithers in "Blood Feud"

Burnsmithers is the slash ship between Charles Montgomery Burns and Waylon Smithers from the The Simpsons fandom.

Canon
Smithers is the personal assistant of Mr. Burns, who is secretly in love with him.

Smithers tried to openly demonstrate his love to Burns on some occasions. In "The Telltale Head" Burns for the first and last time says "I love you, Smithers" and Smithers replies "The feeling is more than mutual, sir". In "Brush with Greatness" Burns says "Somebody up there likes me, Smithers" and Smithers replies "Somebody down here likes you too, sir". In "Bart's Inner Child" Smithers says "I love you" but Burns gives him an annoyed expression that Smithers immediately add "...in those colors!", after that he laments himself saying "The boathouse was the time!". In "Lisa the Skeptic" Smithers believes that the end of the world is near, so in an act of last hope he kisses Burns on the lips, though it then he end of the world didn't happen as he expected, later Smithers nervously explains "About that kiss I hope you understand it was merely a sign of my respect." leaving Burns doubting him at the end. In "The Burns Cage" Smithers says "The truth is, sir, I'm in love with-" but Burns interrupts him immediately.

Smithers was shown to be somewhat emotionally dependent on Burns, such as in "Homer the Smithers" where he believes he is ineffective for him and believes that his replacement could damage the relationship between him and Burns. On the other hand, it is all too evident that Burns is generally physically dependent on Smithers, also because of his advanced age.

Smithers accepts that he is sexually frustrated because Burns only demonstrates his attraction to women. Also he occasionally fantasizes about Burns. In "Rosebud" he imagined Burns naked climbing out of a birthday cake and singing "Happy Birthday, Mr. Smithers" to him. In "Marge Gets a Job" he was happy lying on a bed watching Burns cross a window to him, although the scene originally lasted a few seconds longer, but it was cut because it showed Burns landing on a particular position on Smithers' anatomy. In "Lisa vs. Stacy Malibu" his screensaver is Burns naked saying "Hi Smithers. You're very good at turning me on." In "The Caper Chase" he stops paying attention to Burns giving.

Despite all of Smithers' devotion to Burns, Smithers usually opposes Burns' various evil plans, but only challenged him in a few situations such as in "Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part One)".

Behind the Scenes
In of the show there are too many gay jokes between Burns and Smithers' relationship, there are also many compilations on YouTube about it.

Al Jean thinks that Smithers is "Burns-sexual". David Silverman (a former supervising director) has said "Smithers seems to be focused on one particular human, as opposed to anything beyond that. Rather than being gay, he's sort of 'Burns-sexual'".

Fanon
On AO3, Burnsmithers is the most written ship in the The Simpsons tag.

The fandom has controversial opinions about the ship since the episode "The Blunder Years" where it is speculated that Burns raised Smithers, but this is contradicted in the episode "Bart After Dark" when Smithers makes reference to having both of his parents without involving Burns in it. Lately the show officially referred to Burns being involved in Smithers' past, although those moments are not canonical as they are only in future episodes and comics. Some people choose to take semi or non-canonical that decision of writers, others abandon it or just don't ship it.

Fandom
FAN FICTION

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