Bart x Laura

Bart x Laura is the het ship between Bart Simpson and Laura Powers from The Simpsons fandom.

Canon
Bart first met Laura when he and his younger sister Lisa went to sneak in and explore Laura's future house. Entering into the basement, Bart began to psyche out Lisa that the basement once held the hidden mutant son of their old elderly neighbors, the Winfields. As he scared her off by flipping his eyelids back and freaking her out by being the mutant son for his own amusement, unbeknowst to him, someone else was in the basement with him then. As the person lurched and cried for a friend to play with, Bart's sense of imminent doom grew greater and greater, before the person wrapped their arms around him from behind, spooking the wind out of him.

As he began to regain consciousness, Bart's vision was coming into view as he was laying flat on his back. To his ears, a young and pert voice echoed into his ears, asking him if he was alright. Wondering who it was, his vision stabilized, showing the face of a beautiful teenage girl with long brunette hair watching over him, and she replied that she was Laura Powers, his new neighbor. As his young sense of adoration and affection came over him, Bart realized how beautiful she was, and in his thoughts, he realized that he should try to say something clever, cool, and brave to impress her. But as a new young boy who had just began to realize the natural course of love, Bart could barely hold himself together, saying "I fell on my bottom!". Realizing he got nervous and utterly swept off his feet by his first crush, all Bart could do then was to exclaim "Doh!" like his father Homer in his mind.

The next day, Bart and his mom Marge came to welcome Laura Powers and her single mother divorcee Ruth Powers to Evergreen Terrace. Impressed by Laura's etiquette, Laura dryly comments her upbringing was painfully strict, to Marge's obliviousness. As Marge and Ruth enter into the house to acquaint themselves, Bart and Laura hang outside on the curb. Bart hopes to impress her with his knowledge of pranks, from a Hertz Donut and a Wet Willy, but Laura is able to playfully counter him at every turn. As Laura proceeds to prank Bart with a Wet Willy, two of the neighborhood bullies, Dolph and Kearny, come by, and Kearny tries hitting on Laura, asking her wryly to stick her finger in his ear. Laura responds back if his boyfriend wouldn't mind, and messed with mentally, the bullies run away. Further impressed, Laura finishes their time together by reading Bart's palm, and seeing that he will be rich, with a mansion, a car, and finally, spits on his hand, which she humorously states is his estate's swimming pool. Making her way back home and saying goodbye for now to Bart, Bart in awe states that he will then on never wash the hand that Laura spat on again.

Of course, realistically Bart's hand gets unmanageably filthy, and in her sister's protest, demands he wash it. Bart begins to terrorize his sister again that the hand Laura spat on is not one he controls over, and that it controls him, waving it directly near her face to creep her out. During this, Homer demands his two fighting children shut up so he can find a babysitter to watch over them, but with no available sitters, as Bart has scared them all off. Hearing this, Bart lets him know that Laura is available to watch over them, and with Lisa mocking him, his hand lands on his dog, Santa's Little Helper, which carries him off as it sticks adhesively to the dog. Bart realizes that he really should wash the hand Laura spat on now.

After taking a bath, Laura has arrived, and Bart greets her by wearing a red bathrobe and acting gentlemanly sharp and dapper like a little Hugh Hefner. Finding it cute, Laura's first objective of her duties involves taking care of dinner for all of them, and it eventually all comes to Bart's choice, to which he lets Laura decide ala carte. With a delicious dinner of Afghani food, Laura then decides to teach Bart and baby sister Maggie to waltz. As she successfully teaches Maggie and the family cat Snowball the IInd to waltz, Laura successfully goads a nervous Bart to try a session. As both Bart and Laura dance, Bart is enraptured in the moment. In the arms of his crush, Bart envisions that he and Laura are waltzing in a classic movie in a vast pavilion mansion, romantically in a panoramic dance scene and with swift moves, before Bart is jovially given a wedgie by the imagined Laura. Ending the waltz, one of his best nights of his life ends on a high note.

Becoming a good friend, Bart hangs out with Laura often, such as at the local Kwik-E-Mart playing video games, where even local vendor Apu can tell he is in love. Wanting to know where his love will lead him, Bart goes to his grandfather Abe Simpson and even his dad Homer for advice. However, Homer gets too drunk to properly give Bart a proper lecture, and Abe recalls his relationship with the oldest woman in the world in his prime, which he had to sadly let go when he couldn't see her anymore.

As Bart is tucked in for bed, Laura sternly demands him to come to his treehouse, alone. Up and anxious, Bart paced back and forth, nervously awaiting for Laura's arrival. As Laura entered, she wore a red casual dress with matching shoes and makeup on. Enamored again, Bart's heart raced as his crush came to him prettied up and with something to reveal to him. Utterly brimming with excitement, Laura then told Bart that she has a new boyfriend. In that moment, Bart was devastated. All he could feel was his crush utterly rip his heart out and toss it aside like trash. Wondering who, Laura innocuously states that he'd like him: Springfield bully Jimbo Jones. Knowing he was an absolute loser and a lowlife in just about all of the encounters he had with him, even times when he tried to impress Jimbo, all Bart wanted to know then was why he was dating her. Laura states that it's because he's a "bad boy" and weakly argued that he poked the dead body at the mayor's house with a stick. As she heard the rumbling of a dirt bike engine, Jimbo had arrived. Dismissively insulting Bart, Laura told him to leave him alone because Bart was just a kid. Frustrated and insulted, Bart hoped then that he'd show Laura and even Jimbo that he wasn't "just a kid".

The next day, Homer and Marge leave the kids in the care of Laura again because of a trumped up lawsuit by Homer against local all-you-can-eat seafood restaurant The Frying Dutchman. As the door shuts, Laura then tells the kids to get ready for bed early because Jimbo is coming over. Still flabbergasted at how Laura could really want a scumbag like Jimbo, as Jimbo made his rounds to the Simpsons house, Bart makes a usual crank call to Moe's, Homer's local watering hole. As Moe did not like being made Amanda Hugnkiss, Bart instead gave out his name as Jimbo Jones and his current location. Without delay, in a murderous rage, Moe kicks the door down as Laura and Jimbo begin making out before making it to third base. Demanding Jimbo Jones, the real Jimbo comes out. Moe then brandishes his knife and seeks to sate his lust for Jimbo's blood for the supposed prank he made. Cornered and not knowing what he did, Jimbo cowers and cries begging for his life. As Laura and Bart witness, all Bart can say to Laura is "That's your outlaw?" As Moe takes pity on Jimbo's loser cowardice and spares him, Moe runs back off to the bar. Walking him out to the doorway, Laura breaks up with Jimbo, realizing that he's far from the bad boy he's made himself to be. After getting rid of him, Laura lets Bart know that he was right about Jimbo, and that if only he were older with a badass teenage mustache, Laura would go out with Bart in a second, kissing him on the cheek. Having proven himself and gotten his crush back, Laura and Bart finish the night by Bart teaching Laura to properly crank call Moe's for fun.

Semi-Canon
Bart x Laura is considered Semi-Canon for reasons that Bart will more likely than not end up with a girl who is more around his age. Aside from that, their own age range isn't really currently appropriate, as Bart is a 10 year old boy and Laura is at least four years older than him at 14. This means that they both need to live their lives in their own ages into adulthood before anything really serious between them could happen. On the plus side, Bart and Laura have shown amazingly good chemistry together and share many interests between them, Bart has impressed Laura enough to state to him that if he were in his older teens and had a badass teenage mustache, she would go out with him in a second, and that many of his relationships with other girls his age throughout the series haven't really gone over so well. One episode, "A Totally Fun Thing Bart Will Never Do Again", features in its final scene a montage showing Bart and his future son but not the mother, meaning in some capacity that Bart will get together with someone to anyone's interpretation, Bart x Laura included.

Fanon
Bart x Laura is among some of the viable and adored het ships among the kids of The Simpsons because of how Bart and Laura's personalities play off each other well and show something more promising than almost any other relationship Bart has been in. Much of what has been said in Semi-Canon can be applied here. While the age gap and with them being only so young is why they are not together in an official way, it is much more fulfilling to feature them as adults in fan works, due to how crappy and miserable Bart is with Jenda in official imagined "future" episodes, and as catharsis for Bart having such a crappy side to his youth in many ways. This means that into the future, Laura will likely be waiting for him when he finally becomes a man.

Fandom

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