House of R (The Ringer):

Our 10 Favorite Ships, Sex Scenes, and Seminal Love Stories of the Century (So Far) Date: February 13, 2026
Hosts: Joanna Robinson & Mallory Rubin

Episode Overview

In this extra-spicy Valentine’s Day Quickie and their fifth “Best of the Century (So Far)” installment, Joanna and Mallory blend signature House of R humor, fandom expertise, and earnestness as they count down ten categories celebrating notable on-screen ships, swoon-worthy romance moments, favorite love stories, and their all-time most memorable sex scenes from genre storytelling since 2000. From TV’s slow-burn couples to unexpected pairings, serious yearning, scorching book passages, and whiteboard-aided anatomical diagrams, the duo celebrates both personal favorites and the ways genre fiction uniquely elevates love, lust, and longing. Prepare for laughter, some light embarrassment, and a joyful, explicit exploration at the intersection of nerd culture and romance.

“Today I just went with whatever I thought was sweet, was spicy, was fun. And I wanted to highlight some. We’ve got some book sources today. Usually we’ve been doing TV and film, but we've got some book sources. The whiteboards are back…for Smutty Pictionary.” – Joanna (08:02)

Categories & Key Picks

1. Favorite Couple We Actually Got

• Joanna: Sawyer & Juliet (Lost)
  • Scene Highlight: The “vending machine” afterlife reunion.
  • [13:02] “This is not one of the core, core relationships inside of Lost, except it is for me…and it is very, very important.”
• Mallory: President Roslin & Admiral Adama (Battlestar Galactica)
  • Scene Highlight: Roslin’s whispered “I love you” in S4’s "The Hub".
  • [15:15] “Easiest one…I would have found a way to talk about them early and often. They are my favorite fictional couple of all time.”

Insights:

• TV allows for drawn-out relationships, more yearning, and organic chemistry between performers. Emotional connections and redemption arcs frequently blossom as love stories over time ([18:38]–[20:51]).

2. Ships We Never Got (That's What the Fanfic is For)

• Mallory: Obi-Wan & Duchess Satine (Star Wars: The Clone Wars)
  • [24:01] “Is this what the spirit of the exercise was meant for?...even though we know they had history… I have so desperately wanted to actually see them together, and we haven’t gotten that.”
• Joanna: Kaz & Inej (Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo)
  • Highlights haunting mutual trauma, desire, and their infamous “I will have you without your armor…” nearness—yet never quite crossing from yearning to union.
  • [34:40] “Even though they have this…‘we can’t touch’…it’s rooted in their own trauma and their own things they have to work past, which I think is very beautiful.”

Honorable Mentions:

• Zuko & Katara (Avatar), Dramione (Draco & Hermione, Harry Potter), Dean & Castiel (Supernatural), Crowley & Aziraphale (Good Omens), Finn & Poe (Star Wars), Pie Maker & Chuck (Pushing Daisies)

3. Surprise Pairing You Cared About Most

• Mallory: Sawyer & Juliet (Lost)
  • [38:14] “It's maybe the saddest I've ever been about anything in my fucking life.”
  • Discusses the unexpected, organic magic that unfolds when writers discover unforeseen character chemistry.
• Joanna: Jason & Janet (The Good Place)
  • [41:10] “The idea that Jason...waited for a thousand Baramies just to wait for her to come back...is extremely beautiful. Just an incredible discovery in this show.”

Key Point:

• TV’s flexibility lets creators and audiences “discover” pairings that emerge organically, making for the most affecting ships.

4. Champion Yearner

• Mallory: WALL-E & Eve (WALL-E)
  • [44:34] “Greatest love story ever told…even in a short Pixar movie, the expressive eyes in WALL-E’s design convey yearning and longing and need so potently.”
  • Cites their “space dance” sequence as iconic.
• Joanna: Mulder & Scully (The X-Files)
  • [48:09] “A yearn that lasted, let's say, seven seasons…They kiss like twice ever…Nobody has had as much patience and restraint.”
  • Mulder/Scully as origin of fandom ‘shipping’, with key moments of almosts and finallys.

Additional runners-up:

• Crowley & Aziraphale; Doctor Who’s Ten & Rose; Pushing Daisies’ Ned & Chuck

5. Passionate First Kiss

• Mallory: Yorkie & Kelly (Black Mirror: San Junipero)
  • [52:13] “This was one…where I was like, nothing would have stopped me from picking the Heaven is a Place On Earth needle drop…My favorite Black Mirror episode, one of my favorite episodes of TV ever.”
• Joanna: Sydney Bristow & Vaughn (Alias, S2E13, post-Super Bowl)
  • [56:59] “They kiss for the first time and it's just this huge deal and it’s like an all timer kiss. Those people were actually fucking in real life and so they got to pour all of that into this onscreen moment.”

6. Hottest Sex Scene

• Mallory: Zaden & Violet’s “Throne Scene” (Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros)
  • [60:39 onward] Passionately detailed, extended oral sex sequence—emphasizes female pleasure, magical orgasmic waves, and anatomical logistics (diagrammed on whiteboard).
  • [68:12] “It’s the literary event of our time.”
• Joanna: Buffy & Spike “Smashed” (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, S6E9)
  • [68:34] “Could be. Something to look forward to. I can’t talk about it.”

Other Memorable Scenes:

• Quentin & Alice as foxes (The Magicians), the tactile, supernatural limitations in Pushing Daisies

7. The Sex Scene that Made You a Romantasy Fan / Most Excited to See Adapted

• Joanna: “The Scenting Scene” from The Bride by Ali Hazelwood
  • [71:48] A vampire and a werewolf “scent-mark” each other on a private plane—erotic, original, with both animalistic and contemporary tensions.
  • [75:30] “You smell like you’re mine.”
• Mallory: Rhysand & Feyre’s “Wings and Table” (A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas)
  • [77:22] “The need and desire has built and mounted…to see this eventually when adapted, brought to screen, would be sublime.”

Key Discussion:

• Modern romantasy books and fanfic popularize female-centric, creative, often explicit sex scenes, giving rise to “smut literacy” among both readers and their partners ([78:46]–[79:19]).

8. Whiteboard Smut Pictionary: Most Anatomically Improbable/Notorious Scene

• Joanna: Dr. Manhattan & Laurie Jupiter (Watchmen, Zack Snyder, 2009)
  • [84:02] The infamous “multiplying hands” sex scene—diagrammed on whiteboard.
• Mallory: Spider-Man & MJ’s “Upside-Down Kiss” (Spider-Man, 2002, Sam Raimi)
  • [89:17] “I think zero parts of this are appealing, and I have a lot of questions about your ability to actually maintain arousal…This is basically waterboarding.”

Joanna’s Favorite Sex Scene in Prose:

• Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie
  • [93:22] Highly explicit, gritty, ergonomically questionable, and totally raw. Features “milk in the bucket” imagery, which the hosts sketch and analyze with glee.

9. Most Gorgeous Description of Love

• Mallory: Blue & Red (This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone)
  • [101:44] “I want to meet you in every place I have loved… Such a beautiful and perfect way to describe that particular aspect of desire.”
• Joanna: Multiple
  • Dramione Fanfic, “De Charcue”
  • Patrick Rothfuss, Wise Man’s Fear: 'To love something despite, to know the flaws and love them too…'
  • Madeline Miller, Song of Achilles: ‘I would recognize him by touch alone…’
  • Alex Harrow, The Ten Thousand Doors of January & Everlasting:
    'Most of all they learned one another as few people ever have…what fixed stars are to sailors…the only way through the dark.'

10. Most Heartbreaking Parting

• Joanna: Wanda & Vision (WandaVision)
  • [110:23] “Wanda Maximov. Vision. What a great show.”
• Mallory: Will & Lyra’s bench parting (His Dark Materials: The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman)
  • [111:23] Reads extended, emotional passage of their multiversal separation and shared bench ritual.
  • [116:18] “I just like…this is just the best…The idea of someone just on the other side of the veil, I think, is a really powerful way to find comfort when someone is gone.”

Honorable Mentions:

• Jamie & Brienne (Game of Thrones), Peter & Olivia (Fringe), Arthur & Linus (House in the Cerulean Sea), Halbrand & Galadriel (Rings of Power), Doctor Who’s Rose & Ten, and several others.

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the explicit flavor of the episode:
  [06:10] Joanna: “House of R always contains adult content. We really mean it today.”
• On why TV romance is different:
  [18:38] Joanna: “...when it comes to doing love stories, television...is so good at the will they, won’t they, the yearning...collecting little...glances, and also...finding chemistry inside of your cast.”
• On genre boundaries and source eligibility:
  [09:27] “January 1, 2000, through this very moment…Source material can be older if it’s an adaptation.”
• On the power of yearning (Champion Yearner):
  [49:56] Joanna: "You have to...if you’re...and there are plenty of people who never wanted Mulder and Scully to get together....to not feed the fandom, to make them wait until season seven, episode five for the first real canonical kiss is like real primo, maximum yearning shit."
• On Romantasy sex scenes as relationship guides:
  [78:46] Joanna: “Young women are giving their gentleman callers, like, smut to read and say, like, take notes.”

Timestamps for Major Segments

• Rules, eligibility, purpose: 06:45 – 10:46
• Favorite couple we actually got: 12:13 – 19:00
• Ships we never got (fanfic): 22:59 – 36:58
• Surprise pairing you cared about most: 37:29 – 43:47
• Champion yearner: 44:29 – 52:13
• Passionate first kiss: 52:13 – 59:49
• Hottest sex scene (readings): 59:49 – 68:34
• Romantasy ‘gateway’ sex scene: 69:11 – 79:39
• Anatomically improbable/whiteboard scenes: 84:02 – 101:02
• Most gorgeous description of love: 101:44 – 110:04
• Most heartbreaking parting: 110:10 – 117:03

Overall Tone & Language

• Candid, explicit, and playful: Mallory and Joanna are unfiltered, cheeky, and sometimes self-deprecating (“This is the literary event of our time.” [68:12]); both embrace the earnest, yearning roots of romance (“the heart is driving the love boat today” [09:12]).
• Fandom-deep, affectionate, and nerdy: Every pick is contextualized for its genre value, connection to fandom, or meta-importance (“The origin of online fandom culture shipping is Mulder and Skully” [50:20]).
• Engaged with each other and the listener: They often mock-embarrass each other about passages, encourage listeners to write in or flame them in the comments, and reference inside jokes, House of R history, and previous pods.

Final Thoughts

Mallory and Joanna’s annual V-Day episode is a love letter—to fans, to TV’s slow-burn relationships, to steamy new Romantasy, and to the power of pure, delicious yearning in genre fiction. Whether you’re here for explicit smut, emotional heartbreak, or just to watch them unsuccessfully diagram depictions of supernatural sex acts on a whiteboard, this is quintessential House of R: geeky, hilarious, and genuinely heartfelt.

“Happy Valentine’s Day from the third Valentine’s Day quickie from us. We’ll be back—or will we?—next year with number four. Bye.”
– Mallory [117:42]