Loves Me Not

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A character plucks something in order to predict something.

The character is usually a girl, but doesn't have to be.

This trope comes in two flavors:

• Standard: the character plucks petals from a flower in order to determine whether or not a certain someone loves him or her.
• Variations: - It's not a flower (but maybe it looks like one... or maybe not); the options are not "loves me" and "loves me not", but something else.

Since this process should result in an even chance between "yes" and "no", and there's no mysticism implicit in whether a flower has even or odd petals, a pragmatic person could make the same kind of prediction in a lot less time by flipping a coin. But predicting love by flipping a coin would be really stupid not as romantic.

Examples of Loves Me Not include:

Standard

Anime and Manga

• At one point in Digimon Adventure 02, Daisuke spaces out after his crush Hikari angrily tells him that she can't stand people like him, imagining a flower being plucked with a "She loves me, she hates me..." recital. The vision ends with the flower disintegrating and a wail of "She hates meeeee!"
  • In the original Japanese version, Hikari was only doing one thing as she plucked: saying "Hate...hate...hate..."
• A drunken Ayu tries this with a crab in Honey and Clover, causing Takuto to start, "Ayu!! With a crab you need to start with 'loves me not!!'
• Itoh in Homunculus, in a variant, plucks flower petals with the options "man" and "woman".

Film

• Poison Ivy in Batman and Robin.
  • Which really raises the question. Isn't she supposed to be the defender of all plant life? Wouldn't this be considered torture? And since she eats at least one petal, cannibalism as well?
    • It's at the very end of the movie. We can assume she's lost her mind due to...well, being in Batman and Robin.
• Ariel does it with a "sea anemone". Not an actual sea anemone, but a more...floral one.
  • Given that sea anemones are actually animals, rather than plants, that is...quite horrible, really.
• Alfalfa does this in The Little Rascals.

Live Action TV

• Hannah Montana episode "Good Golly, Miss Dolly":

Miley Stewart: He loves me. He loves me not and now I need more petals!

• One scene in the Friends episode "The One With The Two Parts Part 2" has Joey picking the petals off a flower while thinking about Phoebe's sister Ursula.

Theater

• Guys and Dolls uses this in the dance routine for "A Bushel And A Peck."

Video Games

• One of the minigames in Mario 64 DS is plucking the petals off a flower. New Super Mario Bros makes an actual game out of it by involving two players trying to either get "Loves me", or stick the other guy with "Loves me not" by plucking 1-3 petals per turn.
  • All to the theme from the underwater stages of the first game, as played through a music box.
• In Professor Layton and the Last Specter, one of the puzzles involves a young man who bought three flowers from a florist to predict with: one for the standard question, one for happy or unhappy, and one for the gift to give his sweetheart. Your job is to pick the set of flowers that give the best result for him.
  • The prediction for the gift is to buy her a bouquet. The puzzle solution notes: "It seems reasonable that a florist would want the man to buy another bouquet right?"
• Marzipan's debut in Homestar Runner.
• Ib has a couple of female characters who like doing this with the male character Garry's rose. It'd be a perfectly innocuous activity if roses didn't symbolize health in this game...

Comic Books

• Deconstructed in The Smurfs, of all places. One smurf was doing the routine, and ends up with "Loves Me Not". Another smurf asks him about his luck and he replies, gesturing to the now barren flower field that "Yeah, I can't find one that has an odd number of petals!"
  • And there's other time that, as a joke, two Smurfs take petals from the flowers to ensure the one doing the routine always gets "Loves Me not".
• A Flashback Arc to when Spider-Man 2099 was barely into his teens showed his mother Conchata doing this and getting, "Loves me — not." Just then the wife of the Corrupt Corporate Executive with whom Conchata was having an affair came up to her and said, "I can never get that to come out right either."

Web Comics

• Sandra from Sandra and Woo takes a practical approach to the odd-even problem, but her friend Larisa doesn't approve of her shenanigans. Sandra's boyfriend Cloud thinks that members of the species Bellis perennis give bad relationship advice anyway.

Western Animation

• In Johnny Bravo Johnny does this... with four-leaf clovers, always beginning with "loves me". He makes a huge mound of leaves behind him.
• Link does this at the start of the The Legend of Zelda episode "Stinging A Stinger". He ends up with a "loves me not" and blames the flower.

Variations

Anime and Manga

• In one anime series (possibly Ouran High School Host Club), a character says "She likes me, she loves me, she likes me, she loves me..." instead of allowing for the standard other possibility.
  • Kasanoda saying "I like her...I love her...I like her...I love her..." when he found out that Haruhi was a Sweet Polly Oliver is what you are referring to?
• Azumanga Daioh has Kaorin pulling the petals off a flower to determine whether she would be in the same class as Sakaki for second year (but the more conventional question is definitely in the subtext). The first flower yields a negative, but before she can pull the last petal, Yukari gives her another flower they she can start over with. The same thing happens, except it's Mr. Kimura who offers the flower (to the horror of both Kaorin and Yukari). A pile of stems and petals later, Kaorin decided to just go ahead and look at the roster. Sakaki and Kaorin are in the same class.
  • Oh, and she had an epically hilarious Freak-Out when the first and second flower yield negatives.
• Nishizawa in Hayate the Combat Butler did the standard version with a piece of corn.
• One episode of Irresponsible Captain Tylor has the crew's fate hinging on Tylor delivering paperwork to an office on time. The crew destroys a mountain of flowers doing this, invariably getting "He won't make it," until one guy just puts his hand over the final petal. He doesn't make it.
• Jaken in Inuyasha, when he can't figure out if Sesshomaru was teasing him or actually testing whether the Tenseiga would cut/kill him, begins plucking flower petals. The last petal is "testing", which he attempts to interrogate Sesshomaru over when he returns.
• In Ranma ½, Ryoga wonders if Akane will come visit him while he's at home. He starts pulling out all the strings in a mop, saying:

Ryoga: She's coming... She's not coming... She's coming... She's not coming...

Comic Books

• In one of the Asterix movies, Obelix does this, but with a faintly-remembered variation.

Film

• Denahi prances around throwing flowers in Brother Bear. To be fair, he's being sarcastic.
• Fiona in the first Shrek film does this with a sunflower Shrek left at her doorstop, but to decide whether she should tell Shrek her deep, dark secret: "I tell him, I tell him not..." She plucks the last petal on a "I tell him!" but the sun rises just then and she returns to human form before she can find Shrek.
• The Three Stooges did this... with hair:
  • In Calling All Curs, a 1939 movie, Dr. Curly plucks Moe's eyebrows while chanting the usual version for female love interests.
  • In I'm A Monkey's Uncle, Moe says the same whilst pulling Larry's hair out in his sleep.

Literature

• Odd Attachment, a short story by Iain M. Banks, has an alien herder doing this with something he just found. It's a human astronaut.

Live Action TV

• Some music channels invite people to text in their names and the names of their love interests. A random number, usually a percentage, is then assigned to each pair, and a comment is made indicating whether or not it means the pair will live Happily Ever After. One Polish TV example has an animated graphic of a flower with its petals flying off.
• Lady Illusion does this with Ace in Ace Lightning - by throwing energy bombs at him, with Ace answering with "he loves you not" by returning fire - until he blows her back into a live power conductor and drags her off again, saving her. Lady Illusion finishes with a rather surprised "...He Loves Me."

Video Games

• Wario Ware: Touched!

Western Animation

• On U.S. Acres, The Worm once disguised himself as a flower to escape Booker, only to be picked and plucked by Roy, attempting to divine the feelings of an unseen hen.
• Minnie's introductory scene in Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers has her pulling apart a flower...saying "He loves me...he loves me a lot."
• The Fairly OddParents Valentine's Day special has Tootie doing a heartbroken version of this because of Timmy's refusal to accept her as his Valentine. Meanwhile, Trixie Tang does a mocking version.

Tootie: He loves me not, he loves me not...
Trixie: I love him not, I love him not...

• Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy: In an episode where the Eds attempt to use reverse psychology to scare the Kanker Sisters away, Double D is seen pulling apart a flower saying "She loves me, she loves me also."
• Despite Helga's love for Arnold in Hey Arnold!, she does a very sinister version of this with a flower she picks on the school grounds after feeling like Arnold is acting as if she doesn't exist (handing other girls their umbrellas, slamming a door in her face, helping others with carrying heavy items...)
• My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic: Twilight Sparkle uses a flower trying to work out which of her friends should get the other Grand Galloping Gala ticket. After one round, she gives up. And eats the petals.
• On Jimmy Two-Shoes, Jimmy does this under the influence of a love sweater.
• During the episode "Olaf In Love" of the 2010 version of Pound Puppies, Olaf plucks a flower after his date goes badly.

Olaf: She hates me, she loves me not...