Ship of the Week: Claire Standish and John Bender

Do you remember love in the 80’s? I don’t. I wasn’t alive. But if I had a time machine that could take me to any when and where in the greatest decade for teen-high school romance, you can bet every Saturday of the rest of your natural born life that I’d stop by the Shermer Public High School library. For anyone who hasn’t seen the Breakfast Club…well, I’d rather you go read something else or drink something mildly toxic because in 1985, John Hughes gave us the perfect archetype of the greatest kind of teen fantasy relationship: bad boy meets prissy rich girl, some stuff happens, and then they overcome social boundaries and lick each other’s faces. Claire and Bender even do it better better than the ill-fated punk boy/popular girl couple of Avril Lavigne’s unbelievably successful Sk8ter Boy (It wasn’t a close race). Click the jump for some more Claire/Bender love

One magical Saturday detention united 5 representatives from very different cliques, but I’m not here to talk about the jock, headcase, or the brain. Although, I have theorized that the senator from the glee club nation must have been sick that day because Brian was the only one who walked out of that library without a girlfriend, boyfriend, or a diamond earring. Anyway, back when flannel and combat boots were the standard uniform for badasses instead of hipsters, John Bender stole the hearts of girls everywhere, and rightly so. Let’s take a look at his oh-so-attractive qualities:

• Senselessly Destructive
• Pyromaniac
• Carries a knife
• Suggests to gang rape you
• Does Drugs
• Makes you cry with sneak slow clap attack
• Practicing Polygamist
• Unavailable for the next 8 (or possibly 7) Saturdays of your teen dating prime

He also has the ability to make this face

Now here is Claire Standish:

• Tragically Rich
• Tragically Popular
• Participates in questionable camp rituals
• Won’t let you jam your face in her crotch (yet)
• Possibly medically frigid
• Psycho Parents
• Will always dress better than you

She also can do this

And yet, they work. Why can they overcome the ancient laws of the cliquoronomy? Well, in a very twisted moral lesson, they both turn out to have a lot of problems and shitty lives. Now, Claire’s father buys her jewelry as instead of burning her flesh with cigars, but Bender still manages to connect with her on a very real level (a level which exists in a janitors closet and involves her sucking on his neck). We’ll never know what happened to these two on Monday, but here’s to hoping that they eventually lead a high school social revolution and grow up to make a million babies.

Shut up, Allison. It's not our fault alternate-reality-St. Elmo's Fire-John Bender cheated on you.

I’d go to a heavy metal vomit party with Claire and John any day.

On etsy

Bender victory shirt can be found here for $18.95

Bender button can be found here for $1.50

Claire Princess charm can be found here for $5.00

On Deviant

Claire by Mancomb-Seepwood

Criminal Princess by evey-chu

In Fanfiction

Good Feelings and Really Good Feelings by candysays- If you want to find out what would have happened on Monday, look no further. As far as I’m concerned, Good Feelings and its companion chapters in Really Good Feelings are the only fan fiction that matters. Honestly, if candysays would just finish the story, I’d be ok with never reading another fic, any other fic, ever again. This is the sequel as John Hughes would have written it, swear to god. Never has a ficiton been able to capture the voice of two complex characters while submerging them into a believable “what if” plot line with great OC’s. Seriously, if you’ve never read fanction before, start here.

Side note:

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