Ships That Pass in the Night: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

So you like to ship Bob and Alice. The only problem you have is the fact that Bob and Alice have exchanged little more than a few lines with one another and there seems to be little to no interaction between the two.

 

 

It's especially [[Mood Whiplash]] if no transition period is shown and the couple is suddenly [[Strangled by the Red String]].

 

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* Many of the ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' anime fans like to pair up Dawn and Paul, despite the fact that the two rarely speak and when they do, it's the farthest thing from romantic (he once even ''forgot she existed''.) Misty/Gary was similarly popular in the old days as well.

** Also, Naruto with ''[[Launcher of a Thousand Ships|nearly every female and male character]]''.

** '''[[Toy Ship|Konohamaru/Hanabi]]''' seems growing ''too'' well [[Pair the Spares|as side pairing]] in the Naruto [[Ficdom]] mostly for the sake of [[Generation Xerox]] ([[Ship-to-Ship Combat|cough-Naru/Hina-cough]]).

** Although Sakura gets shipped with [[Launcher of a Thousand Ships|pretty much everyone]], the new favorite person seem to be ''Itachi'', of all people. This probably has to do with [[The Reveal]] that {{spoiler|he was actually a good guy all along... [[Knight Templar|sort]] [[Draco in Leather Pants|of]] }} and the fact that {{spoiler|Sasuke has become an evil bastard ([[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|ironically... thanks to Itachi]]).}}

*** Of course, Sakura gets a lot of [[Ship Tease]] in canon, too. Naruto and Lee have or used to have crushes on her, while she was drooling over Sasuke. More recently, {{spoiler|a wounded soldier [[Florence Nightingale Effect|confessed he'd fallen in love with her after she treated his wounds.]] Given that she's one of the top medics, it's unlikely that was the only time that happened.}} There's a reason she's a [[Launcher of a Thousand Ships]].

* Eriol and Tomoyo from ''[[Cardcaptor Sakura]]'' are a textbook example. They have a handful of conversations, all about other people, and the numerous fans take that as a sign of deep connection and possibly also current affections. Not to mention the fact that in the manga, Eriol/Kaho is indicated as canon and Tomoyo was in love with Sakura. The less popular ships Touya/Tomoyo, Touya/Meiling, and Eriol/Meiling are even better examples, as the two halves only interact on one or two occasions.

* Asuka/Kaworu seems to have some popularity in ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' fandom, despite the two never interacting in canon. This is probably because of a combination of non-Shinji/Asuka writers [[Cleaning Up Romantic Loose Ends]], and the comedy value of Asuka's [[Tsundere]] nature struggling against Kaworu's [[Dissonant Serenity]].

*** Shinji/Hikari isn't ''too'' implausible, but naturally needs some kind of push to make it work in canon since the two characters almost never talk directly to each other. There ''are'' several fanfics for this pairing that have been well-written enough to end up on the [[Fan Fic Recommendations]] list.

** Rei/Kaworu also qualifies; they never talked, and Rei said exactly two lines relating to Kaworu. There are people who find this squickier than Shinji/Rei... although, to be fair, the squick factor of the latter depends on {{spoiler|how much of Shinji's mom's genetic material you think was used to make Rei.}}

== Comic Books ==

* You would probably be surprised at how many people ship [[Blue Beetle|Ted Kord]] with Michelle Carter, his [[Booster Gold|best friend's]] twin sister. Despite the fact that they've never met, because [[Death Is Cheap|one of them was usually dead at the time]].

 

== Film ==

** So has Loki/Jane.

*** Mind you, he did allude to be willing to do nasty things to her in order to [[Berserk Button|get a rise out of Thor]].

*** Which is nothing compared to her being frequently shipped with [[Captain America: The First Avenger|Steve Rogers]].

 

== Literature ==

** The most popular example might be Draco/Ginny, which was ''insanely'' popular for a while and still has a decent sized following, even though they only spoke twice in seven books, way back in Book 2, when Ginny told him "Leave him alone, he didn't want all that!" and later when Draco made fun of her Valentine to Harry. Though apparently the actual actors dated in real life.

*** Draco/Ginny is also used as a [[Beta Couple]] in [[One True Pairing|Harry/Hermione]] stories, if the writer isn't [[Die for Our Ship|feeling]] [[Ron the Death Eater|vindictive.]] As is Blaise/Ginny, which has even less canon to stand on as, except for being at the same parties during HBP, they don't interact at all.

** It should be noted, though, that after Pansy Parkinson suggests that Blaise finds Ginny attractive, Blaise says that he wouldn't touch a filthy blood traitor like her whatever she looked like."

** Sirius Black and Lucius Malfoy didn't exchange a single word in the novels. The sum total of their conversations in the films was "Get away from my godson!" "Black!" There's a pretty solid body of slash devoted to them, [[Sarcasm Mode|because a loving godfather and a man who wants to kill his godson have so much in common.]] (Of course, the popularity of this pairing is actually because they are played by [[Mr. Fanservice]] [[Gary Oldman]] and [[Jason Isaacs]].)

* Jon/Dany is probably one of the most popular ships in the ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' series, despite the fact they live on different continents and that the former [[Celibate Hero|has taken a vow of celibacy]]. It helps that they're probably the closest that the series has to protagonists, and may well be the "Ice" and "Fire" referred to in the title.

** It's also expected that they'll have lots of interaction later on in the series considering that Jon has essentially dedicated his life to defending the realm against the Others and the popular theory that Dany is destined to fight them also.

** One possible factor is Carlos having expressed his appreciation of Molly's looks to Harry and goes on about what he'd like to do with her. Though bear in mind that Carlos [[Casanova Wannabe|fancies himself a ladies' man]] and Molly [[Hello, Nurse!|is just that hot]].

** We never see them interact, sure, but we do see Harry's inner monologue, in which ''he'' suspects that they have a thing for each other. It's just as likely that Harry is only trying to believe this so he can believe that Molly's [[squick]]ey crush on him is over, but it ''is'' there.

 

== Live Action TV ==

** Speaking of ''[[The X-Files]]'', one popular fanfic pairing is Skinner with Scully's mother.

* On ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'', Sylar and Heidi make for an interesting ship. They've never been seen to meet in the series, but the ship bears a [[Unfortunate Implications|dubiously canon odor]] due to two timelines in which Sylar murdered and impersonated Heidi's husband.

* In order to [[Pair the Spares]], ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' fans have a tendency to do this. One favourite is the Dawn/Andrew ship, even though they've hardly ever talked and Andrew is [[Ambiguously Gay|in love with Spike]].

** This isn't actually that stupid, since Andrew has expressed a certain fondness for Dawn and she's practically fawning over him after he refuses to help the First.

** There are a fair number of ''[[Angel]]'' crossovers (probably the ''majority'' of them set in season 7/4 in fact) that pair Dawn with Connor, most likely due to their closeness in ages. The two have yet to ''meet'', even in the comics.

** In keeping with that, there are also a number of Faith/Doyle fanfics. To point out the absurdity: Doyle is now dead. When he was alive - for the whole time ( {{spoiler|the whole nine episodes}}) he was on ''Angel'' - Faith was in a coma, far far away.

** And let's not even start on Spike/Tara, who traded words maybe once, and Spike/Willow, who had maybe three onscreen conversations over the course of the show (though to be fair, one of those conversations was full of [[Does This Remind You of Anything?]]).

** Connor/Drusilla showed up occasionally post-Season 4; despite them never having met this one actually made some sense. Her psychic/prophetic abilities might enable her to become aware of his existence, and he was the only surviving person she could consider "family" who hadn't turned on her already. Plus without his memories he wouldn't immediately try to kill her.

* In [[NCIS]] there is a ship called Kiva - Kate/Ziva. They lived in completely different countries, and never met. And {{spoiler|Kate dies before Ziva arrives on the show}}. This does not seem to deter fans of [[Les Yay]].

* There is an anthology of [[Suite Life On Deck]] stories called The Strange Love Collection which exists pretty on this trope. Examples include [[Wizards of Waverly Place|Alex Russo]] and London's [[Stalker with a Crush]] Corrie, Addison and the Russian chess champ Sasha and Bailey and Jessica (which actually [[Hilarious in Hindsight|preceded]] their [[Les Yay]] in a later episode

* Both BAMF & dressed for business, [[The Vampire Diaries|Elijah & Pearl]]

 

== Theatre ==

* ''[[The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee]]'''s fandom ships Leaf/Logainne and Chip/Marcy, despite the fact that they don't really talk.

 

== Video Games ==

* ''[[Fire Emblem]]: Rekka no Ken'' fandom was quite fond of Wil/Florina for a while.

* ''[[Star Ocean: Till the End of Time]]'' has Albel and Nel, two soldiers from warring kingdoms. Plenty of opportunities for [[Foe Yay]], but they mostly ignore each other in the script. Doesn't stop the shippers from using Albel as the [[Gay Option|Straight Option]] for Nel.

* Thanks to it's origins as a [[Shmup]], the vast majority of ''[[Touhou]]'' characters have never interacted or shown evidence of being aware of each other. Thus, almost all ''possible'' ships are like this. On the plus side, the fandom is fairly sane and prefers to ship people who at least have reason to know each other... though sometimes this takes the form of having adjacent stages in gameplay that may be miles apart in canon. Most exceptions tend to be bad jokes (eg. shipping the bug girl with the plant lady) or instances of a [[Little Black Dress]].

* The ''[[Baten Kaitos]]'' fanfiction page has quite a few popular yaoi fics, a majority of them being about Kalas and Lyude, even though Kalas gives no indication of liking the latter, and vice-versa.

* [[Guilty Gear|Ky/Dizzy]], of all pairings, managed [[Official Couple]] status. Since the latter is incapacitated, they don't even interact much in the game that reveals this!

** That's fixed later, in some endings that have quite a bit of [[Ship Tease]]. I.e., one of them has Dizzy seeking for someone able to help her train and control her powers, and the one who gave her a hand on that was Ky.

** Azula and Toph are starting to gain a small fanbase. The two only talk once, in the Day of the Black Sun, when Azula proves she can get past Toph's [[Living Lie Detector]] ability. This is due in part to [[Alternative Character Interpretation|popular fan theories painting them both as lesbians]].

** Some Zutarians like to ship off [[Deadpan Snarker|Mai]] with Jet, {{spoiler|Despite the fact that Jet's dead and they've never met.}} Though I won't limit it to just Zutarians or just Mai. Jet's really into complete strangers, some say...

** The Zutara ship started out this way. Yes, they ran into each other half a dozen times in the first season, but with the exception of one scene where Zuko trying to barter Katara's necklace for Aang, he never even spoke to her. The second season was even worse. It wasn't until the cave that Zuko and Katara had any real interaction with each other, but the Zutara ship was already running strong.

** June/Piandao is another one that's been appearing recently.

** Pop/Disco Bear is also surprisingly popular, which is weird because they've never even been in the same episode.

* ''[[South Park]]'' has many strange couples in fandom and some of them are really popular. For example, [[Ho Yay|Craig/Tweek]] is the most popular crack pairing and the most popular pairing after Stan/Kyle and [[Foe Yay|Cartman/Kyle]], even though they have interacted only in one episode.

** Another fairly popular crack pairing is [[The Antichrist|Damien]]/Pip. The two only appeared in an episode together, for a few moments, during Damien bullied Pip and set him on fire. [[No Yay|Guess why they are shipped together]].

** One that there's more than a few shippers for is Stan and Ike despite the interaction between the two being nothing more than Ike being the little brother of Stan's best friend. Can get into Squick territory thanks to a 6 year age difference.

* Out of the three main fan pairings in ''[[Ben 10]]'', only Gwen/Kevin was like this ''at first'', as the [[Kissing Cousins|Ben/Gwen]] and [[Foe Yay|Ben/Kevin]] shippers had ''plenty'' of evidence to back themselves up. The writers may have caught on to this, and paired Gwen and Kevin off [[Strangled by the Red String|awkwardly]] in [[Ben 10: Alien Force|Ben 10 Alien Force]] to [[Ship Sinking|sink]] the [[Portmanteau Couple Name|Bwen and Bwevin]] shippers. This was [[Romantic Plot Tumor|so forced]] it had the effect of stopping approximately no-one.

* In the case of ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'', this likely would apply to Ferb & Gretchen (the Fireside Girl who [[Meganekko|wears glasses]]). Despite Ferb's [[Precocious Crush]] on Vanessa and the fact that he and Gretchen have never truly interacted onscreen, it's a very popular ship in the fandom

* Just try to tell some of the [[Wolverine and the X-Men]] fans that [[Ditzy Genius|Forge]] and [[Ugly Cute|Toad]] have never so much as been in the same room together. That doesn't stop them from being rather plausible if they ever did meet, or the fact that their ship is hands-down ''the'' cutest one in the fandom.

* [[Transformers Animated]]. Prowl and Blackarachnia only met once {{spoiler|and all she did was poison him so she could manipulate Optimus.}} But given his [[Friend to All Living Things]] and her self-loathing for her technorganic [[Body Horror]] had a strange appeal for fans as the one to bringing her 'round not only for a [[Heel Face Turn]] but for her to accept herself. He could have brought out the good like [[Knight in Shining Armor|Silverbolt]] did for the original [[Dark Action Girl|BA]] in ''[[Beast Wars]]''.

** A very extreme, disturbing example is a fanart involving Blurr/Longarm, despite the fact the only interaction those two characters ever had was when the former ''was killed'' by the latter.

* ''[[Transformers Prime]]'' has Knock-out and Arcee. The two of them barely spoken and have little interaction with each other, and the little they have is hostile. Yet this seems to be the fan favorite pairing if fanfiction has anything to say about it.

** Bonus: Knock-Out is ''heavily'' implied to be gay. Arcee is female. Genders are nominally meaningless among Transformers, sure, but the shipping community voids that rule by its very nature.

* In ''[[Fairly Oddparents]]'', Chester and Trixie is a moderately popular ship. The rationale for pairing them is that they both work for the school newspaper, aside from being a good [[Pair the Spares]] couple if you ship Timmy with somebody else.

** Chester and Veronica too.

* A lot of ''[[The Princess and the Frog]]'' fans seem to ship [[Spoiled Sweet|Charlotte LaBouff]] and [[Witch Doctor|Dr. Facilier]], even if they never canonically interacted. This also ignores the detail of Facilier trying to kill Lottie's beloved father.

* ''[[Daria]]'' has a few examples—some fans ship [[Homeschooled Kids|Ted]] with [[The Woobie|Stacy]], for example, based on their similarly kind and intelligent personalities. [[Berserk Button|Mr. DeMartino]] / [[Hippie Teacher|Ms. Defoe]], the most notable teachers to still be single at the end of the series, are also sometimes paired together.

*** Applejack's cousing Braeburn has appeared in one episode, and lives very far from everyone else, but since had lines, a discernable personality and is male, he appears in a lot of ships - though not only straight ones, but also to fill out the low yaoi quota in Ponyville and to be the one a main character tries to have a straight relationship with before they realise the prefer mares. Presumably he does a lot of travelling.

** Speaking of which Big Macintosh hasn't [[The Quiet One|spoken]] to many ponies apart from his sister, however since he is (other than Spike) the only recurring male character he gets shipped around a lot.

*** A particularly popular Big Mac ship is Big Mac/Fluttershy. This is probably due to the fact that both are fairly quiet and seem to like nature, but they've never really interacted at all.

** Another popular ship is [[Foe Yay|Discord/Celestia]], due to the dialogue they ''do'' share, and the fact that Discord is the only other major character outside of Luna and Celestia that seems to be able to live several thousands of years. It has three groups dedicated to it on [[Deviant ART]].

*** The writers have apparently decided to Throw It In -- season 5 reveals that Octavia and Vinyl are roommates, and at least occasionally work together to compose music and hold jam sessions. Whether they're siblings, platonic life partners, or actually in a relationship is still up in the air.

* ''[[X-Men: Evolution]]'s'' Pietro and X-23 is a ''very'' popular ship. But so is Kurt and X-23. This is despite X-23's closest interaction with Kurt being off screen and involving her knocking him out; her and Pietro's closest interaction in the series only happening in people's imaginations; and [[Jerkass|each]] [[Fun Personified|character's]] [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds|personality]] being completely different. If the characters did interact without first having a LARGE dose of [[Character Development]] first, it would either end with X-23 killing Pietro for making a wise ass remark, or X-23 killing Kurt for not being serious enough in a situation. Kitty and Pietro is slightly saner, but even more jarring as the two have interacted, and by 'interacted' we mean Pietro insults her, she glares at him, and once threatens him. Let's just say X-23 couldn't be shipped with anyone as she has a very unique personality and the only three people she was shown on screen with were either being knocked out, are dead, or [[Squick|her genetic template and the closest thing to a father.]]

* ''[[Recess]]'' fans tend to ship Hustler Kid x Butch...despite the fact that the two hardly interact in the series.

[[Category:Shipping Tropes]]

[[Category:YMMV Trope]]