History Main / LauncherOFAThousandShips

* As far as shipping is concerned, ''Website/ThatGuyWithTheGlasses'' has [[{{Keet}} Benzaie]], [[TheCasanova Spoony]], the Nostalgia Chick, [[StoicSpectacles Linkara]], and [[NerdsAreSexy the Nostalgia Critic]].

The TropeNamer is [[Theatre/DoctorFaustus Christopher Marlowe's version]] of the legend of Myth/{{Faust}}. In reference to [[Literature/TheTrojanCycle Helen of Troy]], Faust asks, "Is this the face that launched a thousand ships/And burnt the topless towers of Illium?" [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant No relation to]] the Music/RachelPlatten single "1,000 Ships". It did lead to the humourous unit of measure [[FantasticMeasurementSystem the milliHelen]]], which is sufficient beauty to launch one ship.

The TropeNamer is [[Theatre/DoctorFaustus Christopher Marlowe's version]] of the legend of Myth/{{Faust}}. In reference to [[Literature/TheTrojanCycle Helen of Troy]], Faust asks, "Is this the face that launched a thousand ships/And burnt the topless towers of Illium?" [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant No relation to]] the Music/RachelPlatten single "1,000 Ships".

** Len is no slacker, either...he's been paired with Lui, Gakupo, Kaito, Miku, Rin, Gumi, Teto, Ia, Neru, Lenka...and those are only the ones this troper can think of off the top of their head. Though, Vocaloid being itself, everyone is this trope. Everyone. Up to and including ''[[TokenMiniMoe Yuki]]'', who has been shipped with seven different characters. This isn't much for Vocaloid, except that Yuki is ''nine''.

Also see and related to FanPreferredCouple.

Critical Role has Percy, Vex'ahlia, and Vax'ildan.
Percy has so far been paired with Vex, Keyleth, Lillith, Pike, Vax, and Raishan
Vex has been paired with Zahra, Percy, Pike, Grog, and Jarrett
Vax has been paired with Keyleth, Gilmore, Percy, Grog, and has had some Foe Yay Shipping with Lord and Lady Briarwood.
In Campaign 2 it's Jester. Paired with pretty much everybody but especially Fjord, Caleb and Beau.
Don't Hug Me I'm Scared's Fandom often put Tony through this even before the Kickstarter came out by shipping him with any of the three pupppets other than Sketchbook. Now with the series finished and a whole bunch of other characters to ship with, it seems that the fandom has already revved up it's engines and shipped him with either Colin, Shrignold, or Red Guy.
In the webcomic The Dreamer, we have Bea. Officially with Alan in the 18th — century and with Ben in the 21st — century, may have had a past with Alex, could be paired up with her cousin John, and also with Freddy, just for the hell of it.
El Goonish Shive has Tedd. He has a canon romance with Grace, and more than a little subtext with Elliot (including them dating in at least two alternate universes) which also frees up Ellen. Tedd's had plenty of moments with Susan and Sarah (with a decent amount of shippers for each of them with him), and there has been more than one Ho Yay bit with Tony. Some stretching on his former anxieties around Justin and a romantic interpretation of his moments with Catalina is all it really takes to put Tedd with almost anyone his age in the cast. Except Nanase. Usually.
Evan from Everyman HYBRID gets this treatment. He's also the show's Mr. Fanservice despite being what would, on network television, be Hollywood Homely. His obsession with knives probably attracts more fans to him despite his constant teetering on the edge of going Ax-Crazy. Kicking it up a notch, Evan is quite aware, in-character, that Slash Fic gets written about him; he and the rest of the cast find it flattering on some level.
Fandomstuck: The Leviathan Fandom. Her interests so far have included Dangan Ronpa, Minecraft, My Little Pony, Chaos, and Bones. It doesn't do very well for her emotional state.
Conrad Achenleck from Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name has strong Ho Yay with Doc Worth, but also gets paired up with werewolf girl Toni, main character Hanna, and vampire hunter Abner who hasn't even appeared in the comic yet.
Also paired with Half-Human Hybrid Veser and with Ensemble Dark Horse Ples who, in all fairness, actually is a Straight Gay.
Alastor from Hazbin Hotel seems to be quite popular amongst shippers, despite the character being canonically asexual/aromantic. He's been shipped with Charlie, Angel Dust, Vaggie (despite the latter being a lesbian), Husk, Niffty, Sir Pentious, Mimzy, Rosie, Valentino...not to mention the many, many Original Characters, plus the crossover ships with characters like Bill Cipher and Lilith Clawthorne (ANOTHER canonically aroace character).
Marzipan is the only female of the Homestar Runner cast (not counting the Teen Girl Squad). Do the math.
Homestuck has a lot of pairings between its numerous characters, thanks to its very active shipping community and abundance of Ship Tease. There is so much shipping that even within canon, Nepeta maintains a shipping wall where she keeps track of every single possible pairing between her friends. But even with the sheer number of pairings out there, some characters are... disproportionately represented:
John is this, partially due to him being the initial main character. John/Rose, John/Jade (Even though it's been revealed that that pairing is Brother–Sister Incest), John/Dave, John/Karkat, John/Terezi, and John/Vriska are just a few of his pairings.
Because most Trolls are bisexual and their species has four different kinds of romance, by nature they tend to get shipped around more than most of the other characters. Karkat is particularly prevalent; In canon, ship teases include Terezi, Nepeta, Jade, John, Dave, and Meenah. Sollux and Gamzee, being his closest friends, are also popular choices. The popular fandom Song Parody "Karkalicious" jokes about this and even has Karkat say "the majority of pairings had better include me!" in one verse.
The fandom doesn't exactly keep Dave to one person either. Aformentioned Dave/John, as well as Dave/Jade and Dave/Rose are way more popular than their "compliments" Rose/Jade, John/Rose, and John/Jade respectively.note He's also been paired up with all of the original twelve trolls and new kids at least once each (some considerably more than others, like Karkat and Terezi), and between that and some of the more crack choices, it got to the point where the comic's author had the Big Bad write a terrible comic-within-a-comic which depicts Dave as a supposed ladies' man with a decently sized harem.
NoPixel has Bryce Miller, who has been romantically linked to Pixie Plum, Emma Gaine, Andi Jones, Mercy Moon, Elena Vega, and Erin Cox, with each ship earning its fair share of fans. It's become a running joke that whenever Bryce even looks at another woman, his player LGX's Twitch chat will immediately ship them.
In Off the Page and into Life, Gail/Anyone is fair game. Helps that she's bisexual and a Magnetic Hero.
She and Henry have been in a Slap-Slap-Kiss relationship since the start.
Sam has had a crush on her since they were kids.
She and Tim are intensely close, and have kissed before.
She and Jackson have dated and still have feelings for each other.
She's obviously pretty admiring of Megan. (The mun has gone on record saying Gail has a crush on her.)
She briefly flirts with Aaron before finding out he has a girlfriend.
She and Irene got very close, very fast, and have kissed (albeit to prove a point).
She and Terrence occasionally veer into Foe Romance Subtext with their arguing. Plus they both like Henry, leading to many One True Threesome jokes.
The Order of the Stick fans will ship anyone with anything, but the Crack Pairings thread keeps coming back to Vaarsuvius for some reason.
In fan art (and in fic to a lesser extent) Miko Miyazaki is frequently drawn, written, or requested, despite her status as The Scrappy with a large portion of the fandom and cast — and again, she's paired with everyone (including The Snarl).
Dodger. Her vlogs never mention her love life, probably because if they did her entire fanbase would start a war among itself. That doesn't stop people from shipping her with every other TGS member in the LA area...and one in Chicago.
Hannelore "Hanners" Elliot Chatham from Questionable Content gets paired with... oh, you know the drill (a lot of her cast members new and old gets this treatment, too. Hanners isn't the main character).
In Red vs. Blue fandom, it's Church and Grif (Church/Grif is fairly popular), and to a lesser extent, Caboose.
RWBY: Everyone from Team RWBY (plus Jaune) has been paired with every conceivable character, including each other. In fact, polygamy fics where all of RWBY is dating each other (which, yes, generally includes half-siblings Ruby and Yang) aren't exactly uncommon. Generally, Ruby and Jaune tend to get this treatment the most, despite the fact (or maybe because of the fact) that Ruby is a Chaste Hero and Jaune started out as a Casanova Wannabe only to end up with a Lost Lenore.
Blake Belladonna is a close third in this category, though her getting this label admittedly makes more sense than Ruby and Jaune. Of the characters she's most frequently paired with, four of them (Yang, Sun, Ilia, and Adam) are canonically smitten with her.
As of Volume 7, Qrow Branwen began to join the fun, with his most popular pairings including Clover, Ironwood, Ozpin, Winter, Robyn, Summer and Taiyang.
Played for Laughs with Dr. Bright of the SCP Foundation. Needless to say, if an SCP exists, chances are someone’s made a joke about Bright wanting to have sex with it. Unless said SCP is SCP-590 or SCP-321. SCP-1471, SCP-682, and SCP-166 are often his most common victims, but other examples exist. Such as SCP-294.
Rosa Fiametta of Survival of the Fittest falls into the 'fandom bicycle' category, as in recent times, pairings bandied about have included: Bounce, Ilario and Frankie Fiametta (Twincest, yay!), Alexia Morgan, Princess Cerberus (a joke character), Adam Tenser, Blood Boy and Bobby Jacks. This isn't even counting the several canonical relationships she's had.
Naturally, the most requested character on the (relatively new) SOTF Kink Meme is Rosa. It's reached the point where there's now a rule about requesting Rosa, because she had a truckload of requests compared to other characters.
As far as shipping is concerned, That Guy with the Glasses has Benzaie, Spoony, the Nostalgia Chick, Linkara, and the Nostalgia Critic.
In Kink Meme news, while everyone's had a lot of action, probably the ultimate fandom mattress is now the Critic. A fair assumption, seeing as how apart from his usual pairings, as of writing he's had a gangbang on his desk, been shipped with an animated gargoyle, been the recipent of tentacle-lovin' and got kissed by the Lady Gaga from the Bad Romance video. Yes, really.
His actor, Doug Walker, is doing pretty well for himself too. Mostly because he's flirted with nearly everyone on the site for funsies.
It doesn't help matters that Spoony/Chick, Spoony/Googles, Spoony/Benzaie, Spoony/Critic, Spoony/Joe and Spoony/Sage are all canon.
Add to that Spoony/The Other Guy, Spoony/Paw, Spoony/Snob, Spoony/Ed Glaser, Spoony/The Last Angry Geek, Spoony/Matt Briner, and both Spoony/Pushing Up Roses and Spoony/Bargo were hinted at. And if crossovers count, Doctor Insano got it on with Doctor Holocaust and Captain Awesome.
Kim Richards from the Yogscast. The majority of Yogs are male, and since Hannah was (until 2015) in the Official Couple with Lewis and Zoey is a lesbian, Kim has been shipped with basically everyone. Fans were also overjoyed when she hinted she didn't mind being shipped with Hannah.

* LauncherOfAThousandShips/{{Music}}

* LauncherOfAThousandShips/ProfessionalWrestling
* LauncherOfAThousandShips/{{Theatre}}

* LauncherOfAThousandShips/WebOriginal

[[caption-width-right:350: The fandom's not letting go.[[note]]The characters surrounding Elsa are [[IncestYayShipping Anna]] and [[FoeYayShipping Hans]] from Franchise/{{Frozen}}, Flynn Rider from ''WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}}'', and [[CrossoverShip Jack Frost and Pitch Black]] from the non-Disney movie ''WesternAnimation/RiseOfTheGuardians''.[[/note]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350: [-[[https://www.deviantart.com/mabymin/art/STOP-THE-FANDOM-425850172 Image]] by [[https://www.deviantart.com/mabymin MabyMin]]. Used with permission.-]]]

For example, if someone in the ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' fandom says his Launcher is Snape, he will happily read {{Fanfic}}s featuring the Snape/Harry ship as well as fanfics with Snape/Hermione, Snape/Lupin, Snape/Lily, or even [[CrackPairing exotic pairings]] such as Snape[=/=][[Franchise/TheLordOfTheRings Legolas]] or Snape[=/=][[Franchise/{{Transformers}} Megatron]]. Anything goes as long as the Launcher is included.

[[caption-width-right:350: The fandom's not letting go.[[note]]The characters are [[IncestYayShipping Anna]] and [[FoeYayShipping Hans]] from Franchise/{{Frozen}}, Flynn Rider from ''WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}}'', and [[CrossoverShip Jack Frost and Pitch Black]] from the non-Disney movie ''WesternAnimation/RiseOfTheGuardians''.[[/note]]]]

[[caption-width-right:350: The fandom's not letting go.]]

[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/{{Frozen}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_elsa_the_snow_queen_228999_top_full.png]]]]

[[caption-width-right:350:[-[[https://www.deviantart.com/mabymin/art/STOP-THE-FANDOM-425850172 Image]] by [[https://www.deviantart.com/mabymin MabyMin]]. Used with permission.-]]]

[[quoteright:276:[[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/6b77e8d1_3ca0_4758_9ae5_e6aa505c6ccb.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:276:[[TeamMom Katara]] is paired with everyone!\\
[[CrackPairing Yes]], even [[TeamPet Appa and Momo.]]]]

!!Examples:

[[quoteright:276:[[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/katara_parings.jpg]]]]

-->-- '''WebAnimation/SilverQuill''' ''[referring to [[MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Big MacIntosh]]]''

[[caption-width-right:276:Katara is paired with everyone!\\

The TropeNamer is [[Theatre/DoctorFaustus Christopher Marlowe's version]] of the legend of {{Faust}}. In reference to [[Literature/TheTrojanCycle Helen of Troy]], Faust asks, "Is this the face that launched a thousand ships/And burnt the topless towers of Illium?" [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant No relation to]] the Music/RachelPlatten single "1,000 Ships".

The TropeNamer is [[Theatre/DoctorFaustus Christopher Marlowe's version]] of the legend of {{Faust}}. In reference to [[Literature/TheTrojanCycle Helen of Troy]], Faust asks, "Is this the face that launched a thousand ships/And burnt the topless towers of Illium?" [[IThoughtItMeant No relation to]] the Music/RachelPlatten single "1,000 Ships".

The TropeNamer is [[Theatre/DoctorFaustus Christopher Marlowe's version]] of the legend of {{Faust}}. In reference to [[Literature/TheTrojanCycle Helen of Troy]], Faust asks, "Is this the face that launched a thousand ships/And burnt the topless towers of Illium?"

This usually has to do with WishFulfillment: either the character is a lusted-after character and everyone likes to pair them with whoever reminds them of themselves, or the character is relatable and the fans see them as some sort of AudienceSurrogate and they are paired up with different characters that the fans lust after so they can project themselves onto this character.

-->-- '''[[http://www.youtube.com/user/tgcsilver Silver Quill]]''' ''[referring to [[MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Big MacIntosh]]]''

[[CrackPairing Yes, even]] [[TeamPet Appa and Momo.]]]]

[[caption-width-right:276:Katara-chan is paired with everyone!\\

[[caption-width-right:276:Katara is paired with everyone.\\

->''I'm beginning to think he ''doesn't'' want me to ship him with everypony.''
-->--'''[[http://www.youtube.com/user/tgcsilver Silver Quill]]''' ''[referring to [[MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Big MacIntosh]]]''

Compare MemeticSexGod, wherein the fandom believes that the character could score with not just everyone in the series, but everyone ''ever''.