Fan Preferred Couple / Webcomics

• Practically none of the Boy Meets Boy fans like Cyanide/Ronnie or Skids/Tybalt, preferring Cyanide/Skids. This might have something to do with the way Cyanide spends most of the comic pining over Skids, or Tybalt's tendency toward being a Jerkass (and sometimes an actual villain) who'll sleep with anyone. The author actually initially planned for Cyanide and Skids to hook up, but changed her mind somewhere along the line and decided to do a Writer Revolt, even outright stating to many disappointed fans that Cyanide and Skids would never get together.
• In the few years of College Roomies from Hell!!!, there was considerable Unresolved Sexual Tension between two of the main characters, Dave and Margaret, even after they had sex. Then Mike's little sister, Blue, was introduced. Blue immediately found Dave interesting (why was not really indicated) and set out to pursue him. Fan opinion was strongly divided (but in a friendly way) as to which girl was better for Dave. Margaret was in the lead for some time, with much fanfic and general writings devoted to how and why the two would get together "properly", but plot developments in the strip have at least temporarily torpedoed that ship and Dave is now "happily" (the poor guy is the closest thing in the comic to a Butt-Monkey) shacked up with Blue.
• In The Dreamer, although the official couple in the 18th century is Alan/Bea, there are fans who prefer Alex/Bea due to the latter pairing having better chemistry.
• Eerie Cuties: Even though Layla is canonically straight and in an on again/off again relationship with Kade, fans wanted to believe she was either bisexual, or in denial, in hopes of seeing her pair up with either Brooke, or Tiffany. Of course, once Tiff officially made it clear that she and Layla were just friends, the fans were hoping there was still a chance of Layla getting together with Brooke. Even if it meant Layla being taken over by Lamia's persona and enthralling Brooke to make it happen. It didn't.
• Homestuck:
  • For a time John/Dave was one of, if not the, most popular ships in the fandom, far surpassing the briefly-canon John/Vriska. Eventually later official but dubiously canon instalments beyond the original webcomic would make Dave and Karkat a couple, averting this trope as Dave/Karkat now exceeds John/Dave in popularity.
  • Eridan/Sollux is more popular than either Eridan’s doomed canon crush on Feferi or Sollux’s canon relationship with her, despite the fact that they tried to kill each other at least once.
• The Official Couples in Housepets! are Peanut/Tarot and Grape/Maxwell, due in part to the Fantastic Racism of the setting, which frowns upon Interspecies Romance (the former couple are both dogs, while the latter are cats). However, a healthy portion of fan-produced artwork and fiction focuses upon shipping Grape with her stepbrother Peanut, for a variety of reasons (the two of them are ostensibly the main characters and share a long personal history, among other things). The author has teased this particular pairing more than once as part of an ongoing Romance Arc, which may eventually lead this couple to become Official, although they certainly aren't there yet.
• Lackadaisy has Zib/Mitzi, otherwise known as "Zibzi". This would appear to leave Mitzi's canon squeeze Wick out in the cold, but he's got a backup in the form of his maybe-maybe-not romantic tension with assistant Lacy — a well-liked ship in its own right. There's also a good number of fans who prefer Viktor/Ivy to the canon Calvin/Ivy.
• In the Something*Positive fandom, Davan/Pee-Jee continues to be one of most popular ships, despite being repeatedly sunk by the author. (Even Davan's marriage to Vannessa isn't enough to silence them.) His own opinion is that they could never work, but that and any amount fan appeals are trumped up the real-life woman who he based Pee-Jee on insisting that he didn't. It doesn't help matters that the majority of their canon love interests are either jerks, insane, or insane jerks and given R.K. Milholland's fondness for twitting the more annoying members of his fanbase (as he sees them) and his general lack of concern for collateral damage among the remainder, it's not terribly surprising that the Davan/PeeJee ship sails on.

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