Fan Preferred Couples in Western Animation.
- Arcane: The Jayce/Viktor ship is much, much more popular with fans than the canonical ship of Jayce/Mel, with the amount of fanart and fanfic for the former ship far outnumbering the latter.
- As Told by Ginger: As the years go by, more and more fans like Ginger/Courtney, even with the final episode hinting that Ginger marries Darren in the future. Blake and Carl have a considerable fan-following as well, though their relationship comes off as a lot more one-sided on Blake's end and Carl's main love interest is Noelle in the show.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender:
- Avatar: The Last Airbender:
- Zutara (the pairing of Zuko and Katara) is the most popular pairing in the fandom, with the amount of fan works depicting the two as romantically involved outnumbering those for Official Couple Kataang (Aang/Katara) both during and after the show's run. The fanbase is such that the pairing was even playfully referenced in the episode "Ember Island Players" and the non-canonical "School Time Shipping" short, as well as the satirical "Avatar Book 4" video shown at San Diego Comic-Con 2008 (which was dedicated to thoroughly lambasting the ship). Even the characters' own voice actors and a number of the show's writers are on record for saying that they prefer the pairing over that of Kataang.
- Despite Sokka having a canon girlfriend in Suki, most people shipped him with Toph (who canonically has a Precocious Crush on him) during the original show's run, and even into The Legend of Korra thanks to the father of Toph's children being unknown for most of that series. However, many would abandon the ship after that show introduced the unfavorable idea of Sokka needing to be an absent father to Lin and Suyin to make the pairing work canonically; Sokka/Zuko would soon take its place and eventually raise to be one of the most popular ships in the fandom overall alongside Katara/Zuko in the wake of the franchise's late 2010s popularity resurgence.
- The Legend of Korra:
- There are far more fanworks involving Lin and Tenzin than there are of Tenzin and his wife Pema. Tenzin is Happily Married with four kids, but Pema explaining how they got together (Lin and Tenzin did date when they were younger, while Pema hung at the sidelines before gaining the courage to confess her love when the two were at a rocky point in their relationship) caused many to drift towards Linzin. Tenzin fics in general tend to focus on his past with Lin, are AUs where they don't split, or have Tenzin cheat on Pema with Lin. Pema even gets hit by Die for Our Ship and is sometimes depicted as a home wrecker for her actions, when neither Tenzin and Lin ever credit/blame her for why they canonically broke up; she just had the lucky timing of Tenzin already planning on ending that relationship due to incompatible life goals.
- Despite Kuvira being in a relationship with Baatar Jr. for most of Book 4, it is more popular to ship her with Korra, most likely aided by the fact that the two share a heart-to-heart in the final episode where they talk about their shared qualities, prompting a Heel Realization on Kuvira's part. Fanfics and fan art for this pairing outnumber those about Kuvira/Baatar Jr., though should be noted that this only counts in regards to Kuvira's ships, as Korra's most popular ship is with her canon Love Interest, Asami.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender:
- In the Batman Beyond fandom, the majority of the fans go for Terry with his best friend Max or one-time girlfriend Melanie. Few actually pair him with his canon girlfriend Dana Tan, as she's the least developed character of the three. In the Season One DVD Behind the Scenes featurette, it is discovered that Alan Burnett wanted to write an episode where Terry and Max ended up together, but Bruce Timm refused, as he'd originally intended the episode to have Terry and Dana stay together, and Terry ends up getting hitched to Dana in the future as shown in the JLU episode "Epilogue."
- Ben 10:
- The original series had Ben and his cousin Gwen, with their constant bickering being perceived by fans as Belligerent Sexual Tension, with some believing that this was inadvertently carried over from when Gwen was intended to be a family friend instead of Ben's cousin. It helps that there was only one other recurring child character (Kevin) either of them could plausibly be shipped with. Even after being officially paired off with other characters in future installments, as well as getting more potential shipping options in general, Ben/Gwen remains one of the most popular pairings in the fandom, resulting in loads of H-art and fan made videos of them together.
- Ben 10: Alien Force: For a period of time on FF.net, four of the five most favourited romance stories were Ben/Kevin, despite this installment introducing the official couples of Gwen/Kevin and Ben/Julie.
- Ben 10: Omniverse introduced several possible love interests for Ben following his breakup with Julie before settling with Kai, a character from the original series. Unfortunately for Kai, she had two things going against her: 1) their romance was only heavily focused on in the final arc, with the writers introducing Spanner to actively force the pairing, and 2) others like Looma Redwind and Ester were popular from their introductions (especially the latter, due to being voiced by Tara Platt, who is the wife of Ben's voice actor Yuri Lowenthal), while Kai was polarizing since her classic series debut thanks to her treating Ben like a literal dog. Even Attea was a more popular het ship. However, when all was said and done, Ben/Rook was the most popular ship to rise from this installment of the series by a wide margin.
- Bob's Burgers: A large portion of the fandom prefers to ship Tina with Zeke as opposed to Jimmy Jr, her usual crush. Granted that Zeke has a canon crush on Tina and is generally a lot nicer to her than Jimmy Jr., it's easy to see why this pairing is so popular.
- Castlevania (2017): Instead of pairing them off individually, most fans have taken to pairing the protagonists, Alucard, Trevor, and Sypha, together as a One True Threesome. Most fanfiction and fan art are of this OT3, and it even outranks the canon combination Trevor/Sypha on most sites.
- Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers: Although there's a bit of a Broken Base surrounding it, Chip/Gadget remains one of the fandom's most popular ships, despite Tammy's crush on Chip ("Adventures in Squirrelsitting") and Gadget's potential crush on Sparky ("Does Pavlov Ring a Bell?").
- Codename: Kids Next Door: Two non-canonical pairings involving Nigel Uno are more popular than his canon relationship with Lizzie — Nigel/Rachel (1/362) and Nigel/Abigail (1/5). Both have far more art on DeviantArt than the canon Nigel/Lizzie. The former gained a large lead following the show's finale, which revealed Numbuh 5 married Numbuh 2, itself a very popular pairing in its own right.
- In Danger Mouse, Despite the occasional hint towards Jeopardy Mouse and Danger Mouse, and much teasing from the show concerning DM and chief science advisor Professor Squawkencluck, fans have gravitated to the idea of Penfold having a relationship with Squawk. Other fans gravitated to the thought of Penfold and Danger Mouse together also. The show eventually began catering to all of these preferred couples in selected episodes and now it's a question of which one will emerge triumphant at the end of it all. In the early days of the series, Danger Mouse was also paired in fanfics with the often calamity prone and endearingly polite Danger Moth. Jeopardy is often paired up with Count Duckula due to a throwaway script-editing gag in one episode where Duckula tried to write Jeopardy dating him into the story. The recent festive musical episode ''Melted' also raised the possibility of Danger Mouse having feelings for Dawn, the daughter of arch-nemesis Crumhorn, but this in itself is a complicated subject considering Dawn is underage.
- Daria: Much of the fandom dislikes Daria/Tom and would have preferred that Daria had ended up with Jane instead, likely due to the show's focus on the intimacy of their friendship. The pairing remains the most popular ship in the fandom to this day.
- Darkwing Duck: Despite Drake being canonically paired with Morgana, most fans prefer to pair him with Launchpad due to feeling that they have better chemistry.
- DC Super Hero Girls: While Wonder Woman regularly gets Ship Tease with Steve Treavor, the fandom strongly prefers to pair her with Harley Quinn, due to their opposites attract vibe.
- DC Super Hero Girls 2019: While Diana's absolutely smitten by Steven Treavor in the show proper, Diana/Tatsu immediately exploded in popularity after "#SoulSisters", due to being Birds of a Feather and having excellent chemistry with each other.
- Quite a few fans of Downtown would rather have Alex become a couple with his best friend Jen than with his crush Serena due to him and Jen having better chemistry and knowing each other better.
- DuckTales (2017): Fenton is canonically paired with Gandra Dee, but, while that has its fans, it is far more popular to pair him with his boss Gyro, due to how much Fenton tries to win Gyro's approval and these fans feeling that they have better chemistry.
- Final Space: Despite canon leaning to Quinn/Gary, a lot of people seem to prefer Avocato/Gary, due to the latter pair copious amount of Ho Yay and having a much more heartwarming relationship than the former.
- Fry and Leela has been a popular couple in Futurama since before it even became canon, but in certain circles, its popularity is eclipsed by that of Fry and Bender, which was never canon but was the subject of much Ho Yay. On Archive of Our Own, Fry/Bender has twice as many fanfictions as Fry/Leela.
- Generator Rex: While Rex develops a romance with Circe over the course of the show, and Breach is shown to have an obsession with him that became a popular pairing in its own right, Rex is most commonly shipped with his best friend Noah in fan works due to their close bond and his grounding presence compared to the usual insanity Rex deals with.
- Jem has Stormer/Kimber. The ship spawned due to "The Bands Break Up", which involved Stormer and Kimber developing an incredibly Les Yay laden Pseudo-Romantic Friendship. It never gets referenced after Stormer goes back to The Misfits and Kimber has at least two boyfriends during the course of the series, but that hasn't stopped fans from writing Kimber ending up with Stormer sometime post-series (or at least having them as close friends with Stormer possibly falling under Incompatible Orientation). The Jem and the Holograms (IDW) reboot outright made them an Official Couple from the start.
- Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous: A lot of shippers are upset at the canon pairing of Kenji and Brooklynn in Season 4 since most of them either ship Brooklynn or Kenji with Darius or Kenji with Ben.
- Kim Possible: While the canon ship of Kim/Ron is popular, there is still a large portion of fans who ship Kim with Shego over him. It is especially popular among fanfiction writers, mainly due to the chemistry between the two. Shego is often seen as being very flirty with Kim, and she is often given the Draco in Leather Pants treatment from fans. It is also far more popular than Shego's canon ship with Drakken.
- The Looney Tunes Show: Although Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck are in relationships with Lola and Tina respectively, it's far more popular to ship the two with each other instead. The show loads their dynamic with lots of Ho Yay, and they often come off Like an Old Married Couple in their interactions. Most of the fanfiction, fan art, and fanvids of the show is about them together. The show is also believed to be responsible for the Baffy ship becoming the dominant pairing within the Looney Tunes fandom in general.
- My Life as a Teenage Robot: a majority of the fandom are Jenny/Brad supporters, while the creator allegedly prefers Jenny/Sheldon.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Rarijack remains perhaps the most popular (non-Rainbow Dash) pairing, despite Rarity having a few one-off love interests and the finale implying that Applejack got together with Rainbow Dash. The Ship-to-Ship Combat isn't helped by the fact that the Equestria Girls versions of the characters are seen as having more ship tease in that continuity than the latter pairing, resulting in arguments over whether this ending also applies to the human characters.
- In Phineas and Ferb, Baljeet has multiple girls who are interested in him and, in the Time Skip episode, actually dates Ginger. However, due to their frequent Ho Yay and just generally funny relationship, most fans actually ship him with bully and best friend Buford.
- While many Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja fans ship what was likely to be the intended endgame of Randy/Theresa ("Fowlham"), even more ship Randy and Howard ("Weinerham"), probably due to the show having all of the usual questionable bro closeness without so much of the "no homo" that usually comes with it.
- Regular Show: Given that Mordecai wound up with neither of his two girlfriends, the shipping wars between the two resulted in a draw, as nobody won. That hasn't stopped fans of each insisting that either Margaret or CJ should've been with him at the end, with characters in-universe actually siding with the latter group while the love triangle was ongoing. Which makes it ironic that shippers of Mordecai/CJ ended up the most distraught, as Word of God claims they never spoke to each other even once following their breakup, while he managed to still be good acquaintances with Margaret.
- In Sidekick, Eric has a crush on Vana, but fans like him better with Mandy or Kitty instead, due to them being on the very, very short list of people who don't treat him terribly. A list that pointedly doesn't include Vana, who generally takes any opportunity to leave Eric for dead, and usually needs serious coercion to help save him.
- The Simpsons: Though the show has frequently showed Mr. Burns dating women and turning down Waylon Smithers’ advances, and episodes like “The Burns Cage” and “Portrait of a Lackey On Fire” have showed Smithers dating someone besides Mr. Burns, Burns x Smithers is among the most popular ships in the Simpsons fandom, and the most written-about Simpsons pairing on Archive Of Our Own. In fact, a few casual fans of the show have mistaken Burns and Smithers for mutual gay lovers.
- South Park: Stan has a canon girlfriend, but the fandom seems to like his Ho Yay and Heterosexual Life-Partners status with Kyle as a better romantic alternative.
- Spider-Man: The Animated Series: It’s not hard to find fans who would have preferred Peter hooking up with Felicia Hardy instead of Mary Jane. Reasons for that include Felicia being considered a more well-rounded and interesting character then MJ, her and Spider-Man having stronger chemistry and a more fleshed-out and intimate relationship, and that’s all before she becomes Black Cat, which only makes their chemistry and compatibility stronger (also helped by Black Cat undergoing Adaptational Heroism). It is also more popular than the canon Felicia/Morbius.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Ahsoka/Rex (Rexsoka) remains the most popular Ahsoka pairing, even though she has a canon love interest in Lux Bonteri. This is probably because Lux is comparatively new on the scene, and Rexsoka was already well-established in the fandom before his episode premiered in Season 3. Karen Traviss and Karen Miller's teases towards Rexsoka in the novels did not help things.
- Static Shock: Virgil/Richie is by far the most popular pairing in the fandom and is easily more popular than Virgil's canon one with Daisy. The majority of romance fics feature this as the main ship. It helps that Richie's comics counterpart is canonically gay.
- Reef/Fin from Stōked is easily more popular than any other pairing on the show, even though Reef/Lo start dating in the second season.
- Sym-Bionic Titan: The pairing of Ilana and Lance (dubbed Ilanca by the shippers) has been favored since the very first episode, despite them posing as siblings in the show, having other potential love interests, and the show's creator Genndy Tartakovsky stating in interviews that he wanted their relationship to be a platonic one.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003): A combat rivalry that was very easily interpreted as Belligerent Sexual Tension made Leonardo/Karai exceptionally popular at the fandom's height. Karai was, however, ultimately paired with her awkward admirer Dr. Chaplin, while Leo and indeed all the turtles stayed single through the entirety of the show.
- Teen Titans: Beast Boy/Raven. The creators and writers of the show repeatedly stated that the two characters are meant to be Like Brother and Sister more than anything else, with a romantic relationship even being joked about and dismissed on at least one occasion in the tie-in comic series. The ship became increasingly popular despite this, quickly becoming the preferred complementary ship for Starfire/Robin shippers, and a substantially large amount of people prefer it to the official canon couple of Beast Boy and Terra (the difference on FF.net was about twelvefold in the mid-2010s and has only increased since then, with a similar ratio on AO3). Notably, the popularity of the ship would affect other versions of the characters in the years during and since; various comics and YA graphic novels have had them as a couple, while the show's own Denser and Wackier spin-off Teen Titans Go! would completely embrace the pairing (while jokingly turning Robin/Starfire into a case of unrequited love), dedicating several moments and whole episodes to their relationship.
- ThunderCats (2011): While Cheetara ends up with Tygra and that does have its fans, most fans prefer to pair her with Lion-O. This is mainly because said fans feel that Cheetara and Lion-O have better chemistry than she and Tygra do, and distaste for the reveal that Lion-O never actually had a chance with her to begin with due to the reveal that she met Tygra as a kid and carried a flame for him ever since. On FanFiction.Net, Cheetara/Lion-O easily outranks Cheetara/Tygra by a good margin.
- In Tiny Toon Adventures, Ensemble Dark Horse Fifi la Fume is occasionally depicted as the target of a crush by Hampton J. Pig. In the fandom, very few acknowledge this, as most prefer to portray Fifi finding love with her male feline classmate, Furrball. This stems predominantly from the fact that Fifi having a crush on Furrball is canon to one episode (although it goes nowhere, Furrball's dislike of Fifi as a Smelly Skunk has to do with her stench and he doesn't dislike her as a person), the fact that this would further Fifi's resemblance to her inspirationnote , and the fact that Furrball is a sympathetically unlucky, unloved and abused Unpopular Popular Character and Fifi is an Ensemble Dark Horse with a lot of love to give.
- Total Drama:
- The series has an interesting case in-regards to its Love Triangle subplot. Initially, Duncan/Gwen was much more popular among fans than the canon relationships of Duncan/Courtney and Gwen/Trent. However, after the latter two relationships fell apart and Duncan and Gwen got together in World Tour, fans did a complete 180 and preference switched to Duncan/Courtney and Gwen/Trent instead.
- Despite Scott having briefly hooked up with Courtney in All-Stars, many fans prefer to ship him with Dawn, thanks to the Angel/Devil Shipping dynamic of the two.
- Because Total Drama has so many major characters and an active shipping community, this trope happens a lot for characters in less than popular relationships. One of the biggest examples of this is pairing up Izzy with Ezekiel, rather than her briefly canon relationship with Owen.
- Despite Priya getting a romance arc with Caleb and Damien being just a Shipper on Deck for them, most people prefer Priya with Damien due to the subtle Ship Tease they had in their debut season, which ended up being an Aborted Arc. This pairing's popularity is cemented by the fact that Priya literally trained for Total Drama since birth, while Damien never heard of or watched the series, making for some interesting Opposites Attract dynamic.
- Many of these came as a result of the series' spin-off show, Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race.
- Geoff/Brody is very popular among fans who aren't particularly keen on Geoff's canon relationship with Bridgette (or just haven't watched the main series and are unfamiliar with the latter).
- Dwayne/Kelly is rather popular among fans, despite the series confirming that the two are still married to their respective wife and husband.
- Totally Spies! has the Sam/Alex/Clover ship. It doesn't help (or, rather, helps greatly) that most of the boys that any of the three show interest in are one-shots, bar Clover's relationship with fellow spy Blaine and Sam's crush on Tim Scam.
- Transformers: Generation 1: Prowl and Jazz might well embody this. In canon, regardless of cartoon or comic, they barely interact, and the few times they do, they generally dislike each other, and yet they have hundreds of fics on FFN. There are reboots where the two are on good terms, but most of the fanfics pairing them are about the G1 characters. There doesn't seem to be any base to the pairing other than "they're both white cars from the 1984 line" and "they could have chemistry, theoretically." It gets to the point where Prowl/Jazz fans can get downright rude towards characters who do show affection toward Prowl (most famously Chromedome and the Constructicons).
- Ugly Americans: While Mark has had a number of girlfriends, he's most often shipped with his roommate, Randall, due to the amount of Ho Yay between them.
- Voltron: Legendary Defender has Keith/Lance and Keith/Shiro competing for the place as biggest ship in the fandom depending on what part of the world you live in (Western fans tend to prefer the former, while Eastern fans the latter). In canon, Lance is perpetually smitten with Allura and the two date in the final season, up until her death. Meanwhile, though Shiro is explicitly noted to be gay, it's later learned that he had a fiancée named Adam who died during Sendak's invasion of Earth, and he ends the series marrying Curtis.
- In X-Men: Evolution, while Scott/Rogue was a favorite of many of the shows creators (and had a large fanbase to speak of), fan support for Gambit/Rogue was so popular that eventually the writers gave an entire episode devoting time to the possibility, and the last image of the series suggested they were together. Interesting fact is that the writers, in the first scene Rogue and Gambit shared, had apparently intended to insinuate a past relationship between them (or so it is claimed); fandom was strong enough that if this plan was ever in the cards, it was discarded in favour of actually developing their chemistry onscreen, even if just for one episode.
- Young Justice:
- Fandom has Artemis/Robin due to him having more interaction with her than any of his four actual love interests. Slash fandom also shows a strong preference for Dick/Wally, which isn't hurt by the fact that Wally's death leads to Nightwing taking a leave of absence from the Team due to grief.
- The pairing of Jaime Reyes (Blue Beetle) and Bart Allen (Impulse) has been very popular since the introduction of both characters in season 2. Even though in the revival series Jaime starts dating Traci Thurston (Thirteen) and Bart is teased with Ed Dorado Jr (El Dorado), "Bluepulse" remains significantly more popular.
