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• EVERYONE in Kingdom Hearts has been a Launcher of a Thousand Ships at some point. EVERYONE. It probably helps given Kingdom Hearts' universe where any crossover has at least the slightest bit of plausibility.
  • Axel is the fandom bicycle: everybody gets a ride!
  • And then there's Demyx. He's the Organization's bitch.◊
  • Roxas get the most hetero pairings out of everyone, especially with Namine, Xion, Olette, and Kairi. Then there's the Ho Yay...
  • Throughout the internet, there have been pairings for almost every combination possible between the members of Organization XIII sans Lexaeus/Saix, making 90 pairings.
• Final Fantasy
  • Final Fantasy VI fans can throw Edgar together with anyone and everyone despite the fact that the poor guy couldn't get a date in-game, though he does have the best pick-up line in video game history.
  • In the Final Fantasy VII fandom, you've got Cloud, Tifa, Sephiroth and Vincent. If one adds in the endless flood of Relationship Sues, a thousand ships is a very lowball estimate of Sephiroth and Vincent's fleets.
  • In Final Fantasy VIII, Squall seems to be pretty paired with everyone who isn't Rinoa. It's not like the game's entire plot revolves around them falling in love with each other or anything.
  • One word, Balthier.
  • In Final Fantasy XIII, we have Lightning. Two major reasons for this are the fact that she has no canon love interest, and the game has a not-inconsiderable amount of Les Yay between her and Fang. Then there's her "motherly" relationship with Hope. If you want to go into Crossover Ships, there's Noctis, and being a Distaff Counterpart of Cloud Strife you can pair her up with him or any of his love interests. With Lightning scheduled to appear in the upcoming Dissidia 012, her status as ship-launcher can only grow.
  • Dissidia: Final Fantasy:
    • It has Terra, the only default female hero in the group, as its biggest Launcher of a Thousand Ships.
    • Following somewhat close behind her, there's Squall, who for some reason seems to be paired a lot with several characters.
    • And in Japanese fandom, the one who stands head and shoulders above ALL of them is Firion, for some inexplicable reason. He is paired with everyone. It's the Rose. That rose has been in the hands of at least nine characters throughout the course of the two games. In fanshipping land this automatically means he is paired with everyone who has obtained it. People even ship him with Aerith for their mutual love of flowers, even though the two have never canonically met! However perhaps the only pairing that has any real basis in the events of the games is Lightning, due to their undeniably cute scene in the reports turns out he just wants that pesky flower back but still who wants to crush a shippers dreams!
    • Lightning's paired with a fair amount of men in Dissidia's sequel (technically prequel), too. Mainly, Kain Highwind, Firion, and the Warrior of Light.
• The World Ends With You is still a new fandom, but already Neku's being paired with everyone. Minamimoto/Neku? Where'd that come from?
  • It came from Josh.
  "Think he's got a thing for you, Neku? (...) Oh, please! The way he follows you around?"
  • Minamimoto himself is paired with everyone. Neku, Beat, Konishi, Megumi, Joshua...Especially Joshua.
    • Everyone? MinamimotoxMicrophone is a popular pairing... unsurprisingly.
      Minamimoto: Why, hello there! This mic is zetta sexy!
    • Also calculators and math books.
  • Joshua too. Although Neku is by far his most popular option, he regularly gets shipped with Hanekoma, Minamimoto, Kitaniji, and Rhyme. Shiki and Beat are rarer but also exist, and he's a favorite for crossover ships.
• Yuu Narukami of Persona 4 has been paired with every conceivable cast member of the series at one point or another.
  • As was his predecessor in Persona 3, Minato Arisato (and his Distaff Counterpart, Hamuko).
• Rune Factory 2 has an official Launcher of a Thousand Ships candidate in the form of Yue. When the main character marries a girl who was destined for another guy, that guy will automatically end up with Yue.
• Lloyd Irving from Tales Of Symphonia. Seriously, he's paired with everyone in the game, although he's frequently shipped with Colette, and Sheena. There are many who pair him with Raine or Presea. Maybe even Zelos. Or even paired with Yggdrasill.
  • He has been paired with his own father. Granted it's usually before The Reveal, but some even have the relationship continue afterward.
  • Because of the Multiple Endings, Lloyd is a canonical Launcher of a Thousand Ships.
    • It even continues in the sequel! Dawn of the New World confirms that Lloyd scores with whoever you want him to.
• Emil seems to be this, too—he's been paired with a good chunk of the new cast including Ratatosk and Aster (who Ratatosk killed about a year and a half before Emil even came into existence.) Plus several of the original cast.
• As far as Tales Of The Abyss goes, Luke/Everyone might as well be canon. ... Well, everyone important. At the very least you cannot deny that Luke/The Party (or The Party/Luke, as it is...) is very nearly canon.
  • Guy gets this treatment too.
• Another canon Launcher of a Thousand Ships is Vayne of Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis, who has an ending with each of the other party members. The ones that aren't clearly romantic are laden with subtext.
• Fire Emblem has Roy. He has 6 possible wives, and can support with 4 other males, one of which is his milk brother (or male maid), and is obviously a target for Ho Yay/Bodyguard Crush. Roy was playable in Smash Bros. Melee...
  • Roy's got some brutal competition for the "Pimp Lord of Fire Emblem" from Celice in Genealogy—Celice can take to his side one of 15 possible wives (7 female children and 7 replacements, and then Yuria).
  • Lyndis from Fire Emblem 7 already has 4 canon love interests (5 if you count Florina as one), Sain and Wil are considered extremely plausible, Karel/Lyn and Lyn/Ninian have niche followings in the fandom, and one author even managed to pair her with Renault and make it plausible. There's the infamous Lyn/Tactician fics.
    • We can probably just go ahead and comment that most of the cast is canonically a Launcher of a Thousand Ships, and the fandom just goes ahead and takes this up to eleven.
  • My Unit (or Chris) in the remake of Mystery of the Emblem is an in-universe Launcher, capable of supporting with the entire cast of the game. They don't have as many potential love interests as Roy or Celice, though; male MU has 3, and female MU has 5.
  • The My Unit (or Avatar as s/he's called in the west) from Fire Emblem: Awakening takes this one step further. S/he can marry any player character (including the Paralogue characters Gangrel, Walhart, Aversa, Emmeryn, and Ike's descendant Priam and the Child characters like Lucina, Nah, or Yarne... and yes, s/he can have a kid with them), provided they're of the opposite gender.
  • Ike in Fire Emblem Tellius. On the canon side? Ship Tease with Princess Elincia, Ho Yay with Soren and another Gay Option with Ranulf plus Marcia constantly calling him "handsome." And of course, Aimee's relentless chasing of him. The fans, however, added Mia, Geoffrey, Zelgius, Boyd, Tibarn, Shinon, Titania, Sothe and even Yune. "We Like Ike" indeed...
• Link is easily the video game town bicycle; he's paired with everyone from the eponymous Princess Zelda to... well, to the Shinto goddess Amaterasu as seen in Okami, given that both were wolves recently. (If there were a Shinto Hell, whoever first did that would be going there. Nor is this the only strange ship involving Amaterasu, in or out of Okami itself.) Link gains a new harem within each big game. Ocarina of Time Harem,◊ Wind Waker Harem,◊ Twilight Princess Harem,◊ and much much more!
• In Golden Sun, everyone is a Launcher of a Thousand Ships.
  • And then the Lighthouses are jokingly considered as such in both the phrase's literal and other metaphorical sense, thanks to the fact that more than a half of the non-crack pairings (and a few crack ones) get their biggest Ship Tease in them.
    • And God said: "LET THERE BE DARK DAWN!!!"
• World of Warcraft fan fiction's poster girl is Lady Jaina Proudmoore by far. She's often shipped with Arthas (pre- and post-undeath), Warchief Thrall (a pairing once characterized on the official Blizzard WoW General Discussion Forum as "Bow-Chikca-Lok'Tar"), a triangle between the three (and I'm sure a ménage ŕ trois has been done at least once)...every fan fic writer who writes about his own PCs will have them meet Jaina at some point.
  • Jaina/Arthas (pre-undeath) actually is canon: they used to date when they were both teenagers.
    • And yes, they did sleep together. They would have married too, if not Arthas decided they both should finish their studies first. And when they were done with that, there was that whole undeath plague...
  • Kael'thas Sunstrider! He canonically had a crush on her (although it was apparently unrequited).
    • Jaina was heiress to the throne of Kul Tiras before the fall of Lordaeron, and Arthas and Kael'thas were both crown princes of their respective allied kingdoms. Given how royalty is often married off to allied royalty, its not surprising that she'd have been socially introduced to every male heir in her age group from every ally Kul Tiras had.
  • Thrall and Sylvanas fit this trope for Horde aficionados.
  • Outside of canon characters, elves in general seem to fill this role. Especially blood elves.
  • And as of Patch 5.1 and the Tides of War tie-in novel, Jaina is canonically hooked up with Kalecgos, who is literally a dragon.
• Reimu and Marisa from the Touhou games tend to have their own mini-harems, most of their pairing options being youkais they've defeated in previous battles.
  • Alice Margatroid is also subject to almost as much pairing-off as Marisa. There's a notable fanartist who paired the dollmaker off to nearly everyone, and did fanart of herself glomping Alice!
  • Rinnosuke Morichika, being The One Guy, seems to get this treatment by default unless he's being portrayed as the Memetic Molester. If you scroll down this page, you will see a chart that breaks down his ships with every character in the series by source material.
  • Though specially Marisa, with more than seven frequent pairings, is who stands out in this trope. In some works to Memetic Sex God and GAR levels.
  • Yuuka has quite a few ships too.
• Metal Gear's Snake tends to be paired up with almost everyone in the series, and outside of it - even before his appearance in Brawl. It really doesn't help that he's the Prince of the Even the Guys Want Him trope (Big Boss being the king).
  • In the MGS fandom itself, Otacon's probably earned this. He's been paired with Snake, Mei Ling, Raiden, Liquid, Grey Fox, Big Boss, Mantis, and young Ocelot, time paradoxes and plausibility be damned.
• Sonic and Tails in the Sonic the Hedgehog series go with everyone... even though they show the least romantic interest of the entire cast.
  • Shadow. Although he's more commonly shipped with Sonic, Rouge and Amy (and occasionally Maria), he has gotten shipped with plenty of characters you wouldn't expect.
  • Really, almost everyone has been paired with everyone else in Sonic, regardless of gender, age, or species.
• Mega Man Star Force: Geo goes with everyone, mostly because the game and anime each drop plenty of scenes for him that could be interpreted as ship teases - with several different characters. Love Triangle with Luna and Sonia, Ho Yay with Pat and Ace, Foe Yay with Solo and Jack.(And perhap maybe with "imagination"!)
• Phoenix Wright gets paired up with everybody, including himself. There's the friendly neighborhood memetic molesters Gant and Gourdy (that's the Lake Monster in case you're wondering).
  • Phoenix isn't alone. As one fan put it, "If it's breathing and in the Gyakuten series, it'll get shipped with Edgeworth. It's inevitable."
  • Actually, it's gotten to the point where the quote should be, "If it exists in the Gyakuten universe, it will be shipped. No exceptions."
  • Apollo's working his way up to reaching his mentor's status.
  • And of course, how could we forget the time Detective Gumshoe's trenchcoat x Detective Badd's trenchcoat was shipped?
• Rudy Roughnight from Wild ARMs 1. In addition to all the females he gets paired with, Wild ARMs shippers also put him together with Jack and, for some reason, Zed. This even gets referenced in Wild ARMs 5, where the main Wild ARMs 1 related sidequest has Dean resolving which one amongst Jane, Cecilia, and Mariel does Rudy eventually end up with.
• Disgaea has a rather small shipping base, in that most of its characters are only commonly shipped in one or two pairings each... the second pairing usually being with Etna. Seriously, Etna gets paired with everybody, including but not limited to: Laharl, Flonne, Mid-Boss, Adell, Rozalin, Axel... even the Prinnies.
  • Especially the Prinnies, given the release of a certain game.
• Team Fortress 2 - The poor Scout doesn't get a break when paired up with any of the other classes, not even his own. There's also the Pyro, who may be female. The Medic (usually a Memetic Molester) occasionally gets this kind of characterization due to his status as a Support class and the fact that he racks up points the fastest via assisting other classes, as well as the fact that his gameplay role is that of the White Mage and therefore Yaoi Fangirls designate him as the de facto Uke when Scout's not filling that role.
• Poor, poor Splash Woman. It doesn't help that she's one of the only two lady bots in a cast nearing 100.
  • Looking at the fan art, Metal Man gets this treatment too.
  • In general, ANY Robot Master, including the Rockman Killers and the Stardroids. Each of them have launched enough ships to make a tangled love web. Perhaps the most common: little Mega Man himself!
• Norman Jayden, the only one of the four heroes without a canonical love interest, is consequentially paired with everyone in the game, from Ethan Mars to Carter Blake.
• Leon Kennedy, of Resident Evil is a classical Type A, sometimes even to the point of Even the Guys Want Him among players. His canon love interest is Ada (and to a lesser extent, Angela, who appeared once and then was Put on a Bus), but he's also regularly paired with Ashley, Claire, Jill, Steve, Chris, Wesker, Luis, Krauser, Hunnigan, Kevin, Manuela, Buddy, Helena, Sherry, and Mike the Helicopter Guy. In addition to the large amounts of zombie porn that affect all characters within the fandom and countless self-inserts. Admittedly, the fact that he almost always ends up with a female character for a partner and the fact that at least two of them seem to have crushes on him does not help, nor does his (failed) attempt to get Hunnigan's number.
  • Claire Redfield, however, falls quite neatly under Type B as the "kickass everygirl" who has no special training and a kind heart, but still keeps up with the rest of the characters. Her ships includes Steve, Leon, Ada, Sherry, Alfred, Wesker, Jill, Rebecca, Carla, and her brother Chris, though many crack pairings exist for whatever character the author deems most attractive.
• As mentioned above in the discussion on Link, Okami's Amaterasu gets shipped with far, far more characters than a non-talking Big Badass Wolf should ever be. Most of these rely on Ammy having a human form that we just never see.
• This happened to Dawn and Lyra from Pokémon. Especially Lyra. The most popular characters to pair Lyra with (in Japan, at least) are Silver, Lance, and PETREL. These are just the popular ones.
  • In the west (and East at that), Morty and Proton are also often shipped with her.
    • Silver himself is a shipping magnet, too, especially when you factor in Special.
  • With Pokemon Black And White, we have the male protagonist Hilbert (more commonly referred to as Touya or Black), who's being paired with practically every female in the game.
    • Only females?
  • N.
  • Red gets shipped with everyone, Pokemon and people outside the Kanto-Johto games included.
  • In-game, a lot of players ship Ditto with everyone, due to its ability to mate with (almost) any Pokémon and produce eggs.
    • There's a reason a why a lot of players name their Ditto "pimp".
• Haseo of .hack//G.U., poor guy, virtually has a harbor reserved for him. From Atoli to Shino to Ovan to Endrance to Skeith to even the Grunties, he's been stuck with EVERYONE. Find someone that he HASN'T been shipped with.
  • Like Lloyd in Tales Of Symphonia, Haseo is an actual canon launcher, since at the end of the third game, you can choose to "marry" (the characters are playing an an MMORPG) any party member, regardless of gender or even age. When trying to do it with a man, usually it leads to a "best buddy" scene rather than marriage, but there are a few exceptions like Endrance or even Azure Kite who want a little more than being friends...
• For some obscure reason, Dynasty Warriors Sun Shang Xiang is fair game with everyone in Wu including her brothers, half the folks in Shu, and Sima Yi if you look hard enough. Although she may have to compete with her husband Liu Bei, honored with the Capslock_Koei tag "Shu mourns the loss of its bicycle." Bei's epic shipteasery is completely historical.
• Chun-Li from the Street Fighter series is also a fairly infamous case of this as well as she has been paired with Charlie, Ryu, Ken, and Guile (and to a lesser extent Cammy).
  • Ryu gets his share, too, despite his lack of interest in love life, being paired with Chun-Li, Cammy, Sakura, Juri Han, Rose, Ibuki (?), Makoto (??), Ken (oh boy)... and Bison? And maybe Sagat, that is, if he's not busy with his cornflakes.
    • Juri Han, being the depraved psycho that she is, gets this treatment too. It doesn't help that Juri might be trying to make it canon from her side (the fans don't seem to mind).
    • Add Guy to that list. While it's been established that Guy already has a fiancee, Rena (the Damsel in Distress of Final Fight 2), he has (to date) three additional partners according to the fandom. The first is Maki, Rena's younger sister who displays a very curious Tsundere-like complex towards her brother-in-law ^note this "Rival Yay" is instead likely her desire to beat Guy and become the 40th Bushin Master; if she doesn't, someone else could come up and steal the chance to do so away from her. Super Street Fighter IV then added Ibuki and Rose. Whereas the former is more centered around the basis that both characters are ninjas, the latter is pretty damn close to a Relationship Writing Fumble. Most fans who have seen Guy's Rival Battle and both his and Rose's ending cutscenes in SSFIV have been subsequently unable to see them as anything other than lovers or (at the very least) two very, very close friends with a lot of UST. Guy/Rose is shaping up to be a Fan Preferred Couple.
• Ellis from Left 4 Dead 2 ends up with everyone. Although 90% of the time it's with Nick, you can find him with his canon love interest Zoey, teammate Rochelle, Coach, the Hunter, the Witch, the Smoker and his friends that don't even appear in the game like Keith. Ellis will also usually be the target of any fanfic writer's Original Character.
• Dante of Devil May Cry fame gets this, mainly due to his status as an Action Hero. Not only is he paired with his implied love interests from the first three games (i.e. Trish, Lucia, and Lady), but Yaoi Fangirls just love to pair him up with Vergil (his own brother), Nelo Angelo (who is Vergil), and Nero (who may or may not be Vergil's son, and thus, his nephew). People also love to Cargo Ship Dante with his Devil Arms (especially Nevan). Very few notable characters are excluded from Dante's "harem"; Sparda and Eva, Kyrie (Nero's Victorious Childhood Friend), the side characters from the second game and novels, Arkham, Credo, Sanctus, and Mundus seem to be untouched, but it would be no surprise if said pairings had their own niche. Finally, there's the Fan Preferred Couples of Dante and Bayonetta (his Distaff Counterpart and Fetish Fuel Station Attendant) or Morrigan (you can mainly thank MvC3 for this one). Naturally, some epic Ship-to-Ship Combat ensues.
• Just try to find someone from Mass Effect who Shepard hasn't been paired up with yet...
  • Liara and Garrus also get ships to plenty of directions.
  • Mordin is slowly becoming a ship launcher too. He's been paired with both Female and Male Shepards, Samara, Zaeed, Captain Kirrahe (from the first game), Maelon and Doctor Chakwas, just to name a few. Knowing this makes a later conversation you have with him all the funnier.
  • Female Shepard seems to be the fandom's little black dress. She's been shipped with all the crew members, most of the alien council, prominent enemies, a whole range of obscure side mission characters, Male Shepard, non-sentient creatures, as well as some things that don't move.
  • Oh, Shepard being a launcher of a thousand ships is canon. There are at least seventeen different characters in the series that Shepard can get it on with.
• Kasumi from Dead or Alive has ships for every base, ranging from the fairly mainstream Ryu Hayabusa, the more yurilicious Hitomi or Christie, all the way to straight up incest with her half sister Ayane or her brother Hayate. It would seem that whoever the favorite character is, shippers generally feel they go nicely with the cute redhead ninja.
• Jin Kisaragi from BlazBlue. Aside from him being coupled with his older brother/rival Ragna the Bloodedge and childhood friend Tsubaki, Jin has been coupled with almost every character from the series even if it's almost impossible to happen. Despite him being a total asshole, this must be just a huge turn-on for the fandom.
  • He has never been coupled with Litchi Faye-Ling, though. A Web Works made it happen instead, though not in a romantic way.
  • Ragna himself enjoys a fairly substantial shipping base as well, having, in addition to Jin, been paired with Noel, Rachel, Taokaka, Nu (kinda-sorta), Celica, and several characters who aren't even from the same franchise.
  • Carl Clover also enjoys a fair amount of popularity amongst shippers as well, ranging from Noel and Makoto, to Litchi and his own sister, Ada, and, like Ragna, with several characters who aren't even from the same franchise.
• Atsuki Saijo from Lux Pain has a good amount of Ship Tease with everyone.
• Advance Wars has three. You have Eagle who gets all the good guys, Hawke who gets all the bad guys and some of the good guys, and Andy who gets it up the butt from everyone. ESPECIALLY Eagle and Hawke.
• Endou from Inazuma Eleven seems to get paired up with every other major character in the series, both male and female, most likely because he can and does become good friends with anyone and everyone. Then there's a bunch of Starboarding with Endou on the receiving end, since he's a completely oblivious Chaste Hero. Plus there are some fans who jokingly ship Endou x Soccer (yes, as in The Beautiful Game).
• Hawke as either gender in Dragon Age II bounces from person to person in fanfics like a ping pong ball.
• Despite the meme "Everyone is furry for Krystal," ^note the Berserk Button of all who are not, especially those who have gone furry for Fara Krystal from Star Fox is not the most prominent example of this trope from the series. Instead Fox tends to be paired with most of the other characters, yet he is rarely paired with any of the female characters aside from Krystal.
  • While Krystal is being shipped with Anything That Moves.
• Mario goes with everybody. It's not just limited to female characters, either. Luigi is sometimes paired with him, and so is Bowser.
• Sub-Zero. The younger one, anyway. Canonically, the closest thing he has to a girlfriend/partner/lover is Sareena, whom he enjoys a hefty amount of Ship Tease with. But thanks to the magic of Shipping Goggles, all of his friendships and rivalries are misconstrued as possible ships. Heterosexual Life Partners with Smoke and Kenshi? Ho Yay. Former archnemesis of Scorpion? Foe Yay. Former pupil Frost is eerily-obsessed with him? Mentor Ship. Not even his older brother, Elder Sub-Zero/Noob Saibot is safe from being paired up with Subby (it doesn't help that there's a Love Triangle-esque relationship between them and Sareena, as Sareena also had feelings for the original Sub-Zero). He also tends to be paired up with females he's only acquaintances with at best. Sub-Zero/Kitana, Sub-Zero/Jade, and Sub-Zero/Mileena have all popped up before on several occasions, and all are popular in their own right. Smoke (in most titles) is a cyborg, whereas Scorpion and Noob are undead and Sareena is a demon in human guise. It doesn't hurt that he's also fangirl bait, so expect the female fans to create OCs to jump Sub-Zero's bones as well.
  • Reptile seems to be working his way up, too. Although the only character that shows romantic interest in him is probably Khameleon (due to the whole Adam and Eve Plot thing), he's additionally paired with Mileena and Nitara on a somewhat regular basis. Apparently, the lizard man has moxie.
• Chell has been paired up with nearly every character in Portal. Wheatley is paired with almost as many. And Chell/Wheatley is the most popular ship in the fandom.
• As the only female character in Live A Live who can be brought to the final battle, and hence the only one who can canonically meet the protagonists from other eras, Li has been shipped across time and space. Popular love interests include Akira and Odio, but Masaru and Oboromaru are also occasional fic subjects, as is Yuan in the Fix Fics where they both survive.