Main Tropes Index

Troperville

Editing Help

Tools

Toys

Narrative

Genre

Media

Topical Tropes

Other Categories

Custom Search

Téa ships Harry/Hedwig, by the way.
Also, the image of Agent Smith slithering up and down Patrick Stewart's body, snake-style, is one that will haunt us until the end of our days, thanks so much.
Like if Hulk were dating Peppermint Patty!
Howard Wolowitz, The Big Bang Theory

Shipping beyond all bounds of sanity. There are official couples and there are couples drawn from more-or-less subjective subtext, and then there are these. Characters who are shipped together despite barely even having a relationship in canon. Sometimes they haven't even met in canon. Sometimes they don't even belong to the same 'verse (that's what cross overs are for, after all) or to the same species.

Crack pairings range from the making-you-scratch-your-head-in-puzzlement weird, to the eyes-gouging-with-a-fork-inducing weird. But they always leave you asking "Why? By all that is holy, WHY?"

Reasons for writing crack pairing fan works varies. It might be in order to clean up romantic loose ends by bringing together characters left alone, or to erase the memory of a particularly squicky canon pairing. They might be the result of people genuinely searching for a good personality match, or drawing parallels between two characters for whatever reason. A good number are the results of freeform roleplaying games. Or maybe they did it on a dare. Most often, though, the insanity itself is its own justification, especially to poke fun at more hardcore fans.

Occasionally, when a fanfic writer gets hold of a crack pairing and makes it convincing enough, that ship gains a following and can even become very popular. It's even been known to influence the Powers That Be.

While crack pairings may show up in crack fics, the two are not necessarily related. A Crack Pairing could very well be treated in a dead serious and realistic way, and a Crack Fic could be gen, or only about traditional pairings.

Note that when characters do have some kind of relationship, no matter how unhealthy, insane or weird their pairing would be, it doesn't count as crack pairing. Contrast with Ho Yay, Foe Yay, No Yay, Twincest and Brother Sister Incest for examples of ships which you may find weird but which are not crack pairings...

For an entire LJ community dedicated to particularly squicky crack pairings, behold VeryWrongSlash, which needs no further explanation.

If one wants to create his/her own Crack pairing (or just wants to see some pairings that may not yet have been added to this page), use the Brain-Hurting Pairer Generator.

See Crossover Ship for shipping characters who don't belong to the same verse. See Cargo Ship for shipping objects. Post some of the crazier ships you've thought up/written in Crack Pairing. Compare with Ships That Pass In The Night.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Advertising 

    Anime and Manga 

    Comic Books 

    Film 

    Literature 

    Live Action TV 

    Newspaper Comics 

    Real Life 

    Tabletop Games 

    Video Games 

    Webcomics 

    Western Animation 

    Web Original 

    Other 


Statler: You know what would be a real Crack Pairing?
Waldorf: A Troper with anybody else!
Both: Do-ho-ho-ho-hoh!
???: No, both of you with each other!
Statler And Waldorf: ...