"The chemistry between the two characters was so clear that the shipping started as early as the first teaser dropping, with fanfiction on AO3 and fan art about them going as far back as [two months before the series premiere]."
Shipping is fun to many people. They gush on forums, write fanfiction, and draw fan art of the romantic relationships (canon or otherwise) they know and love. This is a side-effect of releasing any given work....Or even just releasing promotional material.
Yes, some ships start sailing the moment two characters have their names and faces shown for the very first time — or even before that. There could be many reasons why this takes effect, from characters having complementary or contrasting personalities teased, to simply just looking interesting.
These ships are often abandoned rather quickly once the work itself is released; the reasons for this come in a variety of factors: The work itself reveals some info that makes the ship not worth sailing anymore, the relationship proves to be nothing more than Ships That Pass in the Night, or, in the worst cases, No Yaynote . However, more than a few of them do prove to have canonical material to work with.
If one of these preemptive ships does end up becoming an Official Couple, expect those who shipped them from even before the work's release to say "I Knew It!".
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- Love Live!: The pairing of Nico and Maki had gained massive popularity prior to the anime's premiere, to where it dwarfed the other popular pairings on the likes of Pixiv. This has led to shippers being surprised by their lack of interaction in the first season, which would then lead to season 2 having them interact more as a response, which, combined with supplementary materials providing plenty of fuel for the ship, led to the ship growing even more popular as a result.
- Pokémon the Series: XY had Ash and Serena. While shipping Ash and any female companion (or character) isn't new, the reveal that Serena had met Ash before the series caused the ship to notably spike in popularity before the series started, and the series itself would ensure that the ship between the two remains one of the most prominent Ash ships to this day via constant and clear moments of the ship being pushed. As a partial side effect of this, and a few trailer scenes featuring all three girls together being turned into memes, Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon also had this in regards to shipping Ash with all three female companions (Lana, Lillie, and Mallow), though after a while this faded as each individual girl was more focused into their individually known solo ship with Ash, if not nearly as popular as Ash and Serena (though naturally, the multi shipping hasn't faded completely, it is just less common than at the start).
- Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury: Yuri Fans were quick to pair Suletta Mercury with her classmate Miorine Rembran once the characters where announced. This only exacerbated after a rather heart pounding key visual
◊ was unveiled. They felt quite vindicated when the first episode ended with Suletta becoming Miorine's fiancé.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS: Yusaku and Aoi were shipped as soon as early prerelease info on them dropped due to the potential for identity shenanigans between their irl and VR personas as well as the fact that protagonists and main girls in the franchise up to that point were always Implied Love Interests with plenty of Ship Tease. However, when the show finally aired, the ship began to steadily drop in popularity over the course of the first season due to a lack of any substantial interactions other than them occasionally working together to fight a common enemy. Yusaku learns about her identity as Blue Angel early on without much fanfare and shows little interest in actually getting to know her personally while Aoi is shown to be grateful to both of his identities for helping save her at the beginning of the show but not much else, not learning of his identity as Playmaker until 15 episodes from the end, which seems to signify the start of their friendship at best and is their last notable interaction.
Comic Books
- After The New 52 happened, it wasn't uncommon for fans to ship characters who had been together in the old continuity, even when they were absent and yet to be introduced in the new continuity. For instance, people were shipping Tim Drake/Stephanie Brown long before the latter made her delayed debut in the new continuity, largely due to the popularity of the ship in the prior continuity. Likewise, Barry Allen and Iris West had their marriage erased and Iris was at first replaced with Patty Spivot as his love interest, but fans continued to champion Barry/Iris even before the latter was introduced (and the Replacement Scrappy nature of Patty made her controversial with fans who weren't newcomers to the franchise).
- This was somewhat exploited to hype up DC Rebirth, which among other things planned to reintroduce many of the ships erased by the continuity reboot, such as Green Arrow and Black Canary, the aforementioned Tim/Steph, Wally West and Linda Park, etc. Much of the pre-release material for the Green Arrow relaunch focused on the fact it was reintroducing this couple, and despite having their history erased the two are immediately falling fast for one-another; this worked, as fans were in fact eager to see them together again and much of the book's early interest stemmed from seeing it return.
Films — Animation
- Frozen II: Promotional material for the film showed a female character. Fans quickly took to shipping her with Elsa, tying in with the popular interpretation of her being a lesbian. When it was revealed that the girl was a younger version of Iduna, Elsa's mother, the ship sunk instantly.
- Raya and the Last Dragon: Following the very first trailer, a lot of fans shipped Raya and Namaari, despite them being presented as enemies. This continued after the film released and added a load of Les Yay to their dynamic, with them easily being the most popular in the fandom.
- Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken: Despite the trailers presenting them as arch-enemies in a cut-and-dry "good vs. evil" story, some were quick to ship Ruby and Chelsea together. It gained more popularity when a bumper short showed Ruby and Chelsea engaging in a comedic tug of war over the trident, resulting in many choosing to re-frame them as being friendly rivals in fan works. While many fans dropped the ship once it was made clear that Chelsea AKA Queen Nerissa is a contemporary of Ruby's mother Agatha, if not older, it still remains the most popular ship in the fandom following the film's release, albeit with the caveat that the majority of these fanfics ignore the aforementioned reveal, to avoid it being a May–December Romance involving a minor.
- The Super Mario Bros. Movie: Based on the trailer alone (which showed a scene where Bowser was gently stroking Luigi with his finger after capturing him), many people started shipping Bowser with Luigi. The film itself would later reveal that the aforementioned scene wasn't a case of I Have You Now, My Pretty but rather Bowser interrogating him for information about Mario, and after that, he barely interacts with Luigi aside from using him as a Human Sacrifice. This didn't prevent Bowser/Luigi from quickly becoming one of the most popular ships in the Mario fandom and continuing to see plenty of content.
- Wreck-It Ralph: Shippers already started shipping Ralph and Vanellope the moment their names were revealed for their movie. This completely stopped when it was revealed Vanellope was a child. Although after the movie was released, fans loved their rather close friendship and tend to write or draw familial and platonic content for the duo.
Films — Live-Action
- Barbie:
- Before the film released, a lot of fans shipped Stereotypical Barbie and Ken together because they dated each other in most versions of the franchise. In the actual movie, they aren't dating because Barbie is not interested in Ken, but that hasn't stopped people from shipping them due to the chemistry between Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie.
- A lot of fans started to ship Barbie and Gloria together pre-release due to Margot Robbie and America Ferrera's chemistry while promoting the film, which continued even post-release.
- Cherrybomb (2009): Over two years before the film was released, when the trailers were all anyone had to go off of, people were writing slash fics of the film's two main leads, Malachy and Luke. The pairing survived the release, largely due to the homoerotic subtext present within.
- Do Revenge: Even before the film was released, fans were shipping Drea and Eleanor due to the trailers playing up the Les Yay between the two and Camila Mendes and Maya Hawke's chumminess while promoting it. This continued after the film's release, with Drea/Eleanor quickly becoming the Fan-Preferred Couple.
- Pitch Perfect: Even as far back as the first trailer, when the characters' names weren't known yet, fans had already started to massively ship Beca and Chloe together. This continued even when the film aired and Beca was revealed to have a love interest in the form of the male Jesse, mainly thanks to the massive Les Yay between them.
Live-Action TV
- Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.:
- Before release, fans were very quick to latch onto Fitz/Simmons, due to the characters being described as Platonic Life-Partners and The Dividual who were collectively referred to as if they were one person. Supposedly, the plan had just been for them to be very close friends with Fitz planned to be Killed Off for Real at the end of season 1 to give Simmons a Break the Cutie turn, but the popularity of the ship and the characters (as well as the writers really liking their actors and their chemistry), they spared Fitz and turned them into one of the show's primary couples.
- At least some people were shipping Coulson and Melinda May together before the show started, due to her being described as an old friend of his and the mutual status as the oldest among the cast making them an ideal Team Mom and Team Dad couple. Fans got their wish, as while they were originally introduced as Platonic Life-Partners, the actors enjoyed the characters' chemistry and pushed for them to become a couple.
- Arrowverse:
- The Flash (2014):
- Before release, a number of fans from the parent series Arrow, specifically Olicity (Oliver/Felicity) shippers, were quick to ship Barry Allen with the announced secondary female character Caitlin Snow rather than Iris West, Barry's traditional love interest in the comics. This was mostly due to the assumed superficial similarities between Barry/Caitlin and Oliver/Felicity (The Hero and a female friend who is a Secret-Keeper that assists them in their heroics in a supporting capacity) contrasting the similarities between Barry/Iris and Oliver/Laurel (The Hero and their traditional love interest, reinvented in the show as the daughter of a police detective that acts as their Friend on the Force); Arrow had abandoned the initial Official Couple of Oliver/Laurel due to negative fan reaction and embraced the Fan-Preferred Couple, and many of these fans hoped The Flash would follow suit. It didn't and most of their shippers quickly abandoned the ship, while Iris/Barry quickly became the biggest ship in the Flash specific part of the Arrowverse fanbase.
- In an inverse, fans were shipping Wally West with Linda Park before the former had been introduced, due to them being a very major Super Couple in the comics, even moreso than Barry/Iris. So much so that the Barry/Linda ship the show played with was very controversial, and the subsequent Wally/Jesse ship was opposed greatly. Wally/Linda never happened due to both characters being Put on a Bus, and the handling of them both is a major strike against the show from the comics fandom.
- The spinoff series Legends of Tomorrow had this occur between Leonard Snart/Captain Cold, and Sara Lance/White Canary, a complete Crack Pairing given the two originated from different shows and had polar opposite personalities and moralities. Despite that, CaptainCanary was one of the most popular pre-release ships (though both characters were mild Launcher of a Thousand Ships so it was bound to happen), and as the two actors ended up hitting it off and enjoyed improvising scenes together, which gave their characters a subtle Slap-Slap-Kiss Belligerent Sexual Tension dynamic, they ended up getting a Big Damn Kiss right before Snart pulls a Heroic Sacrifice.
- Sara would repeat this later when Legends introduced John Constantine. John had a very loose pre-existing connection to Sara as he helped save her soul from the Underworld back in Arrow, but had never actually met; however, they were both blonde bisexual Broken Bird Anti-Hero Deadpan Snarker characters who nonetheless had contrasting styles (John being a Squishy Wizard and Sara being an Action Girl) that flipped the usual Guys Smash, Girls Shoot dynamic, so fans were quick to ship them before John had even appeared on the show. They ended up getting a one night stand in his first episode that was at least partially inspired by the popularity of the ship.
- Batwoman: After Ryan Wilder was announced as the new lead character in Season 2, fans quickly began shipping her with Sophie Moore, the previous Batwoman's love interest, which led to some frustration when Ryan actually debuted and it turned out that she and Sophie have an antagonistic history with each other. The ship ended up becoming canon in Season 3, when Sophie and Ryan enter a relationship.
- The Flash (2014):
- Before the 2022 version of Darna aired a lot of fans started to ship Regina and Brian and thought that they would become the dominant pairing in the fandom, mainly because their actors Janella Salvador and Joshua Garcia had already played characters who were part of a popular ship on another show The Killer Bride. However, once the show got underway many quickly abandoned the ship, due to Brian becoming controversial within the fandom and many feeling that Regina had more chemistry with Narda, leading to "Darlentina" (Regina/Narda) becoming the most popular ship in the fandom.
- The Book of Boba Fett: Boba Fett and Fennec Shand started getting shipped and even had the odd lemon written about them from the first minute they appeared together in their Spinoff Sendoff in The Mandalorian. Their canonical relationship in the actual series turned out to be more like Platonic Life-Partners.
- Glee: As soon as fans got word that a new male character named Sam would be appearing in season 2, fans immediately starting wishing he'd be Camp Gay Kurt's boyfriend, and started shipping them as a result. Sam turned out to be straight, but at least Kurt got a boyfriend in the same season.
- House of Anubis: Before his debut in season 2, all the viewers really knew about Eddie Miller was that he had a slightly edgy wardrobe and was played by an American actor. Regardless, he was shipped with the tomboyish Patricia. The ship eventually proved to be canonical when the season was released, with the two of them having a lot of Belligerent Sexual Tension.
- House of the Dragon: Rhaenyra and Daemon Targaryen got shipped together long before the show aired. They started having fanarts and edits on tumblr dedicated to them once the first trailer and a few images of adult Rhaenyra (played by Emma D'Arcy) and Daemon having sex on the beach aired and having photos of their eventual valyrian marriage leaked online.
- She-Hulk: Attorney at Law: Many fans on Tumblr took to shipping Jen and Matt the moment it was announced he would be appearing in the show, before it even aired. This mainly due to both being superhero lawyers and feeling that their very different personalities would work well together. When the mid-season trailer aired and Jen said that Matt was really "doing it" for her, even more took to shipping them.
- Wednesday: A lot of fans started to ship Wednesday and Enid Sinclair as far back the the very first teaser trailer, mainly because many feel that their differing personalities (the gothic and dour Wednesday and the cheerful Enid) would make for a fun duo, and this has only grown as fans have learned more about the series. The pairing already has a Portmanteau Couple Name, "Wenclair", and has developed quite a devoted fanbase on sites like Tumblr, Twitter and AO3. For example, it crossed the 200 fic line on AO3 before the show even aired. This is only further fueled by the fact that their real life actresses, Jenna Ortega and Emma Myers, have exchanged a number of flirty, romantic comments between each other on instagram (which, predictably, has led to some Actor Shipping as well). Even after the show released, Wednesday and Enid remained the most popular ship in the fandom.
Video Games
- Fabula Nova Crystallis: Final Fantasy: Doubles as Crossover Ship. Shipping Final Fantasy XIII protagonist, Lightning, and Final Fantasy XV (then known as Final Fantasy Versus XIII) protagonist, Noctis, has been a thing before either games are released, and numerous fanvids pairing the two had begun popping up based on trailers alone.
- Fire Emblem: Three Houses:
- Leonie was often shipped with Byleth before the game released, as she was a former student of their father who greatly idolises him. Many abandoned the pairing when the game released due to their B Support, where Leonie chews out Byleth for not idolising Jeralt as much as she does, which, to add insult to injury, is first unlocked right after Jeralt dies.
- Before it was known they were Mutually Exclusive Party Members, some fans shipped Edelgard with Dimitri. While shippers of the pairing still exist, it's rendered awkward by several factors in the final game: they're step-siblings, Dimitri declares vengeance on her and goes insane after mistaking her for the one who killed his family, their two routes are completely opposed to one another and it's made clear they will never see eye to eye, and there's no route where they both survive. Those who ship it now tend to do so ironically.
- In the lead-up to Fire Emblem Engage there were some fans who were shipping Alear with the mysterious Veyle. Several saying that Veyle seemed to have several traits shared with past characters who were either Developers' Desired Date, or full-blown Love Interest. Once the game came out, the ship went straight into Abandon Shipping territory. Turns out Veyle is Alear's younger sister. Oops!
- After some character designs were released in Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach, much of the fanbase began shipping the then unnamed blonde security guard with Vanny, the Copycat Killer antagonist in a bunny costume. Many of them jumped ship when more and more material released implicitly implied that they were most likely the same personnote . By the full game's release, most people look back on the ship in amused tones. With Vanny/Vanessa being more commonly shipped with other characters.
- After the first trailers for NEO: The World Ends with You dropped, fans begun shipping Rindo with Nagi, owing to the previous game featuring Ship Tease between the protagonist and their first female ally. This one was abandoned when the game released and it turned out Nagi was a college student, has a massive, transparent crush on Minamimoto and Shoka's Ship Tease with Rindo made that pairing the vastly more popular one.
- Persona 5: As soon as trailers revealed Yuuki Mishima, a fanboy of the Phantom Thieves from their class, fans begun shipping him with Joker and hoping he would be an official Gay Option. Like most examples on this page, this was abandoned when the game released and Mishima turned out to be a very different character than expected. (He's a borderline Loony Fan who's partly using the Thieves to stoke his own ego, and instead of an Honorary True Companion, the Phantom Thieves, especially Joker, treat him as The Friend Nobody Likes) Although he does receive Character Development in his confidant, his relationship with Joker is widely considered to not be good shipping material.
- Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart: When the first trailer revealed the appearance of a female Lombax (later revealed to be named Rivet), people started shipping her with Ratchet.
- Splatoon: The idol groups of each game get hit with this upon their reveals. While the popularity of Pearl/Marina and Frye/Shiver remained strong upon the release of those installments (especially the former pairing), the first game didn't have as much luck with Callie/Marie. In spite of their duo name being the Squid Sisters, many people shipped them anyway on the assumption that their idol group name wasn't an actual indicator of their relationship. The fans were right on that front — they're cousins, which caused the pairing's popularity sank like a stone for anyone who wasn't into Incest Yay Shipping.
- Tales Series:
- Tales of Berseria: Velvet Crowe, being the franchise's first solo female viewpoint character, was immediately shipped with Laphicet, the story's male Deuteragonist. The ship took a hit when it was revealed that Laphicet is a Replacement Goldfish for Velvet's younger brother, but what really killed the pairing was the reveal that Laphicet is Velvet's nephew via her older sister.
- Tales of Arise: When the game was announced, people immediately began shipping Alphen with Shionne for the simple reason that Alphen could Feel No Pain, while Shionne was cursed to cause people pain whenever they touched her. Much to the shippers delight, Alphen and Shionne get married at the end of the game.
Visual Novels
- Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony: Before the game was properly released, fans had a field day with shipping characters together, with very little to go on aside from their names, looks, and Ultimate Talents. Kokichi/Himiko was popular because those two were the youngest looking characters in the game, and Kaede and Maki were paired based on a shippy piece of official art◊. While Kokichi/Himiko and Kaede/Maki still have a following, it's dwarfed by Kokichi/Shuichi and Kaito/Maki.
- Katawa Shoujo: Right from their announcement, fans had a field day shipping the deaf-mute Student Council President Shizune and her sign language interpreter/Voice for the Voiceless Misha. On release of the full game, they turned out to be a drama-heavy case of Incompatible Orientation, and coyness about this was almost certainly a ploy by the creators.
Web Animation
- RWBY: Four promotional trailers introducing the titular team created White Rose (Ruby/Weiss) after the second trailer dropped, based on personality assumptions (both were thought to have sugar-and-ice personalities). A Pair the Spares ship for the unreleased trailers became Bumblebee (Blake/Yang) once released; the Black Trailer also created Tauradonna (Blake/Adam). The show shattered White Rose assumptions, leaving it just one of many ships, and revealed Adam was a Psycho Ex-Boyfriend, killing it completely. Bumblebee would ironically become the dominant ship, supported by its two LGBTQ+ voice actresses and teased from Volume 2 onward before finally being canonized in Volume 9; though other ships, such as Black Sun (Blake/Sun) were teased during that long stretch as well.
Western Animation
- The Dragon Prince: Many fans leapt to shipping Rayla and Claudia the second the first promotional material came out. This quickly died off and became a rather niche ship when it became clear what Claudia thought of elves, among other factors.
- Infinity Train: As far back as Book 4's concept art being leaked, people shipped Ryan Akagi and Min-Gi Park. This boosted once the trailer for the book was released, and when the book itself actually aired, Rymin became the most popular ship in the fandom.
- The Legend of Korra: When early images of the show were released, the two guys shown (Mako and Bolin) alongside the titular protagonist were shipped for a while before it was revealed in further pre-release material that they were brothers which caused that to quickly fade away forever.
- The Loud House: Since the time the show was announced, fans ran quick to pair up this "one boy" with those "ten girls" regardless of them being his sisters. A featured comment on the announcement from around March 2016 even called the show "Nickelodeon's first Harem anime".
- Miraculous Ladybug: Concept arts for the character Volpina/Lila released months ahead of her actual debut in the show at the end of Season 1, spurring a lot of Fanon that depicted her as a new superheroine who would be helping out the established heroes and becoming a rival to Chat Noir/Adrien for Ladybug/Marinette's affections. None of this would come to be. Lila eventually turned out to be a Hate Sink villain who despised Ladybug, chased after Adrien for fame, and bullied Marinette, all of which combined to make the Lila/Marinette ship relatively small.
- Total Drama:
- When characters designs for the fifth season's second half, Total Drama: Pahkitew Island, were leaked before the premier, fans of the franchise almost immediately started pairing characters up based entirely on how they looked. Some shipping dynamics ended up being hilariously off-base, with reveals like Scarlett being evil totally countering the assumed personalities of the characters. However, the prediction based on a storyboard leak that Sky and Dave would be a couple turned out to be on the right track... though the ship crashes and burns by the end of the season.
- When the 2023 reboot was announced and the character designs were revealed, it was mentioned that there would be an LGBTQ+ couple. The two most common guesses were Bowie/Caleb (Due to Bowie showing attraction to Caleb in a promotional flyer alongside some of the other girls), and Wayne/Raj (Due to them being marketed as Those Two Guys). The guesses were revealed to be half-right, as the couple turned out to be Bowie/Raj. Similarly, Chase/Priya was also a common guess for a relationship due to their similarities to past "main couples" in the series. Instead, Chase had a past relationship with Emma, which not many people had predicted.
- Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race: Before the season was released, fans were quick to ship Dwyane and Kelly together, since their teams were Distaff Counterparts. Once the season came out and revealed that both were Happily Married to other people, the ship was quickly dropped by many.
