Many fans 'ship. These fans often do it all the time (context or no) especially in certain demographics. Producers, especially those who keep their finger on the pulse of the audience, not to mention their eye on the fan fora, know this. So, they decide to tease the fans with hints about possible romantic entanglements, and thereby build that emotional attachment between the show and the audience as much as they can.
If the writers are particularly impish, they'll tease a relationship that either never comes up or takes a hard right just as it gets going. Like a sudden death.
Probably the cruelest method of Ship Tease is the Moment Killer.
See also: Will They or Won't They?, Subtext, Alternative Character Interpretation, Fanservice, Never Trust a Trailer, Tonight Someone Kisses, Bait-and-Switch Lesbians, Ho Yay, Undercover As Lovers.
Contrast Ship Sinking.
Not to be confused with Striptease (see here for that).
Examples
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Anime and Manga
From Soul Eater we have Maka and Soul. Thesetwo are particularly tantalizing for a shipper, and the general closeness in a relationship between a meister and weapon doesn't really help.
There is reason a large percentage of Lyrical Nanoha fans consider Nanoha and Fate to be the Official Couple of the series, despite nothing definite ever being stated. The first season is almost entirely about the two of them, Nanoha swiftly making it her mission to befriend "the girl with the sad eyes", eventually forging a bond strong enough to weaken the control Fate's Evil Matriarch has over her, the series ending with the single most romantic scene in the series. The second and third seasons dropped the frequency of the teasing considerably, but the latter managed to compensate admirably by showing them sharing a bed and ending with them adopting a child together.
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid starts four years after the third season... with Fate still being Vivio's 'other mommy' outright. Vivio's description of her life has Yuuno nowhere to be seen, though to be fair, there are a lot of others nowhere to be seen as well. Also, Vivid takes place during one of the times Fate is actually there with time off, rather than on deep space missions. The Ship Tease now lay in "how domestic can we make Nanoha and Fate; without saying anything definite?
The last Soundstages from C76 Comiket reinforce the Happy Yuri Family with a large amount of its tracks dedicated to Nanoha, Fate and Vivio's family life together as the "Takamachi Family" (also see in the name of one of the tracks, "Takamachi Family Gathering", where Nanoha take care of Fate and Vivio, and share some happy family time together). In the prologue of this same Soundstage, Vivio say she is Nanoha and Fate's child, although the Comiket sound stages aren't official.
While no Word of Gay has emerged from the writers, that hasn't stopped Yukari Tamura (Nanoha's voice actor) and Nana Mizuki (Fate's voice actor) from showing support for the couple. Then there's the famous 'Fate-chan's a prince!' picture.
For Nanoha and Yuuno ship-teasing: In the first season, Yuuno was very jealous of how friendly Nanoha was towards Chrono when they first started working with him (especially whenever Nanoha got Chrono to blush). The two of them also bond over discussing their lonely early childhoods, and they promise to have more talks like that in the future, when there's nothing going on to worry about. During the final battle against Precia, when Nanoha and Yuuno work together to take out the power plant and its robotic defenders, Nanoha comments on how much she relies on Yuuno's warm support, punctuating her words with a positively sultry, half-lidded look that, coming from an older girl, could only have meant "You don't know it yet, but you're MINE." In the time-skipped epilogue of the second anime season, Amy asks Yuuno if he's "made progress" with Nanoha. Even Fate notes that Nanoha and Yuuno "share a special relationship we can't understand" in a Sound stage.
In the supplementary manga issue that recaps and expands the second season's epilogue, Yuuno's answer to Amy's question about romantic progress is dramatically revised. Instead of responding with an embarrassed negative, Yuuno cheerfully says he and Nanoha are nothing more than childhood friends. Even then, the manga throws some support in for Yuunoha when Amy sadly classifies this as a symptom of their mutual workaholicism; she resolves to "have a talk" with them about it.
Subaru and Teana are teased almost as much as Nanoha and Fate, with Subaru being very affectionate both physically and verbally, to the point of outright stating she loves Teana (which could be a case of Love You and Everybody) and groping Teana's breasts while she's sleeping, and Teana being a classic Tsundere model, complete with red hair and twin tails (though she removed the latter after the second Time Skip).
Buried amongst all of the yuri Ship Tease is the straight Puppy Love Tease of Erio and Caro. The Sound Stage cranks it Up to Eleven with Caro actually following Erio into the men's side of a public bath to do some bonding — even suggesting that they take more baths together in the future — much to Erio's sputtered embarrassment.
The Hellsing OVA managed some Alucard and Seras teasing (Alucard sitting on her bed when she woke up, Seras commenting on how awesome his large guns are), and though its manga equivalent had less, it was still there.
We got some nice Les Yay between Integra and Seras early on.
The anime contains far more teasing than the manga. The first episode is basically set up as a gothic romance style girl meets vampire and they fall in love type of story, but it gets subverted hard when we Integra at the end of the episode and there is clearly something going on between them, based on the bitter and jealous expression she has and the smug smile on his face, while Seras gets ignored. Gonzo, the producers, even said that Alucard/Integra were an Official Couple.
In one storyline, Nabiki becomes Ranma's fiance because of one of Akane's bouts of jealousy. Nabiki spends the storyline exploiting Ranma mercilessly, teasing him to keep him in line, while trying to persuade Akane to take Ranma back — for a token fee.
The infamous "Koi Fishing Rod/Fishing Rod of Love'' story parodies the pairing of Ryoga and Ranma (either boy or girl type). Ryoga accidentally causes Ranma to fall into obsessive love with him by hitting him with a magic fishing rod. Hilarity Ensues.
Then there's the "Umbrella of Love" chapter with Nabiki and Kuno. A similar pairing happened in the anime, but with a mistaken fortune telling.
Some people consider the OAV opening theme "Where Do We Go From Here (You and Me)" to also Ship Tease Nabiki and Kuno, as Kuno appears in almost every scene that Nabiki does.
During one of the OVAs, the characters have to pair up to enter a cave (the goal of every character involved is to break up Ranma and Akane, naturally). However the storyline hints at Ryoga/Ukyo to make it through the Cave of Lost Love. The end has EVERYONE believing Ukyo and Ryoga are a pair at the end. (Possibly including the anime scriptwriters.)
This story line is actually in the Manga, so it was once again Takahashi who was poking fun at people in her classical style.
The anime version also has some Kuno/Nabiki Ship Tease...if you consider Nabiki dragging the unconscious Kuno through the cave and at one point using him as a human shield against a lantern ghost to be a sign of affection.
The second movie does this for Shampoo/Mousse, what with Mousse nearly making a Heroic Sacrifice to save Shampoo, and Shampoo actually seeming moved by it.
Takahashi punctures this one all the time, but perhaps most so in the final storyline wherein Mousse frees Shampoo from enslavement and sacrifices his chances to get her devoted to him, and she immediately glomps Ranma and doesn't even care that he's there the following panel.
Hell, the second movie is also the biggest source of Ship Tease in the anime for Ukyo/Ryoga and Nabiki/Kuno. One of the reasons it's so generally disliked even amidst the fans of the anime (besides the fact it more or less recycles the plot of the first and the presence of Gainaxing) is because of this.
The anime has a number of subtle Ship Tease moments for Kasumi and Dr. Tofu...namely in the form of Akane and, on occasion, Ranma, being supportive of the idea. The main Ship Tease is the second OAV ending theme, "Red Shoe Sunday", which has lyrics from Kasumi's voice actor and accompanying animation that hint that she actually does feel something for Dr. Tofu and she just wishes he'd get over that stupid habit of his. Official word from Rumiko Takahashi is that Kasumi is not aware of Dr. Tofu's crush and doesn't reciprocate it, she merely treats him the way she does because...well...she's Kasumi.
Anything CLAMP. 20 series, hundreds of characters, dozens upon dozens of plausible pairings...and like, 5 canon
You're Under Arrest! has always been infamous in having "official" posters depicting their main lead Heterosexual Life Partners in various states of undress, hugging, caressing, etc. The new series ED really amps this up, causing shippers' heads to explode. They know nothing will amount to it, but it's so very pretty...
Lucky Star mines a similarly rich seam with Konata and Kagami: the official artwork appearing in Japanese bishoujo-centric publication Megami depicts them as being very close friends. Come to think, a good portion of yuri ship fuel debuted in the same magazine.
Toei Animation is smart about the Pretty Cure franchise's Multiple Demographic Appeal to yuri fanboys. While Nagisa and Saki had a definite interest in boys, they were never given resolution and had enough screentime for their relationships with Honoka and Mai to be interpreted as Romantic Two-Girl Friendship (and, in Saki's case, there was also some Foe Yay with Michiru). When Yes! Precure 5 came along, the first Official Couples came with it, leaving Karen and Komachi, a pairing supported by a lot of the yuri fanboys, broken up by canon - so, as soon as that was cemented, in came cute shots of the usually standoffish Karen glomping Kurumi in the ending theme. And if Kurumi turns out to be Milk, there's plenty more where that came from.
Also, from what was seen during episodes 4, 18 and 40 of YPC5 GoGo, Syrup and Urara deserve to be mentioned. Their little moments together in those three episodes caused the couple to have a fairly big fanbase, inside and outside of Japan.
Nara Shikamaru and Temari from Naruto. Particularly ship-tease worthy are their scenes in Shippuden, where the only member of the Rookie Nine besides Sakura that Naruto sees before leaving to help Gaara is Shikamaru... and all his appearances are partnered up with Temari, and that's not even getting into the actual interactions the two have in those scenes. Naruto even asked them if they were on a date which they both denied.
Both the Bug Arc and the Land of Vegetables Arc in the Fillers had a fair share of Naruto and Hinata tease. In the Bug Arc we had Naruto watching the silhouette of a naked dancing Hinata and calling her beautiful, though he didn't know it was her. A lot of the Naruto/Hinata ship tease in the anime is definitely due to the fact that a lot in the Naruto animation staff are Hinata fans. They even state this outright in the Shippuden episode 165 omake.
The manga has one memorable occurence in chapters 558-559, where Naruto saves her from the Zetsu clones. There are also other subtle cues, such as Hinata being the only one to instantly realize that he really is Naruto and not a Zetsu clone, and Naruto noticing her desire to protect him by looking into her eyes and cheering her up for it.
And in chapter 573: Hinata says that she will stop chasing Naruto... because when the war is over she will be next to him holding his hand and walking with him. And to wait for her.
There also is quite a bit between Naruto and Sakura. Like Sakura going on a date with him in Part 1, blushing around Naruto when he arrived at the villiage after 2 and a half years, trying to calm him down when he was out of control by the Nine-Tailed Fox and the one time where Sakura and Yamato were talking about Naruto and Yamato said: "Yeah I can tell you really lo—" but then got cut off.
Then we have Jiraiya and Tsunade. Their last scene together makes it even more evident.
Naruto and Sasuke also have their fair share. See Ho Yay.
Naruto and Ino. In one Shippuden episode after the Pain arc Naruto returns to the village after beating Pain and Ino is shown looking at Naruto with much adoration and saying "I could fall for him."
Perhaps in apology for the impending Ship Sinking, a late episode of CLANNAD features Kyou getting locked in a gym storage room with Tomoya, instantly turning deredere to the max, and misinterpreting her conversation with Tomoya into thinking she's about to have her First Time. Fanservice~
Exactly why we ended up with Tomoyo After.
And, inevitably, Kyou's OVA.
A slight tease was present in IGPX concerning Liz and Amy. At one point, just before a race where Amy was getting a little jumpy, Liz calms Amy down by hugging her and pressing her forehead to Amy's in a surprisingly intimate gesture, causing both girls to blush. An earlier clip had Liz hugging Amy from behind, while reassuring her that she wasn't alone, again with both girls blushing. This may have been mostly because of Amy's lack of friends prior to the series and thus an enhanced sense of the newness of it all, but it could have been easily taken as the two growing a bit closer even than that. There are even seen photoshopped cels suggesting that the forehead-press was immediately after a kiss. 'Course, by the end of the second season, Liz had confessed her feelings for Takeshi, and Amy unreservedly cheered them on, but one can't help but wonder if Amy might have had a slight crush on Liz after those clips.
Suzumiya Haruhi series: Haruhi's feelings for Kyon are rather obvious, to everyone but Kyon (who can't stop ranting and snarking about her), and Kyon's crush on Mikuru is hilariously explicit. The crush actually is returned by Mikuru, with occasional flirting between the two, but you know how the time travel-rules are...The teasing comes in with Yuki (to the point of blatancy in the fourth novel/theatrical film where she temporarily becomes a "real" girl...for Kyon) and Itsuki, who may just be doing it to mess with Kyon, aka Mr. Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?. Not to mention, if the fifth novel is anything to go by, Mikuru's feelings for Haruhi and Koizumi's statements on how charming Haruhi is and that he "envies" Kyon. And let's include the return of Ryoko Asakura in Disappearance. One has to ask himself why she, despite being a normal human, stabbed Kyon to protect Yuki.
Kyon implies in one of the novels that he has dreams about alternate Yuki on a regular basis.
Perhaps appropriately enough, official parody series The Melancholy of Haruhi Chan has its own teases, but only for Kyon/Yuki and Kyon/Itsuki, with some Yuki/Achakura on the side.
Minori Chihara, Yuki's voice actor, apparently also likes to tease for Kyon/Yuki, if this is any indication; notice that she replaced the last word of the lyrics from "believe me(shinjite)" to "i love you(daisuki)".
Digimon Adventure 02 has several instances pointing to a pairing between Takeru and Hikari. Both being "veteran" digidestined from the previous series, both having angel digimon, both rediscovering their crests at the same time, both showing outwardly pleasant exteriors to mask past darkness, an entire episode and a movie centered on the duo, and even a Digimon "god" telling them that both their crests were special in comparison to the rest. Despite this, it was shown that both did not end up together in the Distant Finale (which is rendered Fanon Discontinuity by most fans anyway, so it doesn't make much of a difference).
Conversely however, Hikari has an image song on the Girl's Festival album about a childhood friend she has fond memories of and even perhaps a crush until one line near the end - "It's a little too cute to call it love", suggesting that any supposed romantic implications from her were just old feelings about a childhood friend. Ouch. Then again, even that fact won't make the above any less teasing to shippers.
That might be a quirk of translation. The line is 'Koi to yobu ni wa kawaii sugi da yo ne?', which does essentially translate the way the link says, but 'koi' can stand for selfish love, as opposed to a purer, 'cuter' love closer to what Takeru displays. Thinking of it that that way, their ship didn't quite sink as much as it just mysteriously fell to the won't side of Will They or Won't They?.
Tai/Sora was probably the largest straight 'ship in the fandom thanks to their teasing, until it got blown to pieces by a Gainax Ending.
Daisuke and Ken have moments of both Foe Yay and Ho Yay in 02. Including the Kaiser getting a little too excited by having Daisuke crawling like a worm for him, as well as that their hearts beat together when their Digimon first Jogressed. Yes, they even have a Sleep Cute moment.
Guilmon and Renamon have some teasing in Digimon Tamers, starting with their Goku/Vegeta-like relationship in the beginning, the infamous hiding scene where Renamon pulled Guilmon away behind the house, and in the dub where Terriermon sing-songs "Renamon and Guilmon sittin' in a tree!"
There is also the slight but long-running tease with Renamon and Impmon in the second half of Tamers.
Digimon Xros Wars did this for three episodes with Beelzebumon (not the Tamers one) and Mervamon. After he protects her from an attack, she starts hanging around him, helping him, and getting worried when she can't find him (although she pretends she doesn't care). He even makes her blush at one point. The third episode has them occasionally holding hands and flying around together with him carrying her. Then it all screeches to a halt when he sacrifices himself to defeat Lilithmon. In the final episode when He got better, Mervamon sees Beelzebumon and tackles him, crying and repeating "Thank god". Later after the Big Bad was taken out she can be seen clinging to his arm, almost cementing the pairing.
In Saiyuki, there's quite a bunch of teases about the Hakkai/Yaone pairing. Whenever the group fights, they get pitted together, they're pretty much counterparts to each other, and most importantly, Yaone herself looked like Hakkai's deceased lover Kanan. Lots of shipping generate from these, but eventually it gets featured less and less for the sake of Ho Yay, probably the ship has sunk already...
One episode preview for Pokémon threw up a storm in the shipping fandom by focusing almost entirely on a romantic scene between Tracey and Misty, despite the latter's long-established crush on the protagonist. As it happened, the whole scene was just made up by one of Misty's sisters who thought that Tracey would make a handsome prince for her upcoming water ballet. Then they did it again in the preview for the next episode both characters appeared in. This time was a blushing scene that turned out to just be over a photograph of the whole group in Team Rocket's latest scheme. It didn't help that Misty was holding her new baby Pokémon that she had received from Tracey.
Back in the early days, there was Ash/Misty teasing going on since about the eighth episode. One of the most prominent examples is when the end of summer festival episode (the Ghost of Maiden's Peak to be precise). Ash sees Misty in a kimono, with her hair down, and his reaction could not have been more Shoujo. Another is Misty's jealous reaction to Melody flirting with Ash in the second movie.
A double whammy for Ash/Misty in episode 198 of the original series: When Brock meets a girl who falls in love with him, she talks about how she wants to marry Brock. Ash makes an offhanded comment about how weird it would be if Brock got married. Misty then says "You and I will be married someday, too." Ash first nods his head, then reacts accordingly when he realizes just how Misty said it (This). Then later, when Misty is lecturing Brock on how to talk to the girl who's madly in love with him, she says "Take it from me: it's a lot easier to like someone who likes you, then to like someone who doesn't." Brock then asks how she knows this. Cue major blushing and a feeble attempt at explaining it.
May and Drew have their moments. Plenty of them. Including one scene where he hands her a rose after she wins a Contest...before saying that the rose is for May's Beautifly, not her. Mean? Yes. Complete ship tease? Also yes.
Ash/May has had a lot of Ship Tease, too, mostly before all the Drew ones started happening, but there was some afterward too. ''Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea is one of the Advanceshippers' favorites for obvious reasons.
The anime writers loaded Diamond/Pearl from beginning to end with Ship Tease for Ash and Dawn, however strangely the pairing just never caught on like Ash/Misty and Ash/May among shippers.
Ash even gets teasing from Latias in the Pokémon Heroes movie. Latias openly crushes on Ash, in both human and Pokemon form.
Best Wishes wastes no time in throwing out some Ash/Iris Ship Tease right in the third episode. Cilan/Iris are also getting some teases. (Love Triangle?)
There's some inter-continuity Ship Tease involving Misty. Various continuities make them as love interest. The first 4koma had Red drooling over Misty a few times, Red in the games has at least one official art with her being buddy-buddy, Satoshi in Pokémon Zensho is implied to be attracted to her (even using a heart when he talks to her once), stated above the anime and Pokémon Special have their fair share of tease (Misty is even out-right in love with Red in Special), etc
Hidamari Sketchof all series has Sae x Hiro heavily implied in both intros, though none of it is ever seen during the actual episodes. The manga, on the other hand...
Tezuka and Fuji got this in both the manga and anime of Prince of Tennis. Most notable were a couple of flashback episodes of the anime in which they held hands, walked under an umbrella together (usually reserved for lovers in anime/manga) and had Cherry Blossoms rain down onto them.
Science Ninja Team Gatchaman liked to do this with Ken and Jun once every blue moon, but when it came to America as Battle of the Planets, the writers did all they could to suggest a romantic connection between Mark and Princess without actually making them an Official Couple.
In Mahou Sensei Negima! there's so much ship tease that the series needed its own example page. Seriously, every time Negi is alone with one of the girls, there is ship tease, except with Ayaka, where it is usually just Played for Laughs with a strong dose of Shotacon.
Axis Powers Hetalia has lots of Ho Yay Ship Tease going on between various characters, and even a few for heterosexual pairings as well. See the very abundant examples here.
The infamous "cigarette kiss" at the end of the seventh episode of Black Lagoon.
The entire Tokyo arc also plays out like one massive Revy/Rock ship tease, with Revy bringing our the dere-dere (what counts as thatforher, anyway), jealousy, intense protectiveness, and caring about someone else's mental (or physical) health for what basically amounts to the first time in the series. Really, any time these two are on screen/in the same panel together counts. Their UST is just that high.
Every freakingscene in Venus Versus Virus between Lucia and Sumire. Especially in the first few volumes.
Fullmetal Alchemist has Roy Mustang/Riza Hawkeye teasing out the wazoo. Her grandfather asks Roy what he is waiting for to marry Riza, and he nearly answers "everything in due time." He basically learned flame alchemy by seeing her topless. She joined the army for him and "lost her will to live" when she thought he was dead. Later, Roy and his mother have a little conversation about a certain "Elizabeth-chan", who apparently is good at cheering him up. And then, chapter 94: "Just kidding." Their respective injuries (Roy is blind, Riza is weak from blood loss) necessitated them being in close contact at all times. Arakawa manages to get to epic lengths without the tiniest Relationship Upgrade.
And Ed/Winry, Lan-Fan/Ling, and Al/Mei. Let's face it, Hiromu Arakawa loves this trope, the manga brimming with official/near-official couples.
The people in charge of the Brotherhood anime love those semi-official couples too, and sometimes throw in extra little shipping scenes in the series or in the openings and endings. Let's just say the fifth opening takes the cake if you're a fan of Edward/Winry. At least they're made official at the end of the series.
The ending picture of the manga/Brotherhood is the biggest ship tease in the series. (Did Al and May hook up at the end?) Looks like the world may truly never know the truth.)
The third art book does at least contain the official answer for one of the almost couples. Roy and Riza are not a pairing at the end of the series... well, not out loud. Arakawa confirms in her comments on one art piece that the only reason they aren't married is because the military has an anti-fraternization law, and to get married they would have to stop working together. Since Riza is fairly crucial to Roy's plans to become Fuhrer, they can't give up the working relationship; but the implication is pretty clear that once he reaches the top (which Arakawa has confirmed elsewhere he will), they'll be together.
The first [[anime/Fullmetal Alchemist anime]] has this occasionally. It's most apparent with Roy and Riza. From Riza's Erotic Dream to the ending where Riza is clearly shown being quite close to an injured Roy, but in the end we never get a Word Of God on whether they're in a relationship or not. In The Movie they don't interact much either.
Bleach endings sometimes hint at Ichigo/Rukia (2, 16, 19), or Ichigo/Orihime (15, 18), but otherwise the anime is heavily biased towards the former. Word Of God saying that the relationship between Ichigo and Rukia is more than friendship but not romantic hasn't stopped the creators of the anime from blatantly Ship Teasing them.
Several scenes from the manga that make Orihime's feelings for Ichigo significantly more obvious than it is in the anime are never adapted or are changed significantly (for example, a Not so Different moment in Chapter 24 is replaced with Orihime saying her epigraph poem from Volume 3, a scene with Orihime's brother complaining about Orihime always talking about Ichigo is changed to her always talking about her friend Tatsuki, and a scene showing the strength of her resolve to go with Ichigo to Soul Society to protect him is cut entirely and the anime has her hesitating whether or not to go); some of Ichigo's lines, such as "If you want to kill Inoue, you'll have to kill me first!" are also cut; moreover, Orihime and her feelings for Ichigo are all but ignored in the filler stories and movies.
On the other hand, despite shortening a small subplot in which people at school are spreading rumors about Ichigo being in a relationship with Rukia, there are additionalShip Tease scenes between the two, along with scenes in which characters can be jealous of Rukia for being close to Ichigo (Ririn, Nel). In the anime's version of the Grand Fisher mini-arc an original character whose job would have been taking Rukia back to Soul Society leaves her in the human world because "I don't want to break up such a serious twosome" and "I guess Rukia has come of age..." Episode 342, in particular, is one long Ichigo/Rukia tease.
There's some decent baiting of Shunsui with both Lisa and Nanao. Sure, there's the excuse that Shunsui is a laid back dude that just likes the ladies, and Lisa is sort of perverted so she can be hand waved a bit, but Nanao shows signs of Tsundere on her Captain.
Let's not forget Hitsu Matsu. The anime seems to favor Rangiku and Toshiro a great deal (and now with Gin out of the way...), judging from the facts that they're always together, trust each other the most, the movie The Diamond Dust Rebellion has so much chemistry between them you can cut it with a knife, they shared a few touching Friendship Moment and in the 9th- 10th season openings when the Captain/Lieutenant combos are introduced the camera seems to linger more on them than any other.
The animators and Tite really pushed Ulquihime after the Arrancar said Orihime looked good in the Arrancar wear. In Character or not, it was out of the blue for Ulquiorra to state such a thing, and then it just got worse with this, going so far to push her love for Ichigo while at the same time one of the most prominent but overlooked loopholes; if Orihime could just shield Ichigo for some of the most dangerous parts of the fight, why the hell did she sit back, watching two men, literally to one side and not for the other, fight for her. This is called out by Ulquiorra, but then you take in the final scene... Granted though, Orihime doesn't seem so torn up about it(yet), but we'll have to see what happens next. Until then, fans won't stop seeing this as cute and expressing possibilities to how it could of gone.
Like the above example, if you ship anything in One Piece, there's a reasonable chance a good chunk of your evidence comes from filler, specials, or movies. No, seriously, who they're ship teasing with who changes like the phases of the moon.
Played up for laughs, but Sanji and Zoro get a lot of Ship Tease scenes in the fillers, from sleeping with their faces right next to each other to nearly kissing twice.
During the manga's month-long hiatus, Oda drew a few doodles containing information about himself. To celebrate the birth of his new daughter, he drew a scene of Luffy holding up a baby...with Nami's hairdo and with Nami herself standing right next to him, looking pleased as punch. Uhoh.
A good deal of ship-tease fuel is canon. Franky/Robin, Zoro/Robin, Sanji/Nami, and Luffy/Nami get their more potent fuel from canon materials, though a lot of it is probably misinterpretation of The Power of Friendship
Before the full crew was assembled, Nami/Zoro was somewhat prevalent, due to Nami and Zoro being the two most mature members of the crew and had the Belligerent Sexual Tension (Nami was a tsundere and Zoro was a bit of a jerkass).
Franky/Robin shiptease has peaked up in recent anime episodes. The new Opening Narration shows Robin helping Franky with his inventions, when the helper’s role is usually given to the crew’s another inventor, Usopp. Additionally, when Franky and Robin meet after two years, their conversation is filled with ship tease starting with Franky openly and loudly complimenting Robin’s appearance. Then there’s Franky’s reaction (or lack of) to Boa Hancock when the crew sees her. The anime is quite loyal to the manga, but here and there the anime adds and extends (hilarious) exchanges between the two of them. It seems that the creators of the anime have really taken Franky and Robin’s roles as officialTeam Dad and Team Mom seriously.
The manga recently had a bit of shiptease with Robin and Jinbe.
There's also the worst case of ship tease is Hancock with Luffy, who constantly takes what Luffy's saying to mean something else after his ridiculous display of MANLY and falling in love with him. A love so strong she thought it was a lethal fever at first. Of course Luffy is Luffy, he's ridiculously oblivious about it, despite the fact she acts like a doting housewife to him because her sexiness won't woo him, despite her being the hottest woman in the world of One Piece's world according to in series men and women alike.
Somewhat subverted when Luffy blatantly tells Hancock that he won't marry her.
Cardcaptor Sakura is essentially built on this trope, the manga even moreso than the anime. Sakura and Syaoran and Touya and Yukito have at least one teasing moment every chapter/almost every episode before they become Official Couples, with plenty of remaining teasing scattered about between Sakura and Yukito, Syaoran and Meiling, Syaoran and Yukito, Sakura and Tomoyo, and most probably others (CLAMP seems to do this in a lot of their shows).
The scene late in the second season of Gundam 00 where Feldt gives Setsuna a flower in a very shy/embarrassed manner is pretty blatantly tease-y, especially when she wonders if it will make Marina mad and he assures her that they don't have that kind of relationship.
In Gundam Wing, Relena and Heero technically still count as this, although it's pretty much a given by now that they will be together in a romantic way at some point in their lives.
Trowa and Quatre are a more traditional version of this trope. It began in the original series, starting with their first meeting, including pointed use of the theme song as they 'surrender' to each other, and a spontaneous flute-and-violin duet an episode later as Trowa's Gundam is repaired. It continues with matching "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight 's that bookend at least five episodes worth of pining on Quatre's side, and ending with a suspicious sort of mind-link between the two culminating in Trowa semi-rescuing Quatre after he was stabbed by Dorothy. The manga Battlefield of Pacifists only lays the hints on even more thick, and in Frozen Teardrop, they are still very close, do not have any children, and their expy's Quatrine and Trowa Phobos are also being Ship Teased.
Death Note, Death Note, Death Note. Specifically, the anime. Specifically, the bizarre caring-sharing scene on a rainy rooftop (!) with subsequent foot massages (!!), which happens right before L's death, which delights Light.
In both the anime and the manga, L is ship teased with Misa. L touches her butt, claims to be a big fan of Misa, declares that he could fall in love with Misa, and tells Light he is jealous of him for having such a fine girlfriend. Plus, he puts her in incredibly perverted-looking bondage restraints. On Misa's side, she calls L "cute" and "funny" and seems to enjoy him when they first meet, and later she kisses him and declares him a friend. Then when she discovers "Ryuzaki" is actually L and reads Light's letter ordering L's death, she plans to kill him without a single guilty thought, and gives up half her lifespan for that chance to kill.
Filia and Xellos from The Slayers would have classicBelligerent Sexual Tension...if weren't for the fact that's he's a Mazoku who feeds on negative emotions and shouldn't have the ability to love. That's not going to stop the shippers, especially considering Slayers Try is filled with moments that were obviously intended to look shippy, even if that is canonically impossible. The two most obvious moments would have to be when Xellos rescues Filia by picking her up in his arms (and then...drops her on top of the bad guy) and later when he's injured and she helps him, which results in them spending almost an entire episode practically cuddling.
The hints between Amelia and Zelgadis are played straighter; this generally fleshes out during more dangerous situations. The second season, Slayers NEXT, solidified this when Gaav, one of the two Disc One Final Bosses severely wounds Zelgadis when he protects Amelia from his blade; and later on, Hellmaster Phibrizzo outright kills Amelia to anger Lina, and Zelgadis nearly loses it. Unlike Lina and Gourry, though, the teasing kept going through the anime's run.
Fairy Tail: Erza used to shower with Gray and Natsu and cares a lot for them, but is made out to have romantic feelings for Jellal that might be returned. In fact, he tells her she loves him, she (probably) almost confesses in return a while later, and in an omake he asks her on a date. Juvia had a stalker crush on Gray which eventually evolved to the point where something may or may not be going on between them, and views Lucy as her rival in love. Speaking of Lucy, in addition to her little one sided bit with Juvia, she collects pinnups of Mirajane, has admitted to having a girl crush on Erza, and has developed a crush on Natsu in an omake when she thought he may have liked him. Natsu should probably move on, since the girl it's heavily implied he had a thing for died two years ago. There's also Loke, who loves to tell Lucy that the power of his love for her is what gives him the ability to protect her. Before I forget, there's also the little bit with Sherry and Lyon, which got nowhere during the hundred or so chapters where they were nowhere to be seen. Moving on to background characters, although the feelings Bisca and Alzack have for each other are actually confirmed, they Can Not Spit It Out in order to confess to one another, and something is definitely going on between Cana and Macao.
And now that Lisanna came back, many fans were waiting for anything with Natsu x Lisanna to move on like a rapid Ferrari, they get nothing!
Let us be blunt. The Fairy Tail manga contains a lot of Ship Tease, in every possible direction. The anime adaptation takes all of that, and then adds EVEN MORE.
As for Keiichi/Mion, there's a whole bunch of it, most noticeably in the Watanagashi-hen arc and in Minagoroshi-hen when Keiichi finally gives that doll to her, complete with her blushing and Keiichi telling her about how he thinks she really is girl like despite being a tomboy. And then there's Miotsukushi-hen which is just packed with Mion/Keiichi ship tease...
Higurashi Kira has a whole episode devoted to ship teasing Keiichi/Mion, Keiichi/Shion, and Keiichi/Rena. The fact that the ending didn't have a romanic resolution and heavily implied Keiichi/Mion didn't help, either.
Or Lelouch and Nunnally both saying "aishiteru" to each other on two separate occasions.
Face it, the picture and sound dramas Ship Tease pretty much everything. There's even a crack sound drama with a Suzaku/Lelouch kiss out there. The CLAMP art is also fond of playing up thatpairing.
Hayate and Wataru, the two Chick Magnets in the Hayate the Combat Butler manga, get some level of teasing with the main girls who are interested in them. Up to a chapter or so per girl.
Hinagiku seems to be the only girl who Hayate hasn't seen partly nude (excepting the OAV). She's probably the one who's given the most fanservice though. Hayate is commonly the reason.
Recently, a lot of teasing for the previously one-sided Nagi/Hayate has been going on. Multiple comparisons of her similarities to Hayate's first love, Athena; the extremely spoiled and pampered Nagi throwing away her entire inheritance so as to free Hayate of a Sadistic Choice; Athena admitting how happy Hayate seems with her and ultimately pulling an I Want My Beloved to Be Happy so he stays with Nagi; and the end of Chapter 265 with Hayate wondering if a day will come where he can say "I truly love you" to someone once more while both his and Nagi's smiling faces are framed. Although, she follows him to Japan anyways.. It seems that, like Ken Akamatsu, Kenjirou Hata is absolutely relentless with the Ship Tease.
In Samurai Champloo, either Fuu and Jin, or Fuu and Mugen, or both, depending on your point of view, neither of which actually materialize, to the utter disappointment of fans.
A guy (namely Crow) bringing a girl (namely Aki) a cup of coffee in an episode is innocuous. A guy bringing a girl a cup of coffee during the trailer for the episode is Ship Tease, especially when followed by a Roaring Rampage of Revenge on the villains who put her in a coma. However things plays out in the future, the reactions will be as interesting to watch as the show.
There just IS something between Yusei and Sherry, with her obviously flirting with him right at their first encounter, him dreaming of her right afterwards, then there was that dramatic scene when they traveled to another dimension and accidentally, Sherry was sucked outside of their space-traveling machine thing, Yusei jumped after her death-defyingly, grabbedher hand and desperately tried to not let go of her until she slipped away and he screamed after her in a pretty distressed fashion. Apart from that an equally dramatic shot in the recent ending is featuring them, probably based on mentioned scene, with them reaching out for each other, and let's not forget the vision of them flying through the World Of Speed together...nakedly...
Sora/Ken: poor Ken has obviously been in love with Sora since episode one and is almost always the one who supports her when things get rough...and her inability to notice his affections becomes a Running Gag.
Sora/Layla: Sora is the only partner worthy of Layla.
Yuri/Sora: Yuri has, on at least two occasions, dashed in and saved Sora from serious injury and once gave her mouth-to-mouth (off screen) after she almost drowned (which Sora had a pretty...interesting dream sequence about), and Sora had a rather obvious crush on Yuri early on; etc.
Sora/Leon: Well, let's start with the time he tackled her in a way that at the very least resembled an attempt to rape her...
Sora/May: Sprinkled here and there, more like Foe Yay tho.
Keroro Gunsou AKA Sgt. Frog has Giroro and Natsumi. If you ship it, you will be tortured.
In Element Hunters, not only is there ship teasing between two pairs of characters, one of the pairs is continually commented on by another of the characters.
While that pair is firmly within She Is Not My Girlfriend, the other practically shouts about it while she's standing in front of him.
Madarame and Saki get some pretty blatant Ship Tease in the Genshiken novel Genshiken: Return of the Otaku. Saki stays in Madarame's apartment for a night after she sees another woman leaving Kousaka's apartment, leading her to believe that Kousaka is cheating on her. It almost turns into a Hurt Comfort scene before that with Madarame trying to cheer Saki up a bit, AND one of the sections of the book is titled Madarame X Kasukabe.
Neon Genesis Evangelion has teasing sprinkled about between both Shinji and Asuka and Shinji and Rei. Of course, being Evangelion they range between the slightly unsettling (Shinji and Asuka's Almost Kiss, the infamous scene in Rei's apartment) to the thoroughly unsettling (the even more infamous scene in The End of Evangelion).
The Rebuild of Evangelion films, being a somewhat Lighter and Softer remake, dramatically increase the frequency of the teasing and lower the disturbing factor; for example the Almost Kiss scene is changed into a lively chat where they agree on a First Name Basis. Then there's the scene where Asuka is cooking for Shinji; earlier on, him doing the same for Rei made Asuka visibly jealous (finding out that Rei has feelings for Shinji, though unsure weather to be romantic or platonic, upset Asuka even more).
Shinji and Kaworu have an absurd amount of this considering the latter's brief appearance. CPR, standing naked right in front of the other in the shower, declarations of love, sleeping in the same bed, handholding while taking a bath together, the sleep over, the blushing...
In the fishing anime Grander Musashi RV, most of the Ship Tease revolved around Musashi's childhood friend Mio. She seemed to get jealous when another girl showed interest in Musashi, and she sings the ending theme with only Musashi being the other character featured during the song. One of the antagonists, who later pulls a Heel Face Turn, also develops a crush on her and Mio gets some Ship Tease moments with him too when she becomes his friend. Musashi's male childhood friend, Suguru, also develops a crush on a girl named BB. She's initially dismissive, but later episodes hinted at the beginnings of romantic reciprocation from her. No relationship in the series gets beyond teasing, though.
KuroshitsujiSebastianCiel are teased every 5 minutes and Alois has a habit of generally hitting on anybody in sight, making it possible to pair him with just about anyone.
In Kuroshitsuji II we get a pretty...interesting battle between Sebastian and Alois's butler, Claude which led to a massive Nosebleed from fangirls all over the world.
Noein easily fits this, with Yuu and Haruka doing such things as holding hands and promising to run away to Tokyo together. Ai and Isami fit this also, with the former having an obvious crush.
While Narita states that he never has and probably never will consider a romantic relationship between Shizuo and Izaya in Durarara!!, he does have a habit of teasing the ship with hints that range from possibly unintentional (Shizuo and Izaya share the same birthdates as each other's voice actors) to suspect (Izaya says in a Drama CD that he saw Shizuo sleeping once and thought he was kinda cute) to deliberate (Erika ships them together), to just plain screwing with the fangirls (he wrote Shizuo/Izaya porn in an April Fools story. It was actually a fight from the perspective of Erika's Shipping Goggles.)
Also, in that same episode, after Daisuke destroys or subdues a common enemy, Daisuke and Clair gaze at each other for awhile. And that's it for this pairing. Later on Ship Sinking ensues as Daisuke not only winds up with Kyoko as the hero usually does, but goes off on an adventure in some distant land...alone.
In Pandora Hearts Oz gets shippy moments with pretty much everyone.
For that matter, most characters who have ever met, excluding some older chars such as Oscar and Rufus Barma, get ship-teased at least a tiny bit. (Even the latter of those gets ship-teased incredibly with Cheryl Rainsworth.. at least for a while.) In the event they don't get much chance to, it's even sometimes just a case of Throw It In, such as Lotti's anime-only kissing Ada or Elliot's admiration of Break as stated in the character guide. The series is more or less made of Ship Tease.
Macross Frontier is laced with ship tease for Alto x Ranka, Alto x Sheryl, or Alto x his plane/the sky. There's some mild ship teasing between some members of the rest of the cast as well, and someone probably used a couple shots to suggest Sheryl x Ranka.
Anna and Nitori have been having quite a few in recent chapters, such as Anna having a fit when Nitori undresses in front of her and when she gave him a ring.
Shoma Takakura and Ringo Oginome from Mawaru-Penguindrum, despite Ringo's huge crush on Shoma's teacher Tabuki. She wears his clothes surprisingly often, he unintentionally takes her Sacred First Kiss while giving her CPR, and later she practically humps him while delirious due to a fever.
In episode 10, Ringo apologizes to Shouma since he got injured for her sake, and she's later willing to give up her half of her Destiny Diary if it means it can be used to save a kidnapped Shouma's life. And ultimately does so.
And it goes off the ceiling in episode 11. Both Shoma and Ringo have get people asking them if they're attracted to each other (Himari, in Shoma's case; Yuri, in Ringo's), and Ringo's reactions to Shoma in that episode are textbook Tsundere ones. Not to mention how Shoma tells Ringo that she is not Momoka but herself, which she recalls after yet another incident wit Tabuki and ultimately wrecks the whole deal. Among other factors.
Kanba/Himari has certainly gathered some following ever since the infamous kiss in episode 1. For an incestuous match-up, that's not bad.
Eposide 12 basically makes canon the pairing between Kanba and...it's hard to tell. Both Himari and the Princess Of The Crystal (her possessor) might be his target. In any case, Kanba and the Princess-in-Himari's-body share a verysexually charged goodbye scene◊ in the Dream World, before the Princess fades away and Himari dies again (seemingly for real this time)...with possessed!Himari being naked except for the Penguin Hat and her boots...and Kanba's chest being exposed due to Clothing Damage...
And now we have Masako -> Kanba, in the form of her Forceful Kiss on him. And reflected on how her penguin kisses Kanba's own too, leaving lipstick marks all over it. Episode 11 gives more fuel when Masako and Kanba do talk about it, and she refes to herself as a "hunter for love" whose prey is Kanba.
Togainu no Chi: The anime in particular seems to be hinting at the potential love interests of Akira. The anime seems to slide toward Keisuke/Akira though especially in Episode 9. Happens again in episode 11 but the pairing has officially sunk.
No. 6 gives us the Ho Yay-riffic relationship between Sion and Nezumi. Holding hands, protecting the other, cuddling, good night kisses, taking care of the other when sick, dancing with each other, caressing the others face and hair, wanting to stay by the others side, meaningful conversations, and Nezumi kisses Sion on the lips in episode 11 before leaving him.
including one statement that, had they been a man and a woman, they would have fallen in love within the first episode
Märchen Awakens Romance: Phantom and Alviss, Alviss has his moments with Ginta especially in the anime and Ginta has his moments with Snow and Dorothy. The anime seems to aim for both Dorothy and Alviss though. Luckily at the end, he seems to revolve some things with Dorothy, Snow becomes Koyuki but unfortunately, he doesn’t solve anything with Alviss. Also, Dorothy and Nanashi. And Snow and Jack. And Chaton and Alan.
THE iDOLM@STER - A good portion of the second half of the anime has this with several of the girls, particularly when the girl is the focus of the episode.
Usagi Yojimbo has this with Usagi and Tomoe Ame. The fans have been requesting some romance with the pair for years, but Stan Sakai has only lightly teased them for as long until recently, right before he has Tomoe's Lord decide she should be married without bothering to ask if she wanted it in the first place.
Nico and Karolina from Runaways, especially in the last issue before Terry Moore's run started. Nico tells Karolina "You pretty much always amaze me," and when pressed on whether Karolina, Victor or Chase is the better kisser, eventually says "Karolina". This is despite the fact that they never actually got beyond Almost Kiss...as far as we know. Oh, and it ends with her chiding the boys for being "such 'phobes".
Runaways and Young Avengers both do this pretty often, but their Civil Warcrossover really went to crazy with it. Tommy calls Nico hot, Nico calls Eli cute, and Victor calls Cassie an angel (he didn't think people actually did that). On top of that, the Tommy/Kate/Eli love triangle and the Vision's crush on Cassie are more apparent than ever.
In Kyon: Big Damn Hero, Kyon has had Ship Tease with every female character he's not related to. And one of his cousins, though that's one-sided. To be fair, though, he has that in canon, too.
In the Firefly fic Forward, there are a number of scenes that tease River/Jayne. The author does, however, twist these around quite a bit, and one of the most tense moments between the two is ruined by a realization that psychic mind-manipulation was involved.
The Touhou fanfiction Imperfect Metamorphosis has no pairings whatsoever but nonetheless manages quite a bit of teasing, including offhand comments, speculation by other characters, ambiguous, highly emotional scenes, and anything to do with Yuuka.
Incidentally, the cast members at one of Disney's theme parks like to tease Alice/Hatter as well. (Thus making those few fans who prefer Hatter/Mallymkin very angry.)
The Sci Fi Original Movie/Mini Series of Alice gives tease for this pairing for a few days before making it canon.
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: How much false hope can you fill the Harmonians with, David Yates? After Ron's gone, Harry dances with Hermione just to cheer her up. One might think that if Ron had not come back in time, they would have ended up together. Ok, Harry would have drowned in the icy water before they'd have made out.
The second Deathly Hallows film puts in a couple of brief-but-amazing scenes to tease the Neville/Luna shippers. "Have you seen Luna? I'm mad about her! About time I told her, since we're both probably going to be dead by dawn." FANGASM.
The filmmakers of the final films were shipping Harry/Hermione (the screenplay writer even told Rowling that he thought the book would end with Harry and Hermione together as he was reading it and adapting it to the film script). Not only is there the subtlest of subtle hints that they've slept together (when Ron asks her if she's noticed Harry talks in his sleep, Hermione replies with a very awkward "No") but the very last shot, in contrast to the book, shows the two of them standing together, with their respective spouses disappearing from shot as the camera zooms in on them... Then again, you can take this too far.
Harry/Luna is teased a little bit in Order of the Phoenix with an oddly romantic hand-holding shot near the end.
The Pirates of the Caribbean films were frequently teasing with Jack/Elizabeth, especially their kiss near the end of the second film.
Kung Fu Panda with Po and Tigress. It is said in the commentary for the first movie that Tigress is Po's favorite of the Furious Five, even though throughout most of the first film she's the one in the group who is the most vocal about her disdain for him. It takes until the end of the movie for her to respect him. However, in the sequel, While not necessarily romantic (yet), the two share a lot of moments. When Po describes how confused he is about his past, and how Tigress wouldn't get something like that, she suddenly hugs him, much to the shock of the other Furious Five, and tells him she does understand. She then tells him that she can't watch her friend die, and to stay with Masters Storming Ox and Croc for his own protection. She also seems to be the most distraught out of the Five when Po is hit by Shen's cannon. Later, when Po returns and is about to get hit by Lord Shen's cannon, she pushes him out of the way. In the wreckage of the cannon-burst Po finds Tigress drifting and holds her hand briefly before pushing her out of harms way. After Po defeats Shen, he hugs her, with Tigress initially frozen shock before a smile grows on her face, while everyone else looks on in shock.
Furthermore, when you are aware of the Tiger Versus Dragon of Chinese symbology, Po and Tigress' growing love is not just appropriate, it's almost imperative.
To a lesser extent, there is Crane and Mei Ling in Secrets of the Furious Five, which the felineAction Girl is so nice and loyal to the bird in the All of the Other Reindeer situation that many fans like to imagine them having a romantic relationship while they are at it.
Aliens has quite a few, probably benefiting from the fact that they didn't have an official couple. The most obvious is Ripley and Hicks and Word Of God has confirmed that James Cameron imagined the two of them and Newt becoming a family. Ripley also gets a bit of teasing with Hudson during the scene where he gives her his Badass Boast. She looks both uncomfortable and... slightly turned on. There's also a ton of subtext going on between Vasquez and Drake.
Literature
Overlapping with Ship Sinking, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows had Harry/Hermione shippers pretty pointedly teased by the scene in which Ron destroys the Horcrux: it belittles him, saying a lot of the same things that rabid Harmony shippers did (useless next to Harry, not worthy of a girl like Hermione, etc) and then shows him an image of Harry and Hermione passionately kissing. At this point, Ron smashes the thing to bits with the sword of Godric Gryffindor.
Many Potterfans figured Luna Lovegood was introduced for the purpose of being Harry's intended, especially given the lengths JKR went to to establish their connection as "outsiders". And especially since - in the same book (Order Of The Phoenix), it's stated that the reason Ginny could actually talk to him without blushing was that she'd gotten over her crush on him. (The ship was subsequently sunk and eaten by Harry's "Chest Monster" in Half-Blood Prince)
Harry/Ginny had foreshadowing in the same book (Ginny takes the snitch ''right under Cho's nose''). But Harry and Luna share many intimate moments.
A Song of Ice and Fire has, in order of descending squee fuel, Sansa/Sandor, Jaime/Brienne, and Dany/Daario. Tease consists mostly of the aforementioned characters talking about, thinking about, and dreaming about each other a lot. There also manages to be hints for Lyanna/Rhaegar, even though both characters were dead long before the start of the story.
Also, some fans interpret the whole "Blue rose growing from a wall of ice" business as Jon/Dany shiptease. For the uninitiated, the blue rose is what Rhaegar gave to Lyanna when they first met (Rheagar and Lyanna being the most likely candidates for Jon Snow's parent). And the wall of ice thing just speaks for itself.
And the title of the series can be interpreted as lending support to the ship as well, with "ice" representing Jon (being the commander of the people who stand watch on the giant wall of ice) and "fire" Dany (with all of the dragon symbolism and the walking into Drogo's funeral pyre and coming out unscathed).
Percy Jackson and the Olympians has Annabeth/Luke and Thalia/Luke. But especially Thalia/Luke; the readers are teased so badly that it's almost agonizing.
There's any number of possible ships being teased in The Dresden Files, primarily among them Harry/Murphy, Murphy/Kincaid, and some Harry/Lara Raith, but there's also some Harry/Molly and Molly/Ramirez. There's also other, less obvious ones like Cujo Hendricks/Miss Gard.
Book 10 of The 39 Clues had SEVERAL: Some (but not as many as the shipperswould have liked) mentions of Ian and Amy, several Hamilton and Sinead hints, some moments of DAN AND NATALIE (gasp!!!), and even one mention of Reagan helping Ted draw some diagrams, which I'm sure pinged on at least a few shippers' radars.
Blyton's Malory Towers - If the shipping is kept at the level of 'firm schoolyard friends', Alicia/Darrell or Mary Lou/Darrell might be this, as the first-mentioned girls in both cases seem drawn to the heroine (by jealous possessiveness and worshipful admiration respectively). Alas, Blyton pairs Darrell off in the first book and nobody BUT NOBODY will ever replace Sally Hope as her BFF. Not in canon, at any rate.
Fablehaven, starting around Book 3, really enjoys tugging on Kendra's romantic strings. Her attraction to Gavin is immediate and obvious, but he's kind of evil. In Book 4, she meets Raxtus, whom she immediately turns into her own personal in-universe woobie, and they spend the night curled up and sleeping next to one another...but species is kind of a barrier there, since Raxtus is a dragon, and a ''fairy dragon at that. Book 5 seems to set up the Official Couple as Kendra and Bracken, but they themselves admit that relationship won't go anywhere any time soon, due to yet more interspecies shenanigans.
The Last Dragon Chronciles is kind of interesting on this matter. Although the Official Couple is technically David and Zanna, Book 4 introduces Tam Ferrel, who has a huge number of Ship Tease moments with both Zanna and Lucy. Lucy harbors a fairly obvious one-sided crush on Tam, what with her obsession with him, and her excitement over getting to spend time with him. And Tam, during his initial introduction, is interpreted by many people (including Lucy) as hitting on Zanna. Even when she explains that she's taken, they do go on to form a fairly close bond. Lucy does not let this go unnoticed, either.
Live Action TV
In the Xena: Warrior Princess episode "A Comedy of Eros," Gabrielle is hit by Cupid's arrow, which causes her to fall in love with the next person she sees. She almost lays eyes on Xena but at the last minute, Joxer gets in between them.
The sad fact is, Joxer didn't need Cupid's arrow to fall for her. He felt that way genuinely, so he is left in the lurch when she's "cured" and thinks there was nothing between them. There would be plenty of ship teases between Joxer and Gabrielle after that.
One semi-persistent tease was Xena and Ares.
After Paul Gross learned of Due South slash fanfiction, he started turning the Ho Yay between Ray K and Fraser Up to Eleven. They finish the series riding into the sunset together. Case closed.
In The Guardian's first season, Lulu was torn between protagonist Nick Fallin and her fiance, Brian. (Nick and the viewers knew Brian was a jerk, but Lulu didn't.) The preview for the finale showed Lulu telling Nick saying "We called it off...the wedding." Good news for shippers, right? Might have been, if the context in the actual episode hadn't been as follows:
Lulu: ...So we called it off. Nick: I think that's good. That's good. Lulu: No. We called off the big wedding and...we went to Atlantic City and got married.
Doctor Who writer Russell T. Davies seems fond of writing kisses between the Doctor and his companion solely so they can be shown in trailers. Both the last two season openers have done this. Both kisses were forApplied Phlebotinumreasons. In season two, another character had taken over Rose's body. The kiss in season three was explained by the Doctor as a "genetic transfer" to help Martha (whom he had only just met) get the attention of the Judoon by showing non-human traces on their scanner. The kiss in the season four trailer was inevitably something similar.
Similarly, the character of Romana was invented solely to tease the audience. She was another Time Lord of comparable age at the time Tom Baker was the youngest actor to have played the Doctor, they had brilliant on-screen chemistry (Baker even ended upmarryingLalla Ward, who played Romana II), but the writers just would not go the extra distance.
Let's not forget the kisses from the season one finale! Granted, Rose had absorbed the time vortex prior to hers, but Jack's was very likely thrown in just for the squee factor.
The season three finale surpassed all of these though with its truly epicFoe Yay teasing between the Doctor and the Master, ranging from the Master's orgasmic "I like it when you use my name" to the Doctor cradling the Master in his arms, sobbing, as he begs him not to die.
Then "The End of Time" took all that Ship Tease and just lit it on fire. "I don't know what I'd be without you." Awwww.
While definitely less blatant, Doctor/Master teasing is hardly a new phenomenon. "A cosmos without the Doctor scarcely bears thinking about", anyone?
River and the Eleventh Doctor flirt constantly and kiss four times (although only one of these was for purely romantic reasons, the others being an assassination attempt, rectifying the assassination attempt by healing the Doctor, and to restart time. Does it count as shipping though since we know they already have a relationship in the future from Silence in the Library?
The Sarah Jane Adventures seems to be getting a knack for this too, in the direction of Rani and Clyde. In The Vault of Secrets, they have the following conversation while holding hands:
Clyde: Maybe it wouldn't have made any difference. Look, I know Sarah Jane doesn't believe in fate, but I reckon that Time and the Universe...They're not random. Everything's sort of tied together by these invisible strings. Like your mum joining BURPSS, or Ocean Waters having that disk thing. Rani: You mean if something's gonna happen, it's gonna happen? [They notice they're holding hands and let go]
And in The Empty Planet, Rani and Clyde are the only two ones left in the whole wide world. Clyde muses that perhaps, the one who stole away all humanity wanted the human race to start again; and as they're the only ones left, they've got the roles of Adam and Eve in that plan. Rani doesn't like the idea. At the end of the episode, when the human race is back again, they say that they'll never be alone - they've always got each other. As cute as it is, it's Ship Tease in its purest form.
The last story, The Man Who Never Was, is basically an hour of ship tease, as we first learn that Luke refers to them by their Shipping Portmanteau (a habit Sky seems to pick up) and then they have to pose as a married couple.
Some fans theorize that Peter Petrelli saving Claire in Heroes was set up so as to appear to be a ship in the making by a particularly creative writer, but then she was revealed to be his niece. Though this revelation hasn't stopped some of the shippers...
Or the actors, who have allegedly started dating. But then, they presumably aren't uncle and niece.
The latest season definitely seems to be trying to foster this ship. Don't worry about it; if you ignored ships between relatives in this show, you'd have nothing left.
Starting in Season Three, you can add Juliet into the mix.
Our good friend Joss Whedon employed the crueler variety in the last season of Angel, when after three years' worth of teasing, Fred and Wesley finally hook up...only for Fred to be killed and replaced with a demonic entity in the very next episode. But this is Joss. Sex and relationships only lead to suffering.
There was some definite ship tease between Spike and Illyria during the Hell part of After the Fall, but since the "Only Human" arc they have lessened.
He learned to do this on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The Xander/Willow ship was hinted at from day one. But then in Season Two, Xander was paired up with Cordelia (taking everyone by surprise, but none more so than Xander and Cordelia), and Willow got together with Oz. The Xander/Willow ship seemed dead...only to rise again in Season 3, where Xander and Willow had to deal with a sudden mutual attraction that eventually destroyed the Xander/Cordelia relationship, and inflicted serious damage on the Willow/Oz one. Joss twisted the dagger with the very next episode, which depicted an Alternate Universe where Xander and Willow were together...as vampires.
Shortly after that, he began teasing us with the prospect of pairing up Cordelia with new arrival Wesley. They shared a kiss in the season finale...which was so awkward that it obliterated half a season of mutual infatuation in a single moment.
And then Willow was made into a lesbian, thus negating any meaningful relationship with any male character. And then her lesbian girlfriend Tara got killed off, leading to Willow going evil and eventually trying to destroy the world — and who delivers the Cooldown Hug that eventually snaps her out of this? Xander.
In season 6, the episode "Tabula Rasa" goes crazy ship teasing Giles/Anya
"Band Candy" ship teased Giles and Joyce, while simultaneously bringing the actual chances of the ship occurring down several notches.
The season 7 episode "Dirty Girls" teased at Faith and Spike. At the time, Joss was trying to get a Faith spinoff off the ground, and apparently intended to have Spike on it.
In the season 8 comics, issue 28, Buffy comes to the conclusion she may have romantic feelings for Xander, goes to tell him, but catches him kissing Dawn.
Every episode with Faith and Angel(us) in it teases us quite a lot. First, her coming on to him, and then him pretending to be on her side, and then her practically idolising Angel "he's the only person who never gave up on me". Meanwhile, Angelus intends to turn her, makes her a giant welcome sign, and saves her from the Beastmaster for no apparent reason.
Giles and Ethan were written, acted and shown as unofficial lovers with enough Foe Yay between them that many fans didn't even realise at first that it was subtext. Whenever the two meet its always about why Giles left Ethan not why he doesn't mess around with dark magic anymore.
Done to a point that it started to get annoying in the first two seasons of The Big Bang Theory with Leonard and Penny. In the pilot she took a shower in their apartment causing Leonard to become even more flustered than before. Then in the season finale, Penny was drunk and kissed Leonard only for Leonard to be Above the Influence. Season 2 had them go on a date in the first episode, but he manages to screw that up. Then, in the Christmas episode, they both end up drunk and almost have sex. Only for him to screw it up again. The season 2 finale had Penny beginning to realize her feelings for him, but she Can Not Spit It Out and he leaves for 3 months on a research trip. Considering the Season 3 finale, it seems likely that it'll be teased to hell and back in season 4.
Sheldon and Penny are blatantly teased in some episodes (mostly in ones where one or both sing Soft Kitty), despite Word Of God (both the writers and the actors) saying the pairing will never happen.
Although there was a lot of teasing involving Howard and Raj being mistaken for (and acting like) a couple in the early seasons, it seemed to pick up quite a bit more after Howard became involved in a relationship with a woman.
Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future had a Ship Tease going on between Jonathan Power and Jennifer Chase throughout the series, but the latter's death and the show's cancellation ended it just when it really started to develop.
An early Farscape episode has D'Argo hallucinating that Zhaan is his long-dead wife, and making out with her, with Zhaan obliging to protect his fragile mental state. Lots of speculation followed that the writers were building to the two getting together, especially when the makeout session appeared in the opening credits for a while. Nothing ever happened.
Also, some of the very early episodes hint that Zhaan and Crichton would hook up, which was abandoned pretty quickly in favor of Crichton and Aeryn.
"Don't Ever Change", the last pre-strike episode of House, seemed to be taking a nearly unholy glee in teasing as many shippers as possible. In one episode, they managed to tease 13/Cuddy, Wilson/Cuddy, House/Cuddy, House/13, 13/Cameron, and House/Wilson. There's really no explanation other than that the writers, faced with the strike, decided to go out having as much fun as possible.
Wait a second, this isn't just about the sex. You like her personality. You like that she's conniving. You like that she has no regard for consequences. You like that she can humiliate someone if it serves—[his eyes widen, long pause] Oh my God! You're sleeping with me!
The writers have been doing this with House/Cuddy for ages. By season three it was pretty clear that he has strong feelings for her, but whenever they seem to bring it to a point where it could lead anywhere they drop it and ignore it for a few weeks, before starting it up again.
In season 6, the House/Wilson text has ceased to be anything even close to "sub", and entered a whole new realm of Ho Yay Shipper Baiting. While it's obviously there just for laughs, it's also clear that the writers are aware of the slasher-base, and have decided to take the "married couple routine" one step further.
Almost literally, with a scene in which Wilson publicly got down on his knees and proposed to House. Of course it was completely part of a ruse and not real at all, but still, damn. Talk about a big shiny present for the House/Wilson shippers.
In Greek, the main ship is Cappie/Casey. So in one promo when Cappie wants to talk about dating with Casey, squees are heard far and wide. Then the ep airs, and Cappie tells Casey he's dating her arch-rival (and ZBZ little) Rebecca. Hilarity Ensues.
The Shake It Up episode Add It Up brings a ship tease for the Ty/Tinka pairing. However, it's never mentioned again.
The Secret Life of the American Teenager has a huge following of Ricky/Amy, likely because they have a baby together. The writers picked up on it, and seem to adore teasing it/smashing it/teasing it again as much as they can. There have been quite a few previews with various characters saying "Do you still have feelings for Ricky?" to Amy or vice versa before fade to black. When the episode is actually shown, Ricky or Amy follows the question with a fierce NO!
Then there was the episode where Amy thought a guy she had gone on a date with hadn't called her back because she was a lousy kisser. Ricky volunteered to practice kissing with her, because they're friends and friends can do that apparently. They have a make-out session and squees were heard around the country. Then the very next episode the two of them insisted to everyone they hadn't felt anything from it. However, the smiles they exchanged with each other when they talked about it were enough to keep the hopes of the shippers alive.
There was also the episode of their son's first birthday party, where Amy ended up spending the night at Ricky's apartment. It's vague enough that she could have just spent the night....or she could have spent the night.
In a Season 3 episode, they pretend to be married.
Many seem to not care the situation in which Justin and Alex are situated and still believe they will probably kiss or get together at one point. There were so many questions from the fans, regarding their relationship, to the point where the creators of the show got used to them. In a live chat show, Word Of God's reaction was something like this:
Todd J. Greenwald: Oh my gosh, we got a Jalex question.
Fan: Are Justin and Alex going to end up together?
Though it seems the Ship Tease and the Relationship Writing Fumble was pretty major in the last seasons and especially The Movie. WhatTheBuck funnily commented on their relationship, stating that Justin and Alex are actually lovers and that they will soon have wizard babies.
Kamen Rider Den-O featured the time-traveling hero Ryotaro and his tsundere sidekick Hana. Over the course of the series, Ryotaro threw a lot of "my god, you're so sexy" looks at her, resulting in some pretty early shipping for the two. The finale revealing she was his niece from a destroyed future timelinesank the ship pretty fast, but to this day, people still wonder whether the show writers did that on purpose or whether the actor just couldn't stop himself from drooling over his fellow actress long enough to actually act.
The fact that Toei included Ship Teases like this in Kamen Rider Kabuto and practically every episode of Mahou Sentai Magiranger hints at the former though. Kamen Rider Double introduced Ship Tease between Wakana and Philip early on in the series, despite it being fairly obvious he would turn out to be her brother.
To be fair to Magiranger, everyone is related to begin with, so it's sort of unavoidable.
Anyone who watches Dengeki Sentai Changeman should know that episode 19 is a huge tease between Tsurugi Hiryuu and Sayaka Nagisa, starting from him being the only one to trust her after one failure nearly killed everyone, to Sayaka crying over Tsurugi looking like dying due to yet another error of her calculations, then topped off with the end of the episode where both of them are in the room kissing shaking hands with Sayaka being thankful for Tsurugi's continual trust on her.
Shinkenger also hinted at the possibility of something developing between Chiaki and Kotoha. Sadly, nothing had come of it by the end of the series.
Boukenger appeared to have quite a bit of ship tease for Masumi and Natsuki, but Masumi's actor effectively sank the ship by stating in interviews that it was intended to be more like a parent/child relationship. Hasn't stopped the shippers though.
The Where Are They Now epilogue of Gosei Sentai Dairanger hints that Lin and Kou might have become a couple or married in the future. Fans are divided on this one since some shippers preferred the idea of Ryou/Lin, and Kou's age for most of the show (9-10 years old) would make a romance with Lin a reverse case of Wife Husbandry.
Engine Sentai Go Onger, which did not have a Pink or White Ranger, had ship tease between the Red and Silver Rangers, Sosuke and Miu, instead. Like with Chiaki and Kotoha above, nothing comes out of it.
Firefly continually teases both Simon/Kaylee and Mal/Inara. The latter's biggest moment is definitely at the end of "Our Mrs. Reynolds".
The comic spin off Better Days contains outright indications of, of all things, Simon/Inara.
While River/Jayne shipping is something of a Base Breaker among fans, there is little denying they have several... suspect moments, such as the "Copper for a kiss?" line, or their fight in the Big Damn Movie involving Jayne wrapping his arms around River and her grabbing his crotch.
A small, brief scene in "The Shepherd's Tale", where Jayne talks to Book about things that will make sure he doesn't go to hell, and then gestures to River, saying he's taking care of her and affectionally calling her "jelly-brain," and she seems more amused by it than anything.
A conversation in "Ariel" featured warm golden lighting, and an extremely intimate shot of the two subjects sitting quite near to each other. It's Simon and River. "Safe" has River feeding him berries with the exact same candle-lit dinner atmosphere. This was probably done to highlight their platonic closeness, but taken out of context... (That's before considering when River, in a period of less-than-total-lucidity, asked Shepherd to marry the two of them.)
Smallville frequently did this with Clark and Chloe.
Smallville does this with everybody. They also teased Pete and Chloe, Clark and Lois (before they became the Official Couple) and Tess and well, everyone, from Clark to Oliver to Major Zod to (most recently) Emil.
On Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the second half of Alex Cabot's farewell episode throws a bone to the Alex/Olivia shippers in almost every scene.
"Stay with me sweetheart. Alex. Alex. Alex."
The entirely of Bones's third season is largely considered a tease for Booth/Brennan, well the whole show's purpose seems like a big tease for the OTP.
Bones/Angela, Booth/Angela, Bones/Zach, Zach/Jack(Hodgins), and even Cam/Booth and Bones/Sully (despite the fact that most fans hated both official relationships, they had some shippers back in their day) have canon ship tease as well ("sweetie", Angela's near constant checking out/complimenting of Booth in the first few seasons, Zach looking very interested when told of Bones' grad advisor's relationship with her because she was "exceptional" and then saying something along the lines of "I'm exceptional too", and King of the Lab have all been cited as back up for their respective ships).
The Sarah Connor Chronicles has more than a few indications of this between John and Cameron, not the least of which is a scene at the end of "Vick's Chip" where John, leaning over Cameron while she is still deactivated, stops to affectionately stroke her hair.
There's also some Ship Teasing between Future!John Connor and Cameron, as well as some subtle indicators of Future!John and Allison. It does not help that Cameron and Allison look exactly alike, and that Cameron can apparently become Allison in personality...
And in "Mr. Ferguson Is Ill Today", John and Cameron are shown lying side by side in bed. And she even tells John, outright, that she knows that "being John Connor can be lonely." If that is not a Ship Tease...
And she's extremely scantily clad (deliberately, she sheds her jacket before going to see John). Possibly this was meant to say something about John Connor's willpower...
The exclusive WonderCon trailer appears to be packed with this. Among the highlights are John getting extremely mad that Sarah suggests Cameron doesn't "love" him, as well as a scene where John is repairing Cameron's arm, and she holds his hand while doing so. And then there's the ending of the trailer, which shows John lying on top of Cameron in bed.
Cameron's little rant in "Samson and Delilah", which John didn't exactly deny at the time. There's been surprisingly little fallout from that.
As of the Season Two finale, I think it's fairly safe to say that it's requited.
There's also a little bit of teasing with Derek and Cameron, such as the scene in "The Demon Hand" where he ends up staring at her for a prolonged time while she does a ballet dance, and in "To The Lighthouse," which has very suggestive shots of Derek shoving Cameron up against a wall in close proximity.
Early episodes of Fringe tease the fans insanely with the possibility of Peter/Olivia. Though it can be argued that they just have really really really good character chemistry whenever they're onscreen together.
The out of left field ship tease of all ship teases happened in "Brown Betty." There is a scene with Astrid caring for a wound on Olivia's chest as Olivia describes the kind of man she is looking for. Obviously, the writers ship Oliva/Peter, but that doesn't mean that they don't mind playing with an out of continuity Astrid/Olivia moment.
And now they are obviously ship teasing Altlivia/Alt Lincoln Lee.
Pepper Dennis and Curtis Wilson on the tv show Pepper Dennis. It was mostly a tease for obvious reasons.
The first couple of seasons of Star Trek: Voyager appeared to be building up to a relationship between Captain Janeway and her second-in-command Chakotay, only for nothing to happen. According to the Word Of God the whole issue was 'resolved' in the end-of-season episode "Resolutions", yet such hints continued throughout the series until the Last Minute Hookup between Chakotay and Seven of Nine.
The X-Files, despite having an onscreen chemistry that was practically explosive, the writers ignored the dramatic potential of a Mulder-Scully relationship until just prior to David Duchovny's departure (and, arguably, until long-time fans no longer really cared). And then the second movie basically resorts to cheap Handwave and It's The Only Way plot twists to play this aspect of the series down.
Given that the pairing of Mulder and Scully as romantic partners was supposedly accidental, there is a surprising amount of sexual tension and ship-teasing the first and second seasons. Like the neck-inspection scene in "Ice", with sexual tension so thick you could cut it with a knife.
In the pilot episode, Scully goes to Mulder's motel room in the middle of the night, wearing a robe and not much else, and asks him to look at some marks that have appeared on her back. Then they seemingly have a slumber party. And this isn't deliberate?!
Scully's sister goes to Mulder's darkened apartment in "One Breath" (when Scully is comatose in hospital) and has a nice and tense conversation with him. Unsurprisingly, the writers later admitted that this was remnants of a possible relationship that had been nixed.
For being the remnants of a Mulder/Melissa relationship, that scene oddly seems to cast Melissa as a Shipper on Deck for Mulder/Scully. After chewing him out for being negative about her new-age ideas, she asks him why it's "so much easier for you to run around trying to get even than just expressing to her how you feel?" and that even if it didn't bring her back, "at least she'll know...and so will you." Though Mulder takes this to mean telling Dana that he feels it isn't her time to die, the way Melissa says it implies something different.
Chris Carter has said a good deal of that tension was more or less a happy accident, that came about mostly because Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny just have a crazy amount of natural chemistry. The writers took that and ran with it like a football.
There's also a good case for some shipteasing between Mulder and Krycek, particularly the kiss in "The Red And The Black"
Rodney McKay, whilst experiencing a second childhood, is distressed and calls only for John Sheppard in the 'Stargate Atlantis' episode "The Shrine", despite the fact that Jennifer Keller, the woman he supposedly loves, is sitting right in front of him.
And before Atlantis, there was Stargate SG-1. Word Of God says that the writers originally did not intend to create such a massive Ship Tease between Jack O'Neill and Samantha Carter, but when they realized the fans were picking up on the impressive on-screen chemistry between Richard Dean Anderson and Amanda Tapping, they changed their minds.
Later in SG-1, General Landry and Dr. Lam are introduced in the same episode, and have quite a few scenes which seem to imply without explicitly stating that they have a prior relationship. Eventually it's revealed that he's actually her father.
Crusher: Why didn't you ever tell me you were in love with me?
Very notably in the episode "The Naked Now", where a virus of sorts makes everyone act as if they are drunk, and Crusher and Picard are very obviously attracted to each other.
The implied shipping is effectively delivered in "All Good Things", the last episode of the series. It's the future, and it's revealed that Picard and Crusher not only had a relationship, they eventually married. And then divorced.
This trope is huge in the first season, almost to the point that Wesley being revealed as Picard's son would not have been completely unbelievable. (It's especially blatant in the pilot, where Beverly seems to react oddly to a mention of Picard not having children and Picard seems very interested on learning Wesley is her son.) A lot of the momentum was lost, however, when Crusher was Put On A Shuttlecraft in the second season.
In-universe, Carly had done some Ship Tease to Freddie. One example of this was asking Freddie if he wanted to taste her lip gloss, he closes his eyes.. she smooshes it onto her hand and rubs it in his face.
Dan Schneider wrote the episode iStart A Fan War and ended it with Carly delivering a blatant Author Tract against how much emphasis Shipping has in the fandom. After a storm of fan criticism he wrote a blog defending the episode and confirming the Author Tract. It also said that an upcoming episode had an unspecified something that would please people. Everyone assumed it would be ship-related, and thus was another Ship Tease right after denouncing the Shippers.
Sam provides an in-universe example in that episode: At one point, to Carly's and Freddie's chagrin, she tells their shippers, "It's true — Carly and Freddie are deeply in love" just so she can sit back and watch the Ship-to-Ship Combat with an amused smile...a popular motive ascribed to ship teasing writers.
The unspecified something turned out to be a Cliff Hanger where Sam kisses Freddie and looks like the start of a Sam/Freddie/Carly love triangle. iStart A Fan War: Don't watch for Shipping. iOMG: Here is EVERYTHING THE SHIPPERS HAVE EVER WANTED, and you've got 6 months to argue before the next episode airs to resolve it.
Nickelodeon's other teen show True Jackson, VP teased the main ship True/Jimmy all throughout season one with no resolution or hookup until the next season.
Given that it was created by Joss Whedon, it was pretty much a given that Dollhouse would feature quite a bit of this. Probably the most notable example occurred between Topher and DeWitt in "Echoes", which had number of fans wanting them to drop everything and have sex right there. "Omega" even teases Topher/Echo, of all things.
This is made worse with the reveal that Adelle isn't above hiring Dolls for romantic assignments with herself, and is willing to look the other way when other Dollhouse employees do it too. This allows for an extraordinary amount of pairings to be explicitly shown onscreen without any baggage in future episodes.
The second season premiere ramps this up to a new level. In addition to the expected Ballard/Echo and Victor/Sierra, there's some gratuitous Whiskey/Echo and Ivy/Sierra, as well as a rather disturbing Topher/Claire scene.
Echo/Bennett and Caroline/Bennett are both heavily implied in different ways.
The sheer mass of awkward, adorable moments between Topher and Bennett threatened to shatter the world. One of the most awkward moments comes when Topher tries to use his Doll-stunning "disruptor" on Bennett, thinking she might be an Active. When she asks him why he thinks she would be one, he flubs out a response, and then she says that there's no way she's an Active, as Actives tend to be perfect and beautiful and....oh....
A later episode featured Topher and Bennett kissing, which had shippers exploding with glee right up until Saunders kills Bennett. Talk about your Moment Killer...
Cleverly used by the writers of How I Met Your Mother. Barney and Robin have had a huge fanbase since season one, and in the season three episode Sandcastles in the Sand Barney offers Robin comfort after a breakup and the two of them get cosy at the bar before Robin asks Barney to come back home with her. Cut to Robin's apartment where Barney asks if she's sure about this and she insists that it is, prompting him to ask "So should I just...put it in?" And it turns out he's talking about her second Robin Sparkles video. Cleverly done because they actually do hook up in that episode, but when it happens they don't build up to it, it just happens.
Lily and Barney have been teased on a recurring basis for a long time.
In fact, in Season 4, they re-tease Ted and Robin, ending in a "backup marriage" proposal. This is for a couple that the show already broke up.
Castle is, of course, one big, giant, delicious, awesome ship tease for Castle/Beckett.
Tina Fey has said that her 30 Rock character will never hook up with Jack, but she seems to be going out of her way to imply that they might.
Particularly in "The Problem Solvers."
We even had an episode entitled "Mrs. Donaghy" in which Liz and Jack are Accidental Marriage'd. It's done by the end of the episode. But serious trope-age here.
Done to death on Torchwood between Jack and Gwen. The writers say it'll never happen, but they seem to have forgotten to tell that to the actor who plays Gwen. Season 1, Gwen and Jack shared long lingering glances and Gwen kissed Jack twice. In season 2, it gets worse culminating in a horrible scene with Jack supposedly confessing his love for Gwen on her wedding day. 'Jack' turns out to be a shapshifter bent on killing Gwen, using the confession to get close enough to try. In season 3 the ship has sunk as Gwen's pregnant with her husband's child and Jack overjoyed for the couple.
Skins does this quite a bit - most notably in the third series with the Cook/JJ ship. Teases (usually one or more in each episode) include Cook putting his hand on JJ's knee less then five minutes into the first episode, hugging JJ, kissing JJ's cheek twice, licking JJ's cheek, touching JJ's crotch while talking about the time they went to a brothel together, clinging to JJ while dancing, tickling JJ, doing a strange victory dance which consisted of pretty much grinding against JJ's thigh and not much else, pulling down JJ's pants (not seen, but described by another character) and grabbing JJ's head, pulling it into his lap and playing at 'JJ is giving me a blowjob'.
And somewhere around the middle of Katie's S4 episode, Katie/Effy teasing - which had been around as a kind of background for a while - suddenly kicked into overdrive.
LilyKat (the Actor Shipping version of Naomily) know about the shipping tendencies and are more than willing to play along. Particularly with the Lily's Perfect Date interview.
Mini and Franky repeatedly since the first episode of series 5. They took the teasing and ran with it in Grace's episode, when they are told to kiss in rehearsal for a play. The series finale will determine whether this is going to move beyond teasing.
In the second half of the season 9 opener of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Detective Alex Eames is promoted to captain and given the painful responsibility of firing her longtime partner Bobby Goren. Goren takes it well, which only fuels Eames's tearfulness, and the exit interview concludes with the only hug shared by the partners, as well as a remarkably lengthy kiss to Eames's cheek. After Goren leaves the room, Eames resigns, and both characters bow gracefully out of the show. As the relationship has been fraught with Unresolved Sexual Tension for years, it's clear that this is set up for the benefit of the shippers.
The characters return for the tenth and final season, in which Bobby is required to attend weekly counseling sessions with a psychiatrist. Said psychiatrist gives a nod to the Ship Tease in one episode by asking Bobby if he's in love with Alex (he denies it, a little too vehemently). In the series finale, Alex comments to Bobby that everyone wants to believe they can find true love. Later, she picks him up from his psychiatrist's office, smiling at him in a way that seems to indicate she's realized her own feelings for him. They drive away - still partners, still unconfirmed.
In The Mentalist, there's Rigsby and Van Pelt, who seem to be the Official Couple, and do get together, with somewhat disastrous results. Then there's Lisbon and Bosco, which, while canon as all hell, is almost universally hated by the fans. The crowner is Lisbon and Jane, which has included some fairly un-platonic touching, an anguished declaration of caring, which was heartbreaking, at least two Undercover As Lovers gambits, and one slow dance. Yuh-huh. Slow dance. Of course you're just co-workers. How on earth would anyone think otherwise?
The West Wing had seven years of Ship Tease for Josh/Donna. It also teased C.J./Danny for quite some time before they finally got serious in the final season, and did a bit of Sam/Ainsley teasing as well.
On Stargate Universe, one of the Kino webisodes has a female soldier using the communication stones express an interest in Eli...while using Chloe's body. Just to make things worse, she is played by Chloe's actress (Elyse Levesque), while the normal convention has the character portrayed by whoever is using the body in question.
Merlin does this for every combination imaginable. 1st season had the creators teasing Arthur/his sister Morgana, Gwen/Merlin, Gwen/Arthur, and always, ALWAYS ship teases Arthur/Merlin. They've even ship teased Morgana/Uther.
Glee does this with pretty much every pairing you could conceive of — and even some you couldn't — but fans are getting particularly invested in Kurt and his Sexy Mentor Blaine. Between the hand-holding, the casual touching, and the romantic duet, even NY Mag.com is saying "Make out, make out, make out already!"
Speaking of Kurt and Blaine - this is arguably the entire point of the otherwise completely plot-irrelevant "Baby, It's Cold Outside," in which Blaine contrives the Lame Excuse of "rehearsing for a Christmas performance" to eyesex the hell out of Kurt whilst Kurt himself spends the entire song giving Blaine "come hither" eyes and playing hard to get.
Alex and Kuru from The Elephant Princess spend plenty of time hugging, grabbing each other's hands, and in one case, Alex kisses him on the cheek.
Harry and Nikki in Silent Witness.One kiss in the tenth series and nothing other than cute hugs with hints of potenial since. Nikki even comments on it.
On Misfits, the b-plot of season 2 episode 3 (in which Nathan, under the influence of someone else's Love Potion-esque superpower, temporarily falls madly in love with Simon) was basically a clever way of lampshading the escalating levels of Ho Yay between the two characters, and appealing to the sizeable number of fans who ship them. In short, it gave the YaoiFangirls what they wanted without de-railing the plot or characters, and gave everyone else the opportunity to laugh their asses off at Nathan's outlandish seduction technique (which involved him gyrating around to George Michael's Careless Whisper in a highly misguided attempt at being alluring) and poor Simon's abject terror.
The teasing for this pairing started as early as the second episode. "Two babies? How do I get two babies? (looks at Rimmer's crotch)."
Maddigan's Quest gives us Timon and Garland, who spend the first few episodes irritating each other, the next half dancing round each other (sometimes literally), and in the final episode, openly flirting which, considering the form Timon's in at the time, is a tiny bit disturbing before Timon is finally forced to return home (several hundred years into the future, with the implication that they'll never see each other again).
A Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode in which Lwaxana Troi gets a psychic illness that makes her project her affection towards Odo onto others, exists almost solely for this: We have Sisko/Dax, Bashir/Kira, Bareil/Dax, Jake/Kira, and Quark/Keiko.
All of the possible pairings between two members of the study group in Community have at one time or another been teased. Gets pretty crazy when even Abed/Pierce is given scene time with a montage of private moments set to music.
Jeff/Annie is at the start of Season Three, not even being teased. It's like a giant neon sign saying "these two will hook up some time this year". Geography Of Global Conflict has a big moment, but there was an earlier one where Jeff's dream sequence includes a line about finally sleeping with Annie.
Boy Meets World had a bunch of this between Corey and Topanga in the first two seasons before they get together for the first time in the season 3 premiere. These included the kiss against the lockers from her debut appearance in early season 1, and the "You are you and I am I" speech from late season 2.
Ted and Peggy in Just Cause. The writers stick them together for three episodes that make it look like they're starting a relationship, beginning with him teaching her how to rollerblade and ending with her inviting him to a Christmas party at her parents' house. It's later implied that they talk regularly, although not necessarily that they're dating, but they never interact on screen again for the rest of the series, before or after.
Trailers for the fourth series of Merlin are largely centered on the famous Love Triangle between Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot, with one scene depicting a Gwen/Lancelot kiss. It's shown completely out of context, and is currently fuelling most of the fandom debate.
The most popular pairing in the Supernatural fandom is Wincest between Sam and Dean. The writers know this and have tossed around both Ship Teasing and Ship Sinking with equal maliciousness. Zachariah states that the two are "psychotically, irrationally, erotically co-dependent on each other", one episode has the brothers going to Heaven and showing, that unlike the majority of people who each get their own little slice of Heaven, the brothers actually share one (another character explains that only happens with soul-mates), and even Lisa, the girl who Dean eventually, finally, settles down to have a 'normal' life with comments on the relationship: "You two have the most unhealthy, tangled up, crazy thing that I've ever seen."
Archangel Michael's taunting Dean about his "precious little Sammy."
There are just as many (if not more!) teases for Dean and Castiel than there are for Wincest, given the innumerable times that Castiel has invaded Dean’s personal space (but almost never anyone else's) and the fact that he’s more likely to appear when Dean prays for him than if Sam does.
In “Point of No Return”
Dean: Cas, not for nothing, but the last time someone looked at me like that...I got laid.
In “The Third Man” Cas admits he likes Dean better than Sam:
Sam: So what, you like him better, or something?
Castiel: Dean and I do share a more profound bond. I wasn't going to mention it.
One more in “My Heart Will Go On”
Balthazar: Sorry, you have me confused with the other angel. You know, the one in the dirty trench coat who's in love with you.
Don’t forget “Mommy Dearest”
Dean: Why's it always got to be me that makes the call? It's not like Cas lives in my ass. Dude's busy...(Cas appears behind him) Dude get out of my ass!
Castiel: I wasn't in your...
The writers of Victorious seem to have latched onto the popular Jade/Tori pairing. One acting exercising has the two of the two of them playing a married couple. Plus a future episode signals the end of Jade and Beck is near so...
The show does this a lot actually with Robbie/Cat, Robbie/Trina, Tori/Beck, etc. One episode even had the Crack Pairing of Andre/Jade basically be canon.
NXT season 3 had two sets of male pros with female rookies. The first set Goldust and Aksana were given a storyline involving a Citizenship Marriage while the second set AJ and Primo got a more subtle tease. One episode had them trying to find a private place for an unrevealed reason, AJ loved to celebrate winning matches by jumping on Primo's shoulders, when she was eliminated from NXT she broke down crying in his arms and they finally kissed on the last episode.
Similarly from the second season there was Layla and Kaval who also had an onscreen kiss.
Stephanie McMahon and Eric Bischoff initially were duelling General Managers of Raw and SmackDown in 2002 and got an onscreen kiss during a Big Lipped Alligator Moment of a Halloween party. There had always been a bit of friendly Foe Yay between them.
Melina and John Morrison got a little tease during a backstage segment in 2010 obviously meant as a Mythology Gag to echo their off screen relationship.
Alberto Del Rio and Rosa Mendes got one during a segment at the TLC PPV.
Theater
Avenue Q Ship Teases Rod and Nicky together from as early as the fourth song ("If You Were Gay"). Unfortunately for Rod, Nicky doesn't return his feelings.
Wicked Ship Teases both Fiyeraba (Fiyero/Elphaba) and Gelphie (Glinda/Elphaba) from their first encounters - what with "What is this Feeling?" sounding like a love song (loathe and love aren't too far off), and Fiyero being just as much of a Deadpan Snarker to Elphaba as she is to him (that, and his lack of shock, disgust, or caring at the colour of her skin).
Video Games
Tales Of Symphonia's creators probably knew that that shipping was inevitable, so they made Relationship Values lead to Multiple Endings. Despite this, there are still scenes that favour the two main female leads more than the others; with the most blatant example being a skit that occurs in Welgaia between Lloyd and Sheena. When someone other than Colette or Sheena is your closest party member, the cutscenes are generally nonromantic, exploring various other types of relationships such as admiration and friendship; but a lot of people seemed to think they were all love options. It should be noted that in the sequel, the Raine and Presea options are promoted to full romantic levels.
It helps that Presea looks like a young girl around Genis' age (but is actually a woman who is a decade older than Lloyd), and Raine is Lloyd's teacher. The Genis/Presea and Regal/Presea ships often get teased; when Zelos suggests that Presea could fall in love with a much older man around Regal's age, Genis gets very defensive.
A lot of people also consider Zelos the closest thing this game has to a Gay Option due to how...friendly he is with Lloyd. Overall, Zelos seems to be the most shipped character, being paired off with basically everyone, male or female.
Tales Of Vesperia, despite never really focusing on romance, does have a lot of fun teasing the fans. Yuri and Judith are openly flirtatious, Yuri goes to great lengths to save Estelle from Alexei, Karol keeps trying to impress Nan while Nan is very clearly hoping he does (Nan's dialogue when Karol fights her in the Colosseum is also very revealing; and it's implied in the credits they eventually end up with each other), Judith keeps telling the other girls they look cute...and then there's Rita and Estelle's very, very close friendship.
Yuri and Flynn are also close, close friends. Close, close..."friends."
There's even a skit where Judith asks everyone about their ideal romantic partner — Estelle starts waxing lyrical about romance novels, Karol describes someone who sounds suspiciously like Nan, and everyone else just says they want someone who isn't like Raven.
Tales Of Graces has Asbel and Sophie. Seven years before the game's events, they start by vowing to protect each other. Then after they reunite seven years later, there is a scene that has Asbel kneeling in front of Sophie, letting out his regrets for his failing her. Then, after Sophie regained her memories they have a date have a little chit-chat at the place where they first met. And remember the 125th entry of The Grand List of Console Role Playing Game Clichés, "If any character in the game ever meets any other character standing alone at night looking at the moon, those two will eventually fall in love"? Despite this, Asbel still ends up with Cheria, his childhood friend. Of course, this is justified with the fact that Sophie is not human.Doesn't stop the shippers, though.
Up to Super Robot Wars Original Generation 2, most people think that Axel Almer and Lamia Loveless could never get along, as almost every appearance they have, they're usually enemies/rivals. The sequel Original Generation Gaiden gives them a chance to fight under one banner, and even gives them a subplot that might have linked them together romantically, where the latter feels indebted to the former for saving her life. The end of the story also adds Axel, in attempt to find his own paradise (on Lamia's suggestion), promises to tell her first if he ever finds one. Awww...!
The game also adds up the teasing about pairing him and Einst Alfimi. There has been a lot of older men/little girl fan pairings in SRW, and both of them traveling together in Original Generation Gaiden all the time attracted the attention of lolicon fans, viewing them as a pair (it helps that Alfimi just happens to be a clone of Excellen Browning, the Alternate Universe counterpart of Axel's deceased lover Lemon Browning, who also happened to have built Lamia). It's also supported with the way she states before their departure: "I may be the only one who understands him". Fortunately all these haven't produced some sort of Die for Our Ship phenomenons for either girl.
Speaking of Lolicon pairing, the heavyweight champion of the lolicon fan pairing in SRW's undoubtedly the Super Robot Wars Alpha series' Zonvolt and Irui Gan Eden. It has spawned tons of pairing fan arts, a surprising amount of it non-romantic (or squicky, for that matter).
Hilariously, Ibis Douglas and Irui are infinitely more canon (what with their Tear Jerker ending in Alpha 2 where they confess their love for each other as Irui dies, and a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming reunion in Alpha 3) but don't see half the fanart the Sanger/Irui pairing has. This probably says something about the fandom.
A slight Ship Tease is currently present in Ryusei Date and Mai Kobayasahi, following their new Combination Attack in Original Generation Gaiden, although it's somewhat odd when Latooni Subota is the one who came up with the attack, as Latooni also has a deep-seated, one-sided crush for Ryusei since OG1, and she's been around longer than Mai. Fortunately, the fandom hasn't produced a similar Die for Our Ship instance like Axel with Lamia and Alfimi, and neither sides of the tease can claim a victory.
Considering that Mai and Latooni then go to watch anime together, they simply get along too well for Die for Our Ship to spawn.
Guilty Gear teased the Ky/Jam with artwork, special intros and stuff. Their ship got sunk. Accent Core Plus now teases, surprisingly, Ky/Dizzy.
Guilty Gear 2: Overture drops loads of hints the Ky/Dizzy pairing has become official.
There was also a fair bit of teasing between Bridget and both Dizzy and May in XX.
There's also some ship tease between Bridget and Jam, including her actually flirting with him and her Accent Core Plus ending being to hire him to work in her restaurant, which he seems happy to do.
Stealth game Tenchu made some massive teasing about the two protagonists, Rikimaru and Ayame, most notably during the intro of the Wrath of Heaven episode.
And then they sunk the ship really bad in the ending of "Shadow Assassins".
Mortal Kombat used this massively between Sub-Zero and Sareena, even going up to a Love Triangle-like tease by adding a little subtext with Noob Saibot, Sub-Zero's older brother who was the original Sub-Zero.
The first Disgaea has a bit of this between Laharl and Etna. Especially if you read Etna's journal where it's implied that her crush on the King has at least partially transferred to his son.
Also teased is Laharl and Flonne, though whether all the talk of love ever moves into romantic love or not is left up in the air. Still, considering that he was willing to sacrifice his lifeto bring her back to life, it would be hard not to believe that there is something between them.
In WarCraft, the strong alliance between Thrall and Jaina Proudmoore has raised some... interesting stuff going on between those two. The White Gnomeregan Punch Card also contains "Thrall and Jaina sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G." (in binary, but still), and Jaina happens to resemble Thrall's Dead Surrogate Big Sister Taretha from Lord Of The Clans. World of Warcraft even gives them nearly identical character models.
Jaina: [sniffle] It was nothing, your Majesty...Just..I'm proud of my king.
It helps that he grew up as the best friend/near-brother of her only past lover and retains a lot of similarities, while she looks scarily like his deadwife and acts as a sort of surrogate mother to his son.
Final Fantasy VII's first disc is full of all sorts of Ship Tease, including a micro-dating sim where one of the three girls (and Barret) can go on a date with Cloud. Excellent examples are Cloud's and Tifa's promise under the stars scene in the beginning of the game, the Bodyguard for a Date deal, Cait Sith's 'love prediction' about Cloud and Aerith's happy future together just before she leaves your party and is killed by Sephiroth, and Yuffie kissing Cloud during the Gondola ride. It even has instances of Ship Tease with random male characters, like Mukki, Don Corneo, and the ability to date party member Barret.
Kingdom Hearts II. Full stop. Hilarious given that it's a No Hugging, No Kissing game - Nomura (and Nojima) are screwing with us all, and the shipper wars they have given birth to are incredible to behold.
The most famous and cited instance of teasing occurs when Sora held Riku's hand (who at the time took the form of an older man due to events in the Prequels), kneeled before him, and began crying. In context though it's Not What It Looks Like.
In Birth by Sleep, the protagonists get teased with three Princesses of Heart; there's Terra/Aurora, Terra/Cinderella, Ventus/Snow White and Aqua/Cinderella.
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess did its share of Ship Teasing. Between the little come-back-safely speech Ilia gives to Link (complete with appropriate music swelling in the background), the hand-holding scene between Link and Zelda before the final battle, and the heartstring-tugging farewell by Midna in which she almost says something emotional to Link, the shippers had a field day...especially considering that Link's a Heroic Mime with no dialogue to offer clues.
Spirit Tracks is dripping with this for Link and Zelda.
Skyward Sword also seems to be heading in the Link/Zelda direction, to the point of an official trailer detailing their romantic chemistry. They even somewhat trick shippers into thinking a kiss is a part of a ceremony.
Ocarina of Time was the game that first got the shippers into a frenzy:
Nabooru's "Promise" to Young Link, which gets a sight less ambiguous when she muses that she should have kept it in light of how handsome he grew up to be.
Talon asking Link if he wants to marry Malon and the Gossip Stone which says she wishes for a knight in shining armor to sweep her off her feet.
Solid Snake's codec transmissions regarding Samus Aran in Super Smash Bros. Brawl could be regarded as a form of Ship Tease, since it's all one-sided and we have no way of knowing how Samus feels about the matter. Of course, that hasn't stopped them from becoming the game's resident One True Pairing...though the pairing's support has less to do with any perceived teasing and more to do with how their combined sex appeal is dense enough to create a singularity.
Interestingly enough, Gears of War 2 has some of this between Marcus and Anya, such as the way Anya asks him to take care of himself when he descends into the Hollow, and Marcus calling repeatedly over the radio at the end to see if Anya is okay, and looking extremely relieved when he spots her on the next Raven helicopter.
The first game kind of hinted at an old relationship when they meet up briefly at the start of the game. Of course, you never saw her again, so nothing more came of it.
Depending on your affection rating, you can have Tidus outright tell Lulu or Rikku that he would rather have them in Guadosalam.
Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door features Mario getting kissed by each of his female party members (we're assuming that Vivian is female) and no less than four times by Ms. Mowz (which makes Goombella jealous).*
Ms. Mowz can also learn a special skill that allows her to kiss Mario at any time for HP recovery.
Vivian almost makes a love confession to Mario in the ending, but decides that he and Peach would be a good couple, and Goombella is about to tell Mario something she hadn't been able to express to him before in her last email, but decides to save it for later. Peach has an almost romantic bond with TEC, especially when educating him about human feelings, and by the time Grodus has him deleted for helping her get classified information for Mario, he declares his love for her just before shutting down (he gets better).
Super Paper Mario is pretty much a gigantic ship tease for Bowser/Peach fans. They get married in the opening and Bowser constantly declares his love for her throughout the game. Then there's the scene near the end where Bowser stays behind to hold up the ceiling, Peach stays a little longer than Mario and Luigi, and later on falls on top of him offscreen. Considering Bowser is covered in spikes, he probably caught her in his arms or on his chest. Their marriage is never really annulled either.
After Heavy/Medic grew to prominence amongst Team Fortress 2 fans, hints about their relationship began to be sprinkled about the various supplementary material, such as the Sniper's "Beaux and Arrows" achievement (kill a Heavy/Medic pair) and their strangely intimate interactions during open-heart surgery in the "Meet the Medic" video. Though, the WAR update attempted to torpedo it with the Demoman's Medic-specific taunt that suggests the Medic is married.
Spy/Sniper fans take some of their domination taunts and achievements as ship teasing. But then again, this is the Spy and the Sniper.
Sniper/Medic fans take the Sniper's "charge me" voice clips as Ship Teasing.
Prior to the 2011 Australian Christmas update, the Pyro and Engineer got a comic together.
Fire Emblem lets you control the amount of Ship Tease in your game with its support conversations. Starting with the sixth game, each character has 3-7 characters they're compatible with and the ones of the opposite sex can be love interests (the same-sex choices can be regular friendships though you're free to see it another way). The conversations for Support Levels C and B are the cute Ship Tease ones with 95% of the A level conversations being the actual declaration of love. For some games, this can actually affect the ending; in Radiant Dawn, for example, certain characters will get married at the end if they share an A-level Support.
Blazing Sword goes even further with this for the Lord characters. While Eliwood, Lyn, and Hector have several romantic options each, Ninian is canonically in love with Eliwood no matter what supports you choose, and you get a special ending where she stays with him at the end. Hector, meanwhile, gets numerous scenes alone with Lyn in Hector Mode, including two special conversations towards the end that can only be unlocked if they have A support. Neither of his other two love interests get equivalent scenes.
Some dialogue with Kaelyn in Mask of the Betrayer could potentially be interpreted as this, but not blatantly.
In Knights of the Old Republic 2, if a male player character tells Mira that they just want to get to know her better, her immediate assumption is that he wants to get her into bed. Her immediate refusal ruins it, though.
Pokémon, of all RPGs, had a ship tease, in the fourth generation. One of the villain team's commanders says, "So what is it? Are you some lovey-dovey couple to the rescue?", in a scene where you are with one of your rivals, the one that is the opposite gender's playable character.
Playing as May, the female character, in Pokémon Emerald, Brendan will state how he saw a Pokemon, Rayquaza, and wish you were there to see it with him.
The Pokémon Gold and Silver remakes, HeartGold and SoulSilver, offer two instances, one intentional and one with severely Unfortunate Implications. The intentional occasion takes place when the player reaches the day care couple for the first time and are greeted by either Gold/Ethan or Lyra (depending on player gender) after a brief conversation, their grandfather will comment about them having a crush on thje player character. Naturally they'll force their grandparents to change the topic then run out in embarrassment. The unintentional instance occurs when trying to infiltrate Team Rocket's radio tower in disguise only for Silver (the rival) to run in and forcefully strip the player character. Granted he's only trying to remove the Rocket uniform since he despises the organization and can't see his rival among their ranks, still this scene alone has managed to generate hundreds of Silver/Lyra and Silver/Gold drawings.
The scene in HeartGold where resident Memetic Sex Goddess Cynthia mentions that your eyes remind her of someone from Sinnoh.
N's dialogue toward the player can be taken as very ship-teasing as well, if in a Stalker with a Crush way. Of course, this is totally thrown out the window at the end when N states that he by this late point 'was starting to like you', either Ship Sinking or a new start of more direct Ship Tease. Either way, by this point we've learned N probably isn't mental-emotionally mature enough for a serious relationship anyway.
Pokémon Colosseum has Eagun, an Old Master who started off with a Pikachu. His granddaughter bears a rather striking resemblence to Misty. A possible nod to the anime, perhaps?
Silent Hill 2 has its own expectedly horrible contributions to the trope with James, a surly individual who travelled to the eponymous town to search for his dead wife, and Maria, an extremely flirtatious and slightly Tsundere woman who reminds James of aforementioned dead wife. For a while it seems as if the two will enter a Replacement Goldfish- esque relationship, but turns out that not only is Maria a figment of James' imagination formed from a combination of his sexual frustration and refusal to accept his wife's death, but that she's the one who has been unleashing all the High Octane Nightmare Fuel on James throughout the course of the game. She also has a One-Winged Angel form, and turns out to be the Final Boss. Slap-Slap-Kiss it isn't.
Don't forget the Maria ending, and the prison scene.
Then there's Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, where Cheryl recounts the adventures of her daddy, whom she loves very, very much.
Mega Man X fans have shipped X/Zero ever since its first game, citing Zero's Heroic Sacrifice for X and the latter's desire for Zero to be the one to kill him should X go rogue as proof. There's also the (optional) reunion cutscene in X6 in which X looks a bit too enthusiastic (to the point of blushing) when he sees Zero alive and well.
Mega Man Zero has various moments of Ship Tease between Zero (yes, that Zero) and Ciel (who's human, by the way), not only during the series' run, but in the accompanying materials as well. Amongst many, there's this little piece of dialogue before the end of the first game:
"Zero, I'm happy that I could meet you...if it were not for you, everyone would be gone by now...Promise me that you will come back alive. Even if you cannot destroy Neo Arcadia, I just want you to be able to return safely."
"I never cared about justice, and I don't recall ever calling myself a hero...I have always only fought for the people I believe in. I won't hesitate...If an enemy appears in front of me, I will destroy it! Ciel, believe in me!"
The entire lyric sang by Rie Tanaka, Ciel's seiyuu herself, in the song Freesia, in Remastered Rockman Zero Soundtracks PHYSIS depicts Ciel's love for Zero.
For a series that tends to avoid the topic of relationships in the games (except for Amy, who is...rather clingy and it seems one-sided), Sonic the Hedgehog has been known to ship tease a few times. Knuckles and Rouge in SA2, for starters. Then there's the end of Sonic Rush, where Sonic and Blaze are trying to hold on to each other as long as possible before they get separated - Sonic's holding on with both hands. It's as if they're both reluctant to part ways.
And then there's Sonic Chronicles. Being a turn-based RPG by Bioware, it's hardly surprising that you can pursue optional dialogues with your various allies. Sonic/Amy is well-supported, Sonic/Rouge is hinted at if you're sarcastic with Amy, but the real tease is Knuckles/Shade towards the end. Knuckles could just be relieved that he's not the Last of His Kind anymore, but it could also be something more specific.
Sonic Unleashed has Sonic feeling depressed after Amy didn't recognize him as a werehog, thinking she mistook him for someone else again.
Resident Evil. The entire series is filled with Your Mileage May Vary for Ship Teases, though there are a few blatant ones that should probably be listed. RE1, the scene where Jill puts her head on Chris's shoulder. RE2, Leon screaming her name when Ada "dies". RE4, Leon almost blatantly checks out Ada's ass as she's leaving the boat in the cinematic just before you begin playing the island. RE5, Jill tackling Wesker through a window to save Chris, or the fact that you get a game over if you kill Jill in the game.
Forget Ada. In the closing scene of RE4, Ashley all but invites Leon into her pants; he politely declines.
So the hero picks the Femme Fatale over the "nice" girl? Let the Leon/Ada squeeing begin.
Left 4 Dead 2, brings us The Passing which features Ship Teases for Ellis with Zoey, and Rochelle with Francis. Ellis quickly falls in love with Zoey and she seems to have a crush on him. Francis openly flirts with Rochelle who shows an attraction to him. Although there is that matter of her insulting his vest...
There are a grand total of two scenes (conveniently, one right after the other) in Skies Of Arcadia that could be considered as teasing a romance between members of the main trio (any two or all three at once): the night before the final battle, Vyse talks to both Aika and Fina and can reassure them one way or another - he can put his arm around Fina's shoulders, and if he says the right thing to Aika, she'll kiss his cheek. That's about all the ammo the shippers receive in-game.
The only two? Don't forget the scene on Clara's ship, where Aika and Fina wake up in bed together with no apparent awkwardness at all (it's not what it sounds like, to be fair), and when they both mention him to Clara, she promptly assumes they like both him that way. Or the part where Aika is holding Fina after she's badly injured on Crescent Isle, while Vyse confronts Ramirez. Or the time where Aika glomps Vyse after they're reunited in Daccat's tomb, where Fina hugs Vyse after he Aika, and Glider rescue her from Valua's palace, and where Aika basically glomps Fina out of sheer happiness in the ending. All of these are about as ship-teasing as the aforementioned scenes.
It should be noted, though, that in their cameo appearance in Valkyria Chronicles, Vyse and Aika will call out each other's names if they're killed; also, if they're close enough to provide supporting fire, they can say things like "Let me help, Vyse baby!"
It's subtle, but there is a little shipteasing between Balthier and Fran in Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings. When Tomas is trying to woo Fran, she mentions that Balthier's methods were different. You might also count the scene in the Pharos when the Sun Cryst explodes from the original game as rather shippy. And let's not forget that Balthier's lines regarding Fran always have some kind of sexual undertone to them (but hey, don't all his lines?)
Balthier: No one knows men like Fran does.
Balthier: I always knew Fran didn't take well to being tied up. I just never knew how much. How about you?
It's a little difficult to call this official artwork◊, displayed during the end credits of the game, "subtle". This scene is also fairly shippy.
Fran (cupping Balthier's cheek): Hadn't you best be off? That's what a sky pirate does, you fly, don't you?
Balthier (holding Fran's hand): I suppose you'd better hang on then.
Ashe and Basch is also plausible. In the ending, Penelo writes to Larsa, and she tells him how she hopes Basch will see Ashe because she thinks Ashe misses him (which Basch reads after Larsa hands him the letter).
In Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy, a series of scenes involves Firion trying to approach Lightning to talk to her, only for a string of Moment Killers to scare him off. It turns out he lost his rose and she found it, and he's trying to ask for it back but is embarrassed about the Hot Blooded rebel having to ask the resident Action Girl for his flower (in his exact words, "a grown man asking for his flower back..."). However, the subtext is very thin, and is complete with Cecil appointing himself Firion's wingman.
Cecil: "You were staring at Light. Is it about her?"
Firion: "No, not exactly. I..."
Cecil: "Too shy to start a conversation?"
Firion: "This has nothing to do with being shy!"
Cecil: "Light!"
Firion: "No, don't call her over!"
The Luminous Arc series have it as a part of the gameplay mechanics, both in and out of Intermissions between each game's protagonist and most of their female party members. In the first game, while there's not-so-subtle hints of Alph/Lucia, there's also Alph/Cecille, Leon/Cecille, Nikolai/Cecille, Heath/Iris, Alph/Vanessa (!)...
Luminous Arc 2 brings it back with two potential love interests for Roland, depending on dialogue choices, he can end up with either Althea or Fatima. Beside those two, there's Ship Teasing for Roland/Dia, Roland/Sadie, Roland/Karen...And the blatant teasing for Rasche/Dia can't be a coincidence, especially their teasing about forming their own Final Bond after seeing Roland does it with Althea or Fatima.
Luminous Arc 3's Refi can find himself in this, as well as forming a closer relationship with one of the girls for a Zodiac Card to perform a Unison Strike. For some extra, he is NOT limited to female.
Sasha Nein (Yes, he is a male) and Milla Vodello. Despite being complete polar opposites, in-game bonuses like characters' memories and concept art hint that there might be some more going on than being just co-workers. Psychopedia seems to confirm that yes, Milla has a crush on Sasha, but whether or not he reciprocates is up for debate.
Half-Life 2 has some subtle moments of affection between Gordon and Alyx. Then Episode One and Episode Two went nuts with it, up to and including Alyx's father being a Shipper on Deck for them. One can only imagine what Episode Three will have for these two.
Snow Sakura has this one at the end of Kozue's route with the Bromantic Foil Sumoyoshi and your resident Tsundere Saki who compliments him on a nice rousing speech to Kozue while blushing noticeably. There were a few fans quite disappointed with Digital Objet not doing more with it.
Lux-Pain. Just...Just Lux Pain! Seriously, you can pair roughly half the cast with each other and it makes at least a little sense.
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood teases at Lucy and Desmond. In the first game, they were simply working together, with only vague hints that she was on his side up until the end. The sequel had a little bit of ship teasing, but not a lot. By the time of Brotherhood, though, it's quite clear there's some unspoken mutual attraction there, especially in one of the out-of-Animus sequences where Desmond and Lucy have a brief, heartfelt conversation while looking up at the moon.
Largely lampshaded with Mordin Solus in Mass Effect 2, but only if you speak to him enough times and you're either in no current romance or are loyal to one from the first game. It could be assumed this is a playful jab from the writers at those who ship their player character with just about everyone, but it certainly hasn't stopped people from assuming that Mordin might actually be serious about the possibility of him "trying Shepard"...
Soulcalibur gives us Kilik/Xianghua. Numerous times over. From their Destined Battle in II (a Fighting Your Friend moment where neither wants the other to move on for fear of them dying in the battle against Soul Edge/Inferno) to their endings in III (Kilik's having him outright ask Xianghua to stay with him as they share a tender moment, Xianghua's having her hint her affections to an oblivious Kilik) as well as the fact that the two are the only characters in III to have a dual Weapons Demonstration, it's quite clear that these two are more than True Companions. Soulcalibur IV drives home their status as the Official Couple quite soundly: in Xianghua's ending, she intercepts Kilik right before he attempts a Heroic Sacrifice to destroy Soul Edge once and for all. When Xianghua pleads for him to not go through with it and confronts him on their shared sexual chemistry, Kilik painfully states that he wants to be with her, but there simply isn't a way for them in a world that Soul Edge plagues with evil and instead wants her to find happiness in a life without him. Right as he starts his kamikaze attempt, Xianghua runs up to Kilik and embraces him, telling him that she's going to stay with him. Kilik replies with a "thank you".
The Harvest Moon games set in Forget-me-Not Valley have Rock with the female PC. He's one of the potential Love Interest characters for you, so what's so odd about that, you ask? The fact that the game continues to tease PC/Rock even after one or both of you get married. Rock will continue to make romantic comments toward you even after you marry someone else, and once he gets married, his wife Lumina will chew him out about it.
Beyond Good And Evil has quite a bit of teasing between Jade and Double H, to the point that Double H having a Bodyguard Crush on Jade is widely-accepted Fanon. The most obvious tease is when HH attempts to give Jade a Smooch of Victory after winning a Racing Mini Game, but there are others: There's a Take My Hand scene with a dramatic Diving Save (and a Meaningful Echo that could well be interpreted as meaning "I love you"), Double H being driven to the verge of Manly Tears whenever Jade gets sad, and (from Jade's point of view) the fact that Jade initially seems to go into Giddy Fangirl Mode when they first meet. Some sort of relationship develops between them over the course of the game; it's just hard to say what,exactly.
Although Guybrush and Elaine were already neatly paired and Happily Married, this did not stop the developers of Tales of Monkey Island from throwing some shipteasing (along with Ship Sinking) moments between Guybrush and his fangirl, Morgan Le Flay. Noticeably in The Lair of the Leviathan and Rise of the Pirate God.
The ending of Portal 2 is a parade of Ship Teasing. First, the Turret opera heavily hints that GLaDOS may actually deeply care for Chell (especially considering the English translation), further solidified by the ending song "Want You Gone", which may as well have been titled "Tsundere: The Song". Second, Chell's final scene has her reunited withCompanion Cube. Third, the very final scene has Wheatley lamenting all the bad things he did, and that all he wants to do now is apologise to Chell.
Some Chrono Trigger fans have latched on to Crono and Lucca, in large part due to Lucca being the only other character to embrace Crono in a cutscene on his revival if Marle isn't in the party.
Although the series as a whole doesn't do much in the way of ship teasing, the bonus game Professor Layton's London Life has a very subtle one that hints at the possibility of pairing the two young people in the Professor's life - his apprentice Luke and his adopted daughter Flora. It's especially hinted in the way Luke reacts rather violently to the possibility that Flora has been kidnapped.
Solatorobo teases Red x Elh enough during the main game, but the DLC quests take it Up to Eleven. In #5, they both act embarrassed when Red sees Elh in her cheerleader outfit, not to mention the fact she's disappointed if Red doesn't manage to beat the track record (which is the condition she agreed to in order to wear that outfit in the first place). In #7, she gets extremely upset when Red has Princess Terria and Toffee fangirling over him, and in the end Red admits he wanted to give her the tournament prize as they make up. #8 borders on "They Do with the Serial Numbers Filed Off", as it eventually turns into an Interrupted Declaration of Love. It also teases Béluga x Merveille a couple times, with him giving her a hologram of flowers and losing an arena match because he was trying to show off too much.
Visual Novels
It just had to be the route of Fate/stay night which has Saber calling Archer and Rin intimate, Archer putting his jacket around Rin to keep her warm, and a lot of other Subtext that also brings us Archer's Face Heel Turn and Rin hooking up with Shirou.
There's Phoenix and Edgeworth and how concerned Phoenix is with Edgeworth's well-being, even when Maya is in a very dangerous situation. (The concern is very much mutual - Edgeworth charters a private jet to see Phoenix when he hears that Phoenix is in hospital.)
Phoenix and Maya also have a fair bit of this. Phoenix tried running over a burning bridge to save Maya (and failed when the bridge collapsed under him).
Also Iris in the third game who once shared a very intimate relationship with Phoenix while impersonating her sister, Dahlia, and whom Phoenix once put his life on the line to protect her by drinking what might be poison, is also teased and appears resolved at the end of the game...except that she seems to disappear during the seven-year timeskip between Trials and Tribulations and Apollo Justice. ...well, so do Maya and Edgeworth, though.
M and Mary in Shikkoku No Sharnoth, although Mary actually seems to hate him for most of the game.
The licensed game adapation of Tim Burton's film Alice in Wonderland takes ship teasing in a completely different direction (see the Film section above). While the movie contains hints of Hatter/Alice, the game contains hints of Hatter/White Queen.
Web Comics
Gunnerkrigg Court: Certain fans have noted subtext suggesting romantic feelings between Annie and Kat. Other fans have noted text-text that seems to contradict it (namely, that both characters have encouraged the other's crush on some third party). And then there's this page, which simultaneously plays up the subtext and undermines it by putting it in the mouth of the resident Deadpan SnarkerJerk Ass. Whatever Tom Siddell has planned for the characters, he seems to enjoy messing with the fans' heads in the meantime.
Remember, said Jerk Ass called Annie "Surma" when they first met, and killed a man for the chance to be with Surma back in the day. And then we get thesetwo strips...
Recentstripshavegone almost beyond teasing for possible Beta Couple Parley/Smitty. It starts with Smitty admitting that he lets Parley push him around because she's hot, followed by both Reynardine and Annie remarking that she does so because she has a thing for him. Cue Smitty's spluttered denial, and Parley's return to the scene and quickly draped all over him. And then she accidentally teleports the group to her bedroom. It all finally culminates in a Relationship Upgrade in chapter 30 where Parley's experience with the ghost of Jeanne causes her to finally admit her feelings forAndrew.
Speaking of which, this page becomes more ship tease-y when one recalls this page.
Tom just went absolutely crazy in zigzagging the trope for the entirety of Chapter 34, especially in regard to Jack/Annie, and towards the end manages to sneak in Kat/Paz and Kat/Annie too. As the troper Meta Four put it: "With one hand Tom sinks ships, and with the other he raises them from the briny deep."
The Wotch had a page supporting a Robin/Cassie pairing for April Fools day.
Of course, more recently, Robin has sought Cassie out and is spending a good bit of time with her. All friendly outings, but with just her. Maybe this ship has come in...
Supported more fully by this strip. Perhaps it's not that much of a joke after all.
Misfile. Dear god, Misfile. No matter whether you ship Ash/Missi or Ash/Emily, it's a bumpy ride either way.
Something Positive has teased fans by having PeeJee and Davan go through many relationship-like hurdles for years after Randy got sick of being asked the question. They both display forms of jealousy with other potential love interests, they spend a startling amount of time doing warm and fuzzy things together in a comic remarkably devoid of the same, and PeeJee even goes with Davan when he moves back to his home state of Texas. Of course, since PeeJee is based on artist Randy's friend and Davan is an Author Avatar, he was encouraged to do this with the condition that it never actually happened, which was finally killed once and for all.
Looking for Group has this in the scene where Richard's spirit and Pella have a moment in a parody of the movie Ghost. After which we get the infamous "I thought we agreed no eye contact." and "You violated my spirit!" exchange. Way before all that, Richard had even declared "Can we keep her?" when having first met the dwarf. If you read in between the lines a few pages later on, in the scene right before she throws an axe into his forehead, he almost seems to be throwing a pickup line at her before being shot down. "I'd like to see more of that." indeed.
Homestuck writer Andrew Hussie just might be doing this intentionally. The first few acts have a lot of people making claims about who has fallen victim to the human weakness of amorous inclination. John tells Terezi that Karkat loves her, Dave accuses Kanaya of having a thing for Rose, Rose accuses Kanaya of having a thing for Dave, Rose accuses Tavros of aiming to couple with Dave, John accuses Rose of hitting on Dave, Dave tells Rose he loves John, and Dave basically flips the fuck out on Tavros at great length.
The description of the trolls game has gone on a tangent about the trolls system of romance, which seems to involve a lot of violent making out.
And now we get this strip, which teases Andrew/Ms. Paint.
While most of the above examples are intended as jokes, despite what some of the fandom believes, this flash contains quite a bit of legitimate John/Rose shipping. Even the narrator, who is basically Hussie himself, gets in on the fun.
A combination of fetishes and call backs demonstrates really strong Jake/Jane shipteasing; both have a fetish (blue ladies and moustaches) that happens to be what the other was/had in the Beta universe (Jane was Nannasprite, a glowing blue lady, and Jake had a fantastic stache as Grandpa).
Tessa, the artist and writer behind Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name might very well enjoy intentionally teasing the ever living heck out of her shipper readers, especially when it comes to Doc Worth, Conrad, and now Lamont. And it's awesome.
I think we're forgetting Tracy Williams, the artist of Goodbye Chains who has made it very clear that she thinks being both the artist and the fangirl of such a comic is nothing short of the greatest fun. Dig through her deviantART gallery if you don't believe me. You'll see what I mean. You'll thank me graciously.
Penny and Aggie has been teasing shippers of the title characters for over five years, whether through Sara first espousing the theory in-comic (and Lisa and Katy-Ann temporarily considering it); Penny's occasional blushing awkwardness around, and erotic dreams about, Aggie; a strip depicting either a possible future, or Penny's unconscious fantasy, where they end up together;*
and Aggie's dream in which Penny holds her hand and looks at her longingly. Furthermore, T Campbell has dropped ambiguous hints in the forums and in his strip annotations in the P&APlus pay-site. The most straightforward comments he's made on the issue are that both characters have "bisexual leanings" and that the issue of a mutual attraction has been part of the plan from the comic's beginning. With the still-in-progress final major storyline, things graduallychange.
In The Dreamer, in the 18th - century part of the comic, although Bea/Alan is the official couple (for now), there is some teasing for Bea/Alex potential, such as Bea and Alex living together for an entire summer and this little comment from Alex in the third panel.
Used, and possibly alluded to by name, on this Higgs/Zeetha-heavy Girl Genius page.
'Ménage à 3'' features a lot of the samesex and heterosexual variety of this trope, most notably Zii and Gary.
Web Original
The Sims 3 blog Alice And Kev is doing this a lot with Alice and Zedadias. Recently, the creator introduced the character Shirley, who just has to be a Romantic False Lead. Has to be!
Chapter 21 of Broken Saints features a tender moment between Shandala and Oran that can be interpreted this way, although it also has a platonic skew as well, since...well, since she's The Messiah - she can be tender with whoever she wants.
Also, in the Chick's "11 Embarrassing Nostalgic Dance Crazes", the Chick mentions a date that Nella set her up on. Flashback to the Chick and the Critic on an awkward date.
In his Kickassia commentary, Doug says that calling her "Mrs. Vice-President" was a mistake but he couldn't be bothered to edit it out. So yay happy accidents!
Not so much anymore, but there was always a little bit of this with Critic's crossovers with the Nerd, especially with the term "Nerd-on-Critic action" being thrown around. Best described on their Foe Yay section.
And then there's Critic/Lupa in Suburban Knights. Even lampshaded by the commentaries as playing to the fem!dom lovers in the fandom.
Draco and Hermione get a lot during A Very Potter Musical. He has a crush on her but she hooks up with Ron. Then A Very Potter Sequel, which is set one year later, has a ton for Hermione and Ron, showing how they ended up hooking up.
And before that, there was Michael and Melody, with the Shipper On Deck and She Is Not My Girlfriend (and, inversely, He Is Not My Boyfriend) moments.
A!Rika/Catherine was teased a bit, though Word Of God says that she only did it for the lulz. She later admitted that she wasn't really trying anymore.
Quite a bit earlier, it was just avoided with Brian and Windy. Though Windy and Were Hare may be another story...
"Raven" and Fred seem to be going this route, whether or not it'll come to fruition is another story.
Roachey and Violet at one point(planned), then later on, Mara and Roachey.
"Raven" and Aya seem to have gone this route recently.
There was a brief one-sided bout of this towards the beginning with Dusk Boogie and his long-time childhood friend, Piper Cheeks. The two later became the first Official Couple.
Kyle Macleod and Ellen "Newt" Ripley Junior had a lot of this, which later led to them becoming the second Official Couple.
Despite only starting off as a slight joke in another thread, Thaddeus Blackstone Granger and Charity "Jezebel" Smurf-Helmet have quite a bit of this as well.
Before Thaddeus showed up, there was a little of this between Jezebel and Wilson Wilson. It didn't work due to the latter being Oblivious to Love and his roleplayer is not into Shipping.
There's a significant amount of Ho Yay going on between Rowan Inspector-Matthews and Kainashi Namine. Especially since the latter isn't completely fond of anyone else in the group.
Before Kainashi showed up, there was some slight one-sided ship-teasing (or something like that) between Rowan and Wilson. That obviously didn't work out, and one particular part killed the idea completely.
Despite Dorian's roleplayer saying that she wouldn't ship him with anyone and Susan Xian's roleplayer's major disinterest in Shipping at all (yes; Wilson's roleplayer is also Susan's), the two characters have a few moments that could be interpreted as this.
Madigan Hightop and Bernard "Bernie" Stewart have a little of this since the latter seems to like her the most out of everyone else. Though neither roleplayer had thought about shipping them with anyone at first since Madigan is twelve and Bernie is fourteen.
Mathew and Fawn seem to have developed a few possible feelings for each other despite not knowing each other for too long.
Cass Hackwrench and Augustin also seem to get along fairly well, despite the slight Furry Confusion.
There is some between Ted and Delta, though until recently it seemed to be awfully one-sided on poor Ted's part. (It still is, but now there's been a slight hint that she might like him as well.)
Western Animation
The writers of Avatar The Last Airbender are (not with basis) accused of teasing the incessant Zutara (Zuko/Katara) shippers, as traces of hinting can be found in the Avatar-dedicated Nick Mag issue and within various interviews. Most notably, trailers for the second season teased a hookup between the two - they get Locked in a Room, and they don't go the route most characters go afterwards (despite her thumb on his mouth). Followed in the same episode by a thorough and brutal Ship Sinking.
The four-part finale, in which the ship teasing is as brutally epic as the storyline itself, threw out more bait to the Zutara fans than the entire rest of the series combined. It even includes such classics as She Is Not My Girlfriend and Taking the Bullet, only to shoot it all down in flames with two heartfelt love scenes - Aang/Katara and Zuko/Mai, of course - in the very last minutes of the last episode. (And they still have time to start a Toph/Zuko Ship Tease.) The amount of ship teasing present in the finale actually confused many casual watchers as to the ending pairings, since Katara and Aang don't interact except for the start and the very end of the finale.
The Live-Action AdaptationThe Last Airbender somehow managed to make the Zuko/Katara fight at the North Pole full of even more Ship Tease goodness. Probably because they skipped "The Waterbending Scroll".
The writers teased the Kataang(Katara/Aang) shippers in an earlier episode, where they set up a True Love's Kiss plot - but had the lights go out at the crucial moment, leaving viewers to wonder Did They Or Didn't They?
The Season 3, part 2 trailer, which one Katara/Aang shipper described as "a giant kick in the groin," proved that the PR staff were still up to their old tricks, and the shippers still hadn't learned their lesson.
And they did it again with a marathon of Avatar reruns, with pop-up jokes and factoids appearing on the screen. (One pop-up quips "Love at first sight" during Aang and Katara's first meeting, and another teases "Zuko was originally going to be a love interest for Katara.") Keep in mind the guy who wrote these is the same one behind "Ember Island Players", so the odds of it being unintentional are probably nil.
The Sokka/Toph moment in "The Serpent's Pass". "You can just go ahead and let me drown now" indeed.
In "Sokka's Master," when Sokka returns to the group, Toph dismissively says that the others missed him... and then turns around so he can't see her, smiles, and blushes.
A small but notable scene in "The Western Air Temple" where Sokka actually picks Toph up and cradles her as he walks to camp.
There's also the part in "Day of Black Sun Part 2: The Eclipse" when Aang demands that Azula tell the Gaang where her father is:
Azula: Hmm. You mean I'm not good enough for you? You're hurting my feelings.
Kim Possible, from day one, had all manner of Ship Tease going on between Kim and Ron. Certain exchanges ("If she saw us coming out of a date movie together, she might, you know..." "You. And me. On a date?" "Not that we, y'know, would or anything...") and certain scenes (the parody of the famous upside-down kiss) littered various episodes, and "Emotion Sickness" was one big tease from start to finish, while simultaneously teasing Drakken and Shego. Hell, the first episode has Ron declare "And contrary to popular belief, I am not dating Kim Possible" in what could be the quickest series-start-to-ship-tease since Mulder and Scully. All of which inevitably lead to their Relationship Upgrade at the end of season three.
"Homecoming Upset" had its fair share of Ron/Bonnie teases.
"Mad Dogs And Aliens" and especially "Stop Team Go" had Kim/Shego shippers in hysterics.
In Justice League Bruce Timm admitted to doing this with Batman and Wonder Woman after shippers misintepreted a gesture of thanks as flirting in "The Brave and the Bold". Of course, anybody who's familiar with the DCAU (specifically Batman Beyond) knows that Batman is going to end up bitter and alone...
Some of that is Shout Out to the source material. Dick and Kory have been on again off again since the Bronze Age. Geoff Johns had a bit between Gar and Raven on his run that didn't work so well. And then the Squick implications of the Terra/Slade stuff is worse when you've actually read Judas Contract.
Also, in the DC comics, didn't evil!Raven make out with Starfire once?
The Backyardigans: Plenty of ship tease, but what crossed the final line was the song "I Need a Hand" during "Caveman's Best Friend". It's the end of the song, folks. When they're holding hands. Doesn't that screams "LOVE" to you?! I guess it does.
There are numerous Ship-Teasing with Gwen and Kevin in Ben 10 Alien Force .
The DuckTales episode "Duck to the Future" was pretty Ship tease-y in the Magica/Scrooge department, what with Magica embracing Scrooge when the two escape from the Hindenburg...and reaching down his shirt for his Number One Dime.
Spongebob Squarepants has been celebrated, ridiculed and threatened in equal measure due to the gay subtext people find with the eponymous character and his surroundings. For a good example of this, look at "The Two Faces of Squidward", or "Chocolate With Nuts".
The promos for the 10th anniversary special "Truth Or Square" all focused on a scene where Spongebob and Sandy get married. In the actual episode it turns out it's all part of a play. Fan reaction has not been too hostile (albeit it was disappointing for some), which is good because it would look really foolish considering it wasn't a Ship Sinking.
While Fillmore! was mostly a No Hugging, No Kissing series, the writers definitely gave a Toy Ship vibe between the two leading characters. Mostly because their dialogue had a tendency to sound flirtatious at times, coupled with all the subtext of a Buddy Cop Show.
The Phineas And Ferb episode "That Sinking Feeling" has the two title characters try to help their friend impress a girl. Phineas later invites Isabella along (but not in the way you'd think), providing plenty of this trope. The episode even occurs on a cruise ship.
Phineas/Isabella gets teased a lot. For example, Isabella spends the whole episode "Out to Launch" trying to ask Phineas to a dance... only to have him misunderstand her and invite Ferb along as a third wheel. In "One Good Scare Ought to Do It", Phineas not only spends the whole episode trying to help her, but holds her hand practically through the entire song. Many smaller examples also exist.
An example that has shippers up on cloud nine occurs in "The Chronicles of Meap". Isabella spends the whole episode trying to get registered by Phineas's "Cute Tracker", to no effect. Then Phineas explains he already took her cuteness into account and set the device to ignore her from the start. When he resets it to stop ignoring her, it immediately shorts out. This promptly spawned a number of Epileptic Trees stating Phineas may not be as Oblivious to Love as he seems.
In The Movie, Phineas seems rather pleased when Isabella kisses him, and makes like he's going to do/say something else, but never gets the chance.
The episode "Vanessessary Roughness" does this for Ferb/Vanessa, especially given the cheek-kiss at the end.
The hour-long special "Summer Belongs To You" teased two of the three most prominent pairings in the show: Phineas/Isabella and Ferb/Vanessa (andBuford/Baljeet, ofallthings). It didn't tease Candace/Jeremy however, considering they became an Official Couple at the end of the special.
"Phineas and Ferb's Quantumn Boogaloo" almost confirms the ship, while at the same time opening a new can of worms. While 20 years in the future Isabella is ecstatic to hear Candace's kids comment she looks like their Aunt Isabella, proving she must marry Phineas. Then past!Candace points out she could also marry Ferb and still be their aunt, prompting a look of shock from Isabella - and a point and a wink from the usually-stoic Ferb.
For some reason, despite the species difference, the show loves teasing Doofenshmirtz and Perry.
Arthur teased Arthur/Francine a few times with a She Is Not My Girlfriend episode at one point and a few glimpses into the future (which may or may not be Imagine Spots) that imply both will eventually get married.
Scooby-Doo is infamous for the possibly the longest ever (still ongoing!!) never-resolved Will They or Won't They? between Fred and Daphne (if you're not counting the live action movies).
Though at the last episode cancels their engagement to look for his real parents
Even The Magic School Bus, which was primarily an Edutainment Show and aimed at little kids, managed to sneak in some hints between most of the kids. The most consistently teased pairings were the three cases of Opposites Attract: Ralphie/Keesha, Carlos/Dorothy Ann, and Arnold/Wanda.
Arnold was a veritable Chick Magnet; he was also teased with Phoebe ("The Busasaurus") and Dorothy Ann ("Cracks A Yolk"), and even a girl in another class named Tiffany ("Wet All Over").
On Jimmy Two-Shoes, Jimmy comes into Heloise's room when the rest of the town is in hibernation. After trying to wake her up normally, he looks into the book she's holding, reading that a princess was awakened by a kiss. He looks at Heloise for a moment, who has sparkles over her...then tosses the book aside, muttering "You can't believe everything you read."
Another episode focusing on Hiccup Hijinks had a doctor suggesting that Jimmy cure Heloise's hiccups with a slight obstruction of the air passage, such as a prolonged kiss. Jimmy reluctantly decides to provide it. In the ensuing hilarity, Heloise ends up kissing Beezy instead.
Yet another episode ends with Jimmy and Heloise fused together. They end up at the movies. When Jimmy asks when she'll reverse the process, she merely shrugs, saying "I'm in no rush."
Beezy/Jimmy is ship teased a lot too, as well as Lucius/Jimmy.
A season four episode of KaBlam! featured Henry falling in love with a one-shot character, Dawn. June was mad. So were the H/J Shippers. Did the creators forget about episode 29? (Oh wait, never mind. They did.)
During the second season of Total Drama Island the writers loved to tease Duncan with girls other than his canon love interest Courtney. Mostly this was with Gwen but he also ended up kissing Heather (as part of a challenge) and going on a 'date' with Lindsay (to deliberately infuriate Courtney). Then season three, the tease with Gwen became the truth!
Adventures Of The Galaxy Rangers had quite a bit of this between Shane and Niko, especially if Chris Rowley was writing. "Scarecrow" is positively loaded. There's one scene where Shane was dancing with a local girl. Niko asks him later about his "girlfriend," and he remarks "She already has a date...and so do I." Then, there's the scene where Scarecrow busts into an injured Niko's room and attacks her. Shane breaks in and brawls Scarecrow, but is knocked against a wall. Before the Scarecrow can kill him, Niko grabs her BFG and shoots, scaring the thing off. As she swoons from the injuries she already has, Shane catches her, and says softly. "Easy, babe, sleep now." It was rather amusing when Rowley discovered the Fan Fic fifteen years later...
Hey Arnold! does this with some of the lesser characters: Harold with both Rhonda and Patty, Sid and Rhonda (in the episode "Wheezin' Ed"), Sheena and Eugene. Phoebe and Gerald also count earlier on, but they're more or less the official Beta Couple by season 4. There's even some Gerald/Arnold.
Used on several occasions with Odd and Sissi in Code Lyoko, who share an almost Slap-Slap-Kiss dynamic.
Metalocalypse: Toki sure is into Skwisgaar. While some of this, like Toki playing Skwisgaar in a Dethklok tribute band, can be understood as hero-worship, that doesn't explain why Toki's seen with a date who looks and dresses exactly like Skwisgaar if he were female.
Ed, Edd n' Eddy: Done at times between the three Eds. And Edd gets this with 7/12 of the main cast (though mainly Eddy, especially in The Movie). And Kevin and Nazz, especially in the movie.
Edd was teased for Edd/Nazz in "the day the Edd stood still." See the kiss scene which we ALL remember.
Eddy gets a kiss from Nazz too in the movie. It's adorable.
The Powerpuff Girls did the Foe Yay variety of this at times between Him and Bubbles, Mojo Jojo and Blossom, and Buttercup and Him.
Despite them both getting love interests in season two, Kurt and Kitty had a lot of Ship Tease throughout the show. Your Mileage May Vary on whether the writers did this deliberately to please (or torture) the Kurt/Kitty shippers, or if it's a case of Relationship Writing Fumble.
Just about everyone had a Ship Tease moment with everyone at some point, listing it all would be impossible but the fansite Beyond Evolution has a list of a number of possible couples. Each one lists the episodes that had a ship tease moment. It organizes the couples based on their possibility of existance. Should be noted that some of the listed Ship Teases are with Shipping Goggles (Lance/Kitty in No Good Deed? They didn't even interact, Jean/Lucas? He kidnapped her).
Depending on the episode, Gadget from Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers was either interested in Chip, interested in Dale, interested in someone else (usually a oneshot character like Sparky), not interested in anyone, or unaware of the concept of romance. Trying to figure out which viewpoint has the most support, however, is the hottest and most divisive topic in the fandom, and even bringing it up is either the fastest way to start a Flame War, or the fastest way to get someone to step in and change the subject.
In the original ThunderCats, Cheetara is teased with both Lion-O (they spend an episode psychically linked, he's been shoved into her, and she has a throwaway line in the pilot about how handsome he'd become) and Tygra, who she eventually gets together with in the tie-in comics.
The writers of ThunderCats (2011) have decided to take the original concept above and run with it, making Tygra Lion-O's adoptive older brother, giving them a longstanding, deep-seated Sibling Rivalry and a shared attraction to Cheetara, of which neither is fully aware...yet. Oh, and they're now all teenagers, so there's moodiness in the offing! So far:
In "Omens Part One" The Charmer Tygra openly flirted with Cheetara while she's clad in priestly vestments that leave only her eyes visible.
In "Song of the Petalars" Lion-O had a moment holding hands with Cheetara as she comforts him during a moment of grief...promptly killed by Snarf's glomping his face.
In "Journey to the Tower of Omens" Lion-O is a bit nervous over Cheetara's Hands On Approach towards coaching him in the Sword of Omens' use, (which Wilykit notices, and merrily mocks with smooching noises) while Tygra later gapes over Cheetara's Super Speed, to which a smirking Panthro quips:
In the episode "Party of One", Rainbow Dash's head is framed by a heart◊ in Pinkie Pie's door when she comes and check up on her. Subtle hint from the writers or Pinkie just has a cute door? The fans may never know.
The Adventure Time two-parter "Mortal Folly"/"Mortal Recoil" was filled with Finn/Bubblegum teasing. Even beyond Finn defeating The Lich with the The Power of L-l-liking Someone A Lot thanks to the sweater Bubblegum gave him, and Finn's subsequent ineffective attempt at admitting this to Bubblegum, the two-parter ends with Bubblegum turned thirteen years old and giving Finn a congratulatory hug. "Too Young" continued this teasing with a vengeance, only to swerve into a Ship Sinking ending.
The episode "What Was Missing" was one colossal tease for Bubblegum/Marceline, the pinnacle of which was either A) a song that hinted at some incredible emotional pain in their past relationship with all the subtlety of a mountain, or B) that Bubblegum's stolen treasure was a shirt Marceline gave her (directly paralleling Finn's stolen treasure; a wad of Bubblegum's hair). The publically released storyboard reveals that originally there were even more hints planned.
