Ship Tease - Television Tropes & Idioms

This is seriously Not What It Looks Like.

"A fortune-teller predicted that Katara's true love is a very powerful bender. Will it be the Avatar, or will fate lead her in another, more fiery direction?"

—Nick Mag Presents: Avatar

Fans 'ship. They do it all the time, 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.

Examples:

Live Action TV

In The Guardian's first season, Lulu was torn between protagonist Nick Fallin and her fiancé, 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.
This troper suspects Doctor Who writer Russell T. Davies 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 for Applied Phlebotinum reasons. 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 will inevitably be something similar.
- Similarly, this troper thinks that the character of Romana was invented solely to tease the audience. She was another Time Lord of comparable age, Tom Baker was, at the time, the youngest actor to have played the Doctor, they had brilliant on-screen chemistry (Baker even ended up marrying one of the actresses who played Romana), but the writers just would not go the extra distance.
- For what it's worth, the series four kiss was indeed for the aforementioned reasons - the last step for the Doctor to 'detoxify' himself and erase lethal cyanide from his body was a shock to the nervous system... which naturally leads to Donna laying one on him.
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.
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.
- For that matter, everything leads to suffering.
  - Theoretically... only theoretically mind you... this might not have been Joss' original plan. It was around this time that the plot started moving at triple-speed due to impending (and largely mystifying) cancellation.
  - Supposedly the next season was supposed to reveal that there was quite a bit more of Fred left in the demon that replaced her than anyone realized, even (especially?) the demon herself.
  - They began hinting at this in the last issue of After the Fall
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.
"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.
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.
Joss Whedon continues his Ship teasing with the Firefly comic spin off Better Days, which contains outright indications of, of all things, Simon/Inara.
Smallville frequently does this with Clark and Chloe and, more recently, Lois.
- And Clark/Lex as well.
The second half of Alex Cabot's farewell episode throws a bone to the Alex/Olivia shippers in almost every scene.
The entirely of Bones's third season is largely considered a tease for it's one and only ship Booth/Brennan, well the whole show's purpose seems like a big tease for the otp.

Anime

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha season three has Nanoha and Fate, now women, as either a married couple or Heterosexual Life Partners. They share a bed and have even adopted a child together; but have not kissed or stated anything definitive, at least not on screen. On the other hand, we have the Nanoha/Yuuno pairing, which is left open; the only conversation in the third season they have cuts away for maximum ambiguity. This is the fandom's biggest Internet Backdraft, and the third season ended without a solution ever being addressed.
- And no, you can't look to the Triangle Heart verse for a solution: there, neither Fate nor Yuuno exist, and Nanoha ends up with Chrono, who in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha is married to Amy and therefore no longer an option.
- Nanoha's voice actor has recently stated (or at least hinted) in an interview that she ships Feinano. Take from that what you will.
Rumiko Takahashi does some Ship Teasing for some popular alternate pairings in Ranma 1/2 on several occasions:
- 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.
- During one of the OA Vs, to enter a cave they must be paired up (the goal of every character is to break up Ranma and Akane, naturally). However the storyline hints at Ryoga/Ukyo, as the only other pair to make it through the Cave of Lost Love. The end has EVERYONE believing Ukyo and Ryoga are a pair at the end.
Youre 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...
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.
Consider the sheer number of scenes that Nara Shikamaru and Temari have had together over the course of Naruto. Particularly ship-tease worthy are their scenes in Shippuden, where the only member of the rookie 9 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.
- At one point, he even compares her to his mother, stating that she (Temari) is "scarier". Need I say more? Freud would have a field day.
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~
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. This troper has 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: Kyon's relationship with Haruhi is pretty obvious to everyone but them, and Kyon's crush on Mikuru is pretty explicit, with rather minor flirting in return. The teasing comes in with Yuki (to the point of blatantness in the fourth novel/second season 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...
Digimon Adventure 02 series: There have been several instances in the show 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.
In Saiyuki, there's quite a bunch of teases about the pairing Hakkai-Yaone. 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 sank already...
In the vein of Youre Under Arrest above, official art depicts Ban and Ginji of Getbackers in several◊ suggestive◊ poses◊, one including bondage◊.
One episode preview for Pokemon 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 made 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.

Literature

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.
- There are also sane readers who do not not consider an Artifact Of Doom giving a Hannibal Lecture a tease as much as they consider it a torpedo.
- Many Potterfen (this editor included) 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)
- For that matter, many fans were convinced that she was introduced to give the increasingly likable Neville a love interest. This was, for whatever reason, shot down in an author interview.
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.

Western Animation

The writers of Avatar The Last Airbender apparently love 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 via Familiarity Breeds Contemplation — they did indeed get Locked In A Room, they just didn't go the route most characters go afterwards. Followed in the same episode by possibly the most brutal Ship Sinking in recent memory.
- Second most brutal. No way running into the arms of The Hero, or even elemental mortal combat, trumps what happened halfway through the next season.
- The writers teased the Kataang (Katara/Aang) shippers in an earlier episode, where they set up a True Loves Kiss plot - but had the lights go out at the crucial moment, leaving viewers to wonder Did They Or Didn't They?
- And now there's the Season 3, part 2 trailer, which one Katara/Aang shipper described as "a giant kick in the groin," proving the PR staff are still up to their old tricks, and the shippers still haven't learned their lesson.
  - Though by a combination of extended hiatus leaving nothing else to talk about and the enthusiastic nature of the Ship To Ship Combat among the Avatar fanbase, any scene where two characters are on screen together now counts as ship teasing to some.
- Lampshaded (like everything else on the show) in "Ember Island Players".
- And then the four-part finale, which where the ship teasing is as brutally epic as the storyline itself, throwing 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...
  - This troper has changed his mind. The finale was not the most brutal ship tease ever. THIS is the most brutal ship tease ever.
Kim Possible had a Ship Tease going on between Ron and Kim in many third-season episodes, leading up to a literal Last Minute Hook Up in the Grand Finale. Then the show was unexpectedly Un Canceled. Oops.
- The biggest offender was "Emotion Sickness," an episode that's gone on to become a fan favorite and which also teased Drakken/Shego mercilessly.
- "Homecoming Upset" had its fair share of Ron/Bonnie teases.
- Then there was "Stop Team Go", which had Kim/Shego shippers in hysterics.
Codename Kids Next Door has teased Kuki and Wally fans repeatedly: for instance, in The Movie, playing with Going Down With The Ship by having one of them infected with The Virus (and passing it on just in time for Kissing Under The Influence). The final episode's Distant Finale framing sequence hints at a Last Minute Hookup between Kuki and Hoagie, before revealing that they were just sitting together at the last moment.
In Justice League Bruce Timm admitted to doing this with Batman and Wonderwoman 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...

Video Games

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney does this quite a lot, mostly with Phoenix and Edgeworth, but Phoenix and Maya, Edgeworth and Maya, Edgeworth and Franziska and Phoenix and Franziska also get their moments.
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 (he tells her to look into his eyes; not very subtle, huh?). To be fair, this skit does occur with Sheena as your closest party member. When someone other than Colette or Sheena is your closest party member, the cutscenes are decidedly 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.
In Super Robot Wars, up until Original Generation Gaiden, most people think that the protagonists of SRW Advance, Axel Almer and Lamia Loveless were two characters that can never unite, as in almost every of their appearances, they're usually enemies. Original Generation Gaiden gives them a chance to fight under one banner, and even gives them a subplot that may as well link them together romantically, in which Lamia feels indebted on Axel for saving her life. This is also made a bit more prevalent in one of the screenshots of the SRW Advance remake in PSP, whereas it is shown that two original units can coexist together (which will probably be the rival, Axel in Lamia's story or Lamia in Axel's story), thus fans have speculated that the Advance canon may get reworked to support the Axel-Lamia pairing, which never existed/thought before beforehand. Of course, this editor was one who fell victim into such Ship Tease...
- The reworking of Advance canon did not happen, though.
- This also adds up the teasing about pairing Axel and Alfimi. There has been a lot of older man-little girl fan pairing in the Super Robot Wars universe, and Axel traveling with Alfimi 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, who is the Alternate-universe counterpart of Axel's deceased lover Lemon, who also happened to have built Lamia). It's also supported with the way Alfimi said, "I may be the only one that understands Axel". This troper is glad that all these haven't produced some sort of Die For Our Ship phenomenons for either Lamia or Alfimi.
- Speaking of Lolicon pairing, the heavyweight champion of the Lolicon fan pairing in the Super Robot Wars universe is undoubtedly the Alpha series' Sanger 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).
Guilty Gear teased the Ky/Jam with artwork, special intros and stuff. Their ship got sunk. Accent Core plus now teases, surprisingly, Ky/Dizzy.
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.
In War Craft, the current strong alliance between Thrall and Jaina Proudmoore has raised some... interesting stuffs going on between those two. And the fact that there IS a half-orc named Garona Halforcen in the War Craft universe makes this pairing even more possible.
Kingdom Hearts II. Full stop. Hilarious given that it's a No Hugging No Kissing game - Nomura is screwing with us all, and the shipper wars he has given birth to are rather incredible to behold.
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. No, this troper isn't bitter at all...
- Why would you be bitter, considering that Archer IS Shirou? That was rather the whole point, in fact.

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 Snarker Jerk Ass. Whatever Tom Siddell has planned for the characters, he seems to enjoy messing with the fans' heads in the meantime.
The Wotch had a page supporting a Robin / Cassie pairing for April Fools day.

Shipping Bed Death

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