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" 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.
Probably the cruelest method of Ship Tease is the Moment Killer.
See also: Will They Or Wont They, Subtext, Alternate Character Interpretation, Fanservice, Never Trust A Trailer, Tonight Someone Kisses, Bait And Switch Lesbians, Ho Yay.
Examples
Anime
- Neon Genesis Evangelion: Shinji/Rei. Shinji/Asuka. Shinji/Kaworu. Shinji/Misato. Kaji/Misato. Kaji/Asuka. Kaji/Ritsuko. Maya/Ritsuko. Toji/Hikari. The list goes on.
- 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.
- More weight is given to the lesbian lovers argument by the fact that in at least one of the bedroom scenes Nanoha is not wearing any underwear (you'll have to look to find it but she is completely bottomless).
- Also present is the large collection of FeiNano pictures (harvested from official artwork) prominently placed behind the headboard.
- And no, you can't look to Triangle Heart 3 Sweet Songs Forever 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 Yukari Tamura has recently stated (or at least hinted) in an interview that she ships FeiNano. Take from that what you will.
- ViVid Memories starts four years after the third season... With Fate still being Vivio's 'other mommy' outright. Let the Ship Tease begin anew.
- Buried amongst all of the yuri Ship Tease is the straight Toy Ship Tease of Erio and Caro.
- 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 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, as the only other pair beside the Official Couple 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 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.
- 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...
- 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. Heck, it's this troper's OTP inside the Pretty Cure franchise.
- 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 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.
- 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.
- A recent Omake featured a proposal from Shikamaru to change the name of the show to "Shikamaru Shippuden" upon him more or less becoming the main character for the next plot line. The image presented along with this can be found here
 (second post, in the spoiler). It really speaks for itself.
- The Bug Arc in the Fillers was built around how to make Naru/Hina more obvious... to everyone that isn't Naruto. All we get from him is declaring the girl he saw dancing on the waterfall was beautiful. I'm not going to bother Spoilertagging it- it was Hinata.
- The Land of Vegetables Arc has quite a bit of Naruto/Hinata, particularly in Hinata's fight with the magnetic ninja and this scene, where Hinata defends Naruto to the princess ("Hinata... you're pretty fond of Naruto, aren't you?").
- And then of course we have the latest manga chapters. While it could have gone very badly for the Naruto/Hinata shippers, Naruto/Hinata is now a definite possibility, depending on how Naruto responds to Hinata's Anguished Declaration Of Love.
- In the anime, shortly before Sasuke leaves Konoha, Sakura tells Naruto about the curse mark and Orochimaru's plans for Sasuke while the two are seemingly on a date at Ichiraku Ramen (Sakura entices Naruto to come by suggesting it as the date he's always wanted). By contrast, in the manga, the two sit on a bench in that scene.
- 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. 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: Haruhi's relationship with Kyon is 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 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 and Koizumi's statements on how charming Haruhi is and that he "envies" Kyon. And let's include the return of Asakura Ryoko in Disappearance. One has to ask himself why she, despite being a normal human, stabbed Kyon to protect Yuki.
- 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.
- Which most fans want struck from the canon. The entire Distant Finale, that is, not just the fact that Takari wasn't involved in it.
- Then there's "Focus", one of Takeru's image songs, wherein he sings about someone that he's known since he was small and who he wants to protect — even mentioning that "you used to cry all the time, but now you're standing in the light". Yeah, real subtle. He even wonders if he is the focus of that person's heart. Cue a collective squee from Takari shippers.
- Except that, conversely, 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.
- 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 sunk 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 Pok�mon that she had received from Tracey.
- While many of Pokemon's pairings are full of shiptease, Appealshipping (Zoey x Dawn) takes the cake. Their scenes together are just tinged with touchy-feely-blushy moments.
- Hidamari Sketch of all series has Sae x Hiro heavily implied in both intros. We never see any of it during the actual episodes.
- 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, this more or less makes up Konoka and Setsuna's entire relationship. Setsuna obviously has an attraction to Konoka, but it's impossible to tell if all of Konoka's flirting is because she's too innocent to notice, or whether she's trying to seduce Setsuna and Setsuna just isn't catching on.
- By far the most aggravating instance was the Almost Kiss between Setsuna and Konoka, when Asuna interrupted them while they were about to perform a Pactio. Ken Akamatsu is cruel.
- Negima!? NEO. Lesson 29. The focus? Konoka and Setsuna. The apparent plot? Very condensed version of the Kyoto Arc, except with Konoka and Setsuna travelling alone. Setsuna is of course, blushing a lot since the two are alone together. The actual plot? Konoka setting the entire thing up so that she and Setsuna could share a romantic kiss like they promised to when they were kids. The sound you just heard was the combined Squee of KonoSetsu shippers.
- Hell, it was scanlated ahead by ten chapters for a reason.
- Chapter 252 of the original manga is even worse (or better). Konoka and Setsuna finally make the damn pactio with each other. Konoka is very, very enthusiastic about it. Chamo times it and confirms it as the longest pactio kiss yet. They're pretty much as close as possible to being an Official Couple without actually being one.
- There's also the implied Pactio (aka, kiss) between Alberio and Nagi brought up by Konoka. Yep, even Akamatsu is willing to stick a bit of Yaoi-teasing in the series (Eishun (Konoka's father) was once seen wielding a Pactio as well). The uber-manly Jack Rakan also has a Pactio.
- Just about every interaction Negi has with any female within ten years of his age (or seven hundred years, in Eva's case) could qualify as a ship tease. His "practice date" with Asuna hits this so hard that even the other characters comment on it.
- Chapter 251 is one big tease between Negi and Yue.
- 253 is a rather big one between Natsumi and Kotaro.
- Axis Powers Hetalia. England and America, Germany and North Italy are the epitomes of the trope.
- England and America have had a Foe Yay rivalry ever since The American Revolution and are hinted to be attracted to each other. Both can be the Tsundere to each other, especially England, and it seems that America is his long-time unreturned(?) crush. This Troper won't be surprised at all if they end up as the local Takahashi Couple, with England as the Tsundere and America as the Jerk With A Heart Of Gold.
- Germany and North Italy have seen each other naked often and share a bed, and in one strip, Italy bursts into Germany's shower to ask him if he 'likes' him, and demands that Germany tell him he loves him. And when Germany does, he shouts 'Yahoo! I love you too!'. Then, their friend Japan caught them both naked in the shower. Italy's reaction? "I did it, Japan! I got closer to Germany!'
- The infamous "cigarette kiss" at the end of the seventh episode of Black Lagoon. Seriously, the Rock/Revy shipper in me nearly orgasmed.
-
Every Almost every freaking scene in Venus Versus Virus between Lucia and Sumire. Especially in the first few volumes.
- Fullmetal Alchemist has Roy Mustang/Riza Hawkeye.
- And Ed/Winry, Lan-Fan/Ling, and Al/Mei. Let's face it, Hiromu Arakawa loves this trope. The Full Metal Alchemist manga is brimming with official/near-official couples.
- Royai steals the show, though. Her grandfather asks Roy what he is waiting for to marry Riza, and he nearly answers "everything in due time". He basically learned 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". Arakawa manages to get to epic lengths without the tiniest Relationship Upgrade. At least Winry comments out loud she is in love with Ed, and they're not on Last Name Basis.
- Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid. When Chidori gives Sousuke a haircut, it's almost lovingly intimate. Her fingers are grasping and caressing his hair, carefully snipping one tuft at a time, and the camera lingers over each shot. Then, "Turn your head to the right. No, this way" and he can see straight down her top (Sousuke's face is a picture). Finally, she announces that she's finished... and he's fallen asleep. Chidori's watching him breathing, her attention is drawn to his parted lips - a slight blush appears on her cheeks ,her own lips part slightly - she wouldn't do it whilst he's asleep,would she? - and she snaps out of it, says, "Time to rinse!" a little too enthusiastically and puts his head under the tap. Augh! This troper's never wanted a haircut so much in his life.
- 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. 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 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 additional Ship 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..." Word Of God saying that the relationship between Ichigo and Rukia is something more than friendship but not romantic hasn't stopped the animators from Ship Teasing them.
- 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.
- 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 this troper doesn't remember.
Comic Books
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 likeable 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.
- Also, some fans interperate 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.
Live Action TV
Video Games
- Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney does this quite a lot, mostly with Phoenix and Edgeworth, but also with Phoenix and Maya. Also Iris in the third game who once shared a very intimate relationship with Phoenix while impersonating her sister, Dahlia, 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. Then again, so do Maya and Edgeworth, but the implication of Iris as Phoenix's one true love in the credits makes her lack of even a token reference feel like a plot hole.
- 'Mostly Phoenix and Edgeworth', if you overlook the fact that Phoenix tried running over a burning bridge to save Maya (and failed when the bridge collapsed under him), and put his life on the line to protect Dahlia/Iris by drinking what might be poison. Take That!
- This Troper thinks you're conveiniantly forgetting the part where, on the way to save Maya, who is about to be murdered, all Phoenix can think about is "I hope Edgeworth is ok".
- 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.
- It helps that Presea looks like a young girl around Genis' age or younger (but is actually a woman who is a decade older than Lloyd), and Raine is Genis'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 (although that would leave the door open for him to go out with her as the junior partner).
- Tales Of Vesperia, despite never really focusing on romance, does have a lot of fun teasing the fans. Yuri and Judith openly flirt a couple of times, 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 will 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.
- There's even a skit in Vesperia where Raven and Judith start teasing Estelle because they can tell that Estelle has a small form of romantic feelings towards Yuri, but that's the more attention the game ever gives to that aspect.
- For this troper, the scene Yuri and Estelle have just before setting off to the final battle is pretty blatant:
Estelle: When this is over... I want... to... stay with you.
Yuri: (after short silence looking at Estelle) ...yeah, I feel the same.
- 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. The end of the story also adds that Axel, in attempt to find his own paradise (on Lamia's suggestion) promises to tell her first if he ever finds one. Awww...!
- 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... unfortunately... it's a hoax.
- 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).
- Hilariously, Ibis Douglas and Irui Gan Eden are infinitely more canon (what with their Tearjerker ending in Alpha 2 where they confess their love for each other as Irui Gan Eden dies, and Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming reunion in Alpha 3) but don't see half the fan art. This probably says something about the fandom.
- Guilty Gear teased the Ky/Jam with artwork, special intros and stuff. Their ship got sunk. Accent Core plus now teases, surprisingly, Ky/Dizzy.
- 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 Assasins".
- 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.
- 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.
- Forget Garona, we have White Gnomeregan Punch Card: "Thrall and Jaina sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G." How's that for blatant Ship Tease?
- Final Fantasy Seven'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 of the Tease are the 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, more than either or the other Girl's attempts. 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 rather incredible to behold.
- There is hugging and kissing in the game. Almost. There's Sora and Kairi's reunion in II and there's also Mickey and Minnie's "Eskimo kiss"" in the credits sequence. Granted, that's not actual kissing, but it's still a Crowning Momentof Heartwarming.
- I doubt Nomura realizes or understands the bizarre specifics of shipping, and the ship teases are accidental. I mean, come on, the man's far more obsessed with zippers than in romance...
- On the other hand, he does love throwing curveballs at his audience and letting them figure things out, so he might be putting in fake ship tease clues on purpose.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- This troper finds it necessary to state that 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 black hole.
- 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.
- Oh come on, it was clearly nothing more than an attempt to distract from the over the top homo-eroticism everone joked about in the first game.
- Tidus and Auron seemed to flirt a bit in Luca during Auron's reappearance. Between Auron saying things like "Come or don't come. It's your decision," and Tidus assuming the position shortly thereafter, the UST was palpable. 6:15 and 6:38-7:00.
- 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). 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).
- Fire Emblem let's you control the amount of Ship Tease in your game with its support conversations. Each character has 5-7 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.
- It's a matter of cut content rather than Ship Tease, but the fact the sheer amount of interaction with Bishop and Neeshka in Neverwinter Nights 2 that never goes anywhere is infuriating... Neeshka's influence goes down whenver you agree with another girl for instance.
- Pokemon, of all rpgs, had a ship tease,in the fourth generation. One of the villan teams 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.
- 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. Slap Slap Kiss it isn't.
- Mega Man Zero has various moments of Ship Tease between Zero (yes, that Zero) and Ciel (whose 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.
- And another, from Zero's very famous World Of Cardboard Speech that is also his Final Speech.
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!
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.
- Recent strips have gone 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.
- 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: [1]. Perhaps it's not that much of a joke after all.
- Misfile. Dear god, Misfile. Even if you ship Ash/Missi, you can't deny that the author enjoys teasing Ash/Emily...
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.
- The amount of ship tease present in the finale actually confused many casual watchers as to the ending pairings, Katara and Aang don't interact except for the start and the very end of the finale.
- You think it's bad now? Wait till M. Night Shyalaman offers us his view on the matter...
- And they're doing it again with the current 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.
- 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. (The latter pair also got a Last Minute Hookup in the real finale.)
- "Homecoming Upset" had its fair share of Ron/Bonnie teases.
- Then there was "Stop Team Go", which had Kim/Shego shippers in hysterics.
- From day one of the second season, we have all manner of ship teases. Whether it be Kim worrying about Ron to a scene that mirrors the upside down kiss between Spiderman and Mary Jane. Lampshaded in Bad Boy where Kim hints at Ron bringing her as a date, and context galore throughout even before Emotion Sickness pretty much confirmed it.
- 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 at the last moment that they were just sitting together and having Wally berate Hoagie to take his hands of Kuki, his wife.
- 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...
- Does DC actually plan to have Bruce hook up with Diana? Neither of them are in a serious relationship, you know...
- Teen Titans had Robin and Starfire Ship Tease in spades...and that's not even getting into the Psychic Link between Robin and Raven. Or the constant conflict between Raven and Beast Boy. For a show that was supposed to be for young boys, there was an awful lot of emphasis on this...
- 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 forced and just plain poorly-done Ship-Teasing with Gwen and Kevin in Ben 10 Alien Force to the point where their shipping name is called "Forceshipping." Compare this to the more subtle (and most likely unintentional} Ship-Teasing in the original Ben 10 between cousins Ben and Gwen such as flirtatious bickering, hugging, glomping, Gwen teaching Ben how to slow dance and the many Aw Look They Really Do Love Each Other moments. Hell, even Alien Force manages to sneak a few in with Gwen playfully touching Ben's chest and Gwen describing that Ben is more or less the perfect boyfriend. The writers seriously can't be that oblivious to how they are writing these two.
- The Duck Tales 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". And don't even get this troper started on SpongeBob/Sandy...
- 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 Fairly Oddparents special "Wishology" seems to finally lean the show in the Timmy/Trixie direction (and at the same time, gives the Timmy/Tootie shippers reason to be very sad), but at the end, the Reset Button returns Trixie to her normal self.
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