Shipping - Television Tropes & Idioms

Bryan: I remember until mid-way through first season I never even knew what shipping was, and then suddenly on the internet...
Mike: Suddenly on the internet you had writing about shipping and I was like, "What is this? What is this phenomenon about?"
Bryan: Yeah. I was all like "They're shipping love to each other?"

Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko Co-creators of Avatar The Last Airbender

"I will go down with this ship
I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love, and always will be."

-Dido, "White Flag"

Steve Jobs of Apple Computer reportedly said, "Real artists ship." What he meant was that a professional writer of computer software actually gets a release out on time. It has also been used to refer to professional writers releasing a story before the deadline set by their editor. That is not the sort of Shipping that this entry is referring to.

Short for "relationshipping", it is the desire of the audience for two characters to get together romantically.

Fans can decide which characters they "ship" for a variety of reasons, not necessarily related to Canon -- or sanity. In a No Hugging No Kissing show that's not centered around kids (sometimes even if it is), pairings of leads will tend to develop in the fan community. In a romance anime, they may decide that the Official Couple in a series is dancing The Masochism Tango and revolt (usually with unfair and cruel results for the offending party), or they may simply prefer the Unlucky Childhood Friend, the Better Than Canon character, or even the Yaoi Guy/Schoolgirl Lesbian/Heterosexual Life Partner (as appropriate).

Frequently the writers know about this and play with the audience. The writers won't reward all shipping with a relationship, however. Then a majority of the ones that do don't until near the very end.

The frustrated need to see some of these relationships born/consummated provides the motivation for a fair percentage of Fan Fic (see Slash Fic); the classic example would be Spock/Kirk from Star Trek.

While series with a few yes-or-no style 'ships tend to be common and mundane, shipping gets way out of hand when every single combination of characters will be endorsed by somebody, regardless of having to change the characters' sexuality, having to ignore the fact that they hate each other (see Slap Slap Kiss), having to ignore a thirty- or forty-year age gap (including ignoring statutory rape laws), having to ignore the fact that they're siblings, etc. This can be self-subverting, with fans deliberately challenging each other to rationalize pairings made at random, or chosen to be as wrong as possible -- Crack Pairings, for short. Of course, if a writer succeeds, there's a risk of these pairings developing a following anyway.

It's become an unspoken rule of cyberspace to invent a cutesy Portmanteau Couple Name, partly so as to make labeling Fan Fics easier. That or invent a "___shipping" name for it; bonus points if it's something like Rocket Ship or Pirate Ship. If the characters' names have numeric roots, expect arithmetic. (3+4 has entirely different meanings when it's a Codename Kids Next Door or Gundam Wing fanfic section).

Famous shipper movements:

Live Action TV

Moonlighting -- perhaps the canonical example.
Remington Steele followed a similar template.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer has had several. In one interview Anthony Stewart Head described how deeply, deeply disturbed he was to find a Willow/Giles shipping website with accompanying Fan Fic. His only response was that he was old enough to be her father.
Louis/Tawny im Even Stevens -- requited in Grand Finale.
Mulder/Scully in The X Files -- requited.
Sydney/Vaughn in Alias -- requited.
Grissom/Sara in CSI -- requited in the season six finale, but ended now that, well, Sara's gone.
Tony/Michelle in 24 -- requited with a marriage, then broken up after Tony went to prison for letting someone get away (In an I Have Your Wife scenario), re-requited in Day Four and then permanently ended by a car bomb.
In the first two seasons of the new Doctor Who, there was quite a bit of Doctor/Rose shipping (known as "squee!" on Outpost Gallifrey), much to the initial shock of older fans, for whom this show has always been a No Hugging No Kissing show. When the Doctor and Rose kissed in "The Parting of the Ways" (he was removing the energy of the Time Vortex from her), the shippers went ecstatic, while the non-shippers didn't mind. (But contrast this to when they went absolutely apewire insane over a similar kiss in the 1996 Made For TV Movie). The less friendly folks on rec.arts.drwho were far less charitable about the kiss between the Doctor and Captain Jack.
Bones seems to be written to encourage shipping.
Daria, the title character and Trent Lane. The later introduction of Tom Sloane as Daria's first true boyfriend, combined with the girl becoming disillusioned with Trent's irresponsibility, has been a controversial point among fans.
There are so many, oh so many examples of shipping in the Heroes fandom, ranging from the borderline (Matt and Mohinder; Claire and Zach) to the downright disturbing (Peter and Claire; Sylar and Claire - the latter usually ends in Wangst of some form or another).
- The Paire ship has shown to be not only one of the most popular, but one of the toughest. It SHOULD have been torpedoed with the revelation that Peter and Claire are uncle and niece, but it is still one of the most popular ships.
While K/S (Kirk/Spock) was mentioned in the lead, the various incarnations of Star Trek each have their share of ship pairings, although they use a different naming convention. In TOS, Spock was often paired with any of the females aboard the Enterprise. In Next Generation P/C (Picard/Crusher) was quite popular, as was R/T (Riker and Counselor Troi) and W/T (Worf/Troi); the middle one being the only one requited. Deep Space Nine had O/K (Odo/Kira), W/J (Worf/Jadzia Dax), B/J (Bashir/Jadzia), W/E (Worf/Ezri Dax), and B/E (Bashir/Ezri out). Voyager had J/C (Janeway/Chakotay), K/7 (Harry Kim and 7 of 9), D/7 (The Doctor and Seven), as well as the dreaded canonical C/7, which is so hated that I'm not even going to tell you what it stands for. You should be able to figure it out by now, anyways. Oh, and Enterprise had A/T (Archer/T'Pol), A/H (Archer/Hoshi), and the canonical T/T (Trip/T'Pol). There are several more, but those are the most prominent, as far as this troper knows.
The Stargate Verse has plenty of them. The most known being Jack/Sam, much hinted at in the show.

Western Animation

Kim/Ron in Kim Possible -- requited in the Grand Finale (and planned from the start).
Avatar The Last Airbender is full of and famous for it. The creators are extremely aware of the ships, to the point of dedicating a hilarious slide show segment to almost every single one at the last ComicCon panel, including some non-existing, non-sensical, and borderline incestuous. Possibly the most infamous example is the "Zutara" ship, resulting from the voice actors of the two playing characters in a parallel relationship on American Dragon Jake Long. The writers seem to be taking advantage of this -- the very first clip for the second season finale centered solely around the two "spending some unexpected time together", adding up to quite a bit of hate towards the girl he actually ended up with. The trailer for the second half of the 3rd season, after completing its recap, showed Aang and Katara kissing, with Katara moving back in surprise after, following with a shot of Katara giving Zuko a close hug with closed eyes. THEN they showed the cool action sequences.
99% of the Invader Zim fanfiction that erupts from the fandom's bowels is Zim/Dib or Zim/Gaz; the former is generally disgusting, while the latter is generally dark and serious.
Teen Titans, the animated version. While Robin/Starfire is the Official Couple, Robin/Raven has a very strong following. On another front, Beast Boy/Terra is established as somewhat canon during the second season (helped by the comics), but during the third season, some tender moments between Beast Boy and Raven (ALSO in the comics! (making things even worse...)) added fuel to the fire for Beast Boy/Raven shippers, and the war between the Beast Boy/Terra and Beast Boy/Raven shippers continues to this day.
Jackie Chan Adventures has had several examples of this. The most popular being the character Jade with a variety of other characters, most notably Hsi Wu (there have been hints of this relationship during the show, but nothing happened), Drago, Valmont, Paco and the Dark Hand. Occasionally there is shipping done amongst the other characters of the show as well, Jackie and Viper are popular along with Valmont and Bai Sa.

Literature

Perhaps the most obsessive is the shipping that goes on in the Harry Potter universe, where shippers go as far as pairing off characters who have only ever been vaguely mentioned by name -- with the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, numerous pairings were ruined (for the non-Yaoi crowd) with the revelation that Blaise Zabini was a boy. And "apewire" cannot even begin to describe the over-the-top reactions among hardcore shippers to the "who ends up with who" questions concerning the main cast members finally being settled in Half-Blood Prince as well. Many fans were exceedingly obsessive, and there were also 'rivalries' between ships, with two of the biggest rivals being the Harry/Hermione and Ron/Hermione ships. One infamous comment by a Mugglenet staff member (who called them 'Delusional') inspired much flaming on Harry Potter forums.
Louisa May Alcott, for her part, invented the authorial practice of Ship Sinking in Little Women. In a way, she also unintentionally prophesied the practice of shipping in Jo's observations of Laurie and Beth. Once Jo jumps to the conclusion Beth is in love with Laurie (which Jo desperately would like to be reciprocated), she observes them for "proof" and ~~imagines~~ sees romantic undertones in every minute detail of interaction between the two. Sound familiar?
Also, this troper once read that Louisa May Alcott was pressured to hook up Laurie and Jo by both fans and her editor. Alcott instead created the character Professor Bhaer as Jo's love interest and hooked Laurie up with Amy, just to piss off the fans.

Anime

Then again, the Digimon fandom was just as obsessive (as that of Harry Potter) first.
Since the only official couples in the main cast of Sailor Moon are Usagi and Mamoru and Haruka and Michiru, there's a lot of potential pairings floating around the fandom, many of them yuri for obvious reasons. Some of the more popular ones include:
- Pairing off the first four Senshi with the Four Kings, based off an abandoned concept by Takeuchi that only produced an artbook image of them romantically involved that never fleshed out (and would be downright impossible in the anime).
  - Some of the pairings (specifically, Minako / Kunzite and Rei / Jadeite) are still hinted at in the manga, though.
- Minako or Makoto with arcade attendant Motoki (Makoto actually chased him a few times...no idea why they like Minako and Motoki since they almost never intereact in the entire series).
  - They did in the Sailor V manga -- Minako liked Motoki, just like Usagi did later. As for Makoto / Motoki, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon actually had them as a couple, with Motoki proposing to Mako at the end of Special Act. Nevermind that the live-action version of Motoki is a little... different.
- Rei or Minako with Yaten (depends on whether they like two short-tempered characters together or one crazy person together with a short-tempered character).
- Ami with Taiki or the early character Urawa.
- Makoto with one-episode character Shinozaki. The anime left it incredibly open.
- Rei and Minako based on several bits of dialog from a single manga chapter that sound very suggestive out of context.
  - Their interaction in Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon is seen by some people as an attempt to make up for the absence of Haruka and Michiru.
- Chibi Usa and Hotaru, because they're best friends. Which of course means they'll grow up to be yuri girls.
  - And those are the common ones. There's some really out there ones the deeper into the fandom you get.
People seem to have trouble accepting Ichigo's love for Aoyama Masaya in Tokyo Mew Mew. Shipping her with Ryou has become a common pastime for many, even when the anime put him with Retasu. Creepily enough, the second most popular Ichigo pairing is her and Kisshu, her Stalker With A Crush; most to all these fics are completely out of character and actually have her happy to be with him. (Of course, then there's Minto x Masaya, Zakuro x Pai, Minto x Pai, Retasu x Bu-ling... this editor has seen Retasu x Neko-Ichigo doujinshi.)
The name was popularized (though not originated) by Pokemon fandom, specifically with " Rocketshipping", which is, naturally, shipping between Jessie and James of Team Rocket. The Pokemon fandom now has "___shipping" names for just about every imaginable pairing.
In Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! fandom, shipping of SPRX 77 and Nova was popular, and there is reason to believe this is why they became an Official Couple.
In Samurai 7, the show hints at a relationship between Katsu and Kirara, until a very unexpected plot twist occurs at the end.
Unwanted Harem shows in Anime are laden with this. The classic example, of course, is Ranma 1/2. The fan community latched on to the show just as internet discussion was becoming common, and the flamewars became downright vicious. Some writers were driven out of Fan Fic writing entirely; others became so thoroughly obsessed with their views that they perpetuated some of the worst bits of fanon about the series. (Gregg Sharp, for example, is utterly unable to write a story which does not feature Akane as a psychotic, sadistic murderess. Same goes to Mike Rhea and his fics featuring "Saint Ukyou" as Ranma's Love Martyr as well as Akane, Konatsu and Tsubasa bashing)
- The other classic? Tenchi Muyo. The levels of Aeka bashing from the Tenchi x Ryoka rabid shippers have reached legendary dimensions. And actually, it's one of the biggest reasons why this troper loathes the Tenchi x Ryoko pairing with a passion.
Virtually any two characters in Naruto.
The main ships in the Fullmetal Alchemist are Ed x Winry, and Roy x Riza (called Royai). The lesser ships are Ed x Rose, Ed x Al (called Elricest), Ling x Ran Fan, and Al x Mei.

Comics

I can't believe no one has mentioned Batman/Robin.
- Note Batman/Catwoman is also popular and is somewhat canonical.
X-Men: all possible pairings.
Fantastic Four: Doom/Susan Storm

Web Comics

Oddly, on Misfile, there is only one serious ship going on. However, due to the main character Ash being a male turned into a girl, the ship is divided into two halves, one half wanting him to eventually return to being male and the other wanting him to decide to permanently stay female. Due to Emily, the other main character involved in the ship, being a girl, this causes the subtext encouraging both sides of the ship to be very odd at times.
- As a side note, the conflict between shippers and non-shippers is surprisingly strong. Some shippers have been rather violently opposed to Ash's growing relationship with Missi, with non-shippers defending it on story grounds, almost to the point of spawning an Ash/Missi ship. Ash/Em shippers have developed the unofficial slogan of "Missi should die in a fire" in response.

Video Games

Half Life 2: Alyx/Gordon. Unlikely to be requited in the games, due to Gordon never speaking, but the ship has near universal support in fanfic. It also has canon support from Eli Vance, Alyx's father. The only opposition comes from the small group of fans who dislike Alyx and want to see her die.
Phoenix Wright thrives on this. Especially people who like their Ho Yay.

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