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Follow TV Tropes

This is based on opinion. Please don't list it on a work's trope example list.

Following

Ships That Pass in the Night

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sasuhina.jpg
Perfect strangers, indeed.

"Can't help it, I just think that they would make such a good pair.
In canon they have never met —
I don't care!
I ship it, I don't care!"
— "I Ship It," Not Literally Productions

So you like to ship Bob and Alice. The only problem you have is the fact that Bob and Alice have exchanged little more than a few lines with one another, there seems to be little to no interaction between the two.

This is when Ships Pass in the Night. Most of these types of ships are Crack Pairings, but as usual Tropes Are Tools — sometimes fans can dig deep and find decent proof for their beloved ship, or at least persuade the readers that the couple would give each other the time of day. Even without this, a pairing can work if written well enough, but if no transition period is shown, the couple is suddenly Strangled by the Red String. One difference between this and a Crack Pairing is that these types of pairings tend to be treated somewhat seriously, and shippers of them often argue for their potential chemistry... then again, not always.

Compare Launcher of a Thousand Ships and Gotta Ship 'Em All, which can be a cause of many of these kinds of pairings. Frequently overlaps with Ship Mates, as taking one member out of their Official Couple can result in them having few obvious choices. If taken to extremes and expanded across totally unrelated franchises, this trope can result in a non-canon Crossover Ship.

Trope Namer is a remark made by Donald Hogan in Stand on Zanzibar.

Example Subpages:

Other Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Comic Books 

    Comic Strips 

    Fan Works 
  • Shizune and Emi gain Official Couple status in From Shizune's Perspective. In the original Katawa Shoujo they only speak in one scene, one that happens if you do not go out to lunch with Lilly and Hanako.
  • Harry Potter and the Mother Who Lived ends up indulging in this several times. Foremost of these is Harry Potter/Susan Bones, who barely interacted in the main canon, but end up dating starting after The Yule Ball. There's also a brief relationship between Ron Weasley & Hannah Abbot, who likewise didn't have much to do with each other in the original story.
  • Another example of the Pokémon: The Series anime, characters of the day A.J. and Jeanette Fisher only appeared each in a different episode, and there's no evidence that they could have met one another. In Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, the two become traveling companions and become attracted to each other in the Expanded Universe sidestories.
  • In DCU fanfiction Hellsister Trilogy, Supergirl and Dev-Em, who never met in Pre-Crisis continuity, become a couple.
  • In there will be music despite everything, Anakin Skywalker flirts with Cassian Andor, a character whom he canonically never met, and who is ostensibly younger than Anakin.
  • Son of the Sannin has several of these, although the author makes an effort to properly develop them or at least foreshadow them in some way. There's Shizune and Shisui Uchiha, Tenten and Haku, Neji Hyuga and Karin, Shino Aburame and Fu (the Nanabi Jinchuriki), Mei Terumi and Zabuza Momochi, Itachi Uchiha and Natsu Hyuga, to name a few.
  • Peanuts Untold has Charlie Brown/Lila. Their only connection to each other is Snoopy (Lila owned him before when he was a puppy) and they were never shown speaking or even meeting directly.
  • Peanuts fanwork Dog Sees God sees an older Sally transferring her affections from Linus to Schroeder ("Beethoven", as he's now known), though the play ends up backing another crack pairing: Schroeder/Charlie Brown.
  • The Mass Effect fic The Translation in Blood pairs up Commander Shepard's mother, Rear Admiral Hannah Shepard, with turian Councilor Sparatus. In the actual trilogy, Hannah Shepard only appears in a couple conversations and then only if Shepard has the Spacer background, while Sparatus can die at the end of Mass Effect and either way is never even known to be on the same planet as Admiral Shepard. The story fixes this by having them meet years before the Shepard trilogy during the turian occupation of Shanxi.

    Films — Animation 
  • Disney Animated Canon:
    • Maleficent/Aurora from Sleeping Beauty is pretty popular, but just from looking at the 1959 movie, you'd likely be puzzled as to why. They never really meet, since Aurora is unconscious or possessed every time she might see Maleficent, and Maleficent never talks to her unless you count a curse as talking. There's also the fact that Maleficent feels nothing but petty hatred for Aurora, but that's a different issue. The 2014 re-imagining Maleficent does a better job of justifying the pairing (since it's all about Maleficent and Aurora interacting) and gave a boost to its popularity, but the fandom was already sizeable before it came out.
    • The Scar/Sarafina (Nala's mom) pairing in The Lion King fandom. The latter is such a minor character that her name isn't even revealed until the credits roll, they are at most in two scenes together (although you have to really search to find her), and never once do they interact, yet after Zira, Sarafina's the most popular character to pair up with Scar. The main reason this pairing exists is to answer who Nala's father is, though some people ship it without Scar being Nala's dad. Though the reasoning doesn't really eliminate the idea that Scar tried to convince Nala to be his queen in deleted scenes, as well as the Broadway production.
    • From The Lion King is Kopa/Vitani. It's one of the most popular ships in the fandom and they're not even in the same continuity together. The ship comes from the concept that Kopa, Simba's cub from a series of books that was replaced when Kiara was introduced in The Lion King II: Simba's Pride, was friends with Vitani (though this would probably make Vitani older than she should be if Kopa disappeared before Kiara's birth). It's a popular Toy Ship, and fanworks that don't have Kopa be killed as a cub often have them reunite as adults. It's also the most popular Ship Mate to Kovu/Kiara.
    • A lot of The Princess and the Frog fans seem to ship Charlotte LaBouff and Dr. Facilier, even if they never interacted and Facilier tries to kill Lottie's beloved father.
    • Though it's dwarfed by the popularity of some of the larger ships, there's definitely a following for the Kristelsa (Kristoff/Elsa) ship for Frozen, largely based on Kristoff’s love for ice (he outright says “ice is my life!”) and Elsa being An Ice Person, despite the characters appearing in only three scenes together and not being seen talking to each other. However, Elsa is shown to know who he is towards the film's end when it's revealed she's named him Ice Master and Deliverer of Arendelle, though whether they had offscreen interaction or if Anna told her about him is unknown.
    • Elsa and Honeymaren in Frozen II have a scant few conversations, largely based on exposition rather than anything about each other, but quickly became a popular pairing for fans wanting Elsa to have a female love interest.
    • Among the Rescuers fandom, Penny/Cody is a very popular pairing, even though they are from different movies and never actually meet in canon.
  • The Incredibles has Violet/Syndrome, which was once rather common in the fandom's heyday. Even putting aside the questionable age difference (Syndrome was a kid or preteen around the time her parents got married fifteen years ago), the most interaction they have is that he fires a missile on a plane she was on and he traps her along with the rest of her family. He certainly never singles her out.
  • In Sing, the most popular pairing is by far Ash/Johnny. In the actual movie, Johnny and Ash don't exchange a single line of dialogue. The most that happens is, after the scene where the theater floods, Johnny helps Ash up from the ground. In the background.
  • In Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, a pretty popular pairing is Aunt May and Olivia Octavius. There is some evidence that they have at least some prior relationship: May is suggested to be a Gadgeteer Genius in the film continuity, she refers to Olivia as "Liv", which is said to be a nickname her friends use, and Doctor Octopus in the comics attempted to marry May at one point. Still, it's quite impressive for a pair who never share a conversation.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Camp Rock has the pairing of Nate and Caitlyn, which seems to serve the sole purpose of making Caitlyn straight and not alone. It still goes on even after Nate was given a love interest (and a bigger role) in the second film.
  • After The Dark Knight Rises came out, there seemed to be quite a following for Bane and John Blake, who never even met in the movie. Derived from a different movie both actors starred in, where they were also a popular couple.
  • The Hobbit has Fili and Bard's eldest daughter Sigrid, who almost never interact with one another but who are shipped by a large portion of the fandom. This is partly through the scene where the Orcs attack Bard's house in the second film where at one point early on it looks like Fili is protecting Sigrid after she's knocked aside by an Orc.
  • Inglourious Basterds:
    • Donny (the Bear Jew) and Utivich don't exchange any lines, but they are one of the fandom's most popular pairings. This can work out though, as the film shows a limited view of the Basterds, and it's possible that they all interacted at some point that we don't see in the movie.
    • Donny is also paired with Soshanna quite a lot, considering they have entirely different storylines, never meet at all during the film, and both die at the end.
  • The Legion section on FanFiction.Net has a rather large proportion of Gabriel/Audrey, despite the fact that they share precisely one scene, in which she tries to kill him and he does kill her.
  • The 2012 film of Les Miserables has given rise to the pairing of Enjolras and Eponine. Although they see each other all of three times, never saying a word to each other, a handful of strategically-timed back-to-back shots of them, a moment where they actually stand next to each other, a significant notice by Enjolras of her entrance into the cafe, and the shot of him shedding a tear as she dies seem to have given the fan enough material for it to become one of the biggest ships in the fandom.
  • The Lord of the Rings has Legolas and the Hobbits, with each pairing having some attention from fandom. Especially Frodo/Legolas, who have only interacted twice — once when Legolas declares his protection of the Hobbit and again when the entire Fellowship (sans the dead Boromir) reunites. Though it does help that Orlando Bloom has hung out with the Hobbit actors in Real Life. Additionally, the characters have much more interaction in the book, and the film and book fandoms have a lot of overlap.
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe: Various kink memes have produced fanfic and shipping of nearly every possible combination of the MCU's huge cast. The most popular ships between characters who don't interact much (or ever) in the MCU are generally ones that have a basis in the comics' canon.
    • Loki/Jane in Thor.
    • Darcy is frequently paired with either Loki or Hawkeye, despite never sharing a single scene with either character. Which is nothing compared to her being frequently shipped with Steve Rogers. In fact, Darcy is probably the epitome of this trope when it comes to the MCU thanks to a combination of her being a Launcher of a Thousand Ships and her only appearing in two movies and a TV show so far, meaning she's never interacted with most of the characters the fandom ships her with.
    • Clint Barton/Phil Coulson, even though the most they did was share a few lines in Thor. Many fics add a backstory of Phil being the one who recruited Clint for SHIELD and drew him away from whatever not-great things the writer had Clint doing pre-SHIELD.
    • Howard Stark and Peggy Carter from Captain America: The First Avenger are frequently shipped as having hooked up afterwards to sire Tony Stark. Though they do share the screen a few times, they are usually in group scenes and they share TWO lines of dialogue set about twenty minutes apart and in different countries. (They are friends, though — Peggy is the one who introduces Howard to Steve as 'the best civilian pilot she knows' and Steve thought they were fondue-ing for a good portion of the movie.)
    • The Winter Soldier/Natasha. Granted, they were a couple in the comics, but as of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, all their interactions amount to one of them trying to kill the other on multiple occasions.
    • Another pairing that's grown in popularity alongside Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes is Bucky Barnes/Tony Stark, even though the Winter Soldier killed Tony's parents and is the element that made the conflict between Steve and Tony in Captain America: Civil War so explosive. A large number of Fix Fics and other fanworks sprang up in response to both Civil War that wished Tony would look at the situation more rationally and see that Bucky was Brainwashed and Crazy at the time, and that Bucky holds absolutely gutwrenching guilt over everything he was forced to do, even though it wasn't his fault. Fans further develop their relationship on the grounds that both enjoy technology (extrapolated from Bucky's excitement for the Stark Expo back in 1943), and depending on whether the fic is also of the "Winter Soldier Recovery" genre of MCU fic or not, they'll bond further based on Tony wanting to help him recover from his captivity with HYDRA, and/or their similarly charming and snarky personalities.
    • Bucky Barnes is also sometimes paired with Clint Barton despite the two never interacting even once or acknowledging the other's existence, because the two are both snipers, and they've both survived brainwashing and have been dismissed as volatile and untrustworthy as a result. Additionally, when they team up in the comics, they have a fun, vitriol-loaded dynamic.
    • Ant-Man and Star-Lord are very frequently paired together in East Asian fandom, likely due to the similarities between their masks and the fact that both protagonists are played by actors more famous for comedies.
    • Peter Parker and Harley Keener are often paired together since both are Tony's proteges, despite the fact that they don't even appear in the same movie until Avengers: Endgame.
    • Tony Stark and Doctor Strange, thanks to both going through similar Character Development in their first films from insufferable Awesome Ego to a hero willing to sacrifice their life for a good cause. Plus, Robert Downey Jr. and Benedict Cumberbatch have both played Sherlock Holmes, half of one of the earliest popular gay ships. Ultimately, the trope was subverted in Avengers: Infinity War, where they spend a significant amount of the film's runtime working together.
    • Despite having no screentime together, Shuri/Peter Parker is very popular, thanks to both of them being Teen Geniuses with a shared love of pop culture and technology.
    • Wanda, Loki, and Dr. Strange are frequently shipped together due to their shared affinity for magic, even though they've otherwise never interacted with each other. The news that Wanda will play a major role in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness adds fuel to the ScarletStrange ship, even though the events of the actual film have them become enemies instead.
    • After the release of Captain Marvel (2019), some people started to ship Carol with Valkyrie, despite no indication of either woman being even aware of the other's existence until the final battle in Avengers: Endgame.
      • This one actually has the support of the actors themselves. Although Taika Waititi has urged caution — not because he's actually opposed to the idea, but he doesn't approve of letting fan enthusiasm dictate the plot.
      • The release of The Marvels (2023) has given it something of a boost, as Valkyrie turns out to be the "friend" Carol calls in to look after a group of Skrull refugees, and gives her an affectionate kiss on the cheek as they part ways.
  • A surprisingly large portion of the Pacific Rim fandom ship Chuck Hansen with Raleigh's younger sister, Yazmine Becket, despite Yazmine never appearing in the film itself.
  • Despite only sharing three scenes together, none of which carry a hint of romance, this fanfic of the 2002 film Signs teases Caroline/Graham, especially near the end.
  • Star Trek (2009):
    • In this reboot movie, Sulu and Chekov share all of five lines of dialogue. They are still one of the most popular ships in the fandom, and every once-in-a-blue moon will surpass even slash Trope Namer Kirk/Spock on the Kink Meme for sheer number of stories written. Doubtlessly, the ship is helped along by the characters' interactions in Trek Prime canon, but there is a cornucopia of fic set specifically and solely in the Reboot Universe.
    • Pairing Scotty with Gaila (Kirk's Orion girlfriend) is surprisingly popular. Not only do they share no scenes in the film, but Gaila is quite possibly dead by the time Scotty even arrives on the Enterprise.
    • T'Pura (T'Pring/Uhura) has its fans as well (for both the Prime and Kelvin Timeline versions) despite the fact that in the former they never truly interacted and in the latter T'Pring might actually be dead.
  • Star Wars:
    • After the release of The Force Awakens, some fans have taken to shipping Rey/Poe, even though they don't actually meet in the movie. They do eventually meet at the end of The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker portrays them as True Companions alongside Finn (while the unused script for Duel of the Fates actually gave Rey and Poe a romantic subplot), thus giving the ship a more justifiable grounds.
    • There is also a decent amount of following for Rey/General Hux, despite the two never sharing any scenes together. Some of this is likely fueled by an inverse case of Actor Shipping, as their actors, Daisy Ridley and Domhnall Gleeson, are often paired together in a number of WIRED and BuzzFeed interviews where they claim each other's characters as their favourites.
    • For girl/girl ships, there is Rey/Captain Phasma and Rey/Jessika Pava (a female X-Wing pilot with maybe one minute of screen time). Rey is never in a scene with either of them, but this probably stems from the fact that the only women she directly interacts with are Leia and Maz Kanata, who are both much older than her (and in Maz's case, a completely different species).

    Literature 
  • Fans of Alice, Girl from the Future usually stick to solid Childhood Friend Romance ships for Alice and canon-couple shipping for adults, but The City Without Memory provides characters who are, it seems, too charismatic to resist.
    • Boar is a One-Scene Wonder Gentle Giant, whose part in the plot is to buy Iria, Squirrel, and the pygmies at the slave market, be nice to them, and get killed on the same night. Iria Gai is Happily Married, has a daughter, and in this novel, she's out to rescue her husband. In fanfics, when Boar appears at all, he and Iria are shown in a passionate love affair (as a rule, with Iria having lost her memory, to avoid portraying her as a cheat).
    • Left Mole is a violent forest bandit who loves his brother, his mother, and his unicorn, and has moments of Pragmatic Villainy and Pet the Dog, which contributes to his and his brother's Heel–Face Turn in the epilogue. He is sometimes shipped with Alice. She's twelve and he's at the very least eighteen (more likely, in his twenties), the only woman he is seen to pursue romantically is Iria, and Alice's view of him doesn't even hint at a Precocious Crush, let alone anything stronger.
    • From another book, The Voyage of Alice, there is the Third Captain, who appears in person in the grand total of four chapters and hardly even says anything because he has been tortured for four years and just barely survives. Even his name isn't given, and he is a native of Fiks with three legs and six arms. He is also shipped with Alice, although she is nine at the time of the plot and he never appears or even gets a mention in any of the later books. She does save his life, however, during those four chapters.
  • Molly Carpenter/Carlos Ramirez is a fairly popular pairing in The Dresden Files fandom. The sum total of their interactions consist of Carlos offering Molly a hand grenade. Though granted Carlos expressed his appreciation of Molly's looks to Harry and goes on about what he'd like to do with her, but Carlos fancies himself a ladies' man and Molly is just that hot.
  • A large amount of The Fault in Our Stars fics pair off Gus and Hazel's respective best friends Isaac and Kaitlyn, who never even meet in the book.
  • Harry Potter's characters are prone to this:
    • The most popular example might be Draco/Ginny, which was insanely popular for a while and still has a decent-sized following, even though they only spoke twice in seven books, way back in Book 2, when Ginny told him "Leave him alone, he didn't want all that!" and later when Draco made fun of her Valentine to Harry. Though apparently the actors dated in real life. Draco/Ginny is also used as a Beta Couple in Harry/Hermione stories, if the writer isn't feeling vindictive. As is Blaise/Ginny, which has even less canon to stand on as Blaise called Ginny a "filthy blood traitor".
    • Scorpius/Rose (son of Draco and daughter of Ron and Hermione) is surprisingly popular for two characters that only appear in the Distant Epilogue. Then again, they got a bit of Ship Tease (Ron specifically tells Rose NOT to date him), and fans see it as a replacement for their non-canon Draco ships. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child would later make it clear that Scorpius likes her, but it's a Contested Sequel and the way that she acts made many fans jump ship for Scorpius/Albus.
    • Sirius Black and Lucius Malfoy didn't exchange a single word in the novels. The sum total of their conversations in the films was "Get away from my godson!" "Black!" There's a pretty solid body of slash devoted to them.
    • After the fourth book introduced Narcissa Malfoy, there was a rash of fics pairing her with Sirius Black for some reason. Then the fifth book revealed that they were cousins.
    • The amount of James Potter/Narcissa "Black" fanfictions (usually set in the past Hogwarts) is surprisingly high considering they were in different years at Hogwarts and never directly interacted with each othernote . Their shipping is usually based on Potter and Black arranged betrothal where Narcissa undergoes Defrosting Ice Queen and When She Smiles. May or may not involve Lily, Sirius, and Bellatrix too.
    • There's an incredibly large number of slash fic pairing Percy Weasley and Oliver Wood despite the two having no interaction in canon. They are both Gryffindor boys in the same year so it's probable they do know each other, but what kind of relationship they have (if any) is not part of any book. Though thanks to their opposing archetypes, fans like to think they either have an opposites attract or an enemies-to-lovers dynamic.
    • The controversial fanfic In This World and the Next has a few examples. Oliver Wood winds up dating Penelope Clearwater after Percy turns evil He is kind of a dick to his family until near the end of the series, though the two are in different houses and are unlikely to have known each other outside of being in the same year. But that pairing is downright normal compared to some of the other ones that Harry and Hermione create. In their zeal to ensure that Remus and Tonks wind up together so that Teddy can be born, Sirius Black ends up having some romantic moments with Charity Burbage. Even more ridiculous is that Neville somehow falls for Millicent Bulstrode, and the feeling is mutual. If Peggy Sue were not in full effect, the two would most likely have hated each other's guts, assuming that they had any interactions at all.
    • Sirius/Marlene McKinnon. If that name isn't familiar, she's a Posthumous Character who died in the first war, mentioned a few times in the series but with no real characterization. Making her an O.C. Stand-in to ship with Sirius is ridiculously common, to the point where she's probably his most popular love interest after Remus.
  • The Hunger Games:
    • Within the fandom (particularly with Katniss/Peeta shippers), it's popular to pair Gale with either Madge or Johanna. Although Johanna does (probably in jest) flirt with Gale, it's the only time they're seen together, and he and Madge are also only seen together once by the reader, where he's not half as friendly to her as she is to him. Gale/Madge stems from Katniss jealously wondering if there is more between them than she knows after Madge runs through a snowstorm to bring Gale medicine and Haymitch channels the conclusions their shippers drew from the incident. Gale/Johanna seems to be mostly about similarities in their personalities.
    • Cato/Clove. They're often seen together, but only as "the District 2 tributes" or as part of the Careers. Admittedly they're from the same district, but the only hint that they're anything more than pragmatic teammates is Cato's uncharacteristically emotional reaction to Clove's death.
    • Peeta/Cato or Peetato. Though not overly popular, and only sharing a handful of scenes, they still have a pretty decent following. This may be equal parts due to chemistry between their actors in the film, Cato nicknaming him 'Lover Boy' and the somewhat rocky nature of their alliance. Cue the rough sex.
    • Haymitch/Cinna also has a small following, despite the fact that they hardly ever even speak to each other. There's a lot of angst involved.
  • The Moomins: Shipping Mymble's daughter with Too-Ticky is very popular, despite them canonically only interacting in one painting. In fact, they have never even appeared in the same book together.
  • In New Jedi Order fandom, Jacen/Nen Yim did a brief stint as a mildly popular pairing. The two characters never interact, never indicate that they're aware of each other's existence, are different species, and are on opposite sides of the war. Apparently, their both being introspective characters with a tendency to question their societies' values was enough common ground to get the ship going.
  • In the Penny Parker series, Louise has been paired with Salt, even though they barely know each other.
  • In The Phantom of the Opera fanfiction, Erik/Meg is one of the more popular pairings. In the book he arranges her advancement in the ballet chorus (mostly to ensure the loyalty of her mother), and she finds his mask at the end of the musical, but they never meet and seem to be peripherally aware of each other at best. (Meg does have a thing for him in the musical sequel Love Never Dies, but the less said of this, the better.)
  • A Song of Ice and Fire:
    • Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen is probably one of the most popular ships in the series, despite living on different continents and that the former has taken a vow of celibacy. It helps that they're probably the closest that the series has to protagonists, and may well be the "Ice" and "Fire" referred to in the title.
    • The Robb Stark/Daenerys ship, since Robb can replace Jon in most fields, though without the obvious baggage that the R+L=J theory brings.
    • Robb/Myrcella also get paired up — often as a Beta Couple in stories focused on his siblings — despite having little interaction and that their families are archenemies.
    • Arya Stark and Edric Dayne have met once, in a scene that exists mainly to complicate Jon's origin story, but there is a sizable body of fanfiction devoted to their relationship. (Although the pairing is most commonly used with Edric as a Romantic False Lead in Arya/Gendry stories). Edric is sometimes shipped with her older sister Sansa as well, and they've never met.
    • Aegon Targaryen is shipped variously with Dany, Sansa Stark, Arianne Martell, or even Arya Stark or Margaery Tyrell, despite having met none of them.
    • Sansa Stark/Harrold Hardyng is probably the leading Sansa pairing after Sansa/Sandor Clegane, despite how not only has Sansa not met Harry, neither have the readers. They are betrothed, however (under Sansa's assumed name "Alayne Stone"), and a marriage with Harry would give Sansa control of the Vale of Arryn and a very good chance of reclaiming the North.
      • Eventually they meet. Despite being handsome, Harry is quite the Jerk Jock and he's at first less than thrilled about being betrothed to bastard-born "Alayne". After a rocky start, Sansa manages to manipulate him into fancying her.
    • Sansa Stark/Jaime Lannister seems to be pretty popular even though the two have barely ever even seen each other, let alone had any interaction, and Jaime's most romantic interactions seem to have been with Cersei and Brienne.
    • Sansa/Willas Tyrell is another case, with the pair having been raised at opposite ends of Westeros and Willas not even appearing in person yet. However, the Tyrells did try to betroth them at one point and Willas is implied to be the kind of man Ned would have found for Sansa, before everything not turned to hell. note 
    • An increasingly popular ship is Elia Martell/Arthur Dayne, despite having being both dead before the beginning of the saga and never noted to be particularly close, aside from being respectively Rhaegar's wife and best friend and both Dornish. The detractors of this ship see it as an easy excuse for Rhaegar cheating on Elia and running off with Lyanna.
    • Sansa is also often ship with Stannis Baratheon. He's twenty years older than her and the closest the two have ever come to meeting is him besieging a city she was in. The shippers think she would appreciate his unbending righteousness and him her gentle and pleasant nature.
    • Sansa has a following that pairs her with Jon. It's not quite as outlandish as some of the other Sansa pairings listed above; they're both Stark children who lived in the same household for years (and its shippers tend to subscribe to the R+L=J theory, which would make him her cousin instead of her half-brother), and their character arcs are easy to see as narrative Foils (he's a bastard who goes to the north and becomes a lord; she is a trueborn lord's daughter who goes to the south and becomes known as a bastard). Their on-page interactions are virtually nonexistent, though, and the most mentioned is that Jon recalls Sansa once told him how to speak to a girl and Sansa wishes at one point to see him again.
  • Tales of the Magic Land: while the Internet fandom isn't too large, Urfin Jus/Stella is pretty close to Fan-Preferred Couple. The two never meet in canon, and Stella only appears in person in the first book out of six (at the point where the author hadn't even thought of Urfin). It might be the simple fact that he's the Ensemble Dark Horse whom all want to find love and she's the only named female character who's human, not underage, and still young and very beautiful (at least looks like it).
  • Tolkien's Legendarium:
    • In The Lord of the Rings's shipping fandom, one of the more popular pairings is Glorfindel/Erestor. Most fans outside of the shipping fandom don't even know who Erestor is, as he appears in two scenes in the entire novel and has dialogue in only one of them, most of which is simply utilitarian musing on what to do with the Ring. While it's pretty likely that him and Glorfindel know each other, the only line Glorfindel ever has with Erestor is one line where he shoots down Erestor's suggestion.
    • The Silmarillion: Maglor and Daeron. Nowhere is it ever said they met or interacted, though it's entirely possible they did since both attended the Feast of Reuniting. Unlike many Ships That Pass in the Night there's some justification for this pairing since they're both great Elven minstrels (Daeron is canonically the greatest, but don't let Maglor fans hear you say that) and they share an identical fate: Walking the Earth singing laments.

  • Warrior Cats:
    • Scourge/Ashfur is one of the more popular slash pairings, but they have nothing to do with each other. The only time they might meet is in The Darkest Hour, when Ashfur (then Ashpaw) is waiting, with the rest of the forest cats, for Firestar's order to attack Scourge's group. They certainly never single each other out.
    • Runningwind is a minor character whose most standout feature is his name. Many fans still like the idea that he and Redtail (who is written as trans) are Sandstorm's parents.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: In-universe. Once Quake becomes one of the public faces of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Koenig mentions that there's a lot of fanfic pairing her with Black Widow. The two have never met, and in fact Quake didn't officially join the organization until after Black Widow left.
  • American Horror Story: Murder House: There are a surprising number of fanfics for Billie Dean Howard and Nora Montgomery around the internet, even though the two never meet and are only in the same place in a total of one episode. This is actually because the following seasons would have their actresses play very popular ships and so they are included as sort of Ship Mates. Apocalypse didn't help by having Billie Dean reference knowing Nora.
  • Buffyverse:
    • The Dawn/Andrew ship, even though they've hardly ever talked and Andrew is in love with Spike. Andrew has expressed a certain fondness for Dawn, and she's practically fawning over him after he refuses to help the First.
    • There are a fair number of Angel crossovers (probably the majority of them set in season 7/4 in fact) that pair Dawn with Connor, most likely due to their closeness in ages and the fact that technically neither of them should exist (he's the biologically impossible human son of two vampires, she's a ball of ancient mystical energy in human form). After season 7/4, they also share a history of having false memories crafted by monks. The two have yet to meet, even in the comics.
    • A number of fanfics pair Faith and Doyle. To point out the absurdity: Doyle is now dead. During his entire stint with Angel Investigations, Faith was in a coma.
    • Spike/Tara, who traded words maybe once, and Spike/Willow, who had maybe three onscreen conversations over the course of the show (though to be fair, one of those conversations was full of Does This Remind You of Anything?).
    • Connor/Drusilla showed up occasionally post-Season 7/4, despite never meeting onscreen and practically being incest note 
  • Control Z: Despite it's close to be a Vocal Minority and their lack of interactions, some fans ship Javier/Natalia mostly because Javier comforts her in the pilot.
  • CSI-verse: Because Nick from CSI is from Texas and Adam from CSI: NY is from Arizona, some fans shipped the two of them, theorizing that they could've met in college. Others paired Adam with Greg from CSI as well, despite the only scene Adam ever having with the Vegas team being a single phone call during a cross-over late in NY's 9th/final season, and Greg wasn't even working that case.
  • Doctor Who's massive universe provides tons of fodder for this. Start with any pairing of a Doctor and a companion that never traveled together (seeing as how the Doctor's had fourteen incarnations) or two companions who never travelled together. Then there's every other side character ever.
  • Downton Abbey's fanbase has a sizeable amount of support for the pairing of Edith with Mary's former suitor Evelyn Napier. They shared only brief scenes, he wasn't very pleasant to her during them, and after his debut in the first series he didn't reappear until the fourth (where he is once again pursuing Mary, Edith is in love with someone else, and the two don't interact.)
  • Despite the fact that they've never met and are both dead by the end of Season 6, there's a large group in the Game of Thrones fandom who ship Rickon Stark and Shireen Baratheon.
  • Glee:
    • Early on, the fandom seemed to ship Jesse with Quinn a lot, despite having only spoken once (to be fair, at the time, he was calling her "the ghost of Grace Kelly," and it would have followed the Pair the Spares trope since they are the spares to Finn and Rachel's pairing).
    • Sebastian gets this, despite not being on the show much. He's often paired with Karofsky, whom he interacted on screen with for five seconds. Sometimes he's paired with Adam, even though they live in different cities and were on the show during different seasons.
    • There is a long-running fanfic that features Puck and Marley as one of the main couples, even though they never interacted on the show.
  • Good Omens (2019):
    • Gabriel/Beelzebub has become the most popular non-Aziraphale/Crowley pairing in the fandom despite the two of them sharing only one scene in the show. Though granted, their conversation in that scene implied that the two of them were on more cordial terms than you'd expect of an archangel and the Prince of Hell and it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that they've also interacted at other times in the past about the Apocalypse.
    • Adam/Warlock has gotten a fair number of fics in spite of the two of them never interacting in canon (and Warlock not appearing again after the first episode). This can be attributed to several fans thinking that a possible meeting between the Switched at Birth Antichrist who was raised as an ordinary human boy and the ordinary human boy who was raised as the Antichrist has too much potential not to explore and it not being entirely unreasonable that the two of them might cross paths one day due to Aziraphale and Crowley both being familiar with them.
  • The Grimm fandom features a sizeable fan base for Barry Raeb/Roddy Piper. The two have never met and would most likely be natural enemies (one is a bear, the other is a rat), but they are both Cute but Troubled.
  • Heroes:
    • Sylar and Heidi make for an interesting ship. They've never been seen to meet in the series, but the ship bears a dubiously canon odor due to two timelines in which Sylar murdered and impersonated Heidi's husband.
    • A lot of fans slash Mohinder Suresh and Adam Monroe, despite having never met. Reasons include Mohinder's status as evil magnet, or the "British connection" stemming from the fanon idea that Mohinder went to boarding school in England... but mainly, the actors are just so freaking pretty.
    • Claude/Sandra is another popular one. We've never seen them onscreen together, but Claude was HRG's partner at the Company and apparently his close friend, and Sandra is/was HRG's wife, so they most likely knew each other.
    • Micah/Molly combines this with Toy Ship. They only met briefly during the Season 1 finale and would not interact again until a later webcomic when Micah is mistaken as a suitor for Molly.
  • Many House fans pair Cameron and Thirteen together, even though the two can't have shared more than six or seven scenes in the entire series, and all of those scenes included several other characters.
  • iCarly: iChristmas showed that Spencer/Mrs. Benson would have worked if Spencer was a little more normal.
  • Law & Order: Special Victims Unit:
    • Quite a few fans like to pair up John Munch and Casey Novak. Again, they haven't said much to each other, but one reporter does refer to them as "Mulder and Scully". Now, we all know what happened there.
    • George Huang and Rafael Barba were a popular ship before ever crossing paths on the show, helped by their shared Ensemble Dark Horse status as well as the fact that Huang is openly gay while Barba has some hints of being Ambiguously Bi.
  • The Mandalorian has some viewers who ship Mando with Luke Skywalker. Never mind that they don't meet until the end of Season 2, in a scene that doesn't guarantee that they'll ever see each other again. Other fans ship the Armorer with Paz Vizsla; the two are the only surviving members of the original covert besides the protagonist, so they have at least traded lines once or twice, but none of it was remotely romantic. As of the end of season 3, it's become popular to pair the Armorer with Axe Woves; their interaction has consisted of standing in the same general area and not actively trying to kill each other.
  • From Merlin: Morgana and Sir Leon. Leon was introduced in the second season and had no scenes whatsoever with Morgana in the second or third series, yet it still gained quite a number of followers. This changed in the finale of season three in which Leon is forced to kneel in front of Morgana after she's seized the throne of Camelot. The number of shippers increased exponentially.
  • Mystery Science Theater 3000 fandom has Joel/Mike, or "Joike". In canon, they've had under five minutes of screen time together.
  • In NCIS there is a ship called Kiva — Kate/Ziva. They lived in completely different countries and never met. And Kate dies before Ziva arrives on the show.
  • The Office (US): Andy/Kelly ("Kandy") has retroactively become popular ever since a Youtube video explaining the reasons why they should have been a pair went viral. It also frees Kelly from what many felt was an unhealthy relationship with Ryan and allows for Andy to not end up alone after his longtime love interest Erin finished the series with Pete.
  • Once Upon a Time:
    • The "Red Queen" ship between Ruby and Regina is surprisingly popular in fanfiction. This is despite the fact that Ruby and Regina have only really interacted a couple of times in the show and never without the other characters present. It certainly helps that Ruby is canonically bisexual and that both are also often shipped with Emma (which leads to the popular One True Threesome pairing of Emma/Ruby/Regina).
    • Red Riding Hood and Archie. In the show's nearly two seasons, they have spoken directly to each other in only one scene, where Archie is ordering something from Red in the diner where she works. Regardless, the pairing has quite a following.
    • The Mad Hatter and Captain Hook, who have never interacted and were only briefly on the same plane of existence.
    • Elsa has been shipped with Killian's big brother, Liam. Even though they have interacted with the same characters, they have never had a face-to-face encounter.
    • An unusual example with Detective Weaver and Lacey, who are alter egos of Official Couple Rumplestiltskin and Belle. However, these particular two personas aren't even in existence at the same time: Lacey only has a brief appearance in the second season, and Detective Weaver appears under a different curse in a different place in the seventh season (at which point Belle has already died). Nevertheless, the "Woven Lace" pairing is pretty popular.
  • Power Rangers:
    • Jason/Kimberly is shockingly popular despite the two barely interacting before Tommy was introduced and Kimberly started making googly eyes at him.
    • Jason/Kat is fairly popular for Die for Our Ship reasons, despite their only real interaction being an episode where they both are worried about Kat's soon-to-be boyfriend and Jason's Heterosexual Life Partner.
    • Tommy and Taylor only appeared in a single episode of Power Rangers Wild Force together, and despite not sharing any scenes, got really popular after the fandom discovered that the actors appeared together in MTV's Undressed series.
    • Tori/Kira got pretty popular by Power Rangers Operation Overdrive, despite only appearing together in two two-part episodes. And half of those episodes they played antagonists. Pairing either of them up with their Retro Ranger teammates is not uncommon either.
    • Lauren/Mia from Power Rangers Samurai is surprisingly popular, despite the fact that the two barely interact, mainly due to Mia being one of the few members on the team to be kind to Lauren from the start, Lauren being the only one to like Mia's cooking, and it falling into the long-standing tradition of shipping Red and Pink Rangers.
  • Sherlock:
    • Mycroft/Lestrade, as illustrated by this video. It wasn't clear that either of them even knew the other existed until mid-series 2 when Sherlock accused Lestrade of being sent to Baskerville by Mycroft (which Lestrade denied).
    • The ship Moriarty/Moran takes this trope to an extreme — Moriarty was dead before Moran was introduced into the series. Also, the shippers often completely ignore Lord Moran's Sherlock characterisation and turn him into a modern version of Colonel Moran from the Conan Doyle stories.
  • Skins has Cook/Katie, Effy/Emily, James/Paddy, Tony/Cassie, etc. There are even some across the generations, like Tony/Katie and Naomi/Michelle.
  • Smallville: True to her Launcher of a Thousand Ships status, Chloe gets shipped with Zod. And that LiveJournal is featured on the official Smallville account. They never met each other.
  • For Stargate Atlantis, there's a decent number of fics pairing together Evan Lorne and Laura Cadman, despite the latter only appearing twice (and spending hardly any time in her own body in the first instance) and being canonically involved with Dr. Beckett. And they never actually meet on-screen (although with the size of the Atlantis expedition, it's more likely than not that they are at least aware of each other)
  • Star Trek
    • Star Trek: Voyager fandom once had a large sect interested in pairing up minor crew members Joseph Carey and Samantha Wildman, though he only appeared in the first season (and then in a time-traveling fifth season episode) and she wasn't introduced until the second. Though in a crew of about one hundred and fifty people spending several years on the wrong side of the galaxy, it's not unreasonable to assume that everyone has at least met each other. It was a great disappointment to them when Carey was killed in the last season.
      • Captain Janeway/Dr. Crusher slash fics are surprisingly common despite the characters having never met in canon. Even when Janeway appeared in the TNG movie Nemesis.
      • A small fanbase existed for a time for a pairing of Tom Paris and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's Julian Bashir, despite the two never meeting on screen. They could plausibly have met during Voyager's layover at Deep Space Nine in 'Caretaker'.
    • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has a small but devoted fanbase for Jake Sisko/Tora Ziyal, who never interact on-screen, due to fans liking the idea of young lovers fighting to be together despite outside pressure, and the fact that the guy Ziyal canonically hooks up with is one half of an extremely popular slash pairing (as well as being widely considered to be too old and too sleazy to date such a young woman).
    • Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has this as an in-universe plot point. M'Benga's daughter Rukiya ships two characters from her favorite book who never interact in the story. So when M'Benga finds himself stuck living out the story and these characters meet and imply a romantic relationship he realizes the story's being drawn from her mind rather than his.
  • Strangers From Hell: Seok-yoon/Gi-hyeok. Not only do they never meet, Gi-hyeok is dead by the time Seok-yoon arrives in Eden.
  • There is an anthology of Suite Life On Deck stories called The Strange Love Collection which exists pretty on this trope. Examples include Alex Russo and London's Stalker with a Crush Corrie, Addison and the Russian chess champ Sasha, and Bailey and Jessica (which actually preceded their Les Yay in a later episode).
  • Stranger Things:
    • Will Byers was frequently paired with minor character Jennifer Hayes early in the fandom, mainly after it was stated that she cried at his funeral, with the two often being depicted as having a romance as strong as Mike/Eleven and Lucas/Max. The ships popularity somewhat sunk with the revelation that Will is gay and has feelings for Mike.
  • Supernatural:
    • For a while, Sam/Gabriel was the most popular pairing in the fandom that didn't involve Dean in spite of the hostile nature of their few canon interactions before Gabriel died in season 5, largely because it was a good mirror for the popular Dean/Castiel ship and it avoided the problems that Sam's other popular slash ships had of either being incest, breaking up Dean/Castiel, or pairing him up with the literal Devil. The two of them did get more substantial interactions in season 13, but that occurred long past the peak of the ship's popularity (though there are still Sam/Gabriel shippers around who appreciated the unexpected ship fuel from that season).
    • Charlie/Jo gets more fanworks than Charlie with any of her canon girlfriends even though Jo died well before Charlie first appeared on the show and showed no indication of being into women.
  • Super Sentai has a few of these, since many fans like to Pair the Spares for the whole team. Notable examples are Takeru/Momoko in Hikari Sentai Maskman and Hiroto/Saki in Engine Sentai Go-onger, even though both "couples" hardly talk to each other and don't get a focus episode together.
  • In the Tin Man fandom, the most popular Beta Couple to Cain/DG seems to be Glitch and Azkadellia, who meet (as adults) exactly twice in the series—oh, and that bit about her cutting out half his brain and putting it in a jar.
  • The Vampire Diaries:
    • Ellijah and Pearl, and Klaus and Caroline started as this before they started interacting in the show. Anna and Kol could be possible considering their ages, but Anna was dead before Kol appeared in the present.
    • Even weirder is Kol and April, who never interacted while Kol was alive. The closest thing they have to interaction was Kol almost indirectly killed her because she was linked to someone else.
  • Wednesday:
    • Yoko and Bianca never directly interact on the show but it is fairly popular in the fandom to pair them together. This mainly started due to the two being pretty good Ship Mates with the Fan-Preferred Couple Wednesday/Enid.
    • Xavier and Ajax barely have a few scenes together and they never interact directly on the show due to more focus being given to their relationships with their love interests. However, the couple became popular thanks to the fact that fans prefer to get Wednesday and Enid together but do not want to leave the boys alone, making them Ship Mates.
  • In The X-Files, one popular fanfic pairing is Skinner with Scully's mother. This is a relatively plausible pairing for this trope since they've actually met. They're also both unmarried (he's divorced and his ex-wife now deceased, she's a widow), close enough in apparent age, and tend to function as parental figures to Mulder and Scully anyway.

    Mythology and Folklore 
  • Arthurian Legend: Galahad/Mordred has become popular, either as a romance or friendship, in the fanbase, if not in much published media. The two never interact in the older sources, but they make good Foils for each other: each the son of one of the most important characters, each conceived through some sort of sinful union, but otherwise opposite in personality.

    Podcasts 
  • Welcome to Night Vale:
    • Two fairly common ships that involve Intern later Mayor Dana are Dana/Intern Maureen and Dana/Intern Vithya. There is very little connections between them aside from being interns at Night Vale Community Radio, they haven't interacted on 'screen' itself, and Vithya was only in one episode.
    • Maureen/Michelle Nguyen; when the ship first started to pop up in fanworks, they practically had no connections. Then in Year Four, they received some Ship Tease, and by the end of the year had something of a Relationship Upgrade.

    Pro Wrestling 

    Tabletop Games 

    Theatre 
  • The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee's fandom ships Leaf/Logainne and Chip/Marcy, who don't really talk.
  • The Mystery of Edwin Drood can have an in-universe example of this, depending on who the audience votes to pair up as lovers at the end.
  • Romeo and Juliet: Some pair Benvolio and Rosaline despite the fact that the latter doesn't even appear in the play.
  • Wicked:
    • The Elphaba/Avaric paring is quite popular in the fandom. Avaric has one line in the musical — where he is Fiyero's carriage driver (and is sometimes a woman or an Animal). Yet musical fanfics portray him as the arrogant Shiz student he was in the books (who even then didn't have much to do with Elphaba).
    • There's a small base of Glinda/Nessarose shippers. It's popular enough to even have its own ship name: Glessa. The two have nary a line together in either the book or musical (but the books do mention that they're friends, to some degree), but many like the ship mainly for its bittersweet Settle for Sibling overtone.

    Visual Novels 
  • The Ace Attorney fandom has quite a few.
    • One that sticks out is Mike Meekins and Maggey Byrde, while on the villainous side we have Dahlia Hawthorne and Kristoph Gavin. Another villainous one is Dahlia Hawthorne and Matt Engarde.
    • Maya/Franziska is astoundingly popular given how little the two actually interact. While the two have interacted a few times during the trilogy, the majority of their interactions are brief and minuscule for the most part and their relationship isn't suggested to be much more than acquaintances at best. However, many fans find the two to make for great Foils to each other, given their contrasting personalities, on top of sharing a similar background of being young girls who are burdened with their families' complicated legacies and the high expectations that come with it. It helps that they make perfect Ship Mates with the extremely popular Phoenix x Edgeworth ship, on top of being two of the most prominent reoccurring female characters in the trilogy.
    • While Dahlia/Matt appears to have been brought about mainly because of their similar dispositions, the other two pairings do have a significant degree of plausibility on their side. Mike and Maggey both served under the police department in 2017 before Maggey was taken off the force (although Maggey was already seeing Dustin Prince prior to his death). Meanwhile, Dahlia and Kristoph are around the same age (or would have been if Dahlia didn't end up getting the death penalty slapped on her for committing murder) and Dahlia is known to have resided in Germany for a time, right around when Kristoph would have been attending university classes, an assumption this fic runs with.
    • Apollo Justice has Wocky Kitalki and Vera Misham, based mostly on their opposing attitudes (Wocky being a Keet gangsta-wannabe while Vera is a Shrinking Violet shut-in), both being clients of Apollo, and probably being in the hospital at roughly the same time ( Wocky to get the bullet in his chest removed, and Vera because of her atroquinine poisoning).
    • Another would be Sebastian Debeste/Hugh O'Conner. It mostly stems from the fact that the two have a lot of similarities (specifically having a family member who's been bribing Themis Legal Academy's staff to get them good grades) and the fact that the two like would likely be around the same age if Sebastian actually appeared in any post-Time Skip game.
    • Simon Blackquill/Nahyuta Sadhmadhi is a very popular ship for two characters who only interact in one case, and it isn't a particularly positive interaction either (Nahyuta goads Athena into a nervous breakdown and Simon shows up to co-counsel and snap her out of it), but their contrasting natures (Nahyuta was specifically designed as a Contrasting Sequel Antagonist to Simon, being the 'holy prosecutor' to Simon's 'convict prosecutor') and similar backstories of taking a murder charge to protect a younger sister and having to pretend to be a villain have made fans interested.
    • Ini Miney/April May. The two are both one-shot characters who are shipped largely on the basis that they're around the same age and would be in prison at about the same time, plus both being ditzy girls who hide a mean streak that only comes out when you aggravate them in court.
  • Danganronpa:
    • Kiyotaka Ishimaru and Mukuro Ikusaba from Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc have managed to garner a small popularity despite the fact that Mukuro's only possible interactions with him are when she's disguised as her twin sister Junko.
    • Kyoko Kirigiri and Celestia Ludenburg are a very popular ship, despite having little to no interaction with each other, the ship is mostly fuelled by the fact that they’re the more cynical and closed-off females of the group, and many fans believe that it helps them play off of each other
    • Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair: The pairing of Nagito Komaeda and Mikan Tsumiki is surprisingly popular. Their only noteworthy interaction was Nagito outing Mikan as the killer in the Chapter 3 trial, yet fans have elevated this ship to being the Beta Couple to Hajime and Chiaki.
    • Still a niche rare pair, but Kazuichi Souda and Mahiru Koizumi are sometimes shipped together, despite the small screen time they share, they both share pasts involving a poor childhood and a less than ideal father, and many of their fanfics involve Mahiru trying to help Kazuichi become a “proper male”, funnily enough, this was actually supposed to be a Canon Ship but it was scrapped during development, and they ended up killing off Mahiru to make case 2 shorter and to tie it in with the Twilight Murder case.
    • Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls: This spinoff game has Takemichi Yukimaru (Mondo Owada's captive) and Yuta Asahina (Aoi Asahina's captive) have grown into a surprisingly popular ship, despite neither character interacting, Yuta dying before having much Character Development, and Takemichi not appearing in the game at all.
    • The third game, Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony opens up the Ultimate Talent Development Plan bonus mode, where Everybody Lives and characters from different games interact with one another. Out of all of these, Mondo/Mikan has become quite popular thanks to their Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl dynamic and Mikan desperately trying to persuade an obliviously injured Mondo to let him treat her, which he only agrees to do because he doesn't want Mikan to cry.
  • Monster Prom: The four playable characters have an unclear relationship with each other and only interact very tangentially in special events during multiplayer events, but ships between them aren't uncommon, with Oz/Brian in particular having developed a solid fanbase.

    Web Animation 
  • Happy Tree Friends:
    • Flippy/Splendid has a surprising following, especially in the Japanese fandom, in spite of having never interacted with each other. One of the reasons may be that people always wanted them to fight each other so that they could see who would win, which earned them a lot of popularity. In Japan, it is probably the most popular pairing after Flippy/Flaky and Handy/Petunia.
    • Nutty/Flaky is strangely popular, even though they've only interacted on-screen once and that was when Nutty was a total douche to her.
    • Pop/Disco Bear, even though they're polar opposites in personalities.
  • Helluva Boss has a particularly extreme example of this with the Stella Goetia/Barbie Wire (Blitzo's sister) ship that has become a fairly popular pairing in the fandom. Not only have these two characters never interacted or even been in the same room together, but one of them (Barbie Wire) hasn't even made a proper appearance on the show, only appearing as a photo on Blitzo's desk and a poster in his office.
  • RWBY:
    • Ilia and Weiss have never interacted on-screen. However, they are a relatively popular pairing due to them being the same age and having both attended high-class Atlesian schools; this makes it possible for them to have attended the same school together, which the fan pairing runs with.
    • Winter and May don't come into direct contact during the Atlas Arc, but are a popular Tumblr ship. They have similar ages and backgrounds as Atlesian elites who are estranged from their families. They are commonly depicted as having been friends or lovers before May moved to Mantle. May being a Mantle-rights activist and Winter enforcing Atlesian oppression of Mantle creates story hooks for friends-to-enemies-to-lovers scenarios; some stories also play with Old Friend, New Gender twists.
    • Summer Rose is shipped with Qrow Branwen almost, if not more than, her canonical husband Taiyang. While they were both on Team STRQ, Qrow has never so much as mentioned Summer. This likely comes from Qrow's role as The Mentor to Summer's daughter Ruby and Ron the Death Eater towards Taiyang.
  • X-Ray & Vav: People ship the characters Hilda and Mogar because their voice actors, Lindsay and Michael Jones, are married. This is despite the two characters not interacting at all.

    Webcomics 
  • Abe and Kroenen centers around Abe Sapien and Karl Reprecht Kroenen, two characters from Hellboy, getting together in a secret post-film romance, even though they never shared a scene.
  • Homestuck: With the many characters that the comic has, along with alternate timelines and Word of God declaring every ship canon, it's no surprise that the fandom has tried to pair everyone with everyone. From John/Eridan (a ship between two characters who have not once interacted in canon), to Diamonds Droog/the Handmaid (a result of the moderately popular "Stabdads" AU, where the trolls are raised by their Exile Guides, making Droog into Aradia's father), it's certain that if two characters exist, there will be a ship name for them.
  • My Impossible Soulmate: Fans immediately shipped Verity with the Bastet Margot despite the two barely interacting.
  • The Order of the Stick fandom, thanks to the power of well-written Crack Fanfiction, has a following for Redcloak/Vaarsuvius. The two haven't spoken directly to each other once and are on opposite sides.

    Web Videos 
  • Channel Awesome:
    • Ask That Guy and Dr. Insano are a popular ship. They have yet to interact onscreen together. Pity, because when one is a Canon Depraved Omnisexual and the other is a Mad Scientist and they're both fiendishly evil, you can imagine they'd hit it off right away.
    • Shipping Ask That Guy with The Nostalgia Chick seems pretty popular.
    • Ask That Guy and The Nostalgia Critic. While it's pretty easy to see Ask That Guy wanting to bang someone who looks exactly like him, the characters have exchanged like five lines of dialogue. But suddenly in fanfic, they're incestuous twins who are ridiculously co-dependent and the Critic is usually Ask That Guy's fuck-and-torture toy.
    • As soon as Dr. Tease's evilness became apparent, people started shipping her with Dr. Insano.
    • Ask That Guy and Malcolm's Devil. While they haven't met, the reason is mostly that it's canon that the former has a sexual relationship with TGWTG's devil, and the devil takes many forms.
  • Don't Hug Me I'm Scared: In the first one, a notepad sings about creativity, and in the second one, a clock sings about time and schedules. They have never officially met. At least a week after the second one was posted, the entire fandom shipped them together. Seriously. Each video contains a new Big Bad but fans instantly thought the first two would have a good love-hate relationship.
  • Referenced in This Fangirls video:
    Khaleesi and Jon Snow
    They're my OTP
    Sure it makes no sense
    Doesn't bother me!

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