There is usually a
One True Pairing in most fiction: if you ship any other pairing than
Ranma and Akane or
Neo and Trinity, you are categorically rejecting the canon, and have proven yourself willing to
Die For Our Ship.
But there are some forms of
New Media, especially
Dating Sims and
Visual Novels, where there's
no real canon at all. While
Dating Sims sometimes have a
True Ending that is canon, half of the time they don't, and so any and all pairings is equally canon - part of a quantum sea which only collapses into a relationship depending on the tastes of the observer. Tokho by Tayuka is no more and no less canon than Kei by Tayuka - there's no True Ending in
Elven Relations. Neither is Keenan Caine as opposed to Josh Preston with Sara Smith - they're characters from a
Bliss Stage one-shot that could go either way, or in a completely different direction!
When that happens, and when you ship your favorite pairings, you're on a
Trans Dimensional Ship.
This still, of course, doesn't prevent a normally
Crack Pairing from being any less cracked.
Examples:
Video Games
- If this Troper remembers correctly, Clannad, the Visual Novel, is an interesting case in that it seems to deliberately invoke this trope as part of its central plot. Not only does it have the usual 'quantum sea' of the visual novel, as noted above, but each of the plotlines is connected with a single, overarching story about a consciousness in the 'illusory world', and thus all of the possible outlines are 'canon'. Albeit only two get an After Story, though.
- However, the anime adaptation definitively sets Nagisa as the canon love interest.
- Supported by the fact that the consciousness in the Illusionary world is Tomoya and Nagisa's daughter, Ushio. The analysis on the game and anime's True End alone has lifted this series to Mind Screw levels, complete with serious analysis on the internet, like say, here
.
- Final Fantasy VII has a dating sequence with Aeris, Tifa, Yuffie or Barret depending on which character you treat the best. All of them reveal some characterisation detail to the point where it's impossible to choose just one to be canon (some people even argue that they're all canon).
- The Harvest Moon games have multiple pairing options, though there's usually a "default" spouse who's significantly easier to woo than the rest. (In something of a subversion, it's almost never the Yamato Nadeshiko for guys.)
- Shipping in Persona3 is Trans-Dimensional by the nature of that game's Dating Sim aspects, although it could be argued that the True Ending is the one where you go for everyone and gain the ultimate Persona fueled by all of them, Orpheus Telos.
- Pick a Dating Sim. Any Dating Sim. fate/stay night and Elven Relations immediately spring to mind.
- While The Sims 1 & 2 both start with some established couples, and 2 at least nudges the player in certain directions, it's possible to break up any relationship in favor of almost any other. The characters for The Sims 3 are apparently a prequel of Pleasantview, probably a wise decision to forestall any "Nooo! Cassandra belongs with Don!" moments.
Tabletop Games
