Ship Mates / Live-Action TV

• In The 100, fans of the pairing Clexa (Clarke/Lexa) will often pair Bellamy off with Raven or Gina in order to prevent Bellarke (Bellamy/Clarke), the other hugely popular Clarke ship.
• Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are pretty much the poster fandoms for this when it comes to shipping:
  • Spike/Buffy shippers will almost always ship Angel/Cordelia and vice-versa. Although there are Spuffy'ers who prefer Angel/Faith or even Angel/Willow.
  • Buffy/Spike shows up alongside Xander/Anya and Willow/Tara a lot, though this is less because the writers ship those pairings and more because those were the canon pairings at the time that most Buffy/Spike fics are set. Though there are some who prefer Anya/Giles and Xander with either Faith or Dawn.
  • Angel/Buffy shippers will probably ship Spike with Drusilla, although Spike with Willow is not completely unheard of (she's practically the only character who is repeatedly shown treating him decently, aside from Tara and Joyce who rarely appear onscreen with him anyway). There are also a few Buffy/Angel fans that also ship Spike/Dawn, though this is much rarer.
  • You pretty much can't ship Wesley/Lilah and Gunn/Fred separately, because you either wanna keep Fred away from Wes or you want to keep Wes away from Fred. Or, you know, both. (The particular loathing of Wes/Fred as a ship among both groups is proved by the fact that both sets of shippers had a much more tolerant attitude to Wes/Gunn.)
  • Xander/Cordelia shippers will very likely ship Oz/Willow and vice-versa.
  • Buffy/Willow and Dawn/Faith tend to overlap due to stuff in canon or fanon supporting almost every one of the combinations you can make with those four and the rest having some other reason. Same happens with Buffy/Faith and Dawn/Willow shippers. Oddly, it doesn't happen with Buffy/Dawn and Willow/Faith shippers. Most likely because there are very few Buffy/Dawn fics and most of those are Porn Without Plot. Then you have the rare Buffy/Dawn/Faith/Willow shippers...
  • How about crossover pairings? Plenty of fans love Dawn/Connor (it works quite well, too, since the two are so similar it's not funny), and it co-exists with Buffy/Spike and Buffy/Angel (and their respective Ship Mates) quite peacefully.
  • Fuffy (Faith/Buff) shippers who don't hate Spike and Angel tend to also ship Spangel (Spike/Angel) and vice versa. Check out this Tumblr post for proof.
  • Finally, lest we forget Willow/Tara, which has the benefits of being both canon and working with just about anything (as long as you don't ship Willow with someone else, OT3 non-withstanding).
• Arrowverse:
  • Arrow: Diggle/Lyla is the only near-universally accepted ship — not only were they canon in the backstory (and got back together), they coexist peacefully with every other pairing and pretty much nobody ships either of them with anyone else (the less said about Dig's stint with his late brother's widow, the better). So, for the following, assume that Diggle/Lyla is also paired with the following.
    • The Olicity (Oliver/Felicity) ship is often seen paired with Nysara (Nyssa/Sara) and Merlance (Laurel/Tommy).
    • Lauriver (Oliver/Laurel) is typically paired with Nysara and Raylicity (Ray/Felicity). Flommy (Tommy/Felicity) is a less common alternate ship, and even Sara/Tommy (who knew each other but never interacted on the show proper) has shown up occasionally.
    • Canarrow (Oliver/Sara) is usually paired with Merlance (Tommy/Laurel) and Raylicity. Nyssa rarely factors into the equation, unless the writers pair her with Canarrow (known as Assassin Canarrow) and making them a One True Threesome.
  • The Flash (2014): The lingering popularity of the WestThawne (Eddie/Iris) pairing is because it can be ship mates with any alternate Barry Allen pairing that isn't WestAllen. It's most typically seen with SnowBarry (Barry/Caitlin) and ColdFlash (Barry/Leonard Snart), however.
    • Fans who do ship WestAllen will frequently also be fans of KillerVibe (Caitlin/Cisco) due to perceived parallels between the two ships.
• Beverly Hills, 90210: Brenda/Dylan is sometimes paired with Brandon/Kelly, which keeps Dylan/Kelly apart. Dylan/Kelly is combined with Brandon/Andrea, keeping Brandon/Kelly apart.
• The Big Bang Theory:
  • Sheldon/Penny shippers who don't hate Leonard or want him to die for their ship ship him with Stephanie or Amy.
  • On the other side of the fandom, "Shamy" (as the gang calls Sheldon and Amy) makes a good Beta Couple for Leonard/Penny fics and Leonard/Penny makes a good Beta Couple for Shamy fics. Both Leonard/Penny and Sheldon/Amy become couples in the canon material as well. Pretty much everyone includes the also-canon Howard/Bernadette... except the slashers. They just tend to ignore her existence.
• In the Big Time Rush fandom, for anyone who ships any two of the four male leads together, the other two guys will get shipped together and Jo and Camille (Kendall and Logan's love interests) will usually get shipped together also. Those who ship Camille/Logan/James will usually ship Kendall/Jo or Kendall/Carlos.
• In the Community fandom, fans of Jeff/Annie will often ship Troy/Britta, who are romantically linked to Annie and Jeff respectively in canon (although not so much during the second season). On the flip-side, Jeff/Britta shippers will often ship Troy/Annie (and increasingly commonly, Annie/Abed), in order to keep Annie away from Jeff.
• Dawson's Creek: Pacey/Joey is paired with Dawson/Jen to keep Dawson and Joey apart. Sometimes even non-canon Dawson/Andie, to also keep Pacey and Andie apart.
• Degrassi: The Next Generation had for Season 9 in canon Holly J/Declan and Jane/Spinner. Fandom would switch this around making Jane/Declan the shipmate to the popular non-canon Holly J/Spinner. Eventually, Holly J revealed her feelings for Spinner, who rejected her as he was with Jane. Jane cheated on Spinner with Declan in the last special, which caused them to break and Spinner to marry Emma of all people.
• Doctor Who:
  • Doctor/Rose shippers often ship Martha/Tom or Martha/Mickey. If they're fans of the old series, they might also ship Sarah Jane with Harry Sullivan, claiming that he and not the Doctor was the man "nobody could live up to" for her.
  • Since the Eleventh Doctor's appearance, the combination of Doctor/River and Amy/Rory became very popular.
  • Mickey/Jackie was a fairly common Ship Mate for Doctor/Rose too, despite being a May–December Romance. After all, it's not like that alone would've stopped Jackie....
  • Zoe/Isobel for Doctor/Jamie shippers. That's when they don't go the OT3 route.
  • Fans who liked Jack on the TARDIS occasionally have the Doctor (either 9 or 10) with Rose and Jack.
  • For fans of the Fifth Doctor era, Doctor/Tegan can go hand-in-hand with Nyssa/Adric.
• Downton Abbey fans who ship Carson/Hughes are very prone to shipping Isobel Crawley/Dr Clarkson as well. It helps quite a bit that Mrs Hughes fans are usually Isobel fans too.
  • Evelyn Napier/Edith has had a steady fanbase since the first series, despite their limited interaction. As of season four, it's become a common ship mate to the pairing of Mary with her other suitors Blake or Gillingham.
• Eureka has Allison/Stark and Tess/Jack shippers joining together, because those parings being intact prevents Allison/Jack.
• In Firefly, there are 8 shippable main characters, none of whom anyone wants to leave out in the cold. Shipping in this fandom is quite the math problem, as the 8 can be arranged into 4 couples in a few different ways. (Bonus Ship Mates points because they're all literally crewmates on a ship!)
  • Mal/Inara, Wash/Zoe, Simon/Kaylee, and Jayne/River are the most common set of Ship Mates. Jayne/River is the only one of these that isn't a canon pair, and it's fueled partly by Pair the Spares, partly by Foe Yay Shipping.
  • Supporters of Simon/River often take Kaylee out of the picture by pairing Kaylee/Jayne, and vice versa. Mal/Inara and Wash/Zoe can stay in place.
  • For Slash Fic fans, there's always Simon/Jayne (which was apparently planned to be explored more in canon) and River/Kaylee (who had a rather close friendship thanks to Kaylee's relationship with Simon and her general friendliness). This is also compatible with leaving Mal/Inara and Wash/Zoe in place.
  • Many Mal/River shippers like to break up Simon and Kaylee in favor of pairing Kaylee/Jayne, and freeing up Simon to take Inara off Mal's hands. Wash/Zoe can stay in place.
  • Another way of breaking up and re-pairing Simon and Kaylee is Jayne/Kaylee and Mal/Simon.
• Fringe fans — particularly in later seasons — tend to ship Peter/Olivia and Alt-Lincoln/Altlivia. And by the end of Season 4, the Peter/Olivia shippers joined camp with blue-verse Lincoln and Altlivia.
• In Game of Thrones, Arya/Gendry is a very compatible ship, featured alongside many ships, including canon ships (Jon/Ygritte, Jon/Daenerys, Robb/Talisa, etc.) and non-canon ships (Jon/Sansa, Bran/Meera, Robb/Margaery, Sansa/Sandor, Sansa/Margaery, Sansa/Tyrion). Because Season 7 features a budding friendship between Jon and Gendry, this upped Arya/Gendry being included in both Jon/Daenerys and Jon/Sansa fics.
• In Gilligan's Island, fans of MAP (Mary Ann/Professor) often side-ship Skinger (Skipper/Ginger) as a way of forestalling the popular Pinger (Professor/Ginger) ship.
• In Glee fandom, fans who ship Finchel (Rachel/Finn) usually have a little Quick (Quinn/Puck) on the side. Thus, the growing amount of Puckleberry (Rachel/Puck) shippers usually have Fuinn (Quinn/Finn) goin' on. On the plus side, they all have really awesome shipping names.
  • Those who ship the canon Klaine sometimes also pair their respective pursuers, Dave Karofsky and Sebastian Smythe. It helps that Dave is the only person in canon Sebastian has been shown to express any sort of genuine concern for.
• Most Gossip Girl viewers ship Chuck/Blair. Some also ship Nate/Serena, in order to keep the Non-Judging Breakfast Club a unit.
  • Dan/Blair generally averts Shipmates. Nate/Serena is a match, but hardly anyone cares about the idea of them since the show torpedoed it years ago. Chuck is more likely to suffer from Die for Our Ship than getting any Pair the Spares action. Since Serena and Chuck are semi-related most people don't ship that either, it leaves pretty much no real ships to pair Dair with. The only ones likely to get a happy ending in Dair fics are Nate/Jenny, since they're not part of either Dan or Blair's Official Couple.
• Hannah Montana:
  • In the fandom, people who like Moliver (Miley/Oliver) more often than not pair Lilly with Miley's brother, Jackson.
  • Alternatively, fans of Loliver (Lilly/Oliver) keep Miley with her on-again-off-again boyfriend Jake. Lilly and Oliver are also commonly paired in the Mikiley (Miley/Mikayla) fandom.
• Hannibal has the canon combination of Hannibal/Will and Alana/Margot. Sometimes Alana/Margot is called Murder Wives when shipped along with Murder Husbands, the fan nickname for Hannibal and Will. Presumably, the pairing of these two is to keep Alana away from Will or Hannibal.
• In the House fandom, House/Cuddy shippers tend to also ship Chase and Cameron and Thirteen and either Foreman or Kutner. In contrast, House/Cameron shippers often ship Wilson and Cuddy and Thirteen and Chase. The Wilson/Cuddy pairing also tends to be popular amongst fans of House/Thirteen.
• In House of Anubis, at least for season one, the most frequent ship mates were Nina/Fabian, Mick/Mara, Amber/Alfie, and then Patricia/Jerome thanks to the fans wanting to Pair the Spares. It got a little more complicated once other pairings began to emerge.
• In How I Met Your Mother, shippers of Barney/Robin often ship Ted with either Victoria, Stella or the Mother.
• iCarly:
  • Spencer/Sam and Carly/Freddie are often Ship Mates for each other, especially in stories set in the future. Gibby/Sam is second most regular pairing that supports Carly/Freddie. Brad, a character who showed up on a couple of the last episodes of Season 4 has started to be used instead of Gibby.
  • Fans of Sam/Freddie generally want Carly to end up with Gibby to get her out of the way on the show. In fandom, Carly has a wider array of potential partners, such as Griffin or one of her more recent love interests like Adam. Seddie fans have one other big pairing that are Ship Mates. The Spencer/Mrs Benson pairing. Spencer being Carly's sister, and Mrs. Benson being Freddie's mother. It would make Carly become Freddie's aunt, and from there the author can torpedo Carly/Freddie using Like Brother and Sister by having the Carly/Freddie friendship grow further into loving brother/sister type relationship, or Squick because of the idea of being romantically involved with their nephew or aunt despite it being non-blood relation.
  • The Carly/Sam (Cam) pairing often outright ignores Freddie with him not showing up at all. Freddie as a character in Cam fic is often lucky just to get a bare original character to make out with whilst the girls sort through their love for each other. About the only regular Ship Mate for Cam is Freddie/Melanie.
• Kamen Rider varies by series:
  • Kamen Rider Kiva: Nago/Megumi and Wataru/Mio. On the 1986 side, the canon Otoya/Maya is popular, but some prefer Otoya/Yuri and King/Maya or Bishop/Maya.
  • Kamen Rider Decade: Tsukasa/Natsumi and Daiki/Yuusuke or Daiki/Haruka (the alternate Larc from the DiEnd's World episodes.)
  • Kamen Rider Double: Shotaro/Philip and Akiko/Ryu, or Shotaro/Akiko and Philip/Wakana. There's also Isaka/Saeko and Kirihiko/Wakana, even though Saeko and Isaka don't meet until after she killed Kirihiko. Oh dear.
  • Kamen Rider Den-O had Ryotaro/Hana as a ship mate to Airi/Yuto, until Hana's actress left the show and the character was de-aged into a little girl, Kohana. If that didn't kill off the shippers, it's revealed at the end of the series that Hana is the daughter of Airi and Sakurai (Yuto), making her Ryotaro's niece.
  • Kamen Rider OOO: Eiji/Hina, Mezool/Gamel, and Date/Gotou or Gotou/Satonaka.
  • Kamen Rider Fourze: Gentaro/Nadeshiko, Kengo/Yuki, Ryusei/Tomoko and Shun/Miu, thus pairing off all the Kamen Rider Club except JK.
  • Kamen Rider Wizard: Nito/Mayu and sometimes Rinko/Shunpei or Rinko/Kizaki appear as ship mates to Haruto/Koyomi, the most popular ship.
• Lab Rats: Elite Force: Kaz/Chase and Bree/Skyler shippers tend to get along great, due to it getting the potential straight pairings out of the way, with most fanfics about the show being dedicated to both groups dating. These fans also tend to ship Oliver with Adam despite the two not interacting much.
• In the world of Law & Order, if your main pairing is lesbian, every female character in the whole intricate net of spinoffs tends to suddenly become gay. With mixed results. A popular foil to Alex/Olivia (from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) is Serena/Abbie (from The Mother Ship), but there's no discounting Casey/Abbie, Serena/Alex, Abbie/Olivia (almost believable. And it would be seriously hot), Casey/Olivia (often in a weird Replacement Scrappy-appeal way), Melinda/Olivia (did I mention Olivia is a Launcher of a Thousand Ships?) or Abbie/Alex. All a bit bizarre.
  • In the het end of the world, a popular pairing to go with Olivia/Elliot are George/Alex (recently Jossed, as George Huang is canonically gay), Fin/Melinda (Ships That Pass in the Night, much?) and Casey/Alex.
  • The most popular partner to Alex/Olivia is Elliot/Kathy. Which is useful, because they're married with five children.
  • Elliot/Huang is more common than you'd think.
  • In later seasons, the popular Rafael Barba/Olivia Benson is often accompanied by Amanda Rollins/Sonny Carisi, while Barba/Carisi shippers tend to ship Benson/Rollins alongside it.
• In het parts of Legend of the Seeker fandom, the Official Couple Kahlan/Richard and Cara/Leo.
• If you ship Not Blood Siblings Derek and Casey from Life with Derek, then it is likely that you also ship Edwin (Derek's younger brother) and Lizzie (Casey's younger sister).
• Lost:
  • Sawyer/Kate is often shipped alongside Jack/Juliet. Conversely, many Jack/Kate fans ship Sawyer/Juliet, and Sawyer/Juliet becoming canon created a new crop of Jack/Kate shippers strictly to keep Kate from spoiling Sawyer/Juliet.
  • Also, those who shipped Sayid/Shannon in earlier seasons often had her step-brother Boone (who's in love with her) paired with Jack (or with anyone else he ever interacted with if the shipper isn't into slash).
  • Conversely, those who wanted Sayid/Nadia together tend to support the Boone/Shannon pairing.
• In Lost Girl, main character Bo is in a bisexual love triangle with both Dyson and Lauren. Most fans ship her with Lauren, not Dyson. Occasionally this causes a ship war. Most of the time though, it's not a problem because shippers far prefer Dyson with Bo's sidekick Kenzi.
• The Mandalorian has another bisexual Bo who fans either ship with protagonist Din or support the Armorer. If you ship her with Din, it's easy to pair the Armorer with Paz Vizsla or Axe Woves. On the other hand, if you ship her with the Armorer, you've got a metric ton of people to pair Din with, from the almost-canon Omera to Paz or even Luke Skywalker. Don't even think about suggesting Din-Bo-Armorer as your OT3. Don't. You're better off saying the show doesn't need romance at all and you'd rather focus on Din's relationship with Grogu.
  • No matter who you ship Bo-Katan with, her two lieutenants Axe and Koska make a fine supporting pair.
  • Curiously, Mandalorian fans who ship Din with Bo-Katan are also highly likely to ship Ezra and Sabine from Star Wars Rebels and Ahsoka. There's even a Dinbo-Sabezra Solidarity Week.
• Merlin has several possible combinations. Merlin/Arthur is the most popular pairing and often accompanied by Morgana/Gwen or Lancelot/Gwen. If you're a het fan, you've got options like Arthur/Morgana and Merlin/Gwen, or alternatively, Arthur/Gwen and Merlin/Morgan.
• My Babysitter's a Vampire Most Rory/Erica shippers also ship Sarah/Ethan and Benny/Della. Most Benny/Erica shippers also ship Sarah/Ethan.
• NUMB3RS:
  • Whenever fans ship Colby/David, Colby/Charlie, Charlie/Ian, they also support Larry/Megan, who were a couple on the show.
• Once Upon a Time:
  • Emma/Regina shippers who don't demonize Robin will often simply keep him with Marian, especially those who found it unreasonable for Robin to forgive Regina so easily for killing Marian. Some of these fans will also just pair them to get Robin out of the way. These fans will also pair Hook with Milah or Neal, the latter because it gets rid of both Emma's of canon love interests.
  • The Love Triangle between Hook, Emma and Neal is resolved by fans with two different sets of couples: Hook/Emma and Neal/Mulan, or Neal/Emma and Hook/Regina. It is also often resolved by pairing either Neal or Hook with Tinker Bell.
  • After Neal was killed off, Hook/Emma fans often found themselves allying with Robin/Regina fans to prevent Emma/Regina.
  • Everybody ships Rumbelle (Rumpelstiltskin/Belle) and Snowing (Snow White/Prince Charming), so they work with everything.
  • Some Sleeping Warrior (Aurora/Mulan) shippers also ship Neal/Philip (which works doubly if they also ship Emma/Regina or Emma/Hook).
  • Fans of Jack/Henry and Ella/Tiana tend to get along pretty well.
• Power Rangers: Many fans were unhappy with Tommy and Kimberly breaking up and Tommy hooking up with Kat instead. Tommy/Kimberly fans often pair Kat with Billy or Jason. Of course, the reverse is known to happen too.
• Riverdale: Bughead (Betty/Jughead) and Varchie (Veronica/Archie) shippers are united against their mutual enemy of Barchie (Betty/Archie) shippers, but it mainly started after Barchie's kiss in Season 2 and cemented when Barchie cheated with each other in Season 4. Originally, Bughead shippers derided Varchie, perceiving it as mainly sex and a much lesser ship than Bughead, while Varchie shippers resented that Bughead got the most focus and screen time.
  • Since Barchie got together, Bughead and Varchie shippers started campaigning together for 'Bugvarchoni', trying to utilise the popularity of wlw ship Choni (Cheryl/Toni) to argue that the three ships are a set. This despite the fact that Bughead shippers complained when Bughead and Choni shared a duet in Season 3. They also have added Tabitha/Reggie, to keep Tabitha away from Jughead, and Reggie away from Veronica. In lieu of getting their own ships, Bughead and Varchie shippers also ship Beggie (Betty/Reggie), just so Barchie isn't together. Some Bughead shippers also ship Veggie (Veronica/Reggie) out of hatred for Archie.
  • Barchie shippers are mostly focused on their own ship, but some Barchie shippers do ship Veggie and Jabitha (Jughead/Tabitha).
• Fans of the 2006 BBC Robin Hood series often ship Robin with faithful companion Much instead of fair lady Marian. Many of them like to palm her off with brooding Draco in Leather Pants Guy of Gisborne, or else Robin/Much is accompanied by Sheriff/Guy and Marian can die in a fire.
  • Robin/Isabella and Kate/Much seem to have become popular in series three, or Robin/Kate and Guy/Meg.
• The Secret Life of the American Teenager: Ricky/Amy and Ben/Adrian shippers tend to go together.
• For Shadowhunters fans, the canonical pairings of Magnus/Alec and Jace/Clary often go hand-in-hand, as they do in the source material.
• Sherlock:
  • Fanfic authors typically ship Sherlock/John along with Moriarty/Sebastian Moran, and/or Lestrade/Mycroft. Moriarty/Molly is just one of the many other options for pairing Moriarty off.
  • From the het fans we get: Sherlock/Molly, John/Mary Morstan (or John/Sarah Sawyer), Mycroft/Anthea and Lestrade/Sally (everyone hates Anderson, so...); conversely: Sherlock/Irene, John/Mary (or John/Sarah), Mycroft/Anthea, Lestrade/Molly. It is, however, rare to see all four pairings in the same fic.
  • Sherlock/John coupled with Lestrade/Molly and/or Mycroft/Anthea is also a viable combination.
  • Het Is Ew has given rise to: Sherlock/John, Mycroft/Lestrade and Irene/Molly, with Anderson/Sally being around only because it's canon, and because there has to be someone for people to hate.
  • And then there are the people who break up the two most common slash couples to make... Mycroft/John and Sherlock/Lestrade.
  • An amusing scenario is when the Sherlock/Irene & John/Mary combination ends up evolving into Sherlock/John & Irene/Mary.
  • There are also fics featuring John/Lestrade (or John/Molly) and Sherlock/Victor Trevor (Sherlock's friend from university who's mentioned in the ACD story The Gloria Scott).
  • When John is paired with Mary, Sarah or Molly, Sherlock/Lestrade might happen as well; sometimes accompanied by Molly/Mycroft or Irene/Mycroft. Really, this fandom just goes very very wild with its ships. And that's not even taking into account all the Mycroft/Sherlock and Sherlock/Moriarty & John/Sebastian Moran fics.
• A quite monumental amount of Skins Naomi/Emily fic also pairs up Katie and Effy (two parts Foe Yay Shipping, one part Ho Yay, one part Pair the Spares, no parts canon).
• Smallville:
  • Lex/Lana was fairly popular for a while among Clark/Chloe fans. Many Chloe fans just wanted Lana to be corrupted by Lex so she wouldn't bother Clark ever again.
  • Many fans hated Chimmy (the Chloe/Jimmy pairing)... but a large number of Clois (Clark/Lois) fans shipped them to an incredible degree. The Season 8 episode "Committed" seemed geared toward this end.
• South of Nowhere fanfiction almost exclusively sticks with the Official Couple of Spencer and Ashley. However some fans choose to reject the Beta Couple of Ashley's sister Kyla and ex-boyfriend Aiden and often put Kyla with Spencer's ex Carmen, who Kyla showed a degree of interest (albeit not romantically) in towards the end of the series.
• In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fanfic, Fan-Preferred Couple Garak/Bashir will tag along quite happily with the canonical combinations of Worf/Dax, Kira/Odo, O'Brien/Keiko and Sisko/Kasidy, tends to appear as a side pairing for Jake/Ziyal (thus neatly erasing Garak/Ziyal from the timeline), and also often shows up in fics that pair Kira with either of the Daxes.
• More open-minded Star Trek: Enterprise fans who ship Tucker/Reed also ship Archer/T'Pol. Meanwhile, Archer/Reed fans go the other way 'round, shipping Trip/T'Pol.
• In Stargate Atlantis, Sheppard/McKay shippers like to pair Sheppard's other partner-in-UST, Elizabeth Weir, with Radek Zelenka. It helps that Zelenka can easily be read as having feelings for Elizabeth in canon — and that Elizabeth is quite beloved among the fandom, making writers reluctant to kill her off. The other popular option is Daedalus commander Steven Caldwell, with whom Weir has a bit of Belligerent Sexual Tension going on.
• In Stargate SG-1 fandom, quite a few Jack/Daniel shippers also ship Sam/Janet, and vice versa. Meanwhile, Jack/Sam shippers often like to ship Daniel/Janet or Daniel/Vala. Sam/Daniel is a rarer pairing, but is often accompanied by Jack/Janet.
• In The Suite Life of Zack & Cody Zack and Maddie fans would pair Cody with London, their friendship in the third season further fueled this. In the Zack/Max fandom Cody and Maddie would sometimes end up together and vice versa. In The Suite on Deck Cody and Bailey fans put Zack with London after an episode aired where they were married for a class assignment, despite their relationship being more business based than romance based. This eased up a little after Zack got a girlfriend but some still exist. Zack and Bailey fans once again put Cody with London.
• Super Sentai has a few:
  • Carranger: Kyousuke/Zonnette, Naoki/Youko and Minoru/Natsumi.
  • Maskman: Takeru/Momoko and Kenta/Haruka, or Takeru/Haruka and Akira/Momoko. No one seems to like the Official Couple, Takeru/Iyal.
  • Jetman: Ryuu/Kaori and Gai/Ako (thanks to their fake wedding in episode 20) or Gai/Kaori and Ryuu/Maria.
  • Megaranger: Kouichiro/Chisato,Shun/Miku, and Chisato/Miku on rare occasions
  • Gaoranger: Blue/White and Silver/Tetomu, or Blue/Black and Silver/White.
  • Hurricaneger: Isshu/Nanami and Ikkou/Yousuke.
  • Dekaranger: Sen/Umeko and Ban/Mari (canon) are usually accompanied by Doggie/Swan, and either Hoji/Jasmine and Tetsu/Lisa, or Tetsu/Jasmine and Hoji/Teresa.
  • Boukenger: Satoru/Sakura (or Eiji/Sakura), Masumi/Natsuki and possibly Souta/Kaze no Shizuka as well.
  • Gekiranger: Ran/Retsu and Rio/Mele. Some shippers will also throw Gou/Miki and even Jan/Natsume into the mix, thus making four of the Gekirangers plus Miki and Natsume all related to each other.
  • Go-onger: Sosuke/Miu and Gunpei/Hanto, with a possible side of Hiroto/Saki.
  • Shinkenger: Takeru/Mako and Chiaki/Kotoha, or Takeru/Kotoha and Ryuunosuke/Mako. Genta is usually shipped either with Kaoru or the woman he rescued in episode 31.
  • Goseiger: Alata/Eri and Hyde/Moune.
  • Gokaiger: Marvelous/Ahim and Joe/Luka, or Marvelous/Luka and Joe/Ahim, or Marvelous/Ahim and Don/Luka, or Marvelous/Luka and Don/Ahim.
  • Kyoryuger: Ian/Yayoi is a common ship mate to the canon ships in order to pair up two of the left-over team members.
  • ToQger: Tokatti/Mio and Hikari/Kagura
  • In general, unless the team members are all related to each other or an Official Couple is hinted at early on, most series end up with the fans shipping Red Ranger/Pink Ranger and Yellow Ranger/Green or Black Ranger (if Yellow is female.)
• Supernatural:
  • Virtually all Sam/Gabriel shippers support Dean/Castiel too, as the main reason Sam/Gabriel became a semi-popular pairing in the first place despite their relative lack of canon interactions was fans seeing the Ho Yay between Dean and Castiel and going, "If Dean can get his own guardian angel, why can't Sam have one too?"
  • Some Dean/Castiel fics include Sam/Gabriel too, but since Dean/Castiel shippers greatly outnumber Sam/Gabriel ones, there's a lot more variety in who they pair up Sam with: AU fics usually pair him with his college girlfriend Jess (who died in the very first episode, but the "AU" factor lets them change that) and canon-based fics set during or after the last few seasons usually pair him with Eileen instead.
  • For the few Sam/Dean fics that don't just ignore Castiel entirely, pairing him off with Gabriel helps them continue the Incest Yay Shipping theme (as all angels are technically related to each other). Dean/Benny fics tend to favor Castiel/Meg instead as both pairings became viable at around the same time in canon (season 8).
• The Ted Lasso finale has created an unofficial alliance against Ted/Rebecca between Ted/Trent shippers and Rebecca/Matthijs (aka Dutch Boat Guy) shippers, because this allows for romantic happy endings for Ted and Rebecca while portraying her and Ted as Platonic Life-Partners.
• In Teen Wolf, fans of Derek/Stiles will often have Lydia paired up with her ex-boyfriend Jackson to keep her away from Stiles, and pretty much everyone adds Scott/Allison in the mix with these two.
  • Jennifer, Derek's love interest for the first half of season 3, is sometimes shipped with Kali to Pair the Spares. Same applies to Boyd/Erica.
  • Isaac/Cora (which was teased in a one-liner by Isaac himself) or Isaac/Erica may be chosen over the even-more teased Isaac/Allison by those who prefer Scott/Allison.
  • Then there's Derek/Stiles, Lydia/Allison, and Scott/Isaac which is gaining popularity in the fandom.
  • Sheriff Stilinski/Melissa McCall is fairly popular and goes with most other pairings.
• The Vampire Diaries Universe:
  • On The Vampire Diaries the Damon/Elena shippers frequently ship Stefan/Caroline, Stefan/Rebekah, Stefan/Katherine or Stefan/Klaus to keep Stefan as far away from Elena as possible.
  • Stefan/Elena fans usually ship Bonnie/Damon.
  • Fans who ship Klaus and Caroline often will ship Tyler/Hayley or Elijah/Hayley (when they don't just ship Hayley with Death instead). Matt/Rebekah as well as Stefan/Rebekah may be found in Klaroline fanfics as well, presumably to make Klaus' obsession with Rebekah disappear.
  • Legacies: Hope/Josie shippers tend to be Lizzie/MG shippers as well, mainly to get Lizzie out the way of their ship. For the same reason, Hope/Lizzie shippers tend to get along with Josie/Penelope shippers. Meanwhile, Josie/Landon shippers get along with Hope/Rafael shippers. Weirdly a lot of Hope/Josie shippers also get along with Klaus/Caroline shippers, even though the two ships would be incompatible with each other.
• Victorious:
  • Tori/Jade shippers get along quite well with Beck/Cat shippers, as this gets out the two popular rival ships for Jade. Jade/Tori shippers also get along greatly with Cat/Sam ship following the premiere of their spin-off.
  • A common triple straight Ship Mates fleet includes Tori/Andre, the canon pairing of Jade/Beck and the Beta Couple Cat/Robbie. It avoids anyone having to Die for Our Ship or even having to break the only canon pairing up.
  • Tori/Beck can be this for the Jade/Cat. Either for drama by having Tori steal Beck, or so that they don't feel bad for Beck when Jade realises she likes Cat.
  • Beck/Jade to Tori/Cat, as Beck/Jade staying together kills off the popular pairings of Jade/Cat and Tori/Beck, as well as the Fan-Preferred Couple Tori/Jade pairing.
• Wednesday: Fans who ship Wednesday and Enid together were quick to ship Tyler/Xavier as a way to avoid Die for Our Ship. This has actually reached the cast, with Tyler's actor jokingly naming the ship "Tylorpe" (a Portmanteau Couple Name of Tyler with Xavier's last name Thorpe). Those fans who ship Wednesday with either Tyler or Xavier will often pair Enid with Ajax.
• For The X-Files, those who watched the whole series and ship Mulder/Scully, also tend to ship Doggett/Reyes.