Ship Mates / Video Games

• Assassin's Creed:
  • Altair/Malik shippers and Ezio/Leonardo shippers tend to flock together.
  • Modern Assassins generally get treated to Desmond/Lucy and Shaun/Rebecca or Desmond/Shaun and Lucy/Rebecca. Throw in the latter two with the above two, and you get a lovely case of Cast Full of Gay.
• In the Disgaea fandom, you won't find many Etna/Mid-Boss fans who don't also ship Laharl/Flonne. And for Disgaea 3, Almaz/Sapphire and Mao/Raspberyl tend to go hand in hand, as do the Ho Yay variants: Mao/Almaz and Sapphire/Raspberyl.
• For Exit Fate fans, Daniel/Ayara and Erin/Jasper seem to work well with each other.
• The King of Fighters
  • In both this series and Fatal Fury, Terry/Blue Mary shippers tend to make allusions to Andy/Mai.
  • Similarly in KOF fandom, Athena/Kensou shippers may want to keep Kyo Kusanagi, the guy Athena shows some degree of romantic interest in (depending on the medium), with his canon girlfriend Yuki. Kyo/Yuki fans who don't ship Kensou/Athena tend to put Iori and Athena together instead, invoking prospect All Girls Want Bad Boys and Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl dynamics to justify it (not to mention the canon concern she shows for him in XIII, never mind him brushing her off).
  • There's also the support that Ryo/King fans tend to give to Robert/Yuri, and vice versa. Both were heavily Ship Teased in Art of Fighting, but the latter has been downplayed in KOF.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy III: Luneth often gets paired with Refia with Ignus taken out of the equation by pairing him with Princess Sarah.
  • In Final Fantasy IV and its sequel, if we go by the route of Official Couple, we have Cecil/Rosa, Edge/Rydia, Edward/Harley, Palom with Luca or Leonora and Porom/Tsukinowa.
    • For those who want Kain to get someone, there are two possibilities; one is to let his feelings for Rosa be recognized, which usually means Cecil goes with Rydia or dies (or, more commonly, joins in); the other is to pair him with either Rydia or Barbariccia.
  • Averted with Final Fantasy V by having Bartz paired with all three girls.
  • Final Fantasy VII:
    • Especially in recent years with the release of the Compilation, this has become common in the fandom with Cloud/Tifa and Zack/Aerith.
    • Among the four above, Tifa/Aerith is also fairly popular alongside Cloud/Zack.
    • Cloud/Aerith shippers by contrast will pair Zack with Cissnei and Tifa with Barret (and since the remake, Zack as well as well given the possibility that his death was undone), possibly inspired by her acting as a substitute mom to Barret's daughter in Advent Children. Fans who like shipping Tifa/Barret as endgame but want Cloud to get a happy ending with a living person will often ship him with Yuffie.
  • This trope get used the most in Final Fantasy XII with Vaan/Penelo, Balthier/Fran. As for Ashe/Basch, fans will often Handwave it with Second Love. Fandom will also throw in Gabranth/Larsa as well.
    • On the yaoi side of things, fans who want to pair Balthier with Vaan or Basch will get Fran out of the way by putting her with Penelo. Oddly, Fran/Ashe doesn't seem to be as common. Balthier/Vaan also goes well with Basch/Vossler and Gabranth/Larsa.
    • Balthier/Ashe is also very popular, in which case Fran sometimes gets paired with Basch, even though that's a bit of a stretch.
  • Final Fantasy X: Supporters of Yuna/Tidus tend to also support Wakka/Lulu, which became canon in the sequel, and Auron/Rikku, which... didn't.
  • In Final Fantasy X-2, Rikku/Gippal and Paine/Baralai are popular shipmates.
  • Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning/Hope fics sometimes tend to be accompanied by Fang/Vanille and Snow/Serah. Switching it up results in Hope/Vanille being shipmates with Lightning/Fang and, again, Snow/Serah.
    • As of Final Fantasy XIII-2, Serah/Snow usually sees Noel with Yeul, while Serah/Noel fans have a variety of ships.
  • Fans of Final Fantasy XV tend to overwhelmingly favor Prompto/Noctis and Ignis/Gladiolus. Noctis/Ignis is also quite popular, in which case people usually go Prompto/Gladiolus. And that's assuming they don't just pair all four together at once. Lunafreya, Noctis's canon love interest, is mostly ignored, but in spaces where she isn't, it's pretty common to pair her off with Nyx from Kingsglaive so as to avoid Die for Our Ship issues.
• Due to most installments starting with the Jugdral games encouraging the player to play matchmaker, and the nasty shipping wars that have resulted because of it, Fire Emblem fans often resort to this to make things slightly less messy.
  • Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War:
    • The uncommon and non-predestined pairing of Claud/Erinys has a small following... consisting of Lewyn/Sylvia and Lewyn/Tailtiu fans. It does help that, technically speaking, it gives Ced and Fee really good stats (and that sweet, sweet Valkyrie Staff...)
    • Similarly, some Lewyn/Erinys fans who ain't squicked by the possible Brother–Sister Incest/Kissing Cousins vibes tend to pair off Sylvia with Claud. (Again, nice stats and Valkyrie staff, which Coirpre can use well.) If not, they'll lean more towards Alec/Sylvia (average but still useful stats, and quite easy to get).
  • Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade:
    • Eliwood/Ninian fans often pair Hector with Lyn, while Florina/Hector fans ship Lyn/Rath instead. Kent/Lyn and Sain/Fiora also tend to go hand in hand, and fans who ship all the popular slash couples (Rath/Wil, Raven/Lucius, Heath/Legault, Kent/Sain, Matthew/Guy and Hector/Eliwood) ship Lyn/Florina as well.
    • Fans who like both het and femslash might pair up Eliwood with Ninian, then ship Lyn and Florina.
    • Eliwood/Ninian can work with any possibly canon pairing (barring Eliwood/Fiora or Eliwood/Lyn), which along with the above can include Hector/Florina or Hector/Farina (for the former, bonus points in Ninian and Florina having a Pseudo-Romantic Friendship in their Supports). Rebecca can also be paired with Wil, Lowen or Sain depending on your taste (though the former two have no other options for Love Interests).
    • Raven/Lucius fans who don't hate Priscilla for her Big Brother Worship towards Raven will almost surely invoke the presence of her suitors to whisk her away safely, whether her love matters are doomed or not.
  • Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones:
    • Innes/Eirika or Seth/Eirika often goes with Ephraim/Tana.
    • Ephraim/Lyon and Eirika/L'Arachel fans have a tendency to stick together, due mostly to the two pairings being Ephraim and Eirika's easiest gay choices.
    • It's not that uncommon for Gerik/Marisa fans to pair Tethys off with Rennac (who does develop a crush on her in their Supports, though they have no shared ending), or for Seth/Natasha and Tethys/Gerik fans to put Joshua and Marisa together.
    • It's also not uncommon for Joshua/Natasha fans to ship Seth/Eirika, and vice versa.
    • A common shipping solution for Kyle and Forde is to pair the former off with Syrene and pair the latter with Syrene's younger sister Vanessa. It helps that a) Kyle and Syrene are previously acquainted Birds of a Feather (with Syrene noted by Kyle to have matured quite nicely when the two meet up again in the present) and b) Forde/Vanessa sidesteps how they respectively have Bodyguard Crushes on Eirika and Innes, keeping them out of the various royal-centric shipping configurations. (Bonus points in that Forde correctly guesses in their B Support that Vanessa likes her liege and genuinely encourages her feelings for Innes before suggesting himself as possible suitor.)
  • The GBA Fire Emblem games in general has this built right into the game itself: you can almost always find someone else for a character to A Support with. And as a bonus, since characters can, in addition to their one A Support, also have a B Support with another character, if you can link your Ship Mates together with B Supports, you will have created a small group of near-invincibility with all the stat boosts. (Also applies to other Fire Emblem games with the Support system, though the mechanics may differ.)
  • In Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, Ike/Soren tends to go hand in hand with whichever is relevant out of Boyd/Mist and Elincia/Geoffrey, if not both, while Lethe/Jill fics will feature the Kyza/Ranulf/Lyre triangle as the Beta Threesome.
  • Fire Emblem: Awakening:
    • Chrom/Sumia shippers and male Robin/Cordelia shippers overlap quite a bit, due to Chrom/male Robin and Sumia/Cordelia being Heterosexual Life-Partners.
    • If the fans don't want to pair Sumia with Chrom but aren't willing to go the Die for Our Ship way either, they'll most likely ship her with Frederick or Gaius instead.
    • Lissa/Lon'qu fans sometimes tend to ship Lissa's best friend Maribelle with either Gaius or Ricken.
    • As "the het ship(s) that almost everyone like(s)" (though it's lost some popularity since Awakening's heyday), Henry/Olivia tends to be a common Beta Couple in fan work.
    • Donnel/Nowi and Ricken/Nowi tend to be relatively easy to spot as well, likely to hook up the very Older Than They Look Nowi with a guy whose age matches her physical looks.
    • Among the second generation units, it's pretty common for Gerome/Inigo shippers to ship Owain/Brady. If they go for yuri too, they may toss Kjelle/Severa in the mix.
    • The odd-numbered Second Generation make it easy to pair off all thirteen of them with someone... if you either go OT3 or pair one of them with Robin, that is. This would, of course, naturally constitute Morgan (of either gender) being paired with a childhood friend of their non-Robin parent, but considering that Robin is already romancing a child of one of their close friends (most commonly Lucina, with the male Robin) at this point it's a case of "Nothing Is Sacred Anymore".
    • Male Robin/Lucina fans tend to ship Chrom/Sumia as well, but an overlap with Chrom/Olivia exists.
  • In Fire Emblem Fates, Oboro has a huge crush on Takumi, so fans that ship him with anyone else (especially Leo) tend to pair Oboro with Silas or Niles.
  • Each house in Fire Emblem: Three Houses has some existing tightly-knit relationships that have to be shuffled around a bit to make room for the main character. For example, Byleth/Edelgard is often accompanied by Hubert/Bernadetta or Hubert/Ferdinand. The already popular Felix/Annette ship is even more popular when Felix needs to be kept away from Dimitri to make room for Dimitri/Byleth. Byleth/Claude sets up Hilda/Marianne or Hilda/Caspar.
• Golden Sun:
  • The first wave of fandom had Isaac/Mia, Garet/Jenna and Ivan/Sheba. With the second game came along the pairings Isaac/Jenna, Felix/Sheba, Garet/Mia and Alex/Mia. Interestingly enough, you almost always find them in this order. It's almost impossible to find Garet/Mia that didn't contain Isaac/Jenna, and Garet/Jenna that didn't contain Isaac/Mia. This was not followed by the sequels, which canonized Isaac/Jenna and nothing else.
  • And of course there is the Third Option of Ho Yay. Isaac/Ivan and Felix/Piers often appear together. Alex/Felix and Felix/Piers may come as a Love Triangle or turn Alex into a Stalker with a Crush. To be fair, Alex's reaction to Piers makes him sound like a jilted lover.
  • The fact that the characters travel in groups of four for the longest time makes it very easy to Pair the Spares (well, ignore Kraden in the second game...). In fics set in-game, Jenna/Sheba will probably have Felix/Piers on the side (the few in existence, anyway) and Isaac/Ivan tends to have Garet/Mia. Strangely, though, there has yet to be a Saturos/Menardi + Felix/Sheba + Alex/Jenna fic.
  • In Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, fans of Matthew/Sveta tend to put Karis with Tyrell or Amiti. Matthew/Karis fans give Amiti to Sveta instead.
• Harvest Moon encourages this as many games have the bachelors and bachelorettes forming "rival couples". So, for example, many Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life fans who like Mark/Celia or Mark/Nami are quick to pair Muffy with her boss and Implied Love Interest Griffin. Even in games without rival systems, people will ship rivals off together.
• The Irisu Syndrome! character Uuji invokes this trope, remarking that since he reciprocates Irisu's feelings and Edogawa likes Ageha, those pairs getting together would most improve the group's stability (even though Ageha likes Uuji). Of course, Uuji's goal is the opposite of stability, so for most of the game he's doing everything he can to ensure these 'ideal' ships don't happen.
• Even though it's a Two Hugs, No Kissing game, Kingdom Hearts has whole trees of these spring up. Let's see here...
  • Sora/Kairi shippers usually ship Roxas/Naminé, too. Riku is taken out of the picture via Xion or Yuffie and Axel via Larxene.
    • That or Larxene gets paired with Marluxia. Or better yet, Axel, Larxene, AND Marluxia all at once.
  • Sora/Riku shippers will typically go the Kairi/Naminé route, if not... the other way... with Axel/Roxas.
    • AU fics will sometimes ship Kairi with Final Fantasy characters that haven't yet been/won't be in the series to keep Riku with Sora, Axel with Roxas, and Cloud with Leon.
    • And speaking of the Final Fantasy side of Kingdom Hearts, many of the fics that ship Cloud and Aerith will have Leon shipped with either Tifa or Yuffie. Conversely, fics with Aerith/Leon may also feature Cloud/Tifa. Where slash is concerned, Leon/Cloud is sometimes accompanied by Zack/Aerith (more so in AU fics) or Aerith/Tifa.
  • Sora/Roxas and/or Naminé/Kairi shippers usually pair Riku with Xion.
  • Other Sora/Kairi shippers go with Roxas/Xion and Riku/Naminé (helped by the fact that later games made Sora/Kairi official and gave more Ship Tease to the latter two).
  • Axel/Roxas shippers usually pair off Xion with Naminé, while Roxas/Xion shippers pair Axel with Saix.
  • Demyx/Zexion seems to be a popular ship mate in slash fics, particularly if those fics already involved Sora/Riku, Axel/Roxas, and/or Leon/Cloud.
  • Some decide to pair up the whole Organization XIII by going with Xigbar/Demyx, Lexaeus/Zexion, Marluxia/Vexen, Xemnas/Saix, Xaldin/Luxord, Axel/Roxas, and sometimes Larxene/Naminé.
  • Some of the Terra/Aqua shippers who don't want to leave Ventus out of the fun will pair him up with Lea, Vanitas, or (occasionally) Snow White.
• Knights of the Old Republic has Canderous/Bastila, which started out as a Crack Pairing in an influential fanfic (the author was a professional romance author and wanted to see if she could pull it off), because Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls and play with a female PC. In case you're curious, the link to this fic is here.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: Despite that they're ostensibly Ships That Pass in the Night to each other and are canonically in love with Link and Zelda respectively, it's common for Zelink shippers to pair Peatrice and Groose together. This is less to get them out of the way—the game pretty heavily favours Zelda/Link as Implied Love Interest to each other—and more that people like the characters and don't want to leave them heartbroken. Plus, they're commonly considered a genuinely cute couple who'd have fit together wonderfully.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild:
    • Despite the fact that Mipha was canonically in love with Link, Mipha/Revali has gained a notable following alongside the more popular Zelda/Link.
    • For non-straight ships, it's pretty common to see Mipha/Zelda and Link/Revali pairings show up together. On the fanfiction website Archive of Our Own, over a third of the Mipha/Zelda fics also have the Link/Revali tag.
• Life Is Strange:
  • Fics that pair Max with a female character (Chloe, Victoria, Kate, Rachel, or some combination thereof) usually have Warren get together with Brooke. This has some basis in canon - Brooke implies that she's into Warren, Max herself thinks that Warren should be all over Brooke, and if Max turns down Warren's invitation to go to a movie, Warren will invite Brooke instead.
  • If Max is being shipped with Chloe, then Victoria is frequently shipped with Kate.
• With Little Busters!, there are two main options: the slash route with Riki/Kyousuke and Rin/Komari (and, far less likely, possibly a Haruka/Kurugaya or Haruka/Mio in the background), or the straight route with Rin/Riki, Komari/Kyousuke, and Kud/Masato.
• Typically in Mass Effect fandom, whoever of the official romance options that isn't being shipped with Shepard is sometimes paired up with someone else.
  • Some well-known examples from Mass Effect 2 would be Garrus/Tali, Jacob/Miranda (which was canon), Jacob/Kasumi, Thane/Samara, Thane/Jack, Tali'Zorah/Kal'Reegar and Liara/Feron.
  • Mass Effect 3 made Garrus/Tali canon if neither are romanced by Shepard. Javik is another popular choice for Liara now, and Male!Shepard/Kaidan shippers also have a tendency to ship Steve/James.
• In the Metal Gear Solid fandom, those who actually like Johnny/Meryl sometimes also appreciate the fact that he took Meryl off of Snake's hands. Snake is thus free to keep his hands on Otacon. The same can be said for those who are content to leave Jack/Rose as they are, though they realize that Raiden/Snake shippers would obviously disagree.
• Mortal Kombat: If you ship Liu Kang and Princess Kitana (a couple that was this close to being official), chances are that you also pair up their respective best friends, Kung Lao and Jade.
  • The same is true of shipping Smoke and Jade if you're a fan of (Younger) Sub-Zero/Kitana.
• Though the Mother series doesn't have a major shipping fandom, there is still instances of this. For EarthBound Beginnings, Ninten/Ana is sometimes complemented by Lloyd/Pippi. For EarthBound, there's Ness/Paula and Jeff/Tony, as well as sometimes Jeff/Ness and Poo/Paula. For Mother 3, there's Duster/Kumatora with Lucas/Claus, Lucas/Ness, and occasionally Lucas/Nana (an NPC). Some fans — especially those who got into the series around Super Smash Bros. Brawl — support Lucas/Ness, Claus/Ninten, and Kumatora/Paula.
• In Overwatch Genji/Mercy shippers tend to ship Pharah/Symmetra while Pharah/Mercy shippers tend to ship Genji/Zenyatta.
• The Persona fandom often makes use of this concept, particularly with the inclusion of Dating Sim elements from the third game and beyond.
  • Most shippers in the Persona 3 fandom also support the pairing between Junpei and Chidori. This is likely due to the relationship between Junpei and Chidori being explicitly depicted as canonical and being integral to the main plot.
  • Due to insane amounts of Ship Tease and Ho Yay in a single game, Persona 4 makes any pairing looks believable (which is not helped by several party members rooting for a different pairing within the group). Despite the conflicts, most people agree to Pair the Spares; so, if you ship Yu/Yukiko, you probably ship Kanji/Naoto, and some combination of Yosuke, Rise, Chie, and Teddie too. Fans who prefer Chie/Yukiko (whether they think "Het Is Ew" or not) usually ship Yu/Yosuke together and leave Yukiko for Chie, while Kanji and Naoto make a safe Beta Couple or maybe a safe Beta OT3 if they add Rise or Yosuke to the mix. It works.
    • When Persona 4: Arena was released, Yosuke's Ship Tease with Original Generation character Labrys freed other characters up, so it's commonly supported by Chie/Yukiko shippers.
    • Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, being the second P3/P4 crossover after the Arena duology (and one that involves the entirety of both games' main casts), further opened the door for cross-title pairings, though the only ones fans seem to take seriously are Fuuka/Rise (since they're both Mission Control characters with similar abilities and spend the game's events building up a close friendship) and Chie/Akihiko (a Call-Forward to their student-teacher relationship in Arena, which is how many fans prefer to depict their camaraderie). The catch is that the time-space paradox that allows the two groups to be brought together from their respective eras is resolved by the end of the story, causing everyone to lose their memories of their meeting, though some write around this to effectively have things pick up from where they left off by the time of Arena.
    • Persona 4: Dancing All Night formally introduces players to Kanami Mashita, a rising star within the idol industry who was previously mentioned in Rise's Social Link. Aside of becoming Nanako's Cool Big Sis and implicitly developing a crush on Dojima after he saves her life from a Loony Fan, she also bonds with the Investigation Team, Yu and Rise most of all. Yu openly invites Kanami into his circle of friends (which means a lot given Kanami's Friendless Background) and Kanami, already a friendly acquaintance of Rise's, is quick to fangirl if they're dance partners. It should also be noted that Kanami herself can play Shipper on Deck for Yu/Rise if she's commentating on them dancing together during Fever Time, exuberantly proclaiming how good they look. This culminates in a significant portion of the final dance against DAN's Big Bad being devoted to a three-way performance between Yu, Rise, and Kanami. Besides the obvious OT3 application, Kanami's addition to the myriad of Investigation Team-based pairings benefits Rise if she's left unpaired, as Rise tends to only be shipped with either Yu or Naoto.
    • The other members of Kanami's idol group are revealed to have insecurities and idiosyncrasies that the Investigation Team can relate to given their own struggles in the past. For example, Yosuke understands Tamami's frustrations over being the Plucky Comic Relief of the group, while Tomoe's responsibility as the leader of Kanamin Kitchen resonates with Yukiko because of her family duty to the Amagi Inn (and both have a good laugh over their Closet Geek/Otaku tendencies). (Tamami also calls Yu dreamy before mouthing him off in classic Tsundere fashion, but that's unrelated.) Though these are all uncommon to see due to DAN being a Rhythm Game Spin-Off for the Vita, the one ship that seems to have any significant traction is Kanji/Nozomi. It doesn't hurt that Nozomi visibly expresses interest in Kanji and has a stage persona that's as close to a Bifauxnen as you can get for an Idol Singer — reminding many of Kanji's dynamics with Naoto before and after her reveal as a Sweet Polly Oliver. Coincidentally, a good number of people who support this ship appear to be players who paired Yu with Naoto.
  • Persona 5
    • Pairing Ann with Ryuji makes sense due to their interactions during the game, but it also frees up Ren to be with Makoto. Yusuke/Futaba may also be added to the mix by fans who see Ren and Futaba as surrogate siblings.
    • Surprisingly for pairings involving the same person, Ren/Akechi and Ren/Kasumi read: Sumire shippers tend to get along well. This is due to much of Royal's new content focusing on the three of them, making Ren/Akechi/Kasumi a very popular One True Threesome. But even those who ship Ren/Akechi alone, which isn't possible in gameplay, will often romance Kasumi in-game as the "next best thing."
• The Pokémon games tend to get this, just like the anime:
  • For the Johto games, there's Ethan/Kris and Silver/Lyra or Silver/Kris and Ethan/Lyra. The Unova games are more complicated: Cheren/Bianca is commonly a Beta Couple to N/Hilda, N/Hilbert, and Hilbert/Hilda. Some N/Hilda shippers support Hilbert/Bianca instead. Some N/Hilbert shippers also opt for Cheren/Hilda or Bianca/Hilda. Some Cheren/Hilda shippers also ship Hilbert/Bianca; pretty much, whatever pairing you like for the Unova protagonists, forming Ship Mates is very easy.
  • In Sun and Moon, ships among the young main cast tend to come in certain configurations that ensure both Lillie and Gladion are paired. Fans who ship the male player character with Lillie tend to pair Gladion with the female player character. Fans who ship Lillie and Hau also like Gladion/female player character. If one prefers Lillie with the female player character, then Gladion is generally shipped with Hau instead.
  • In Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia, there are two major pairs of ships: Kellyn/Kate and Keith/Rhythmi versus Keith/Kate and Kellyn/Rhythmi.
  • Dawn/Cynthia fans sometimes ship Lucas/Volker as a male counterpart.
  • Both Steven/May and Cynthia/Dawn are extremely common ships. Shippers of both often ship the other. Steven's and Cynthia's ship name together ("Lolishotashipping," also known as "Darksteelshipping") is even based on the idea.
  • Some people who ship Hardenshipping (Archie/Maxie) also ship the respective admins of Team Aqua and Magma together (Shelly/Courtney and Matt/Tabitha), sort of in a case of Pair the Spares.
  • Gen VIII saw the rise of two rather popular rival ships that became this for each other: Gloria/Marnie and Victor/Hop.
  • Leon/Raihan shippers are often found in the company of Nessa/Sonia shippers, partially because both pairings are established as friends in-series already, and partially because it doesn't leave Leon or Sonia (also close friends) lonely.
• Owing to Puyo Puyo attracting an alarming amount of shippers, there are plenty of combinations fans ship the characters in. Many Arle x Schezo fans will also ship Dark Prince x Rulue and Witch x Ragnus or Witch x Draco, for instance, while many Schezo x Witch fans instead ship Arle and Dark Prince or Arle and Ragnus together, just to name a few.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Within the fandom, people who ship Sonic/Blaze tend to also ship Silver/Amy.
  • The most common train amongst the fandom (game-wise at least) is: Sonic/Amy, Knuckles/Rouge, and Silver/Blaze. Shadow/Maria, and Tails/Cream are optional. Fans of the IDW comic often add Tangle/Whisper.
  • Within the slash corners of the fandom, there are many Sonic/Shadow shippers that also ship Blaze/Amy and vice versa.
• Stardew Valley: Because most of the game's "canonical" couples (barring the Unrequited Love Clint has for Emily) are compatible with each other, this tends to be very common. The Player Character swooping up one of the bachelor(ette)s tends to mess with the Cast Calculus, so pairings are forced to realign, and the same groupings of pairings tend to happen a lot in fic.
  • The most popular pairing of two NPCs is Sam/Sebastian, which is often complemented with Maru/Penny (which accounts for Sam's canonical love interest) and allowing the farmer to pursue either Abigail (Seb's love interest) or Harvey (Maru's love interest). Surprisingly Abigail/Penny, the direct complement to Sam/Sebastian, is not very popular.
• Super Mario Bros.: Mario and Peach with Luigi and Daisy.
• Tales of Graces: Since Hubert and Pascal aren't a part of the utter shipping mess that is Sophie-Cheria-Asbel-and-Richard, they tend to make a pretty safe Beta Couple complement for just about any other pairing.
• Tales of Symphonia features a Love Triangle between Lloyd, Colette, and Sheena. Zelos hits on both girls throughout the game, so fans of one ship tend to ship the remaining girl with Zelos.
  • And Zelloyd is occasionally complemented by Sheena/Colette, although that's a bit rarer. Really, those four can go any way.
  • Zelos/Regal could neatly pair off with Lloyd/Sheena, Colette/Raine, Presea/Genis and Kratos/Anna... just sayin', despite the Squick (if Regal's backstory wasn't squicky enough in hindsight...).
    • For a purely Het variant on the above, the latter two can be maintained alongside Regal/Raine by the side — from there, you can ship either Lloyd/Colette and Zelos/Sheena, or Lloyd/Sheena and Zelos/Colette, and everybody still wins.
  • In the sequel, it is not uncommon for Emil/Marta shippers to also ship Richter/Aster. On the other hand, many other Richter/Aster shippers also ship Richter and Emil, or Emil/Ratatosk/Aster.
• Tales of Vesperia: Fluri and Ristelle are both immensely popular, and so often seen together. It's really a double match made in heaven — there's a lot of subtext to fuel both couples, most of the main characters get to be involved, and since Estelle and Yuri and Estelle and Flynn are close friends, it's really easy to put them together in fanworks.
• Team Fortress 2
  • Fans who ship Spy/Sniper tend to throw some Heavy/Medic in there as well. But then again, everyone tends to throw some Heavy/Medic in there.
  • Fans who ship Scout/Miss Pauling often enjoy Spy/Scout's mother as well.
  • Many Heavy/Medic fans also ship Scout/Miss Pauling as a PairTheSpares. Given that it prevents several of the more prevalent rival pairings of the ship such as Medauling and Scout/Medic, it's not too surprising.
• Touhou Project: For Yuyuko/Youmu shippers, Reimu/Yukari is often beneficial as it keeps Yukari from being paired with Yuyuko. The benefit is similar for Marisa/Alice shippers (by keeping Reimu from being paired with Marisa).
  • Of course, given the sheer amount of Shipping in the Touhou fandom, if taken to extreme levels, this trope results in a ridiculous amount of cascading. For example, to support the above Yuyuko/Youmu, Reimu/Yukari, and Marisa/Alice pairs, you would ship:
    • Koakuma/Patchouli, to keep Patchouli away from Marisa (or Alice); Remilia/Sakuya, to keep Remilia from Patchouli (and Reimu) and Sakuya from Marisa; and Meiling/Flandre, to keep Meiling from Sakuya and Flandre from Remilia (and Marisa) (or do Remilia/Flandre and then Meiling/Sakuya, for similar effect)
    • Reisen/Tewi, to keep Reisen away from Youmu; Kaguya/Eirin, to keep Eirin from Reisen; Mokou/Keine, to keep Mokou from Kaguya; and Rinnosuke/unnamed-book-reading-youkai to keep Rinnosuke from Keine (and Yukari and Marisa)
    • And so on, and so forth.
• Twisted Wonderland players who aren't fans of Trey/Riddle tend to ship Floyd/Riddle and Trey/Jade. With Jade and Floyd being Polar Opposite Twins, they don't generally get shipped in Western fandom, but most fans seem happy to ship one or both of them with Azul instead.
• Undertale fans who ship Alphys/Undyne will sometimes also ship Toriel/Sans and Papyrus/Mettaton. Those who are fans of Toriel/Asgore instead of Toriel/Sans will usually pair up Sans with someone else or have him be Alone Among the Couples (something that, canonically speaking, he wouldn't mind).