Analysis / Ships That Pass in the Night

• 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.

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