Fan Preferred Couples in Films — Animation.
- The An American Tail franchise has the Fan-Preferred Couple of Tony and Bridget. Interestingly this was a canon pairing initially, but later Direct to Video sequels wrote Bridget completely out of the story with no explanation, and had Tony swooning over an Indian Maiden named Cholena. Fievel and Cholena are also another Fan-Preferred Couple, sharing adorable Duet Bonding at one point in the movie (and this pairing is also helped by fans who prefer Tony staying with Bridget).
- Despite Word of God saying they wanted Dusty and Ralph to be the Official Couple in Balto III: Wings of Change, most fans prefer to pair Dusty with Kodi instead.
- Barbie:
- Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper: Anneliese/Erika has become incredibly popular over the years and is the most popular ship in the fandom, despite Anneliese and Erika marrying Julian and Dominick.
- Barbie & The Diamond Castle: Due to the amount of Les Yay between them and them being best friends who live together, nearly all of the fan work ships Liana/Alexa or one of them with Melody, rather than the teased Liana/Jeremy and Alexa/Ian. It helps that Liana and Alexa are together for almost the entire movie and the narrative puts a lot of importance on their bond, while the romances with Jeremy and Ian are barely developed beyond some hinting.
- Since Victor from Corpse Bride spent a lot more time with the Corpse Bride herself, rather than his actual love interest, that pairing is a lot more popular.
- In spite of their interactions being primarily platonic and Marlin being heavily implied to have never moved on from Coral, Marlin/Dory is an extremely popular ship among the Finding Nemo fandom because of their close friendship and extensive interactions across the movie.
- Fans of Frozen (2013) prefer shipping Anna with Elsa, more so than the canon Kristoff/Anna, due in no small part to the film's subtext.
- Within the Goofy related parts of Disney, there's Max's love life. In A Goofy Movie he was given a girlfriend named Roxanne. In the sequel she doesn't appear, but she pops up in House of Mouse. Come Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas, and he has a new girlfriend. Undoubtedly, Max/Roxanne is the Fan-Preferred Couple and many fans make Fix Fics about this. Though whether Twice Upon a Christmas is canon to begin with is something to consider.
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame invariably pair up Claude Frollo with Esmeralda, despite the former being an Ax-Crazy maniac several decades her senior and the latter being in a relationship with Pheobus.
- Klaus has Jesper and Klaus, also called "Merry Husbands", which is more popular than the canon Jesper/Alva. For example, Jesper/Klaus has 94 of the 179 fics on Archive of Our Own, while Jesper/Alva only has 14. These fans are helped by the large amounts of Ho Yay between Klaus and Jesper, as well as them feeling that they have better chemistry than Jesper and Alva. That said, Alva manages to avoid any Die for Our Ship from these shippers due to still being well-liked by the fandom.
- While Lucille ends up with Raoul in A Monster in Paris, many fans prefer her with Cute Monster Francoeur instead, even though Word of God says they are Like Brother and Sister.
- My Little Pony: Equestria Girls:
- When it comes to the popularity of ships in this Friendship Is Magic spin-off involving either Twilight or Sunset, even ships with each girl's Implied Love Interests usually take a backseat to the Twilight×Sunset ship. It began as Foe Yay Shipping in the first movie, with Sunset having a bit of an antagonistic obsession with Twilight, with some her interactions with Twilight (like her lifting Twilight's chin with her finger) looking like aggressive flirting, but it shifted to a more Les Yay ship for the following movies and shorts ever since the two developed a Pseudo-Romantic Friendship in its sequel, Rainbow Rocks.
- The popularity of the Sunset×Twilight shipping above increased dramatically further when the human counterpart of Twilight arrived in Friendship Games. The immense positive reception that followed after Sunset and the human Twilight (known as Sci-Twi in the fandom) bonded as friends and Implied Love Interests saw a massive number of fans switching from Princess Twilight to Sci-Twi as Sunset's most popular potential romantic partner. Many of these supporters have also frequently cried Die for Our Ship when Sci-Twi was given a canonical love interest in Legend of Everfree. The less said about him, the more likely chance you have of living a long life. On a more humorous note, a few fan works depict Sunset romancing both versions of Twilight... with commentary that she has a thing for Twilights.
- Historically, Rolfe does marry Pocahontas, but since the original film is considered vastly superior in quality and is obviously much more popular than the direct-to-video sequel, John Smith and Pocahontas endure as a more popular pairing. Evidently Disney agrees, as most secondary and merchandising materials make no mention of Rolfe. Disney almost never acknowledges direct-to-video sequels anyway.
- The Road to El Dorado:
- The Yaoi Fangirl faction is, unsurprisingly, siding with the Tulio/Miguel pairing, due to the closeness and chemistry of the two main characters, over the canon Tulio/Chel. Fueling this are various stories that they were intended to be a gay couple, before being vetoed by hire-ups.
- Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken: Ruby/Chelsea is shipped far, far more than Ruby/Connor, even with The Reveal that Chelsea is Queen Nerissa herself. Likely because Connor gets surprisingly little screentime in the film, resulting in many fans declaring that Ruby has far more chemistry with Chelsea than with him, and his questionable design, to put it lightly, being seen as less attractive than Chelsea by certain fans.
- The Secret of Mulan: During most reviews of this, including the one by Phelous
, many viewers point out that Mulan and Zhing-Zhing have better chemistry than Mulan and the Prince. The reasons being that Zhing-Zhing interacts more with Mulan and knows her better than the Prince (and apparently talks about her so much that she suspected her "boyfriend" might've been jealous of Mulan) whereas the Prince seems to like her platonically at best up until the ending where Mulan reveals her identity.
