Foe Yay Shipping

"Is that what you want, Peepers? For me to marry the person I hate the most in the entire universe?"

— Lord Hater, Wander over Yonder

So there's these two characters, right? And they spend 95% of their time thinking about each other, what the other one's planning or doing, and whenever they converse their dialogue is incredibly emotionally charged. Fortunately, there's a nice family-friendly explanation: they're arch-enemies, right? Right...

This audience reaction trope happens when fans interpret subtextual marks of sexual tension in a tense, antagonistic, or outright violent relationship, and subsequently write Fan Fic and make Fan Art where the arch-enemies love each other. They might write plots that end in a Dating Catwoman resolution, or use The Power of Love to induce a Heel–Face Turn (or more rarely, induce a Face–Heel Turn), or exploit the existing dynamics to show a romantic relationship that's dysfunctional or outright abusive. If the antagonist's one-sided crush is already canonically admitted, in these Fan Fics the protagonist might believe that Stalking is Love, and reciprocate the feelings.

Psychologically speaking, this is generally the result of a principle known as misattribution of arousal. For more explanation, see analysis.

Compare to Belligerent Sexual Tension and Foe Romance Subtext, where there's actual romantic tension between the characters. There's potential overlap with No Yay for examples that go the extra mile in squickiness.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Beastars: The most popular pairing with Melon is with Agata, a character that is pretty clear about his hatred for his psychopathic boss. The ship set sail in chapter 131 because Melon stabbed Agata's hand with a fork and threatened to kill and serve him as meat to his friends, and grew when Agata plotted to assassinate Melon. Granted, a fanfics of the ship are known to also run with a redemption arc for Melon.
• A Certain Magical Index:
  • Touma is pretty popular to ship with just about anyone, but there is a very healthy community of those who ship him with people (usually girls) that have tried at one point or another to kill him. Not like this doesn't have basis in canon, mind, as several members of his harem originally were foes who were trying to kill him, most notably Othinus, who killed him millions of times in various parallel worlds to try and break his spirit, yet ultimately fell in love with him because he was the only being who could understand her own pain.
  • Accelerator x Mikoto Misaka pairing has a small but dedicated fanbase that is willing to ignore the enmity between them. In canon, Mikoto is still bitter about Accelerator slaughtering 10031 Misaka clones in Radio Noise arc, and Accelerator who (in his words) is trying his best to make amends to help the surviving Misaka clones, refuses to apologize to Mikoto. Accelerator believes that Mikoto shares the blame too for giving her DNA Map.
• Death Note: The most popular ship in the fandom is Light/L. As in the mass murderer and the detective he eventually murdered. Sometimes the fandom's reasons make little sense, but sometimes they have fairly good ones.
• Durarara!! has Shizaya (Shizuo Heiwajima/Izaya Orihara) as its most popular pairing. The Homoerotic Subtext of their relationship is repeatedly lampshaded (especially in the anime) by other characters, most notably Yaoi Fangirl Erika, who is a prominent Shizaya shipper. Shizuo hates Izaya so much that he flies into a blind rage just by seeing him (and some times, just hearing his name), while Izaya espouses that he loves all humans — except for Shizuo, who he admits to being the only person in the world that he hates. The anime ups it a notch by having them so fixated on their rivalry that it mirrors the very disturbing romantic obsessions of other characters on the show, topped off with Hate at First Sight as the start of their relationship. It's at that point that people begin to stamp Belligerent Sexual Tension and Foe Romance Subtext on their relationship. The author has already stated that their relationship will never be canon, but he not only ships it, but has already written a very graphical fanfic of them together.
• Fullmetal Alchemist (2003):
  • Winry and Roy are not exactly enemies, however Winry holds negative sentiments about Roy because she learned he was the soldier who killed her parents. A lot of people enjoy the angsty potential between them.
  • Envy and Edward are one of the most popular anime ships, to a lesser extent in the manga, despite being mortal enemies. Envy even kills Edward. Fans were in for a surprise when Envy revealed that he is Edward's half-brother.
• Future Diary: Despite Aru Akise and Yuno Gasai being hostile toward each other in canon as they are love rivals fighting for Yukiteru's affection (to the point of Yuno killing Akise to keep her nasty secret from being exposed), there is a Vocal Minority part of fandom who ships Akise and Yuno as a couple.
• Gintama: The rivalry between Kagura and Sougo is a lot of one-upping, arguing, and teasing, with several punches thrown in for good measure. Despite never once showing any signs of a crush, fandom tends to see a more romantic version: one's a feisty hothead voiced by Rie Kugimiya, the other's a pretty boy sadist who can get the girls fawning all over him. You do the math.
• Hajime no Ippo: Ippo Makunouchi and Ichiro Mitaya are often shipped due to their rivalry that borders on obsession. Their relationship outside of the ring also tends to be awkward, with Ippo being shy and friendly and Miyata being aloof but not outright hostile.
• Haruhi Suzumiya: Yuki/Ryoko and Kyon/Ryoko were two of the most popular pairings even back when all that was known about Ryoko was that she tried to kill Kyon and Yuki killed her in his defense.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers:
  • France and England (FRUK) are also a good example of this, as they are often seen fighting over literally nothing. The ship was later turned into a gag during the movie Paint It White, where the alien's information on France and England says that they love each other, sexually.
  • Another popular ship is Russia/America or (RusAme), who are Cold War rivals. This ship is even teased in the comic named Together with Russia (Season 6 Episode 13), where America points out the odd (in his view) Russian greeting of kissing on the lips—Russia responds by saying "Let's make your gums bleed, hm?"
• Highschool of the Dead: Rei and Saeko are rivals in love competing for Takashi's affection. However, circumstances in the "Drifters of the Dead" OVA resulted in the two of them kissing while naked, both thinking they were kissing Takashi. Even though the kiss was accidental, plus the OVA is non-canon, this hasn't stopped a considerable amount of fan art and fanfics shipping the two women together.
• Kaguya-sama: Love Is War has the unnamed president of the Kendo Club, and the president Astronomy Club Momo Ryuji, who are the son of the Superintendent General of the Metropolitan Police and the local Yakuza Princess respectively. They have only appeared together a grand total of two times (technically three, but one of them was a flashback to their introduction), and look like they're about to start fighting the one time the directly interact, but they're a minorly popular pairing to due the Dating Catwoman story potential.
• Kill la Kill fandom had Ryuko/Satsuki, prior to the reveal that they're long-lost sisters. After that... it continued to have Ryuko/Satsuki, with a hefty dash of Incest Yay Shipping for flavor.
• The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords (2004): Vio/Shadow Link, especially after the former's Face–Heel Turn. The pairing is quite popular in the fandom, and is supported or hinted at in art by the manga artist herself. Why yes, Vio's arm is around Shadow's waist.
• There is an inordinate amount of Signum/Cypha shipping material for Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force, considering Cypha was introduced and only appeared in said manga, which was Cut Short soon thereafter. The only reasonable explanation seems to be that Cypha has come the closest to killing Signum in one-on-one combat than any other character in the canon.
• Mobile Suit Gundam gives us Char x Garma and Char x Amuro. The former, he betrays, and the latter is something of a Villainous Crush.
• My Hero Academia: Some fans ship homeroom teacher Eraserhead aka Shota Aizawa and Shigaraki, likely cause Shigaraki said Eraser was “cool”during the USJ arc. There are also occasional fics pairing Aizawa with Kurogiri due to Kurogiri being made from the body of Aizawa's best friend and... let's just say it's extremely complicated usually.
• One Piece:
  • The Pirate Alliance saga unearths a 13 year stand-off between Trafalgar Law and Donquixote Doflamingo. Law is determined to bring the latter to ruin for killing the most important person in his life, who incidentally, was Doflamingo's younger brother Rocinante. Doflamingo himself however, is intent on having Law serve as his right-hand man and obtaining the ultimate power of the former's devil fruit ability for himself. Add Law's near-fanatical Undying Loyalty towards Rocinante, Rocinante's Heroic Sacrifice in order to protect Law from his brother, and Doflamingo going ballistic at seeing the Corazon motif Law has taken up in tribute to Rocinante on his clothes and tattooed all over his body, the complicated relationship between the three is very much seen as a Sibling Triangle.
  • After Coby became a decent looking marine soldier and Alvida got a devil fruit which turned her into a beautiful lady, fans started to pair them up in fanfictions despite their mutual hatred for each other in the past.
• Sabrina and Blue from Pokémon Adventures. Sabrina has a mean case of Adaptational Villainy and is originally a Team Rocket. Her and Blue being stuck together for several chapters only fueled the ship.
• Mitsumi and Cyrus from Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl Adventure! have a complicated, tense relationship because Mitsumi was raised by him and was a member of Team Galactic until recently.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica:
  • A popular Crack Pairing is Mami/Charlotte. As in, the witch that decapitated Mami and ate her body. How this came about is anyone's guess, but it got some support with Rebellion, where Charlotte/Bebe is Nagisa Momoe, who joins the cast and is shown to be very close with Mami.
  • After Rebellion, Ultimate Madoka and Akuma Homura were shipped with lightning speed, something official artwork◊ is only too happy to encourage (image contains massive spoilers). Along similar lines, Homura/Sayaka saw a big upswing in shipping activity following the movie, with a large portion of it falling along these lines given Sayaka was the only one to openly challenge what Akuma Homura had done.
• Talentless Nana: Kyoya and Nana are constantly at each other's throats due to both of them employing Sherlock Scan, and when Nana decides to explain everything to him, Nana leans in towards Kyoya as if intending to kiss him.
• Technically this happens in Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs between Olivia and Angie: the respective Player Character and Designated Villain of the Otome Game that Leon is reincarnated into. It was because of Marie usurping Olivias' position as the object of affection for the five Capture Targets that allows for Angie to not have a reason to dislike Olivia when they first meet since Olivia is an earnest Scholarship Student that only attended the academy because she wanted to learn more about Magic, eventually resulting in them becoming friends with Leon who they see common ground with after he had befriended and helped them out that they both decided to form a Supporting Harem with him. The pair even managed to activate a ship that only operates on The Power of Love.
• Oh boy did this hit hard when Zarc and Ray were revealed. in Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V. Even before they were formally introduced in the show, fans shipped them hard when their names were revealed in the episode synopsis because of how three of their four reincarnations had at least one-sided crushes on each other and the final pair were forced apart when young. When they were finally introduced, they became the biggest ship in the western fandom.

Asian Animation

• Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Some people ship the two main rivals Weslie and Wolffy. There's even a fan-made manhua where they... uh, do stuff we're not gonna mention here.

Comic Books

• Darna: The biggest ship in the fandom is the titular Darna and her Arch-Enemy Valentina, the Queen of Snakes. This started because of the many adaptations in which Valentina has a much larger role than the original comics do (she died in the first story arc) and making her the second most recognizable character after Darna. It reached its highest point when the 2022 TV adaptation premiered and added loads of Les Yay between its versions of Darna and Valentina, which led to a boom of brand new shippers.

Fan Works

• AIEchidna's Five Nights at Freddy's: Nightmare, the personification of Death, is constantly shipped with Freddy Fazbear, the leader of the Fazbear Family, due to their interaction in Refurbished's epilogue, which people saw as Nightmare playfully teasing Freddy to get a flustered rise out of him, especially due to Freddy getting Michael arrested hours before. Even though Nightmare kills Freddy in the final story.
• A Diplomatic Visit: Discussed In-Universe in chapter 12 of the sequel Diplomat at Large, when Daring Do complains about the fans who think her character has this with Dr. Caballeron and claim she's in denial when she says no, she really can't stand him and the feeling's mutual. She also gets letters from fans who ship her and Ahuizotl/Teomitl, who's startled when he finds out. Becomes Hilarious in Hindsight late in the third story, which shows that she and Teomitl really have since become a couple.
• Mandie's New Target: Princess Mandie seeks to make Danny Phantom her husband, out of lust and wanting him to father her children with powers like his so she can raise them to conquer the universe. Danny has no desire to father her children and her moral bankruptcy makes him reject her. However, many readers love the idea of the two being a couple, with Love Redeems being something they hoped to have had happen.

Films — Animation

• 101 Dalmatians: A lot of fans ship Anita and Cruella together, despite the fact that Anita is Happily Married and Cruella is trying to skin Anita's pet puppies. This is especially true with the 1996 version due to Glenn Close's (Cruella) good looks and the chemistry between her and Joely Richardson (Anita).
• A Bug's Life:
  • Hopper and Flik. Some people couldn't explain why they kept watching their No-Holds-Barred Beatdown scene repeatedly then they were children, but they sure could as they got older.
  • To a lesser extent, Atta and Hopper, especially since any scene he speaks to her, he is incapable of staying out of her personal space.
• Frozen: The fandom likes to Pair the Spares. Since Princess Anna and Kristoff are already an Official Couple, some think that it's only appropriate to ship Prince Hans and Queen Elsa. This is despite the fact Hans tried to murder her twice and nearly killed her sister. Redemption plots are in frequent use for fanworks of the couple.
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Frollo has a Villainous Crush on Esmeralda, however it is extremely one-sided and unhealthy. That doesn't stop them from being one of the most popular pairs in fanfics for the film.
• Incredibles 2: One of the more popular ships is between Helen Parr and Evelyn Deavor, which is also a case of Ho Yay. Likely in part because Evelyn Deavor is often hedcanoned as LGBT and also because the chemistry and rapport between the two are intentionally placed as a build-up to the reveal of Evelyn's rather sympathetic villainy. The tension between the two, both in friendship and in outright opposition, as well as a final declaration from Evelyn that she considers their having to fight "sad" and thinks they would have made great friends if not for their opposing ideologies, makes the shipping inevitable.
• Turning Red: Despite Tyler spending most of his screen-time bullying Mei, some fans ship them under the belief that Tyler secretly has a crush on Mei and is bullying her to hide it. The fact they later bury the hatchet and become friends added more fuel to the ship.
• Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken: Even with the reveal that Chelsea is actually Queen Nerissa and the movie ends with her trying to kill Ruby and her family, Ruby/Chelsea is easily the most popular ship in the movie's fandom, mainly due to the fact it's agreed that Ruby has far more chemistry with Chelsea than with her canonical love interest Connor.
• The Super Mario Bros. Movie: There were already a number of fans who shipped Bowser and Luigi, but the second the trailers revealed that they would interact at some point in the film the pairing got more prominent... even though the film itself shows that the context is that Bowser kidnapped to interrogate him about Mario and his relationship with Peach (out of jealously) and threatens to sacrifice Luigi afterwards.
• Wish (2023): There are some fans who ship the heroine Asha and (already married) Big Bad King Magnifico online, due to Magnifico often getting the Draco in Leather Pants treatment and the fans feeling that the pair had good chemistry.
• Wreck-It Ralph:
  • A faction of fandom ships candy go-karter Vanellope Von Schweetz with fellow racer and her mortal enemy, Turbo. This ship is aptly titled "Vanillatastic". In order to avoid the latter half of the ship being seen as a pedophile, Vanellope is mostly aged up to an adult in shippers' fanfiction and fan art.
  • On the Toy Ship side is pairing Vanellope with other kart racers, usually Rancis (referred to as "VanillaButter") or Taffyta (referred to as "Vanilla Taffy"). Both mock and bully her most of the film though after remembering Vanellope is their ruler they stop it.

Films — Live-Action

• Batman and Superman are at odds in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. It's a Foregone Conclusion they will become the best of friends in due time but many fans are enjoying their tense relationship.
• It is often debated whether Kylo Ren and Rey's interactions from The Force Awakens should be considered this based on fan interpretation, intentional Foe Romance Subtext, or misattributing sexual interest behind Kylo's threats of further Mind Rape and offer to show Rey the ways of the Force which Rey violently rejects. Even ''Time'' Magazine's review of the film commented on their unusual rapport.
  • The Last Jedi convinced more viewers there was romantic intentions due to several non-antagonistic interactions throughout the film, some of which are outright friendly. It includes Rey wishing Kylo would put on a cowl when she accidentally sees him shirtless, the two teaming up to take down some guards and Kylo outright telling Rey she’s "nobody" to anyone except him and asking her to rule the galaxy with him.
  • They share a kiss in The Rise of Skywalker, and the novelization downright note they're supposed to be considered a pair if not a couple.
• There is fanfiction set after Daredevil (2003) and Elektra where Elektra Natchios is shipped, not with her canon love interest Matt Murdock, but the assassin Bullseye. This ignores, or accepts, that Bullseye is not someone whose attraction Elektra reciprocates since he killed her father and her.
• Freddy vs. Jason: There are actually quite a few people who came out shipping the two titular slashers.
• A Nightmare on Elm Street: Freddy Krueger has many aspects that would not make him an ideal boyfriend/husband: he's sadistic, he has a Lack of Empathy, he's more likely to rape a woman than to show any love or affection. This doesn't stop people from shipping him with the women who frequently oppose him, the most popular being Nancy Thompson, due to Freddy taunting her with the line "I'm your boyfriend now, Nancy" in the 1984 film.
• There are some members of the Godzilla fandom that just love to ship Godzilla and King Ghidorah together, despite the fact that they're both archenemies and giant monsters.
• Peter Jackson's The Hobbit film series has spawned the disturbingly popular ship "Smaugbo" (Bilbo x Smaug). It helps that their actors play the two male leads on Sherlock, who are commonly shipped together.
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show:
  • There are fanfics that pair Riff Raff with Dr. Frank-N-Furter. This is possibly due to when Frank whips Riff, or due to the line (which seems to indicate that Riff was jealous of Frank) "They didn't like me. HE NEVER LIKED ME!", especially combined with the fact that, if you look closely, Riff is crying as he says it.
  • Considering his whole nature, there's also fanfics that pair pretty much anyone with Frank (who has, according to various bits of dialogue and action, already paired himself with most of the major cast members at one time or another).
• Skyfall: 00/Silva shippers often complain that 00/Q became the fandom's flagship, seeing as Silva aggressively came onto Bond multiple times throughout the film.
• There Will Be Blood focuses a lot on this dynamic between Daniel Plainview and Eli Sunday, featuring several scenes of one beating the other up, physically or mentally. It's so prominent that nearly all of the fanfic written is for this ship.
• No doubt helped by the popular Wicked making them an Official Couple, more than a few people ship Glinda the Good and The Wicked Witch Of The West from the classic MGM The Wizard of Oz. In contrast to Wicked, where they're good friends, shippers tend to either see them as exes or have them have them as enemies with Unresolved Sexual Tension. This goes hand-in-hand with the popular Alternative Character Interpretation that Glinda is more malicious than she puts off.
• Fan art of The Good, The Bad, The Weird tends to pair Do-won and Chang-yi, two pretty boys who are professional enemies.
  • There's a fair amount of Chang-yi/Tae-goo fan art as well, mostly Japanese and on Twitter, and not nearly as common. It's rare to find Do-won/Tae-goo fanart anywhere.
• There are several fans of Deadpool (2016) who ship Colossus and Angel Dust together, mainly due to the brief moment where Colossus calls Angel beautiful.
• The Karate Kid: Daniel/Johnny (also known as LawRusso) is easily the most popular ship from the franchise, going all the way back to the original 1984 film. Their shippers like to ignore the fact that Johnny bullied Daniel relentlessly in high school, including making him so traumatized that he wanted to move away, as well as them forming a rivalry that lasted until they were both well into adulthood. This mainly comes from the fact that Johnny gracefully accepts that Daniel won the tournament in the first movie and how the Cobra Kai series gives a lot of focus to their rivalry.
• Snow White & the Huntsman: There exists a dedicated fanbase for shipping Snow White with her Wicked Stepmother, Queen Ravenna, with plenty of fanfics dedicated to it. This is despite the fact that Ravenna spends most of the film trying to kill Snow White. This mostly stems from the scene where Snow White and Ravenna (disguised as William) kiss.
• Black Panther: Wakanda Forever: A lot of fans walked away from this film shipping Shuri and Namor together, mainly due to the chemistry between their actors. This ignores the fact that not only are their countries at war, but Shuri spends much of the climax trying to kill Namor for killing her mother. This is helped by the fact that Shuri spares Namor and the fact that neither has a love interest in the film.
• Halloween: Michael Myers and Laurie Strode have quite the following as a pairing, for those who don't follow the timeline where they're siblings. Even Jamie Lee Curtis describes the first time Michael Myers sees Laurie as him falling in love with her, and that Laurie in the 2018 timeline waits for him and knows he will come back for her. She calls it a love story for the ages.
• Crazy Rich Asians: There is a surprisingly large fanbase for shipping Rachel and Eleanor together, particularly in terms of fanfiction. This often ignores that Eleanor spends most of the film trying to get Nick to break it off with Rachel and regularly belittles her for no reason. This is helped by the chemistry between Constance Wu and Michelle Yeoh, Eleanor eventually accepting Rachel and Nick's relationship, and the fact that they are mirror characters.
• Scream (2022): There is a very large fanbase for Tara and one of the Ghostfaces in this film, Amber, despite the fact that said Ghostface attacks Tara and tries to kill her and her sister. Of course, the fact that they were girlfriends in an earlier draft of the script only adds to this.
• Pitch Perfect: There is a large fandom for shipping Becca with Kommissar, despite Kommissar being the leader of the rival acapella group in 2, due to Becca spending the film attracted to Kommissar and unable to stop complimenting her.
• Saw:
  • One of the most popular ships in the fandom is Mark Hoffman and Peter Strahm, despite the fact that they try to kill each other multiple times (with Hoffman eventually succeeding in killing Strahm). This is mainly due to the chemistry between their actors and the fact that they spend the fifth film obsessed with each other.
  • Saw III: Amanda and Lynn are a very popular ship, despite the fact that Amanda spends the film holding Lynn hostage and threatening her life. This is mainly due to Amanda repeatedly getting in Lynn's face and that fact Lynn's husband is one of the most disliked characters in the fandom.
  • Spiral: Zeke Banks is often shipped with the Spiral Killer/William Emmerson, despite the former spending the film trying to arrest the latter, who also gets Zeke's father killed. This is mainly due to their chemistry while William Emmerson was pretending to be William Schenk.

Literature

• Dear Dumb Diary has a fanbase for Jamie/Angeline, because of how Jamie constantly obsesses over how beautiful and smart and perfect Angeline is, and how much she resents Angeline for it. Many readers interpret this as Jamie having a crush on Angeline and being a Tsundere about it.
• Dork Diaries: A large group of fans online ship Nikki with MacKenzie, despite MacKenzie bullying Nikki and them hating each other. This is mainly due to these fans feeling like the two have good chemistry and the fact that despite being enemies they have a lot in common.
• The weird thing about romantic fanfiction for The Dresden Files is that the Harry/Marcone fics make up a lot of it. This is weird because Harry is the compassionate, staunchly independent protagonist, and Marcone is the Badass Normal mob boss who controls Chicago. There are barely any hints in canon to build the ship on, and yet fics supporting it form a clear majority.
• Happens in-universe in Fangirl where the main character writes fanfiction that ships the Show Within a Show's protagonist Simon Snow with his nemesis Baz Pitch instead of his canonical love interest Agatha Wellbelove. Simon and Baz are also thinly-veiled Expies of Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy who, as the below Harry Potter example mentions, have a sizable number of real-life shippers.
• Good Omens fandom predictably has a huge following for Aziraphale/Crowley. It helps that by the events of the book they've developed into Friendly Enemies who are only doing a job.
• Draco Malfoy, Severus Snape, and even Voldemort (a.k.a. Tom Riddle) from Harry Potter are frequently shipped with Harry and/or Hermione.
  • Hermione is also shipped with her Slytherin rival and resident mean girl Pansy Parkinson (who J. K. Rowling has described as the Anti-Hermione), and the much older Ax-Crazy villain Bellatrix Lestrange. A canonical scene where Bellatrix tortures a captive Hermione has been given erotic twists in fan fiction and fan art.
  • A few fans ship Ginny Weasley and mean girl Pansy Parkinson. Probably because of a book scene where Pansy rather enthusiastically describes Ginny as unquestioningly "good looking" to her fellow Slytherins. As of September 2017, Archive of Our Own (a fanfic archive) lists 210 fanfics shipping Ginny and Pansy.
  • Among the minor characters, Marcus Flint/Katie Bell is a strangely frequent ship, being, for example, the most popular pairing involving Katie on Archive of Our Own as of January 2024. Marcus Flint is the captain and one of the Chasers of the Slytherin Quidditch team, and his role in the series is limited to playing as dirty as possible to defeat the other Houses and especially Gryffindor. Katie, meanwhile, plays Chaser for Gryffindor.
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians: There's a significant following for Percy/Luke, despite the age difference (and, of course, the fact that they're bitter enemies). Percy initially harbored a protege-ish admiration for Luke, and his repeated descriptions of Luke's looks do get pretty damn loving at times. He even admits that Luke giving him a gift before his first quest "made [him] blush almost as much as Annabeth".
• Rebecca: Despite Mrs. Danvers goes out of her way to torture the Narrator, a lot of fans online ship the two together. It helps that it is hinted that Danvers is a lesbian.

Live-Action TV

• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. smacks Ward and Simmons pretty hard with this in season two, after brief moments in the back half of season one. Her return from a long mission almost immediately shows her fixated on the camera feed of a very shirtless Ward in his cell. Simmons mentioning that she spent every day since they locked him up watching until she left, and every day since she came back, among other moments.
• Ahsoka: A fandom for shipping Sabine Wren and Shin Hati quickly developed after their duel in the first episode, despite them being enemies, with fanfics and fanart about the two sprouting up on sites like Tumblr, along with them getting their own Idiosyncratic Ship Naming, "WolfWren".
• The Boys (2019): A lot of fans ship Billy Butcher and Homelander together, despite the fact that the two loath and constantly try to kill each other, mainly due to the chemistry between their actors and many feeling that it is more interesting than their canon romances.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans shipped Buffy with Spike almost since the latter's first appearance, long before their canon Destructive Romance.
• Chilling Adventures of Sabrina fans started to ship Zelda Spellman and Lilith/Madam Satan relatively quickly in Part 1, despite the fact that Lilith is The Heavy trying to corrupt Zelda's niece Sabrina and the fact that in Part 1, Lilith is the cause of a lot of the dangers the Spellmans face. This mainly comes from the chemistry that their actresses have in the scenes where they interact and the feeling that the two have similar personalities. While the two do ally with each other to defeat Satan, they never actually become anything close to friends, with Zelda at one point refusing to give Lilith safe haven from Satan. Still, their shippers continued even to the end of the show.
• Cobra Kai: A lot of fans have taken to shipping Sam and Tory together, even though the two are competing for the same guy and have done horrible things to each other (such as attempting to maim the other in the case of Tory towards Sam). This mainly comes from a lot of fans seeing them as a gender flipped version of their mentors Daniel and Johnny (already a popular ship), Tory's obsession with hurting Sam, and the fact a lot of their shippers are tired of the Ship-to-Ship Combat that comes from them being in a love square.
• Amongst Doctor Who fans, Doctor/Master has been one of the most popular pairings for decades. It long ago reached the point where the writers ship them as well, and ramp up the subtext to the point that it's barely subtext anymore.
• Elementary fans love Joaniarty, Joan and Moriarty (though admittedly not as much as Joanlock, which is expected for all Sherlock adaptations). It wasn't helped by the fact Moriarty once drew a giant portrait of Joan.
• The Facts of Life: Jo Polniaczek and Blair Warner do not get along when Jo first appears, with the two regularly bickering with and insulting each other. However, due to the pair's chemistry and tendency to invade each other's personal space, fans quickly latched onto the pairing. While the two do eventually become friends, Slash Fics were being written about them even when the two hated each other.
• The Fall of the House of Usher (2023): It is quite popular online to ship Verna and Madeline together, with the majority of fanfics for the show being centered around the pairing, despite the fact that Verna is killing her family one by one. It certainly doesn't hurt that they kiss in a flashback.
• First Kill: While Cal and Juliette are the main couple, their mothers Talia and Margot get plenty of attention as well, despite them hating each other. All the scenes with them together are very tense and include many held gazes and forced social niceties, and many viewers like to interpret that as attraction.
• Glee:
  • Although they eventually became friends, Quinn Fabray and Rachel Berry started off bitter rivals who acted quite sociopathically towards one another. Didn't stop Faberry slash fanfiction to be spewed out in their thousands online.
  • More surprising is the large number of fics for Kurtbastian (aka Kurt Hummel/Sebastian Smythe), given that, for a time, Kurt and Sebastian were legitimate Arch-Enemies (Sebastian even tried to blind Kurt) and rivals for Blaine's affection. That being said, Sebastian did under go a Heel–Face Turn and it stuck, so it's not completely out there. Sebastian being played by Grant Gustin probably doesn't hurt either. Some will even make it a three way relationship between Kurt/Blaine/Sebastian as a way to elimanate any conflict between them.
• Gotham:
  • Fans started shipping Gobblepot almost as soon as the first episode finished airing. It doesn't help that Oswald Cobblepot calls Jim Gordon "old friend," talked about him while naked in a bathtub, and at one point introduced him to his mother.
  • A lot of fans ship Bruce with one or both of the Valeska twins, Jerome or Jeremiah, despite the fact that they are repeatedly trying to kill him or his loved ones. This is mainly because of the chemistry between the actors, and also because it was already popular to ship their comic counterparts.
• Hannah Montana: Miley/Hannah and Mikayla hate each other, with the two going to great lengths to top one another. However, mostly due to the chemistry between Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus and the fact that Mikayla's hatred is only limited to the Hannah persona, there are loads of fanfics that pair them together, often rewriting Mikayla's character to be nicer or making it so the two are only pretending to hate each other.
• Heroes: There are a ton of fanfics shipping enemies. Some of the most popular pairings seem to be Sylar/Peter, Sylar/Mohinder, and Sylar/Claire. It does make sense, because Sylar and Peter are the fandom bicycles of this series. The Sylar/Claire is actually somewhat canon; it's just one-sided on Sylar's part.
• House of the Dragon: A lot of fans ship Rhaenyra and Alicent, who, while they were friends as kids, have spent most of their adult screen time hating each other. This is mainly thanks to the Les Yay between them and the chemistry between their actresses. This also crosses into Incest Yay Shipping, as Alicent is also Rhaenyra's stepmother.
• LazyTown: Sportacus/Robbie as a pairing is the most popular type of fanfic out there. And doesn't really count as a Crack Pairing, either. Given that Robbie canonically is actually a pretty nice guy who just wants to be friends with the other townspeople, with Sportacus being rarely, if ever mean to him, it does make the idea of them dating a possibility.
• Legacies:
  • The moment that the dark version of Josie, Dark Josie, first appeared, a lot of fans took to shipping this version with Hope. They like to forget that Dark Josie tried to repeatedly kill her or that Hope hates this version. The main reasons seem to be that Hope refuses to let anyone kill her, due to that still being Josie, and the fact that Dark Josie is very flirtatious with everyone. The fact that it's popular to ship the good half of Josie with Hope also helps.
  • Hope/Clarke is a popular ship within the fandom, despite the fact that Hope has nothing but hate for Clarke and that Clarke has repeatedly threatened the lives of Hope's friends. This is mainly due to a lot of fans feeling they are similar to Damon and Elena from The Vampire Diaries, what with Clarke being the brother of Hope's love interest, Landon.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Galadriel spends the first season obsessed with hunting the evil Lord Sauron. Since he's in his fair form in the second age, many fans ship Galadriel/Sauron, especially after the reveal that Galadriel's close friend and Lovable Rogue Halbrand was Sauron all along.
• Merlin: Season 5 seems to have produced the Merdred ship, thanks to a no-longer-a-kid Mordred and the show's famous copious amounts of Ho Yay. And that scene in 5x02 in which Merlin helps Mordred with his cloak.
• Once Upon a Time:
  • The biggest fanbase is dedicated to Swan Queen, a.k.a. the relationship of the Evil Queen, Regina, and the savior, Emma. As soon as Emma became the Dark One in Season 4, there was a resurgence of Emma (now the Dark Swan) and Regina shipping as enemies, which was not helped by the first episode of season 5 having Emma say, "You will be punished." while raising an eyebrow at Regina. This was nicknamed "Dark Swan Queen", as a way to separate it from the other form of Swan Queen. The end of the season continued this by having Regina separate herself from the Evil Queen, leading to loads of fanfics that pair the Evil Queen with both Emma and Regina, as well as sometimes both.
  • Following their first interaction, there grew a large number of fans who ship Emma with Jefferson/The Mad Hatter, mainly because their actors Jennifer Morrison and Sebastian Stan dated briefly in real life. These fans often forget that said first interaction was Jefferson kidnapping her and her friend and the fact that he later helped Regina find a way to poison Emma.
  • After Season 2 rolled around, a lot of fans started to ship Hook/Emma. The fact that their fights are just dripping with innuendo doesn't help. They eventually became an Official Couple in Season 3.
• Person of Interest might be one of the few cases where this became canon, though only after they both ended up on the same side. Going from Root threatening Shaw with an iron and Shaw shooting Root, it went to conventional Belligerent Sexual Tension as they start working together. When Shaw performs a Heroic Sacrifice, kissing Root and going to her apparent death, it seems to have moved towards genuine affection as Root completely breaks down after being unable to find her.
• The Sandman (2022): One of the most popular ships in the fandom is that of Dream/Morpheus and the Corinthian, mainly due to the chemistry between their actors and Dream being a big Launcher of a Thousand Ships. This ignores that the Corinthian spends the entirety of the first season plotting Dream's death.
• Sherlock: Sheriarty is one of the biggest ships in the fandom, most likely due to the twisted and somewhat sexual (the line, "You've got to admit that's sexier," in context is a good example) fascination Sherlock Holmes and Jim Moriarty have for each other.
• Smallville: The already established Superman/Lex Luthor ship got a huge fandom boost from this television series.
• Star Trek: Enterprise: Lt.Reed and Major Hayes are often shipped together, despite Hayes only being in 5 episodes.
• Supergirl: There is a surprising big fandom for shipping Alex with Astra, despite Astra trying to kill Alex and all humans on Earth, along with Astra being Alex's adoptive sister's aunt. This is mainly due to Alex being revealed to be gay in the second season and Chyler Leigh having chemistry with every female character.
• Supernatural:
  • Meg 2.0 and Castiel had shippers from their first, tense encounter that involved him using her body as a bridge over holy fire. This was long before it turned into a full-blown Will They or Won't They? ship with a tragic ending.
  • Sam and Lucifer had a fair number of shippers the moment it was revealed that Sam is Lucifer's vessel.
• Teen Wolf: Stiles and Peter hate each other, due to Peter repeatedly trying to kill Stiles and his friends, while Peter simply finds Stiles annoying. However, there is a large group of fans who ship the two, mainly because Stiles has chemistry with everyone and is a Launcher of a Thousand Ships. On AO3, it has the second most fan works of any ship from the show with over 9000, topped only by the Fan-Preferred Couple Stiles/Derek.
• The Tudors: Anne Boleyn marrying Henry was obviously a Foregone Conclusion, but thanks to the chemistry between Henry Cavill and Natalie Dormer, more than a few fans shipped Anne and Charles Brandon despite the historical characters despising each other.
• Victorious: Jori is a popular ship consisting of two girls (Jade and Tori) who despise each other so much they've gone to psychotic lengths just to spite one another.
• Wednesday:
  • Even after Tyler has been revealed to be the murderous Hyde monster and tried to kill Wednesday several fans still ship them since they did have some sweet and touching moments together.
  • Despite the facts that Tyler used to bully Xavier, they are competing for the same girl, and that Tyler is the Hyde trying to kill Xavier's friends, a large group of fans walk away shipping the two, mainly as a way to keep both out of the way of the more popular Wednesday/Enid ship.
  • While they become friends, Wednesday and Bianca start out as rivals. However, despite that, many fans still ship them, mainly because of the chemistry between both of their actresses.
• The X-Files fans love to ship Fox Mulder with Alex Krycek, despite all of the ways he wronged Mulder, including, but not limited to, killing his father and Scully's sister. In fact, Krycek is shipped with most everyone.

Music

• The music video for Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood" opens with Arsyn betraying Catastrophe (Swift), and the rest of the video is Catastrophe planning revenge on Arsyn. Despite this, a lot of fans ship Arsyn and Catastrophe together, with its AO3 tag being mostly Arsyn/Catastrophe fics. The fact that the song is often mistaken for a break up song doesn't help; neither does Arsyn being played by Swift's real life friend Selena Gomez.
• Machine Gun Kelly's beef with Eminem involved MGK obsessing over Em's greatness and how much he'd worshipped him growing up. Eminem's retort, "Killshot", involved comparing Kells to his Stalker with a Crush character Stan and ended with an extended gag about MGK sucking his dick — and Em telling him to keep going. A not insignificant section of MGK's fanbase ended up taking to AO3 to fantasise about Kells taking Em up on his offer. Many even got into Eminem's music via the shipping, especially after finding out about what a Pretty Boy he had been during the years Kells was imprinting on him.

Pro Wrestling

• Despite their intense rivalry in the ring, a lot of fans ship Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair together online and there are loads of fanfics for the two together.
• Chris Jericho and Stephanie McMahon.
• Feuding wrestlers can often come across as this. However, a special mention must go to Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, who's legendary feud went on for twelve years on-screen and off; since burying the hatchet in 2010 they now have regular Ho Yay with one another instead of the obsession of yesteryear.
• Randy Orton has this with almost all of his rivals over the years (no thanks to being a Launcher of a Thousand Ships), but none more so than with John Cena, easily the most prominent Arch-Enemy of his entire career (followed closely by Triple H). Orton and Cena do not like each other, and never have, even when they were both faces. When something puts them in even the slightest amount of conflict, it's enough to push them to the verge of feuding again, even though their rivalry was suppose to end (officially) back in 2009 after their infamous Iron Man match (which Cena won). Naturally, the animosity between them is enough for the fan girls to ship them together with a vengeance.
• Seth Rollins' betrayal of The Shield hurt Roman Reigns, but Dean Ambrose took it even harder. Dean's greatest desire in life now is to beat Seth within an inch of his life, and that led to him spending several months doing nothing but making Seth's life a living hell. Seth literally could not go through a week without Dean trying to attack him at some point. It's extremely reminiscent of how a boy tugs on the pigtails of the girl he likes. Dean's Anguished Declaration of Love on an episode of WWE SmackDown did not help, and now the two are the OTP of many a wrestling Fangirl.
• CM Punk and Jeff Hardy had this a lot during their feud, and it retained a minor following for several years after the feud ended. Punk also had this with Cena and Jericho, especially the former.
  • When Punk returned to wrestling by signing with AEW, he very quickly developed this with MJF. It only got worse when their feud became even more personal, eventually culminating in a dog collar match that just screamed BDSM.

Roleplay

• Cecil, the narrator of Welcome to Night Vale, often gets carried away ranting about how much he hates every little thing about Steve Carlsberg. Some fans have assumed they're exes or that it's just Belligerent Sexual Tension. It helps that Cecil has a few canonical male love interests. Made a little weird by how Steve Carlsberg and Cecil are brother-in-laws, or he's at least the boyfriend of Cecil's sister.
• On NoPixel, Mike Block used to kidnap Andi Jones fairly regularly while she was mayor; this led to an almost alarming amount of fans shipping the two. This eventually dropped off after Andi's mayorship ended and she married Denzel Williams.

Tabletop Games

• Twilight Sparkle's Secret Shipfic Folder has cards marked Villain, and the flavor text sometimes hints at a Discord/Celestia pairing.
• Warhammer 40,000 fans regularly pair human characters with Eldar or Tau despite the rampant Fantastic Racism on all sides (and biological impossibilities). One particularly popular one, Love Can Bloom, adds an extra layer by having a Vindicare Assassin fall in love with the Eldar he's assigned to kill. Then there's the fics involving daemons...

Video Games

• Alien: Isolation: There’s a small fanbase for Amanda Ripley and the xenomorph. The fact that it develops a specific interest in hunting down Ripley probably contributes to the interest.
• Texas x Lappland is one of the most popular pairings from the game Arknights. Fans really love them because of their interesting connections with each other, the latter's utter obsession with the former, and both being some of the most popular characters in the game. The amount of their fanworks together is just outright absurd, especially after the game launched internationally.
• Bioshock: There's a number of fans who ship Jack with the man who's been manipulating him via Mind Control throughout the entire game, Atlas, who's actually Frank Fontaine. Doubles as a Mind Game Ship.
• Crusader Kings: The "Way Of Life" DLC allows landed characters to seduce other adult characters who are of the appropriate gender and orientation. The player can even use this to seduce and start a sexual relationship with hated rivals.
• Dragon Age II: An in-universe example, where Snarky Hawke jokingly ships Meredith/Orsino.
  Hawke: The way you two go on... people will talk!
  • Out-of-universe example with the "Fenders" ship. Despite Anders and Fenris both being party members, they despise each other: Fenris comes from a magocratic oligarchy where slavery, demon-summoning and necromancy are widely accepted, and Anders is an apostate mage whose entire life has become defined by a war against the Chantry's system of virtually enslaving mages to prevent things like Fenris's home from springing up anywhere else; most of their in-game interactions consist of them verbally tearing each other to shreds. Despite this, there are people who ship them.
• Dynasty Warriors has a whole lot of shipping between the Three Kingdoms, which are at war.
  • Wang Yi's whole motivation for serving Wei is finding and killing Ma Chao to avenge the death of her family. Thing is, Wang Yi once compared her hate for him to love, so some fans have interpreted their relationship in a... deeply uncomfortable way.
• EarthBound Beginnings: There are some fans who ship Ninten x Giygas, mainly due to the fact that they're Foils to each other who represent the differing paths they took upon learning of PSI.
• Far Cry:
  • Far Cry 3: Jason Brody/Vaas Montenegro, also known as Vaason. Vaas' obsesssion with catching Jason and breaking him amplifies it.
  • Far Cry 4: Ajay Ghale/Pagan Min is also quite popular even though Pagan amounts to Ajay's stepfather.
  • Far Cry 5: There's a huge number of fics where the Deputy and one (or more) of the Seed siblings get together. Mostly applies to the female Deputy and Joseph, Jacob or John, but sometimes Faith is involved and sometimes the Deputy is male instead.
• Final Fantasy XIII-2: Caius Ballad and Lightning are "fated rivals", whose conflict is so key to the story that the two form the official logo of the game. Unsurprisingly, they are shipped by a relatively small but very loyal section of the fanbase. Lightning Returns added more fuel by including a scene between the two that lacks almost all their previous hostility and including several flashes of Caius in Lightning's memories at the very end of the game.
• A Hat in Time:
  • Despite or even because of their incredibly antagonistic rivalry, Discotrain, aka The Conductor/DJ Grooves, is an incredibly popular ship in the community. It helps that they have a lot in common in spite of their differences.
  • As for Hat Kid, you'll most often see her paired with Mustache Girl aka Hatstache, likely because their brief time as friends near the beginning of the game shows that they probably could've gotten along rather well if Mustache Girl hadn't gone mad with her lust for revenge.
• Injustice: Despite the fact that these versions of Superman and Batman are enemies waging war on each other, it is still very popular in the fandom to ship them, mainly due to the fact that they used to have a very similar dynamic to their mainstream counterparts and fans love the potential angst about the dynamic.
• Life Is Strange:
  • Victoria Chase and Kate Marsh are often paired together despite Victoria relentlessly bullying Kate in game to the point of Attempted Suicide. This is often done by having Victoria feel incredibly guilty for mistreating Kate, Kate forgiving Victoria because Kate is both incredibly nice and a devout Christian, Victoria becoming extremely protective of Kate, and the two becoming closer to the point of romantic feelings.
  • Nathan Prescott and Warren Graham is (on Archive of Our Own, at least) the single most popular male/male pairing in the fandom despite their two encounters in the game both ending in violence. The fact that they are the two most prominent male students among the cast probably plays a role.
• Mass Effect:
  • Miranda/Jack became a popular pairing despite (or rather because of) them being the most hostile to each other out of anyone in the cast, outright coming to blows at one point. As with everything else, the Citadel DLC for Mass Effect 3 gives this a Fandom Nod.
  • From Mass Effect 3, there’s Cerberus assassin Kai Leng and spacefaring hero Shepard (mostly female Shepard). Whether it’s a straight-up romance with happy aspects, a Mind Game Ship that has an obssessed Leng stalking and screwing with Shepard, or an unhealthy relationship full of hate sex varies.
• Metroid: Samus Aran has an active shipperdom with Ridley. That's right, Samus gets shipped with the space dragon who murdered her parents. Go figure.
• Mortal Kombat: Scorpion and Sub-Zero (Kuai Liang) is amongst the most popular pairing in the fandom. The pairing's popularity had arguably peaked long before their canonical peace treaty, traced back when Sub-Zero was still holding a grudge against Scorpion for killing his brother while Scorpion was enraged as he thought Sub-Zero was responsible for the massacre of his family and clan but actually he was deceived, Quan Chi did the massacre while disguising as Sub-Zero.
• Namu Amida Butsu! -UTENA-: Fugen Bosatsu/Monju Bosatsu is one of the major ships among this fandom, even though they are servant Buddhas who compete with one another for their head Buddha's trust, have clashing personalities and bicker often.
• Overwatch:
  • Thanks to a screenshot◊ from the promo cinematic, the game got one of these before it was even released, pairing Tracer and Widowmaker under the name of WidowTracer. And then Blizzard added fuel to it by having the majority of Widowmaker's animated short be a fight between her and Tracer.
  • There's also the common pairing of Soldier: 76 and Reaper. Granted, they were friends in Overwatch's heyday, but after a few decades they're now sworn enemies who wouldn't hesitate to kill each other.
  • Other popular Foe Yay pairings include Mercy/Reaper, Mercy/Moira, Zarya/Sombra and Symmetra/Lucio.
• Pokémon:
  • Any player character will inevitably be shipped with the Big Bad (or rival equivalent) of their game-generation. Never mind that most of the player characters are underage, and the villains usually are not. Female player characters are most prone to it, though the guys certainly aren't immune.
  • Members of the rival villainous teams Aqua and Magma from Ruby and Sapphire often have this attributed to them, both in the original games as well as the 2014 remakes. Matt/Tabitha and Shelly/Courtney are popular, and you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn't ship the leaders of the two teams, Maxie and Archie.
  • Zangoose and Seviper are natural enemies, as stated in their Pokédex entries and shown in some gameplay features such as the horde encounters in the sixth generation, where they prioritize fighting each other instead of the player. This doesn't stop fans from shipping both Pokémon, further fueled by the fact that they're in the same egg group and thus can be successfully bred together.
• Portal: Chell/GLaDOS have a gargantuan following, what with GLaDOS continually acting like an abusive partner, though being the only characters made it largely inevitable. As of Portal 2 Chell/Wheatley can be this, depending on whether the specific fic writer thinks that the latter's actions were deliberate or a case of With Great Power Comes Great Insanity, and whether or not they depict Chell forgiving him.
• Resident Evil has Wesker/Chris. There is a lot of Foe Yay subtext in canon and shippers just went with it. Actually, most pairings involving Wesker are going to be of the Foe Yay variety on account of Wesker's chronic backstabbing. There's also Leon/Krauser.
• There's also Karl Heisenberg and Ethan Winters in Resident Evil Village. Heisenberg writes about Ethan in his private journal and even describes him as having an "interesting body" rather than an "interesting medical condition", and his desire to defeat the Big Bad with him and help raise Ethan's daughter to achieve her full potential (albeit as a powerful weapon) is like a same-sex couple raising a child together. Ethan's refusal to team up with him and Heisenberg's shocked and disappointed outburst at it plays out like a person being rejected by their crush.
• Shantae fans have taken a liking to shipping Shantae herself with Risky Boots, the franchise's Big Bad, interpreting their constant hateful dialogue between each other as one half of Belligerent Sexual Tension.
• Silent Hill fandom has James/Pyramid Head from the second game, Heather/Claudia from the third game, and Henry/Walter and Eileen/Walter (or Henry/Walter/Eileen, if you're feeling adventurous) from the fourth game.
• SOUND VOLTEX artists tend to ship Series Mascot Rasis with Big Bad Grace. It helps that both characters have pink hair and are both Ms Fanservices.
• Splatoon: Prior to it being revealed that Octoling aren't strictly an Evil Counterpart Race, with them also becoming playable from Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion onward, shipping Inklings with Octolings was always treated like this. In fact, it's still treated like this, with many such fics still working off the basic premise of the Octoling half of the pairing at least starting out as unflinchingly loyal to the Octarian military.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic: There have been occasional fanfics shipping Jedi Grandmaster Satele Shan with Darth Marr, a prominent member of the Sith Empire's Dark Council. The two are Reasonable Authority Figures of roughly equal age and end up in several Enemy Mine scenarios beginning in the Shadow of Revan expansion, and Shan herself is a descendant of Revan and Bastila Shan.
• Super Mario Bros. has Mario/Bowser (with or without a Super Crown) as a popular pairing, helped along by copious amounts of Go-Karting with Bowser. Peach/Bowser is one of the top ships as well but Peach dislikes Bowser, while he has an unrequited love for her.
• Super Smash Bros.: While we're not told much about Ultimate's Galeem and Dharkon, one thing that is made clear is their burning hatred for each other. Despite this, they still have their shippers.
• Team Fortress 2 fandom loves pairing members of the opposing teams with each other, especially Sniper/Spy, who in canon hate each other with the fury of a thousand suns.
• The recurring big bad himself of The Legend of Zelda, Ganondorf/Ganon is no stranger to being shipped with Link. The two are forever in eternal combat, with Ganondorf arriving back into the timeline during peace to try and take over, and forever beaten down by Link and Zelda... but the shippers would like to reimagine this as Ganondorf being an actually amicable, and fun-loving guy if it weren't for the curse of reviving as a villain. The logic of the shippers will usually bend over backwards to find a justification for the two to be together despite one of this pairing being a literal wall of evil in some games.
• Touhou Project:
  • Due to the prevalence of Defeat Means Friendship the fandom mostly avoids this trope, but two characters who haven't done so are Kaguya and Mokou, who are still highly antagonistic towards each other and spent the previous several centuries repeatedly killing each other. Kaguya/Mokou is still one of the most popular pairings in a very ship-happy fandom, ranging from heartwarming fluff all the way to incredibly bloody sadomasochism.
  • Byakuren and Miko are the leaders of two temples (Buddhist and Taoist, respectively) with a long history of mutual strife, and are vicious to each other (at least by Gensokyo standards) when they meet. Outside of their respective Cast Herds, they are each other's most common shipping partner.
    • Taken even further with the introduction of Hata no Kokoro from Touhou Shinkirou ~ Hopeless Masquerade, as they are both connected to her in some way, and thus fandom often treats them like they are Kokoro's parents.
  • After the Hopeless Masquerade incident, Hata no Kokoro is shipped with her Arch-Nemesis Koishi Komeiji despite the latter stealing the former's Mask of Hope and refusing to return it. Kokoro and Koishi being each other's antithesis (Kokoro is unable to show expression while Koishi is unable to feel emotion) makes their interaction interesting, at least for certain fans.
• Warcraft: Despite them being on opposite sides of the war (along with barely interacting in canon), a lot of fans ship Jaina Proudmoore and Sylvanas Windrunner together, due to their similarly tragic backstories and the fans feeling that they would understand each other like no one else can. On AO3 for example, Jaina/Sylvanas is the most written about pairing for either character.

Visual Novels

• Ace Attorney has Phoenix/Edgeworth as the pairing of the fandom, despite them starting off as antagonists. Then Edgeworth slowly got a Heel–Face Turn and support remained strong, ultimately averting the trope.
• Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony has Kokichi Ouma and Shuichi Saihara, who, being The Rival and the protagonist, respectively, as well as representing the game's theme of truth and lies, combined with Kokichi's implied crush on Shuichi, have their fair amount of fans.

Web Animation

• RWBY:
  • "Fallen Petals", shipping mysterious villainess Cinder with perky, innocent Ruby, has gained a not inconsiderable following in the fandom.
  • The end of Volume 2 saw, among other things, Neopolitan giving Yang the Curb-Stomp Battle of a lifetime. Fandom's response was to create a wave of Neo/Yang fanart.
  • Mercury Black's most popular ship isn't with his partner Emerald, but with Pyrrha. The only interaction they've had is a sparring match.
  • Another fairly popular ship involving Ruby is her and her Arch-Enemy Roman. Noticeable in that no matter how many times Roman expresses his absolute hatred for her, the fans fall back a bit, and then return with full force. He doesn't even consider her a Worthy Opponent, instead considering her a mere nuisance.
  • In Volume 5, Weiss is captured by Raven's bandits and, still being a Badass in Distress, defiantly snarks at Raven's lieutenant Vernal. This seemingly earning Vernal's Villain Respect, Vernal commenting that maybe she'd fit in with their group after all. Some people have played it up so Vernal has a crush on Weiss.
• Spooky Month: There is a surprisingly large amount of ship art on Twitter and Newgrounds of Lila x Bob Velseb, with said artists likening the ship to Michael Myers x Laurie Strode. The creator of the series, Sr. Pelo, has even retweeted some art of Lila x Bob himself.

Webcomics

• Happens in-universe in Unwinder's Tall Comics. Unwinder watches a few episodes of the anime Tokyo Delta Jetlag D and remarks, "I'd kind of like to see what would happen if Jaded and Colonel Gunarm hooked up."
• Despite having only had one face-to-face conversation, there are a lot of fans of Nightmare Factory who ship the main character, Emai, with the Game Master Phirre. Their meeting was intense and could be seen as charged, with both parties playing mind games. He constantly taunts her by calling her "Princess". Plus, there were those few shots where, judging by their positions, you almost expected a kiss... right before she "stole" his heart... as in, literally ripped his heart out of his chest. The revelation that Emai has turned out to be Ylantis, or Phirre's soulmate, doesn't help matters.
• Rudy and Drew from Rain (2010) don't particularly like each other, but occasionally their conversations have flirtatious subtexts.

Web Original

• Britain and America.◊
• This is how Creamsicle came to be. Someone drew a parody pic about how they weren't like 'other girls'. People were outraged however eventually people began shipping the two characters.
• Neopets: Jhudora and Illusen are archenemies who hate each other. Some fans ship them or imagine them as exes.

Web Videos

• To Boldly Flee had plenty of Homoerotic Subtext already, especially with The Nostalgia Critic, but fandom went one step further and shipped him with Turrell. Reasoning? They love everyone who wants Critic to suffer painfully, and I Have You Now, My Pretty scenarios are always fun.
• In the Drawfee video "Adventure Time Lyrics Challenge," when a set of lyrics taken from the song "Remember You" were used as a drawing prompt, they led to a rendition of Harry Potter and Voldemort looking smitten with each other.
  This magic keeps me alive
  But it's making me crazy
  And I need to save you
  But who's going to save me?
• Escape the Night: Timothy ships Matt and Lele in one episode, while Matt is ranting about why Lele should die.
• Many Vaush fans jokingly ship him and Destiny together, and that they act like a bitter divorced couple in their thousands of debates. It could be because Vaush used to be a fan of his, before they (or at least Destiny) split due to ideological differences.
• SCP Foundation: Robert Bumaro, head of the Church of the Broken God, a religion that worships a mechanical deity that opposes an evil flesh being, and Grand Karcist Ion, the head of the Sarkic Cults, which worships said evil flesh (Maybe. It's complicated) have been paired together for quite some time now.

Western Animation

• Adventure Time fandom has a surprisingly large following for Fionna/Ice Queen, which could be the result of Ice Queen literally taking Fionna on a date. Finn/Ice King is a big no-no in the fandom however, with Finn looking and acting a lot younger than Fionna and Ice King being repulsive in every sense of the word.
• Joey/Warren from Atomic Puppet has a bit of a fanbase, despite the fact that Joey finds Warren to be a nuisance most of the time. It might have something to do with Warren's hobby of spying on him.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Quite a lot of this for Jet/Zuko, who were briefly antagonists to each other.
  • Azula/Anyone, thanks to generating chemistry with a good chunk of the main cast. The most popular targets are Zuko, Aang, and Sokka.
  • This was how the Zuko/Katara ship started, until Zuko began to drift away from being an antagonist.
• Ben 10 had Ben/Kevin and Gwen/Kevin as two of the three most popular ships, only beaten out by Ben/Gwen. Sequel Series Ben 10: Alien Force made Gwen/Kevin canon and gave Ben and Kevin massive amounts of Ho Yay, though by that point Kevin was no longer a villain.
• Danny Phantom: Though neither show an interest in each other in the series, Danny Phantom and Ember McLain are a popular ship in the fandom. Word of God has suggested Ember is secretly in love with Danny, but would deny such a thing.
  • The second most popular ship for the series on Archive of Our Own is Danny with Vlad Masters, one of the major antagonists of the series.
• Doug: There are a large number of fans who pair up Doug and Roger.
• DuckTales (2017)
  • Other than gaining an immediate fandom after the pilot premiere, some fans have shipped Dark Action Girl Gabby McStabberson with Nice Guy Donald due to him having more interaction with her out of any of Glomgold's hired baddies. Not only did he try to make conversation with her (and show her images of him and his nephews), he went as far as to ask about her family life (even though she makes it very clear that her "relations" contrast greatly to his). This artist's drawing supports that ship.
  • Scrooge and Magica, as par for the course — from her obsession with owning Scrooge's most prized possession, calling him "Scroogey," borrowing his canonical love interest's catchphrase ("You're Scrooge McDuck!"), to, most conspicuously, her sincere, profound disappointment at finding him in such a "pathetic" state in the Season 1 finale. Instead of being glad taking the dime from her enemy will be easier than she thought, she's upset she won't get a grand showdown with her Worthy Opponent and actually gives Scrooge a Get a Hold of Yourself, Man! speech to get some fight back in him. The reboot makes it even easier to imagine Magica has an unspoken motive behind her obsession with Scrooge than any previous incarnations. (It doesn't hurt that their actors have good chemistry together and have played couples before.)
  • Scrooge and Glomgold have been shipped as well. Plus Goldie, his canon love interest, almost falls into this at times with how often she betrays him. So Scrooge kinda gets this a lot.
  • Mark Beaks and Falcon Graves is also a popular pairing, thanks to their interactions with each other throughout their debut episode.
• The Fairly OddParents!:
  • The amount of Timmy/Vicky fics in the fandom is astounding, especially as Vicky was established as more of a sociopath as the series went on.
  • Timmy and Anti-Cosmo is also quite popular due to the latter being the Evil Counterpart to Timmy's godparent.
• Gargoyles fan-fiction does this a LOT, with one of the noteworthy examples being Elisa/Demona in many a Slash Fic. Where that particular pairing is concerned, approximately 50% of all fics dedicated to it usually portray Demona as the dominant and Eliza as the (initially) unwilling submissive, while the other 50% seems split between them either being very cool toward each other but gradually warming (no pun intended) or with Demona's human form coming into the mix somehow. There's also Goliath/Demona (it helps that they canonically used to be mates) and Fox/any female character.
• Gravity Falls:
  • Mabel/Pacifica was originally small, but after "The Golf War" where Mabel and Pacifica have a mini-golf competition, it became popular.
  • Dipper/Pacifica is similar to the above, and owes its popularity largely to the episode "Northwest Mansion Mystery" - said episode has Dipper "greet" Pacifica by telling her that she's the worst and slamming the door in her face, and quite a bit of what follows is the two arguing while trying to stop a vengeful ghost.
  • Bill Cipher, a demonic Eldritch Abomination, has been shipped with several of his enemies, including Dipper, Mabel, or even Stanford "Ford" Pines.
• Invader Zim fans love pairing Zim and Dib, usually revolving around their shared status as universally despised outcasts among their species. Less common are Zim/Tak and Dib/Tak; while the pairings themselves are popular, most of time in fics Tak just switches to the side of whomever she's paired with.
• Jem:
  • Unsurprisingly some people ship Jerrica and Pizzazz despite the fact they hate each other. A quiet, overworked prude with a loud, bad girl pop star just works well.
  • Jetta and Roxy are bandmates who get along like water and oil. Obviously they're a popular pairing.
  • Kimber and Stormer are the biggest ship in the fandom despite being from rival bands. Stormer is the Token Good Teammate of The Misfits and got along extremely well with Kimber in "The Bands Break Up" but you can't forget all the times she's nearly killed Kimber. It was made into Ascended Fanon in 2015 comic reboot.
• Almost all Kaeloo fans ship Kaeloo and Mr. Cat (who can be considered enemies when Kaeloo is in her Bad Kaeloo form). It's also true in-universe that they actually are in love with each other.
• Kim Possible fans frequently pair up Kim and Shego ("KiGo"). It's the second most popular couple in the fandom, right after the Official Couple Kim/Ron.
• The Legend of Korra:
  • Korra is paired with arc villains Amon, Tarrlok, Kuvira, and... rival pro-bender Tahno. It isn't uncommon for Korra, Amon, Tarrlok to be written as an One True Threesome, while most Korra/Kuvira fics take place after the Grand Finale during her path of redemption after trying to destroy Republic City. Most of the Korra/Tahno fanfics that take place after Book 1, Episode 6 are of the Hurt Comfort variety rather than Foe Yay for reasons obvious to all that have seen that episode.
  • Kuvira/Suyin was popular even early in Book Four despite the fact Suyin is (supposedly) a mother figure to Kuvira. It remained fairly popular even after Su attempted to assassinate Kuvira.
• Miraculous Ladybug:
  • Chloé/Marinette has a surprisingly massive following due to their similarities. Many fics turning them into lovers and even the ones that don't are very offering of plenty of teases between them. Let's not forget in canon how Chloe can't seem to prevent herself from touching Marinette's boobs.
  • Consummate Liar Lila is introduced at the very end of Season 1, and is called out by Marinette's alter-ego Ladybug, causing her akumatization. While Ladybug eventually apologizes for embarrassing her, Lila refuses to forgive her, then disappears for almost an entire season with little acknowledgement. As a result, the fandom had two and half years to speculate on what Marinette and Lila's dynamic would be like, as Lila hadn't met Marinette yet, and so Lila could hate Ladybug but love Marinette. Common plots include Marinette setting out to stop Lila from lying by befriending her without Ladybug's baggage and the two falling in love, or Lila trying to manipulate Marinette (either because she knows she's Ladybug, or just to mess with her) and falling in love with her along the way. While Season 3 firmly establishes that Lila is still getting away with her lies, and she and Marinette hate each other independent of Ladybug's actions in Season 1, the ship still has a following, especially with the physical antagonism between the two and the implication that Lila will become the next Butterfly supervillain.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Celestia/Discord is one of the most popular pairings that doesn't involve the mane six, and Discord/Twilight (as well as Discord/any of the mane six) pops up on a regular basis.
  • Luna/Sombra came about soon after the latter's debut, despite him being Killed Off for Real, as a foil to Celestia/Discord, and while it's nowhere near as common it pops up here and there.
  • Twilight/Trixie and Rainbow Dash/Gilda were very popular in the early days and support still goes strong years afterwards. Granted, the latter half of the pairings were more antagonists than outright villains, and Trixie also got a Heel–Face Turn.
  • In spite of the Disneyfication between settlers and Native Americans in the Old West, Braeburn/Little Strongheart, introduced in "Over a Barrel" is a popular ship among fans.
  • Many fans view Diamond Tiara as a Loving Bully towards Apple Bloom. After Diamond takes a Heel–Face Turn this just becomes straight Ho Yay.
  • Applejack paired with one of the Flim-Flam brothers is also surprisingly popular. Usually with the former.
• Phineas and Ferb: Perry and Doofenshmirtz is probably one of the most iconic examples. With their relationship being the way that it is, it's no wonder fans keep pairing them up.
• The Powerpuff Girls: Bubbles/Him and Blossom/Mojo Jojo are both pretty popular pairings. They're not nearly as popular as the Toy Ship's of pairing the Powerpuff Girls with the Rowdyruff Boys, but they have more than their fair share of fans.
• Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles makes pairing Splinter with season 1's Big Bad Baron Draxum all too easy. The spark for this ship mainly started during the episode "The League of Evil Mutants" wherein Baron Draxum flashes back to the first time he saw Splinter (back when Splinter was human and known as Lou Jitsu) — Splinter is striking a dashing victory pose after triumphing in a Battle Nexus tournament, with the front of his outfit torn open, revealing his awesome abs — and Draxum is completely smitten with it all. Later on, this becomes straight-up Ho Yay material after Draxum makes a Heel–Face Turn in season 2 and is more or less accepted into the TMNT family (he did create the Turtles after all, even if it was for all the wrong reasons). Splinter initially isn't too thrilled about this development to say the least, and the first couple of Draxum-centric season 2 episodes largely deal with Draxum and Splinter bickering like a married couple — but they ultimately reconcile. Mikey outright calls Splinter and Draxum "my two dads", and shortly thereafter Draxum, speaking with Splinter, refers to Mikey as "our boy".
  • Also from Rise, shipping April O'Neil and the Foot Recruit is quite popular due to their similar personalities. Like Splinter and Draxum, this becomes straight-up Ho Yay as of the series' end, which saw the Recruit make a Heel–Face Turn—and also reveled her to be this series' Casey Jones. Which only intensified the shipping, given that April and Casey tend to be an Official Couple in most other TMNT media.
• Rugrats: Susie and Angelica hate each other, but that doesn't stop them from being a popular Toy Ship with a lot of fanfics for them. It does help that as the series went on, the two softened towards each other despite the two continuing to argue.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power:
  • Catra and Adora, whose relationship has been described in official bios as being "complicated." They have a very close relationship both before and after Adora defects from the Horde. Many scenes center around Catra's feelings of betrayal, Adora's lingering feelings towards her, and how they were inseparable as children. The two of them even have a romantic dance together in the first season. The first four seasons do everything short of explicitly confirming both characters homosexuality, having other flirty interactions with women besides each other. The final season confirms that they are in love with each other, officially becoming a couple in the series finale.
  • Catra and Glimmer. They serve as character Foils to each other throughout season 4 and 5, which obviously led to this, but even before that there was a lot of Ship Tease invoked whenever they were around. Glimmer's mental image of Catra is canonically as a buxom Femme Fatale, and Catra at one point goes out of her way to save Glimmer's life, which causes them to spend the first half of season 5 bonding over being prisoners of Horde Prime. There is also this Getting Crap Past the Radar moment from season 2:
  Bow: She bites!
  (Catra winks at Glimmer, who gets very flustered in response)
• There a lot of Superjail! fanfics pairing up the Warden with either the Mistress or Lord Stingray, both being his archenemies/rivals (though he remarks that he rarely gets to see the former). In the Mistress' case, there's how she's a Distaff Counterpart and the warden of her own prison, and a cruel ice queen that rivals Warden's lighter-hearted megalomania. Thus, some fans insist she and the Warden must have feelings for each other and absolutely get together, although some stories seem to subject her to Chickification and have her personality altered to be submissive to the Warden (though some may insist on making her dominant too). With Lord Stingray, how he tries to constantly one-up the Warden and that the Warden was initially impressed by him gives the Warden/Stingray fans quite the tension to go on as well.
• South Park: The Kyle/Cartman pairing is an obvious one for this. Also, some fans of the Goth Kids and the Vampire Kids tend to pair up Mike Makowski (aka "Vampir", your lord of darkness per se) with either Michael or Pete. The Goth Kids and the Vampire Kids are enemies; the Goth kids kidnapped Mike and mailed him to Scottsdale, and then burned down the vampire lair (Hot Topic). However, the Goth Kids and Vampire Kids did later team up to defeat the Emo Kids.
• Steven Universe
  • The (semi-canonical) Lapis/Jasper ship. The two are described as having a terrible relationship structured around mutual abuse, with both characters' manipulative and controlling behavior manifesting in what was outright called a "toxic" fusion. Despite this, however, there are a lot of fans who ship the two together precisely because they enjoy how much they reinforce each other's most negative traits. Even some of the Lighter and Softer AU situations still like to have it take a while before their dynamic becomes anything close to healthy.
  • The Prosecuting and Defense Zircons introduced in "The Trial," are often paired together. Their Courtship largely born out of the rivalry the pair shared. Fan works tend to play them up as bickering/flirting.
  • A pairing that popped up shortly after the movie was Spinel/Steven. Despite their antagonistic interactions prior, along with the uncertain way their interactions were going to be in the future (Given "Future" wasn't released yet). A number of comics and short fanfics gave justifications towards Steven and Connie breaking up for various reasons in an effort to justify it.
• Storm Hawks fandom has a bunch for Piper/Cyclonis and Aerrow/Dark Ace, usually running along their established lines.
• Total Drama: Plenty of examples in the fandom, such as Jo/Brick, Geoff/Blaineley (despite Blaineley being more than twice Geoff's age), Dawn/Scott, Duncan/Harold, Sugar/Ella, and Cameron/Lightning. However, Gwen seems to get more of this than any other character on the show, including Heather, Courtney, and Sierra, just to name a handful of examples.
• Unikitty! has All-Loving Hero Unikitty and Big Bad Wannabe Master Frown, the former having kissed the latter a few times with passion.
• Winx Club has Bloom shipped with evil wizard Valtor or ice witch Icy.

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