Ship Mates

Alice is canonically Bob's girlfriend, but some fans believe that Bob should be with Claire. These fans might ship Alice with Derek in order to leave Bob free to be with Claire. This creates alliances between Bob/Claire and Alice/Derek shippers. Likewise, Alice/Bob shippers may put Claire and Derek together, canon or not.

When shippers have to contend with romantic rivals to their main ship, they will often put those rivals together in order to leave their main ship free to be with each other. This is Pair the Spares in the fandom. Often the much more benign cousin of Die for Our Ship. Can sometimes result in Ships That Pass in the Night if one part of the couple isn't particularly close.

A Geodesic Cast lends itself well to this sort of thing, especially if each group has an even number of characters.

Also known as Sideshipping.

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Example subpages:

• Anime & Manga
• Live-Action TV
• Video Games
• Western Animation

Other examples:

Comic Books

• A rather complicated one: Batman/Catwoman, Superman/Lois Lane and Wonder Woman/Steve Trevor often seem to go together. This doesn't really have a logical progression of thinking from an outsider's point of view, seeing as Batman/Wonder Woman and Superman/Wonder Woman are probably the two most popular nonslash pairings involving Bats and Supes after the aforementioned Official Couples, so someone unfamiliar with comics might expect that Supes/Lois would clear the way for Bats/Wondy and vice versa. However, a JLA fan would probably be aware of the tendency for one group of fans to ship pairings between members of the Justice League and ignore the supporting casts of the individual members, and the tendency of another group of fans to ship JLA members with outsiders and keep all JLA relationships distant and/or platonic. Batman/Catwoman, Superman/Lois and Diana/Steve shippers would both fall into the latter category.
  • Spinning from Batman, the different generations of Robins and Batgirls give way to this. The Official Couples DickBabs and TimSteph tend to go well together, though some shippers prefer TimCass, with the latter case having the other girl paired with Jason or Damian, or if they're fans of Cass/Steph, Tim will be paired with either Jason or Superboy. Typically, because there's so many options and it's rare to find a Robin or Batgirl fan who doesn't hold affection for all the characters in spite of picking favourites, it's very easy to find combos to work with.
• Archie Comics:
  • Fans who like Archie and Veronica together often pair up Betty and Jughead.
  • Archie/Betty fans tend to like Reggie/Veronica. It helps that Reggie is canonically the 'Veronica' to Archie's 'Betty'.
• The Avengers:
  • A lot of Captain America×Iron Man shippers also ship Hank Pym×Janet Van Dyne, probably because they're mostly classic Avengers fans who want to keep their romances inside the team.
  • Hawkeye×Mockingbird and Black Widow×Winter Soldier is quite popular, largely due to a common enemy. Thanks to The Avengers popularizing Black Widow×Hawkeye, it's brought a lot of new Black/Hawk fans who've become infamous for vicious Die for Our Ship tendencies. As Widow is well liked by Hawkingbird shippers and Clint is liked by Bucktasha shippers, doing the reverse isn't quite as accepted, so in order to combat this ship without resorting to these tactics, sticking together has became a reasonable solution. That, or just have a foursome if they're also into Bucky/Hawk or Bobbi/Nat. This is also greatly helped by the Black Widow: Deadly Origin miniseries, which showcased Bucktasha, while also depicting Hawkingbird as something of a minor Beta Couple.
• Spider-Man: When they aren't arguing with each other about it, the Spider-Man shipping community tends to go with a more civil direction: Pair the other girl with Harry Osborn. Either MJ and Peter get to live happily while Harry and Gwen go out, or Peter gets to go with Gwen while MJ and Harry hook up. Especially common in the many Ultimate style AU fics that have been popping up for the last decade, and helped by the fact that both girls did at one point in the mythos date Harry, and that MJ was very supportive of Gwen/Peter before she hooked up with him. It makes a well received alternative to the constant mud slinging.
  • There is also of course the Peter/Felicia Hardy (aka Black Cat) shippers who send Gwen and MJ off in other directions so Peter can pursue a relationship with Felicia (assuming she can appreciate who he is without the mask).
• X-Men: Cyclops/Jean and Wolverine/Storm have something of a non-aggression pact due to sharing a mutual enemy in Wolverine/Jean.

Crossovers

• Gravity Falls and Rick and Morty are known Friendly Fandoms, but you'd be surprised by how often Fiddleford/Ford shippers also ship Rick/Stanley. The four are known as the Mystery Quartet, since it's the Mystery Trio plus one.
• The Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons fandom is built on this. Fans who enjoy Hiccup/Merida are likely to also ship Jack with Rapunzel, and vice versa. Those who like Hiccup with Rapunzel are likely to ship Jerida (Merida/Jack) as are those who prefer Hiccup and Punzie with their canon love interests. And those who prefer slash pairings are perfectly happy with Hijack and Meripunzel, respectively. And then there are those who see no reason to pick and choose.
  • The release of Frozen (2013) brought said movie into this fandom (in most cases anyway) and also brought its own set of ships and mates. The most common ones consist of the canon couples Eugene/Rapunzel, Anna/Kristoff, and Hiccup/Astrid, plus the Crossover Ship Jack/Elsa. Merida is left as the odd one out, unless the fans would rather her paired with one of the previously mentioned characters, or bring in another to pair her with.
• Turning Red and Luca are Friendly Fandoms and Miriam/Mei fans tend to get along with Luca/Alberto fans, due to the two having similar dynamics and arcs, on top of helming from Pixar films that have garnered LGBT Fanbases. Thanks to this, it isn't uncommon to see art featuring both pairs.

Films — Animation

• The fandom for Shane Acker's 9 has always had quite a bit of fun with shipping since its period of going strong rather than squabbling for the most part, but the shipping bases for two of the three Fan-Preferred Couples of 9/7, 9/5, and 2/5 coexist especially nicely.
• Some of the Victor/Victoria shippers from Corpse Bride fandom also ship Emily/Bonejangles. Conversely, there's a few fics of Victoria/Bonejangles from the Victor/Emily crowd. It's a neat little shipping square.
• Fans of Disney's Frozen (2013) tend to see Elsa, Anna, Kristoff and Hans paired up in various combinations. For those less willing to forgive Hans' actions in the film, Jack Frost is substituted, though this almost always results in Jack/Elsa with Anna/Kristoff (though Jack/Anna isn't unknown).
• Strange Magic: Marianne/Bog King shippers usually ship Dawn/Sunny as well.
• Bo/Woody and Buzz/Jessie shippers in the Toy Story fandom.
• Turning Red: Within the fandom itself, Mei/Miriam fans tend to ship Tyler/Abby, and Priya/Goth Girl is supported by Mei/Miriam, Mei/Tyler, and Tyler/Abby fans alike.

Films — Live Action

• Camp Rock fans are notorious for this. Main characters Caitlyn and Tess are constantly paired with minor characters Nate and Jason despite practically zero interaction in the first movie.
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fics often ship both Charlie/Veruca and Violet/Mike.
• The Devil Wears Prada: Miranda/Andy shippers tend to get along great with Emily/Serena shippers, mainly because it gets Emily out of the way of their ship and avoids Ship-to-Ship Combat. They also tend to get along with the small number of Nigel/Doug shippers as well.
• In The Hobbit fics, Thorin/Bilbo and Kili/Tauriel go well together as two star-crossed interspecies relationships that fans like writing happier endings for. Those who want to continue the interspecies theme sometimes throw Gimli/Legolas into the mix too (often by having the two meet much earlier than in canon) and those who are really committed to the interspecies theme will add Fili/Sigrid to complete the trifecta of Durin royals falling in love with someone outside their species.
• The Inception fandom has a few popular combinations:
  • If you ship Arthur/Eames, the accompanying pairing is Mal/Dom and/or Ariadne/Yusuf, or simply Ariadne/Dom.
  • Ariadne/Arthur and Mal/Dom are the popular het pairings, and can often be found in the same fic.
• The 2012 remake of Les Miserables has spurred the evolution of the following ship combination, which is steadily gathering steam: Enjolras/Grantaire, Cosette/Marius, Jean Prouvaire/Courfeyrac, Eponine/Combeferre or Eponine/Montparnasse, and Joly/Bossuet or Joly/Musichetta or Joly/Bossuet/Musichetta.
• Maleficent: Those who ship the titular character with Diaval usually also pair Aurora with Phillip. In the sequel, the latter two become an Official Couple, but the trend started right after the first movie's release.
• The Marvel Cinematic Universe has spawned a few combinations:
  • For those who ship the two primary het pairings (the canon Tony/Pepper and the teased Clint/Natasha), it's popular to capitalize on the Ho Yay between Steve and Bucky, thus keeping Steve away from Tony and Bucky from Natasha.
  • The logical reverse, therefore, is for Steve/Tony shippers to pair off Bucky and Natasha, usually throwing Coulson/Clint into the mix as well (Pepper tends to get left out in the cold in this combination, unless the author is familiar with the comics and pairs her with Happy).
  • Thor/Loki shippers often go the Les Yay route when disposing of Thor's canon girlfriend Jane and pair her with Darcy.
    • Pairing Darcy with Loki is a popular option for people who prefer to leave Thor/Jane as is.
    • Most Loki/Jane shippers also ship Thor/Sif, which is helped by the fact that they are an Official Couple in Norse mythology and Sif in the movies’ canon has feelings for Thor.
  • After Avengers: Age of Ultron paired up Bruce and Natasha, Bruce/Betty (which was the Official Couple in The Incredible Hulk and the comics) rose in popularity among fans who shipped Natasha with someone else (most notably Clint, Steve, and Bucky).
• Pirates of the Caribbean fandom tends to do this with various combinations of Elizabeth, Will, Jack and Norrington. Some fans also throw AnaMaria into the mix to even out the gender ratio a bit, but most fans turn to slash because there just aren't enough girls to even the whole thing out. That isn't to say that slash isn't always the first preference...
• Pitch Perfect fics that feature the prevailing Fan-Preferred Couple Beca/Chloe will often dispose of Beca's canonical boyfriend Jesse be pairing him with Lovable Alpha Bitch Aubrey. Doubles as a wink to reality - their actors are married.
• Star Trek (2009):
  • The Scotty/Uhura pair barely hinted at in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is quite popular amongst Abramsverse Kirk/Spock shippers who use it as a pretext to break up the canon Spock/Uhura from the new movies or pair Uhura up with someone, after Spock breaks up with her in favor of Kirk in their fanfics. McCoy/Uhura also likes to tag along as well.
  • Kirk/Spock fans also sideship McCoy/Chapel and, after the sequel, McCoy/Carol (that gets rid of the considered a given future Kirk/Carol).
  • Kirk/McCoy fans gleefully add Spock/Uhura to their fic whenever they get the chance — and the reverse is true as well. It works out rather neatly.
  • In fact, there's an entire grouping of ships (Kirk/McCoy, Spock/Uhura, Chekov/Sulu, Scotty/Gaila, and sometimes Pike/Chapel) that tend to appear as side pairings in stories about each other.
  • Straight-up het shippers tend to go with Kirk/Rand or Kirk/Carol, McCoy/Chapel, and Spock/Uhura. (And Chekov/Sulu, which goes with anything.)
  • Straight-up slash shippers tend to go with Kirk/Spock, Chekov/Sulu and Scotty/Bones, with some Chapel/Uhura, Carol/Uhura, Uhura/Gaila being thrown in sometimes.
  • Many fics featuring T'Pring/Uhura (for either TOS or the reboot) will have Kirk/Spock as the Beta Couple or just in the background, and likewise, T'Pring/Uhura occasionally shows up as a supporting relationship in K/S. (The 'occasionally' is due to the popularity of K/S versus the comparative rarity of T'Pring/Uhura — the former is the Fan-Preferred Couple and the latter Ships That Pass in the Night.)
• Star Wars:
  • Finn/Poe and Kylo/Rey mesh together nicely. So naturally, fans of one almost always ship the other as well.
  • Finn/Rey shippers usually opt to pair Poe with one of his two wingmates, though some invite Poe along for a One True Threesome. Kylo usually gets ignored or paired with Hux or Poe. Finn/Rey shippers are also usually inclined to pair Rose with Jannah, starting before The Rise of Skywalker came out thanks to Naomi Ackie and Kelly Marie Tran’s endearing interactions in interviews.
  • Han/Leia, meanwhile, makes for a nice side ship that gets along with everyone. It helps that they are the Official Couple of the original trilogy.
  • Ever since The Last Jedi, many Kylo/Rey shippers also tend to pair off Finn and Rose. Kylo/Rey shippers who are also Finn/Poe fans pair Rose with Kaydel Ko Connix, Jannah (from The Rise of Skywalker), and even Hux. Some even go the OT3 route with Rose, inviting her into the existing Finn/Poe ship. Say what you will about Rose; she has launched a lot of ships!
  • After The Rise of Skywalker, Kylo/Rey fans are inclined to either keep shipping Finn and Poe, or shipping Poe with Zorii Bliss.
  • Finn/Poe shippers who don’t like Kylo or just prefer to ship full slash often pair Rey with Jessika Pava or Rose. If it’s for the latter reason, then they usually also ship Kylo/Hux.

Literature

• The Chronicles of Narnia fanfics in which the main couple is Peter/Susan (yes, it's a Christian book, but that doesn't seem to matter anyway), also pair Edmund/Lucy. The same for vice-versa. And they are common.
• A Court of Thorns and Roses: Those that ship Lucien and Elain together often get along with Azriel/Gwyn shippers, as it clears up the love triangle in a way that leaves everyone happy with their love life.
• In The Dresden Files, proponents of Harry/Murphy often get rid of the competition by shipping Susan/Thomas (the so-called "Pink Court"), Elaine/Ramirez, and Luccio/Morgan (having Luccio die in inventive ways also seems to be popular). Proponents of Harry/anyone-else usually get Murphy out of the way by handing her off to Kincaid.
• Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte: There's an In-Universe occurrence of this as Endo and Kobayashi are fans of the fictional Romance Game Magikoi and think the ideal couple set-up is the tragic villainess Lieselotte with Prince Siegwald and the heroine Fiene with Sacrificial Lion Baldur. Endo and Kobayashi believe that this way, nobody has to die and everybody would be happy.
• In the Good Omens fandom, people like to pair up Adam with Pepper and Brian with Wensleydale. And, of course, it doesn't hurt to throw in the canon pairings of Newt/Anathema and Shadwell/Madame Tracy in at least some of the tonnes of Crowley/Aziraphale fics there.
• Harry Potter:
  • Shippers of both Harry/Ginny and Ron/Hermione call themselves OBHWF — One Big Happy Weasley Family. Considering that these pairings ended up being canon, this may be by design. In fact, fanfic writers trying to ship these characters differently often have to make someone Die for Our Ship just to make the dynamic work.
    • Neville and Luna are usually added to the OBHWF to have all the kids who went to the ministry at the end of the fifth book paired up with each other. Word of God has it that they were just friends and reveals who they ended up with but some argue there is nothing in the books that outright eliminates the possibility of them ending up together. The movies included a nod to Neville/Luna, though Neville's actor also stated that they broke up afterward.
    • Until the seventh book, some of the more hardcore OBHWF fans would extend the Big Happy Family by pairing off Bill with Fleur, Charlie with Tonks, the twins with their Quidditch teammates, and Percy with Penelope Clearwater. Bill did marry Fleur in the books, and Jo has said George ended up with Angelina (one of the female players on the Gryffindor Quidditch team), but the rest didn't happen.
  • For people who ship R/Hr but not H/G, Ron/Hermione, Harry/Luna, and Neville/Ginny work well together, especially during the fifth or seventh books.
  • The Harry/Hermione shippers usually ship Ron with Luna (though Ron/Lavender was also popular before Half-Blood Prince) and Ginny with Neville or Draco Malfoy. Unlike those who ship Ron/Hermione and Ginny/Harry, there isn't really a name for a collection of ships, especially since the number of ships one Harry/Hermione fan can have is quite vast and it's rare to find a group that likes the exact same ships.
  • People who don't pair Lavender with Ron usually pair her with Seamus because they went to the Yule Ball together two books before she dated Ron. Lavender and Seamus's respective best friends (Parvati and Dean) are often paired together too, partly because Dean thinks the Patil twins are the prettiest girls in their year. When Ron/Lavender became more popular, though, so did pairing Dean and Seamus with the Patil twins (either boy with either twin), with more fans opting for the latter after Lavender's death.
  • Marauder fics set during their high school or pre-war days has a lot this:
    • A lot of fans very commonly pair Sirius and Remus with each other and James with Lily. Peter gets to be alone and unloved because nobody likes him anyway.
    • The popular pairing from that time frame is Snape/Lily, which often features James/Sirius or James/Remus to get him out of the way... or sometimes the shippers just go with Ron the Death Eater. And probably pair Sirius/Remus too.
    • A popular Beta Couple for Remus/Sirius and James/Lily fics is Marlene McKinnon/Dorcas Meadowes, mainly because there is next to nothing known about them beyond their names, meaning they can easily be headcanoned as lesbians.
    • Lily/Mary MacDonald and James/Regulus Black are fairly popular because they go well with those who ship Remus/Sirius and Dorcas/Marlene.
    • It's also fairly common to give Lily some sort of female friend — either an OC or an O.C. Stand-in (Marlene McKinnon and Mary MacDonald are particularly common) — and pair her with one of the other Marauders (usually Sirius).
  • With Draco/Harry becoming the fandom's current big fish, Ginny/Luna has seen a notable uptick in popularity. This is likely because it's Ginny's most obvious gay pairing.
• In the The Heroes of Olympus: Piper/Leo fans often ship Jason/Reyna. (Or vice versa). This has the added bonus that Reyna is actually Jason's other canon love interest (they would have got together if Hera hadn't interfered), so fans aren't stretching too far.
• In The Hunger Games fandom, Katniss/Peeta shippers often pair Gale with Johanna, though the latter is kind of a case of Ships That Pass in the Night. (Interestingly, Peeta/Gale shippers sometimes pair Katniss with Johanna. Chalk it up to Belligerent Sexual Tension.) Gale/Madge has also been popular, even before Haymitch noticed its potential but since Madge dies in a Bus Crash near the end of Catching Fire (along with most of District 12), you have to alter the events prior to Mockingjay to make it work.
• Fans of It will often pair up Ben with Beverly, Richie with Eddie, Stan with his wife Patty, and Bill with Mike. Alternatively, many pair Bill with Stan, especially when the protagonists are depicted as teenagers.
• Maximum Ride features the official pairing of Fang/Max. What's to be done but pair up the remaining teenager with a preteen girl? God forbid he stay single or date outside his family.
• The Mortal Instruments fans tend to support the canon Alec/Magnus and Clary/Jace ships, seeing as that takes care of Alec's crush on Jace from early on in the series and leaves Jace wide open for a romance with Clary.
  • Shippers of Simon/Jace frequently pair up Clary/Isabelle, and vice versa.
• Mark/Courtney and Bobby/Loor, or Bobby/Loor and Courtney/Spader were often Ship Mates against the Bobby/Courtney pairing in The Pendragon Adventure. Some supporters went with Bobby/Loor, Courtney/Spader, and Mark/Nevva, though the latter ship was torpedoed by the beginning of book 9.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: Sansa/Sandor shippers tend to also ship Arya/Gendry, as well as Jaime/Brienne. This has less to do with "taking out the competition" (as the characters in these ships tend to have few on-page interactions with others outside of these pairings, and there aren't many (mainstream) rivaling "ships" between them) and more to do with the similar appeal these ships share.
  • A popular set of pairings for five of the Stark children (Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran, and their half-brother Jon Snow), especially in modern AUs, is Robb/Theon, Sansa/Margaery, Arya/Gendry, Bran/Jojen, Rickon/Shireen, and Jon/Ygritte. Catelyn/Ned also tends to appear in this works, but this is less a matter of Ship Mates than logic, them being the parents of the Stark kids (except for Jon, who is Ned's illegitimate son).
• Warrior Cats fans who want Ivypool to be with Bumblestripe tend to ship Bumblestripe's mate Dovewing with Tigerheart so that Bumblestripe is left open.

Music

• In the Vocaloid fandom, Miku/Luka is often used in conjunction with Haku/Neru and Meiko/Kaito.

Podcasts

• In Wooden Overcoats, Eric canonically has feelings for Georgie, who isn't interested, and Antigone has a crush on Eric, who doesn't notice. The Fan-Preferred Couple, however, is Eric/Rudyard. While it's big enough in the fandom to have fic of its own, it's also not uncommon for writers to put Georgie/Antigone on the side as a Beta Couple.

Theater

• Many Marius/Cosette fans in the Les Misérables fandom also ship Eponine with Enjolras or with Montparnasse (the latter perhaps inspired by the novel, where it's more-or-less canon in a depressing sort of way).
  • A lot of Amis-based slash fic (its own subgenre in the fandom) is this way. Generally, if one set of gay French revolutionaries shows up in a fic, you're likely to hear about another at some point as well (odds exponentially increase here, too, if the first ship isn't Enjolras/Grantaire, which tends to be a bit of a fandom OTP and therefore often does have fic of them on their own). Bossuet/Joly, Courfeyrac/Prouvaire ...
  • Really, Ship Mates here often depends on whom you're pairing Enjolras with. If Grantaire, you generally need a way to get Courfeyrac and Combeferre out of the way (with Combeferre/Feuilly being a moderately popular option for this purpose). If Feuilly, Courfeyrac/Combeferre is a somewhat common recourse. If Combeferre, Courfeyrac/Prouvaire is useful. Though Grantaire does generally tend to hang around as a Stalker with a Crush if not shipped with Enjolras, as opposed to going to someone else...
• The Phantom of the Opera's fandom has an ongoing ship war between Phantom/Christine and Raoul/Christine. Fans often get around this by shipping Meg Giry with whichever one doesn't get Christine. When they don't just straight up make the other suitor die for their ship, anyway.
  • And those who ship Phantom/Raoul often also ship Meg/Christine.
• Fans of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee ship the barely Canon Barfee/Olive with Fanon Logainne/Leaf and Chip/Marcy.
• Wicked:
  • Many fans of Wicked ship Elphaba with Fiyero (Fiyeraba) and Glinda with Boq (Gloq) and while Fiyeraba is canon, as is Boq's crush on Glinda, there is no way that Glinda would ever love Boq in canon. No one cares about Nessa becuase she got squashed.
  • Glinda/Elphaba (Gelphie) often goes hand-in-hand with Nessarose/Boq (Bessa)

Visual Novels

• Ace Attorney:
  • The most common Ship Mates seem to be Phoenix/Edgeworth, Franziska/Adrian or Franziska/Maya, Gumshoe/Maggey, and probably a dash of Klavier/Apollo.
  • Alternatively, if one goes for the solely het option, then the combination of Phoenix/Maya, Edgeworth/Franziska, Diego/Mia, and the aforementioned Gumshoe/Maggey can take care of all the shipping problems in one go.
  • When Dual Destinies was released, two popular Ship Mates emerged: Athena Cykes/Simon Blackquill and Apollo Justice/Juniper Woods. On one hand, this combination has Apollo potentially hooking up with a Nice Girl who sincerely adores him for his kindness, which is seen as a Throw the Dog a Bone situation; on the other, it also cashes on Simon and Athena's shared Dark and Troubled Past, Simon being willing to protect Athena even with his life and Athena being determined to save him from fatally Taking the Heat for her.
  • Klavier/Apollo often goes hand-in-hand with Juniper/Athena, which neatly takes care of both the girl who has a canon crush on Apollo and the girl who is his most popular het ship option.
• Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair: While some Hajime/Nagito shippers subject Chiaki to Die for Our Ship, others prefer to pair her up with Sonia, to which you can probably expect Gundham/Kazuichi to get the issue of their Love Triangle with Sonia out of the way. On the flip side, Nagito/Mikan is popular among Hajime/Chiaki shippers.
• Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony: Thanks to the pairs' respective prominence in the narrative and Shuichi's and Kaito's powerful friendship, Shuichi/Kaede and Kaito/Maki shippers are closely unified.
• Fate/stay night: Shirou/Saber, Shirou/Sakura and Rin/Archer, which is very amusing because Archer is Shirou from the future. Man knows how to stack the deck.
  • Along the same lines (but arguably even more so), we have Sakura/Shirou and Rin/Archer, which allows Sakura to get her (well-deserved) happy ending whilst also giving her sister her own version of Shirou to be with (Saber, of course, is dead in almost every ending, so she doesn't count). It's also not unheard of for Saber/Shirou shippers to attempt to pair up Sakura and Rider, either. (This is not without justification, given Rider's extremely protective attitude towards Sakura in the original game and certain scenes in Hollow Ataraxia...)
    • It's also quite common for Sakura/Shirou shippers to add Rider in and make it an OT3. Again, Hollow Ataraxia and its gorgeously drawn Three-Way Sex scene between them helps out a lot.

Webcomics

• Homestuck example: Dave/Jade makes a good complement to Karkat/Terezi, as does Karkat/Jade to Dave/Terezi; similar configurations can also be found for John, Rose, Kanaya and Vriska.
  • Another common setup involving all four human kids is John/Karkat, Dave/Terezi, Rose/Kanaya, and Jade with some other troll. Karkat<>Kanaya and more rarely John<>Vriska are sometimes added as well.
  • Sollux/Feferi and Equius/Aradia are also commonly shipped in tandem.
  • Sollux/Terezi goes well with Karkat/Nepeta and Equius/Aradia.
  • While Jade/Rose was never really popular enough to be a good complement to John/Dave, the Alpha pairings of Dirk/Jake and Roxy/Jane (or, at the lease, Dirk and Roxy crushing on Jake and Jane respectively, who may or may not actually be together) definitely are.
  • Also, in Homestuck, basically every teenage character at this point has an 'ancestor' who they looked up to (or has some connection to them, anyway) who has a similarly-aged counterpart. If someone ships something, they often ship the ancestor version as well. For example, a Karkat/Terezi shipper might also ship Kankri/Latula. This is complicated a bit by the fact that two of the kids' ancestors are genderswapped, so while Jade/Dave and Dirk/Jake would seem to go together, as shippers tend to favour either slash or het, you will more often find John/Dave and Dirk/Jake together.
  • Roxy and Jane also tend to be shipped with each other to complement Dirk/Jake, and Calliope is sometimes shipped with one or both of the girls. There's also the mildly popular Jane/Gamzee ship.
  • The rise of Dave/Karkat brought with it a corresponding rise in Terezi/Vriska, John/Roxy, and Jade/Davepetasprite^2.
• In the MegaTokyo fandom, many Piro/Kimiko shippers get Ping out of the way by shipping her first with Miho, and after that was sunk by Word of God confirming that Miho isn't gay, with Junko. Conversely, Piro/Ping fans suggest that Kimiko and Miho should hook up.
• Red String readers have been trying to pair everyone off for ages. When Kazuo/Miharu was the canon ship, Karen/Makoto, Eiji/Reika, and Fuuko/Maya were popular. Then Kazuo and Miharu broke up, Fuuko moved, and Karen learned she couldn't love Makoto like that. Throw a bunch of new characters in, and now you've got Makoto/Miharu, Kikuko/Kazuo, Fuuko/Hanae, Karen/Jun, Maya/Yuuki, and Eiji/Reika. If you still believe in Kazuo/Miharu, you can ship Makoto/Tomi with them, and Kikuko gets to be awesome by herself. Luckily for the Red String fandom, most of the readers are pretty civil in matters of shipping.

Web Original

• The Critical Role fandom has largely been spared Ship-to-Ship Combat,^* as a testament to that, the shippers of the incompatible ships of Percy/Vax and Percy/Vex are actually quite friendly with one another but it's safe to say that if one of the twins ends up in a ship, there will be an obvious compatible ship for the other. So people who ship Vax with Keyleth (or with Gilmore) might also ship Vex with Percy. Alternatively, if you ship Vax with Percy, you could always ship Vex with Zahra and Keyleth with Kashaw.
• RWBY:
  • Whenever two members of Team RWBY are shipped with each other, the other two tend to follow. In particular, Blake/Yang shippers tend to also ship Ruby/Weiss, likely because the main plot centers on the friendship these four share and due to their trailers being released after each other. An exception to this rule is Blake/Weiss shippers, many of whom avoid Ruby/Yang because of the incest. Blake/Weiss tends to go hand-in-hand with Yang/Winter (with Winter being Weiss' older sister).
  • Blake/Yang and Ruby/Weiss shippers also commonly ship Sun/Neptune, partially because some like the ship, partially because it breaks up rival ships Blake/Sun and Weiss/Neptune.
  • Blake/Sun and Weiss/Yang shippers tend to have this to some extent.
  • Similarly, JNPR shippers usually pair Ren/Nora with Jaune/Pyrrha. The former are Childhood Friends juuust this side of canon, the latter has really, really heavy hinting that Pyrrha wants to make it official. Eventually, Ren/Nora becamee an Official Couple. Jaune/Pyrrha became official too, but it was cut short when Pyrrha died a few scenes later.
  • Taiyang/Raven goes with Qrow/Summer, especially in Beacon fan-works.
  • Either Cinder/Ruby or Roman/Ruby tends to appear with Neo/Yang in a lot of works.
  • The Jaune/Weiss and Ruby/Oscar pairings often show up together.

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