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Ships That Pass In The Night / Western Animation

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Ships That Pass in the Night in Western Animation.

Shows/franchises with their own pages:

  • The Amazing World of Gumball: Parodied In-Universe in "The Shippening", when Sarah gets hold of a magic notebook in which anything written comes true, and uses it to ship the most random of characters, including such pairings as Alan/Teri (no proper interactions, and Alan was already in a relationship with Carmen), Richard/Felicity (Felicity hates the Wattersons, and Richard is married to Nicole), and Larry/Mr. Small. Out of universe, Larry/Mr. Small took off as a ship even though outside this episode, they have only interacted with each other twice, one of which was them spending a full two minutes bickering over petty things.
  • Arcane: Melvika (Mel/Sevika) is surprisingly popular in Alternate Universe fics despite the two characters having never met in canon. This might have something to do with them being the most prominent women of color in the series. They're often portrayed as having a steady, low-key relationship in contrast to the more dramatic main couple (usually Caitlyn/Vi or Jayce/Viktor).
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
    • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
      • Toph/the Duke and Toph/Teo are popular Ship Mates for the canon pairings. The former's sole interaction is Duke letting Toph use his helmet as a barf bag during "The Day of Black Sun", and a hug in the finale (during the finale commentary, the creators coyly point out the hug). There's hardly any at all for the latter.
      • Ursa, meet Hakoda, Hakoda, meet Ursa, I think you'll get along great. Oh yeah, we ship Ursoda. Theme Pairing: opposite-gender single parents of two major characters each. Pulled off exceptionally well here. Although both have been given different canonical love interests in the post-series comics.
      • Azula and Toph have a small fanbase. The two only talk once, in "The Day of the Black Sun", when Azula proves she can get past Toph's Living Lie Detector ability. After being asked "Who is Lin's father?" one too many times, one of the writers decided that it's Azula.◊ That caused a boost in fans.
      • Some Zutarians like to ship off Mai with Jet, despite the fact that they never meet, are on opposite sides of the war(Mai's a Fire Nation noble, while Jet is a particularly extreme anti-Fire Nation resistance leader), and Jet dies under Lake Laogai.
      • Jet/Azula. Despite the fact that they have never met and would almost certainly try to kill each other on sight if they did. Or maybe because of that.
      • June/Combustion Man◊ anyone?
      • The Zutara (Zuko/Katara) ship started out this way. Yes, they ran into each other half a dozen times in the first season, but with the exception of one scene where Zuko tried to barter Katara's necklace for Aang, he never even spoke to her. The second season was even worse. It wasn't until the season finale that Zuko and Katara had any real interaction with each other, but the Zutara ship was already running strong by then. Helped by the fact that, while Word of God was incredulous about the pairing, some people who have worked on the show are on record for thinking it could have worked out.
      • June/Piandao is another one that's appeared.
      • Haru/Ty Lee were paired in the Super Deformed Shorts, despite never meeting.
      • A few works feature Mai being married off to Ozai. Mai is friends with Ozai's daughter and the girlfriend of his son, but the two don't interact.
    • The Legend of Korra:
      • There's a surprising amount of Jinora/Skoochy fic. One is Tenzin's Cute Bookworm airbender daughter and the other's a street rat who trades information for money, and naturally they've never met; it's just that, for two seasons, he was the only canon boy her age. This pairing has largely died down since the introduction of Kai since he's also a sneaky street rat her age, and they actually get together.
      • Bolin and Lin was a semi-popular ship after Book One, in a Pair the Spares kind of way, despite the age difference. They are in a lot of crowd scenes together, but their only interaction with each other was the time Lin busts Bolin and Mako out of jail. However, in that scene, Lin zips up Bolin's fly for him, which caused all manner of reactions from the internet. This died down once Bolin got a Love Interest in Lin's niece Opal. Bolin and Lin also get more interaction in the fourth season, so they don't count even for those who still ship them.
      • Lin and Kya are kind of an odd example. They are in very few scenes together and never speak directly to each other on screen, but they have to know each other pretty well because, despite Kya being several years older than Lin, they were probably raised together thanks to their parents' friendship, in addition to Lin once being in a serious relationship with Kya's younger brother.
      • There even appear to be those who quietly ship Lin with the acupuncturist from season three, even though he doesn't play a particularly big role. Seems those needles just lend themselves to the imagination.
      • Kya and Izumi have their fans. Izumi only appears in two scenes and speaks in one of those and never interacts with Kya, but due to their parents being close friends, it's likely that they've met. Kya is gay and single but Izumi is presumably married to a man given that she has two kids.
      • Kya’s brother Bumi also gets shipped with Izumi. Once again, they never interacted in the show and while they’ve presumably met, she’s probably married to someone else.
  • Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix: The most popular ship with the most art is by far Rayman and Bullfrog ("Rayfrog"). They only interact a single time the whole show for a couple of minutes, and while Bullfrog was very friendly towards Rayman, nothing about it was romantic.
  • Danger Mouse, During the first season of the 2015 reboot of the show, some fans latched onto pairing Danger Mouse with his accident-prone fellow agent Danger Moth despite the fact the characters barely spent less than a few seconds together in some episodes. An even better example would come from the fans who opted to 'ship Danger Moth in a lesbian relationship with Professor Squawkencluck, despite the fact neither character ever interacted at all.
  • DuckTales (2017):
    • Some of the fanbase ships Delpad (Della Duck/Launchpad McQuack), despite the fact that as far as we know, they've never even met. Reasons range from both of them being daring-to-the-point-of-reckless pilots to both of them having a close relationship with the Duck/McDuck family. When they finally meet, Della's immediate reaction is to angrily yell that he's not taking her job before running out of the room, to Launchpad's brief confusion... followed by him yelling out a cheerfully oblivious "Nice to meet you!" back at her.
    • A somewhat notable ship in the fanbase is Louna (Louie/Lena) due to both of them being the sarcastic troublemakers of their respective groups. In canon, however, the two rarely interact, and out of all the children, Lena is the only one who Louie never spent time alone with.
    • Donald Duck/Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera is another ship that appears pretty frequently in the fandom, despite the two of them never having even said so much as a word to each other during the show's run.
  • South Park:
    • Craig/Tweek is the most popular pairing after Stan/Kyle and Cartman/Kyle. In the first eighteen seasons, there was only one episode where they directly interacted with dialogue — "Tweek Vs. Craig", where the other boys trick them into fighting each other. They occasionally appeared in the background within the same friend group in later episodes but never interacted directly in these instances. Eventually, Trey Parker and Matt Stone became aware of this pairing and gave Tweek and Craig their own Oh, Crap, There Are Fanfics of Us! episode, "Tweek x Craig", which ends with them giving into peer pressure and feigning a relationship. However, by the episode "Put It Down." they seem to have started to have actually officially dating, with Craig using pet names in private conversation. This was further confirmed by Word of God on Twitter.
    • There's more than a few shippers for Stan and Ike, despite the interaction between the two being nothing more than Ike being the little brother of Stan's best friend. A similar following for Cartman and Ike also exists.
    • Kenny/Butters, or Bunny, is surprisingly popular; while they do both appear among the main characters they don't actually interact — Butters is almost always played against Cartman, while Kenny usually appears with Stan and Kyle in newer episodes, if at all. The two did receive screentime together during "Going Native," — when the episode was announced, fan reactions prompted voice actress April Stewart to ask fans on Twitter what "Bunny" was.
    • Shelly/Kevin McCormick has been fairly popular since the show's earliest seasons. This is chiefly based on the fact they appear to be the same age, have braces, and are older siblings of two of the main boys. Shelly is generally Out of Focus while Kevin is a Living Prop whose spoken lines can be counted on one hand; consequently, they've never interacted and have only shared one scene together.
    • Kenny/Bebe is a surprisingly popular straight pairing (for either character), but in the show, the two rarely interact. This is probably because Kenny is a Lovable Sex Maniac while Bebe has a fandom reputation of being a slut. The biggest interactions they have had is that Bebe has been responsible for two of Kenny's deaths.
    • Kevin Stoley and Red were seen together in background scenes extremely frequently in the show's early seasons, and seem to trade one line of dialogue ("Let's trade sandwiches") leading to the implication among fans they were friends, or perhaps more — but they never interacted in dialogue otherwise, and Red was mentioned dating other boys. During the show's twentieth season, in "Skank Hunt", they are seen breaking up among the show's other canon heterosexual couples, revealing that they did, in fact, have a relationship.
    • Some consider Heidi and Cartman's relationship, first developed in Season 20, as an example of this trope. While the two characters have a long list of small, incidental interactions in previous episodes, none of them contributed to the narrative, leading many fans to ignore these as coincidental or only retroactively significant. These smaller interactions, however, also lead to fans shipping them for over ten years before they became linked officially.
    • Karen McCormick and Tricia Tucker, the younger sisters of Kenny and Craig respectively, quite often get shipped together despite how neither of them have shared any screentime together and the only similarities they share being younger sisters with Girlish Pigtails.
  • Teen Titans (2003)
    • Robin/Raven used to be this way. Of all the Titans, they interacted the least, yet people liked pairing them up because they liked the aesthetics of it: both were the most serious Titans, both were named after birds so writers could do a contrived "birds of a feather" metaphor, etc. It wasn't until the Trigon Story Arc where Raven started confiding in Robin more and scenes like Robin rescuing a mindraped and clothing-torn Raven that shippers finally had decent canon stuff to write off of.
    • Blackfire and Red X. Never met, but the pairing serves as an Evil Counterpart to the official couple of Robin and Starfire.
    • Even more extreme is Slarella — Slade and Arella. One is an enemy of the Titans living in their dimension, and the other is the mother of a Titan living in an alternate dimension.
    • Although they've only met about three or four times throughout the entire series, and all times in a relatively dispassionate skirmish, Raven x Jinx happens to be one of the most popular femslash couples of them all, second only to Raven x Starfire.
    • Jericho and Raven are a popular pairing despite never interacting. This is because they had a romance in the source comics.
    • Jericho is also commonly shipped with Kole despite them not interacting, again due to their relationship in the comics.
  • Out of the three main fan pairings during the early years of the Ben 10 fandom, Gwen/Kevin was this in comparison to Ben/Gwen and Ben/Kevin. The latter two groups had mountains of character interactions to serve as evidence for their plausibility, while the former had the duo barely interact... which is why the entire fanbase called foul when Gwen and Kevin awkwardly became the first Official Couple in the franchise, in the early episodes of Ben 10: Alien Force. This was seen as so forced, it had the effect of stopping approximately no one from shipping Bwen or Bevin. At least until the couple's dynamic solidified as the franchise went on, and even then, support for this ship was helped the most by Ben 10: Omniverse giving Ben a plethora of more options.
  • Phineas and Ferb has Ferb and Gretchen (the Fireside Girl who wears glasses). Despite Ferb's Precocious Crush on Vanessa and their lack of onscreen interaction, it's a very popular ship. It seems to have started just because she was the first girl his age (other than Isabella) to get a name, though it makes sense in a Pair the Smart Ones sort of way.
  • Just try to tell some of the Wolverine and the X-Men (2009) fans that Forge and Toad have never so much as been in the same room together. That doesn't stop them from being rather plausible if they ever did meet, or the fact that their ship is hands-down the cutest one in the fandom.
  • You can count on one hand the number of times that Prowl and Jazz, in any version of Transformers: Generation One, interacted in any significant way — and according to FFN, they're the biggest pairing in the whole franchise. It's at the point where, if one of them exists in a universe and the other doesn't, people will write fics that add a functionally-identical counterpart of the other one to that universe to facilitate maintaining the ship. It seems to arise from a mixture of 90s fandom drama, the idea that Jazz's personality (party animal) and Prowl's (The Spock) might have some interesting interactions, and from the fact that they're both white cars from the same year. It's even seen as something of an "easy" ship, as it lacks the messier implications of, say, Megatron and Starscream, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, or any of Prowl's actual canon pairings. For a decent period, the pairing had one of the most fervent listings on the Ho Yay page for Transformers... despite having literally no actual examples.
    • A franchise-wide one would be Optimus Prime/Starscream, which has some amount of fans for the extreme Opposites Attract element of The Hero and The Dragon...never mind that for over forty years and counting of multiple continuities, they still have yet to have any kind of relationship beyond the standard "Autobot and Decepticon trying to kill each other in a fight" enmity.
  • Transformers: Animated:
    • Prowl and Blackarachnia only met once and all she did was poison him so she could manipulate Optimus. But his Friend to All Living Things and her self-loathing for her technorganic Body Horror had a strange appeal for fans.
    • Blurr/Longarm (a.k.a. Shockwave) is a very popular ship, despite the only interaction they ever had was when the former was crushed into a cube by the latter.
    • Bumblebee/Blitzwing has also garnered a following, though they only had one significant scene and it was Played for Laughs (Bumblebee tricks Blitzwing into triple-changing to a tank so that he falls into ice while flying).
  • Transformers: Prime has Knock Out and Arcee. The two of them barely spoken and have little interaction with each other, and the little they have is hostile. Yet this seems to be the fan favorite pairing if fanfiction has anything to say about it.
  • Invader Zim:
  • The Fairly OddParents! fandom has Chester and Trixie, and Chester and Veronica. Remy and Trixie never interact but are a popular Beta Couple to Timmy/Tootie
  • A fair number of Danny Phantom fans support Dani/Youngblood, even though they never meet, as they're the only two recurring "kid" characters.
  • Daria has a few examples—some fans ship Ted with Stacy, for example, because they're both generally kind people. Mr. DeMartino and Ms. Defoe, the most notable teachers to still be single at the end of the series, are also sometimes paired together.
    • A semi-official example: the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue implies that Lindy and Alison get together and raise a group of foster kids on a farm. Both are one-off characters and there's no indication that they ever met. Word of God says that the epilogue need not be considered canon, though.
    • The finale also somewhat randomly had nerdy Upchuck hook up with Ensemble Dark Horse Andrea.
  • A small number of Hey Arnold! fans pair Brainy/Lila as a Ship Mate for Helga/Arnold. It's Pair the Spares to be sure, but when you consider that Lila liked Arnie, who's possibly even weirder than Brainy, it actually makes a bit of sense.
  • Hilda fans like to ship Johanna (Hilda's mother) with Kaisa (the librarian); so far, in two seasons and a movie, these two characters have never had any on-screen interaction.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • In X-Men: Evolution fandom, Pietro/X-23 and Kurt/X-23 are very popular ships. Her and Kurt's closest interaction being off-screen and involving her knocking him out, and her and Pietro's closest interaction only happening in people's imaginations. Kitty and Pietro is slightly more believable but even more jarring as the two have interacted, and by 'interacted' we mean Pietro insults her, she glares at him, and once threatens him.
  • Recess fans tend to ship Hustler Kid and Butch, who hardly interact in the series.
  • Young Justice (2010): "Wonder Beetle" (Wonder Girl/Blue Beetle) is a surprisingly popular ship, seeing as the two characters have yet to exchange any dialogue on the show. The tie-in comics though have the Scarab note that seeing Wonder Girl causes "bio-chemical changes" to him.
  • CJ/Thomas from Regular Show. They've never met, and Thomas didn't debut until after her first appearance in "Yes Dude Yes".
  • The Powerpuff Girls:
    • Ms. Keane and oneshot character Mr. Green from "Substitute Creature." Quite a few fans ship these two together, even though they've never interacted onscreen. Part of the popularity of this pairing may come from the fact that they're both very nice teachers.
    • Also Mr. Green and HIM. In fact, any of the characters from the show with Mr. Green since he was only in one episode and the only characters he interacts with are the girls and their classmates.
  • Steven Universe:
    • Lapis/Peridot used to be seen as this before the third season, as until then, the closest they got to interacting was just being in the same scene. This is largely due to them being the only known Homeworld Gems until Jasper showed up at the end of the first season. And even when they do begin interacting, Lapis showcases every negative emotion short of murderous intent towards Peridot. However, by the end of the season, the two are happily cohabitating.
    • Fans who prefer Peridot with someone else tend to ship Lapis with Pearl; you'd be hard-pressed to find a point where the two have directly interacted, and they're implied to be not fond of each other. The noticeable parallels between the two and their similar builds seem to have driven this one. Their voice actors once jokingly reenacted◊ a piece of Pearlapis fanart.
    • Pairing fusions with each other is not only this trope in the usual way, but in some cases, like Opal/Sugilite, it is physically impossible for the two to exist at the same time (both share Amethyst as one of their components).
    • Blue Pearl, Yellow Pearl, and Pearl never interacted — heck, Blue Pearl doesn't even speak until "Steven's Dream" — but fans instantly began shipping combinations of them together.
    • Greg/Jasper (termed "Grasper") is a somewhat common ship, despite the fact that they've never interacted. It seems to mostly stem from a mix of Pair the Spares and Greg's well-established love of women with Jasper's build.
    • Jasper and Pearl has a following despite the extremely minimal interaction between them in Season 1. Many fans enjoy the contrast in their characters and their size difference.
    • Kiki Pizza and Ronaldo Fryman. Some of the few scenes where they are together, (dancing next to each other during Steven's song with the Gems, their family restaurants being next door to each other, Ronaldo including Kiki and titling her as a Pizza Heiress in his documentary) along with some comments about Kiki from Ronaldo's blog on Tumblr, provide "proof" for fans of this ship. This ship got a Fandom Nod in one episode, where the two pretend to be dating as part of a plan to stop their dads from fighting.
    • Holly Blue Agate/Andy DeMayo has fanart for it, despite the fact that the two have never even been on the same planet. This one seems to come from their shared traditionalist mindset and tendency towards jerkishness.
    • It didn't take long for fans of the film to start shipping Spinel with Pink Pearl. The color palette, personality contrast, and shared trauma and background all provided some pretty heavy incentives. Though the two have probably met, they've never shared a scene, and Pink Pearl herself had only had one line in the entire first series at the time when Spinel was introduced. While shippers had hoped for a scene between the two, Future featured both characters, but neither one was in the same episode.
  • Kung Fu Panda: Crane and Viper has a shipdom that actually caught the attention of Crane's TV voice actor, who now supports it.
  • Talia/Mephisto is quite a popular ship among the LoliRock fandom, even though they barely interact outside of fight scenes. If anything, Mephisto appears to be more romantically interested in Auriana than Talia, calling her "cute and talented" at one point.
  • Codename: Kids Next Door: Numbuh 86 and Numbuh 60 is a rather popular ship, despite the fact that they never really had any onscreen interaction. (The closest was Operation: T.R.A.I.N.I.N.G., when Arctic Base got a distress signal from Moonbase. And even that turned out to be just Father disguised as Numbuh 86.)
  • Star vs. the Forces of Evil:
    • Tom and Janna started out as this, being a case of Pair the Spares for Star/Marco, bolestered by Janna being an occultist and Tom an actual demon, so. Eventually subverted, as by Season 4, the two interact far more frequently (both with each other and as part of the wider friend group).
    • A straighter example would be Tom and Jackie, who are also shipped as a Pair the Spares couple, even though the closest the two have come to interacting in canon is Jackie staring at Tom as he walks past her in his debut episode.
  • Riyo Chuchi and Commander Fox ("Foxiyo") is a somewhat uncommon Star Wars: The Clone Wars pairing between two minor characters that has a small, yet fiercely dedicated fanbase, and most likely exists because it offers a different perspective of the war and clone life than more popular pairings involving Clone Troopers on deployment, such as Ahsoka Tano and Captain Rex, or Obi-Wan Kenobi and Marshal Commander Cody. Not only is there is no indication in canon that either character is or has ever been aware at any point that the other exists, Fox has almost nonexistent canon characterization and his face is never even shown, and what little he does have makes him highly unsympathetic. Fanfiction authors see this as an opportunity to recharacterize Fox, creating a personality for him out of whole cloth that not only makes him sympathetic, but attractive to someone like Riyo.
  • The Loud House
    • Clyde/Lynn has a bit of a following for it, even though the two hardly interact and their connection is mainly through Lincoln, who is Clyde’s best friend and Lynn’s brother.
    • There are also people who ship Lincoln with Luna’s crush, Sam, even though it has yet to be established if Sam even knows Lincoln.
    • The "Luaggie" pairing, consisting of Luan and Maggie, the Emo Teen from "Funny Business". They exchange no lines and Maggie has yet to appear again, yet the fanbase loves to ship them.
  • The Chase/Kimiko pairing (or Chamiko) is surprisingly popular in the Xiaolin Showdown fandom, despite them barely interacting with each other (Chase barely interacts with any other monk beside Omi), as well as being on opposite sides. They do interact more in the sequel, however, but their interactions are more hostile than romantic ( or not?).
  • Jem: Stormer and Riot are paired together in more than a few works, despite having no significant interactions. In canon, Stormer also dislikes Riot. Opposites Attract and Pair the Spares are the reason behind the ship.
  • Milo Murphy's Law:
    • Fans of Milo/Melissa tend to ship Milo's crush Amanda with Zack, the remainder of the main trio. Ironically, Amanda and Zack don't interact much at all until Amanda starts crushing on Milo back and starts joining the trio on their activities as a result.
    • There are also people that ship Bradley with Lydia due to Opposites Attract and Casting Gagnote . The two never share a single line of dialogue.
  • The Ghost and Molly McGee: Some fans have begun to ship Andrea Davenport with Robyn, despite the two of them never interacting and Robyn being little more than a minor background character who has yet to speak.

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