FanPreferredCouple Cleanup

And guess what, there's a shipping juggernaut coming through with YMMV.Undertale:

• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • Outside of Canon pairings, Mettaton/Napstablook enjoyed popularity for a while, although its popularity dropped significantly after Mettaton/Papyrus became big and Napstablook and Mettaton being cousins became a more well-known fact.
  • People seem to ship Toriel/Sans a lot due to their Odd Friendship as shown from the true end, as well as Toriel being shown to be very angry at Asgore. On the other hand, people do also ship Toriel/Asgore.
  • Mettaton/Papyrus is huge, mostly based on Papyrus's comment about Mettaton and his sexy rectangular body.
  • Frisk/Asriel is incredibly popular, given their interactions at the end of the True Pacifist route.
  • Chara/Frisk is pretty big, possibly because they're the only humans in the game.
  • Chara/Asriel, despite the two being adopted siblings, became steadily more popular as more people began to see [[spoiler:Chara as sympathetic. Notably, it is arguably the most popular ship with Japanese and Korean fans.

The closest one to a straight example is Toriel/Sans, since Toriel was in a relationship with Asgore before, with the game heavily implying that they'll reconcile. ...which lead to Toriel/Asgore being the most popular Toriel ship.

Mettaton/Napstablook is really just Abandon Shipping.

Mettaton/Papyrus is Ships That Pass in the Night, neither have a real Love Interest.

The last three are just Toy Ship, none of these characters are explicitly romantically involved with each other or anyone else.

Edited by tropineasily on Oct 22nd 2020 at 6:24:34 PM

Agree with your thoughts. Move MTT/Napsta to Abandon Shipping and MTT/Pap to Ships That Pass in the Night if they aren't there already and cut everything else.

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Any thoughts on the others? The related page is a very good way to find the bad examples.

I also found this on YMMV.Toy Story 3:

• Fan-Preferred Couple: Rex/Trixie is deemed pretty popular amongst the other couples in the film series.

This could actually work, if we take the Trixie/Maximus teasing from "That Time Forgot" as canon. Though it needs to be pointed out.

I will have to take your word. I'm not familiar with it's work or it's fandom.

Any opinions on the Ginger Snaps example I braught up on the last page?

How canon is that special to the movies?

Edited by Bullman on Oct 22nd 2020 at 11:31:08 AM

Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread

Takes place some time after the third one. Falls a bit under Schrödinger's Canon, nothing in the third or fourth movie ever deconfirms it.

Okay I could see it technically count then. Though it needs to be noted then.

Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread

That's what I've been saying.

I know. I was agreeing with you.

Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread

Glad that was cleared up.

What others do you mean?

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Spinel/Pink Pearl got removed from YMMV.Steven Universe The Movie with the user responsible citing that both had more popular ships; considering the pairing was everywhere in the lull between the movie and Future's premiere, is there merit to retooling it into a "back in the day" example?

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Definitely. Also, I meant the YMMV.Yin Yang Yo example.

Sure. So long as we note it was only super popular in that window you mentioned. But since I don't know anything about the show, due either have a Creator preferred pairing.

Edited by Bullman on Oct 24th 2020 at 9:45:25 AM

Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread

Pink Pearl is heavily implied to have something with Pearl. Like a very close, possibly romantic bond.

Though the Spinel/Pink Pearl ship was popular before that.

Gonna throw in my two cents. I found a couple of examples from the Video Games tab that should probably be pulled.

• Devil May Cry has Dante and Lady, a ship that has beaten out Dante/Trish and Dante/Lucia by a wide margin with its shippers having remained steadfast since 2005. Even Dante's voice actor Reuben Langdon and his wife ship them together given the couple cosplayed as Dante and Lady in Tokyo, forcing Devil May Cry 5's director to pull a Ship Sinking to abate the excited audience. Other factors that contribute to this bias is that the aforementioned pairings have their own issues, as Trish is clone of Dante's mother, which would have some Unfortunate Implications, and while Lucia is will liked as a character, the only game she appears in is widely considered the worst in the series.

Despite the popularity of Dante/Lady, there is still no canon ship for Dante in the series, it belongs under One True Pairing.

• Final Fantasy
  • From the Terra Battle crossover with Final Fantasy XV, Noctis/Sarah has a fanbase of it's own. Especially due to Serah's actual shared chemistry with Noctis which is aided by the fact Sarah actually gets to interaction with him alongside having an actual personality.

I looked a little bit into this, because I honestly hadn't heard of the pairing before reading this, there really isn't much of a following at all. It doesn't come close to the popularity of Snow/Serah (the canon ship). This also breaks the one ship per character rule with Noctis. Speaking of which...

I'm all for having a ship with Noctis (because every ship is more popular than the canon one), but was it ever determined which ship was the "correct" one? I'm just concerned there may be some future text walls or edit warring with regards to whether Prompto or Ignis is the more popular ship with Noctis.

Five Nights at Freddy's also needs cleanup, a lot of the ships listed amount to ZCEs and there are multiple ships for each character.

Overwatch has a list amounting to just popular ships. I think everything except Tracer/Widowmaker and Reaper/Soldier: 76 should get axed.

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That's Sarah, not Serah Farron. Different characters.

I've been monitoring the Final Fantasy XV page for several years and though the fandom itself can get a bit wanky at times, I've never seen any outright edit wars over the Noctis ship issue on this webiste, so I don't think it's that likely to cause problems.

That said you're right that it's hard to identify which ship is the actual FPC for Noctis is a bit complicated, because it depends on how you evaluate it. Prompto/Noctis may technically win in terms of sheer numbers on sites like AO 3 and such, but a lot of it is the result of fairly casual "two Bishōnen of the week" fans who make Any Two Guys content. That portion of the fanbase was huge upon release but was similarly quick to dwindle and move onto something else.

Meanwhile based on my experience browsing social media for the series, Iris/Noctis (for male fans) and Ignis/Noctis (for female fans) still have a lot of sustained interest and passionate support this far out (though not enough to outdo the initial burst of interest for Noctis/Prompto). Noctis/Sarah isn't as popular as any of these three, but I think the point it makes is valid, just needs to be moved to another ship. It may merit an entry under Ship-to-Ship Combat though it's not as vitriolic as the discourse over other ships.

An entry I would like to suggest is to add Nyx/Luna^note Per the YMMV page: On the Luna side of things, Nyx/Luna is extremely popular with fans of Kingsglaive, who think they had more chemistry together than she ever did with Noctis. [Widely suspected by fans to be] a product of Relationship Writing Fumble given that Noctis was originally supposed to be in Nyx's place back when the game was still known as Versus XIII., as outside of diehard Noctis/Lunafreya fans you won't see much dispute against that being the case.

Bringing back some discussions:

• YMMV.The Outsiders: Ponyboy/Johnny makes more sense than Dallas/Johnny. While the latter is more popular, the former is more of an example for FPC. Dallas/Johnny is really Ho Yay Shipping or One True Pairing, Ponyboy is the only one of the three with any sort of Ship Tease, in this case with Cherry Valance.
• YMMV.ARMS: All of the examples are Ships That Pass in the Night, since the game is heavily reliant on No Hugging, No Kissing and the canon couples don't involve any of those characters. Spring Man/Ribbon Girl deserves special mention for being a case of Abandon Shipping after their ages were revealed. Max Brass/Dr. Coyle makes more sense as Foe Yay Shipping or Mind Game Ship, since Max Brass was introduced being mind-controlled by Hedlok (who was one of Coyle's creations).
• YMMV.Adventure Time: Finn/Fionna was already addressed in Crack Pairing and really isn't an example, being far from the most popular ship for either. If anything, Finn/Flame Princess (since many treat their break-up as Fanon Discontinuity) and Prince Gumball/Marshall Lee (due to the popularity of the Bubbline pairing, even though both show more interest in Fionna) count more.
• YMMV.Yin Yang Yo: All of those entries are ZCE. Only Yin/Yuck is an actual example, being the most popular ship in the fandom and Yin having some options as a Love Interest, none of them being Yuck. (The fact that Yuck is a combined Enemy Without for Yin and Yang seems to do little to deter the shippers)
• YMMV.Undertale: All of the entries are invalid, with the possible exception of Toriel/Sans. As stated before, Mettaton/Napstablook makes more sense as Abandon Shipping.

Edited by tropineasily on Oct 26th 2020 at 5:31:15 PM

I am busy today. I will do those tommorow

As for the video games ones I have never played Devil May Cry or Overwatch so I will take your word. Five Nights at Freddy's ones need to go as from my memory none of them have any love interests. In the case of Prompto/Noctis, it comes down to if we again want an entry to be timeless which I don't think it should. So I think we are fine to keep. Move Noctis/Sarah to Ship-to-Ship Combat and I wouldn't be apposed to a Nyx/Luna entry.

Any opinions on the Ginger Snaps entry that I braught up here?

Edited by Bullman on Oct 26th 2020 at 10:21:55 AM

Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread

I was under the impression Fionna/Marshall Lee is more popular than Gumball/Marshall Lee?

Edited by PhiSat on Oct 26th 2020 at 3:58:54 AM

Oissu!

Whoops, forgot to do this. First pass at the Spinearl rewrite:

• While the pairing was dwarfed by Pearl/Pink Pearl once Future began airing, Spinel/Pink Pearl was everywhere in the lull of the movie's airing and the premiere of Future, due to them both of them being Gems belonging to Pink Diamond that were closed off for thousands of years before being abruptly thrust into the present, with fanfics and fanart about the two meeting aplenty.

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Not on AO3, where Gumball/Marshall Lee completely dwarfs Fionna/Marshall Lee.

Yeah, that looks fine.

For the ARMS examples, I checked Archive of Our Own and Min Min/Ribbon Girl and Kid Cobra/Ninjara are the most popular ships overall.

So technically, the entire entry is invalid, if anything we should just put them under One True Pairing.

Okay now time to talk about something that came up a bit. Do we want an entry to be timeless? I mean if something counted for a while or during q certain amount of time, but is no longer really this for a multitude of reasons. Can it still have an entry? I think it should be allowed to personally. Like how we have Harry/Hermione listed, because it was this at one point, but now the fandom has very largely moved onto other ships for them, both none canon and canon ones. So I am fine with listing it. Or if I wanted to make an entry for Clark and Chloe despite that ship not being nearly as popular now as it was when the show first premiered, and the fandom again moved onto other ships for them, Clark/Lex and Chloe/Oliver respectively, the later so popular it became canon. I think since shipping changes so much all the time, that it is just kinda of wrong to make an entry timeless.

Looks good.

Edited by Bullman on Nov 2nd 2020 at 2:08:00 PM

Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread

I don't think they should have to be timeless. Fandom behaviours change all the time, and I think it's an interesting thing to document.

"Let’s see who’s stronger: someone that has something to protect, or someone that has nothing to lose."

Yeah and few fandoms are eternal, or else we wouldn't have tropes like Vindicated by History or Values Resonance.