Launcher of a Thousand Ships

Katara is paired with everyone.[1]

When Shipping, some fans have One True Pairings that they cannot bear to break (or several of those), but some have just a Launcher Of A Thousand Ships character. It's the character that goes with everything, or, in this case, everyone. Come to think of it, everything. For example, if someone in the Harry Potter fandom says his Launcher is Snape, he will happily read Fanfics featuring the Snape/Harry ship as well as the Snape/Hermione ship, or Snape/Lupin ship, or the Snape/Lily ship, or even exotic pairings such as Snape/Legolas or Snape/Megatron. Anything goes as long as the Launcher character is included.

There is also a tendency for the entire fandom to consider a character a Launcher Of A Thousand Ships; notably, the Heroes fandom almost always refers to Peter Petrelli this way, given that he's paired up with damn near everybody in the show, including Nathan (his own brother), Claire (his own niece[2]]) and even his own future self.

Also known as the "ship launcher", the "fandom bicycle" (everyone gets a ride), the "cargo container" (gets shipped to everyone), or the "little black dress" (looks good on anyone). The last shouldn't be confused with the Little Black Dress trope which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.

This usually has to do with Wish Fulfillment and come in two varieties:

Type A: The character is a lusted-after character and everyone likes to pair them with whoever reminds them of themselves, or

Type B: The character is relatable and the fans see them as some sort of Audience Surrogate, and they are paired with different characters that the fans lust after so they can project themselves onto this character.

Note that it's quite possible for a character to be Type A and Type B at the same time.

Compare: Memetic Sex God, wherein the fandom believes that the character could score with not just everyone in the series, but everyone ever.

The Trope Namer is Christopher Marlowe's version of the legend of Faust. In reference to Helen of Troy, Faust asks, "Is this the face that launched a thousand ships / And burnt the topless towers of Illium?"

Launcher of a Thousand Ships is not to be confused with Launcher of a Thousand Fighters, and Faust is not to be confused with Lauren Faust, who is nonetheless deeply involved in this trope.

Examples of Launcher of a Thousand Ships include:

Anime & Manga

  • Mio from K-On! tends to be paired up with pretty much anyone in fanworks (formerly the picture for this trope).
  • The eponymous character from Sailor Moon and her canon love interest are paired with nearly everyone and a huge group even in canon. Depending on the version, Usagi is somehow connected romantically with Mamoru, Ali, Demand, Haruka, possibly Rei, Manga!Galaxia and Seiya. Mamoru has Rei, Beryl, Hina, En, Black Lady. That's not even counting the crushes and fandom pairings.
    • Being the daughter of said couple, Chibi-Usa has quite a few love interests as well. Helios and Perle are canon, Kyuusuke is implied to have a crush on her before he got together with her best friend Momoko (similar to Umino and Naru in relation to Usagi), and there are quite a few who think she has something more than friendship with Hotaru.
    • Motoki would also count in his anime and manga incarnations as Usagi, Makoto, and Minako all have crushes on him in both canons, while Ami has a crush on him in the manga and Rei has a crush on him in the anime. Not to mention his fiance, Reika.
  • Pick a character in Shugo Chara, any character other than perhaps Yukari Sanjou, The Director, a gaurdian character and Amu's family. That character has been shipped with Amu at some point or another. She is shipped with everyone.
  • Allen Walker from the D.Gray-man fandom—protagonists, antagonists, side characters, men, women, robots, you name it.
  • The most extreme of these is easily Kagome from Inuyasha, who gets crossed over and paired up with so many characters from so many different fandoms that it would be impossible to list them all (usually the character the author wants to hook up with), due to her being the character easiest for a teenage girl to relate to. Then again, she can travel through time, so one's Willing Suspension of Disbelief can be stretched just a wee bit here.
  • Surprisingly enough, Al from Fullmetal Alchemist. He's been shipped with Ed, Winry, Elicia, Gracia, Marta/Martel, Rose, Mei, Ran Fan, and even Hohenheim.
  • Ranma ½: Ranma has this problem and is shipped with EVERYBODY. And not even that, when he's a girl with a male heart you can expect the obvious.
    • Shipping Ranma with everybody isn't even restricted to his own universe! Ranma ½ is crossed over a lot in fanfiction. That means more characters to use which in turn means more characters to ship Ranma with, regardless of gender. He's basically the ultimate fandom bicycle. Everyone and we do mean everyone gets a ride.
  • Bleach has Toushirou Hitsugaya, Rukia Kuchiki, Orihime Inoue, and Ichigo Kurosaki, of course. There are fics pairing them with their siblings, their friends, their mortal enemies, and people they've never even meet. While they do have areas they specialize in, (Ichigo: Ho Yay, Orihime: Foe Yay, Rukia: Crack Pairing, etc.) pretty much the consensus is: if a character exists, sooner or later they will be paired with one of these guys.
  • The Prince of Tennis has Keigo Atobe, Tezuka Kunimitsu and Shuusuke Fuji for this purpose, and to a lesser extent, main character Ryoma Echizen. Among the small pool of female characters, Sakuno Ryuzaki (that is, when she's not being shoved aside to allow the boys to "do their thing" or being used as an author's Possession Sue).
    • Akaya Kirihara from Rikkai can be paired up with ANYONE from Rikkai and have it work.
  • From Mobile Suit Gundam SEED...Athrun Zala. He even has five girls after crushing on him in canon (Lacus, Cagalli, Lunamaria, Meyrin (these two are sisters) and Meer). And if we count fanwork of all kinds, you can add Kira, Nicol, Miguel, Yzak, Heine...
  • Mobile Suit Gundam 00's Tieria Erde, another Samuel Vincent voiced character, gets this treatment too. It is believed he have feelings for the first Lockon Stratos, but you can see him getting paired with Setsuna, the second Lockon, H/Allelujah, Mileina, Feldt, Sumeragi, Ribbons, Regene, Veda...
  • Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: While most popular pairings happen to be Heero/Duo (and to a lesser extent Heero/Relena) and Trowa/Quatre, you won't have much trouble finding a rather large amount of any combination of pairings amongst the pilots, with another smaller subset involving the other characters. There is a good chunk of stories about all five of them that aren't crackfics. Duo Maxwell is often decpited as "uke" or a playboy in fanfiction and in addition, or perhaps subsequently, happens to be on the receiving end of this trope fairly often. You will see Heero often paired off with characters outside the Gundam Wing universe.
  • Shizuru of My-HiME and Mai-Otome leads the way in a fandom filled to the brim with yuri fanfic and fan art, having been paired up with the likes of Natsuki, Nao, Mai, Haruka, Arika, and Tomoe.
    • While Shizuru tends to have the most diversity in pairing options, Natsuki has her outdone in terms of volume of fanfic/fanart running away (most of it with Shizuru, though Nao and Mai are also viable candidates).
  • Sakura and Hinata from Naruto appear to have this ability to be shipped with anyone. Besides the usual Sasuke/Sakura and Naruto/Hinata pairings, you also have stuff like Kakashi/Sakura, Itachi/Sakura, Sai/Sakura, Neji/Hinata, Sasuke/Hinata, Shikamaru/Hinata...and they have even been shipped together.'
    • On the male side, in non-yaoi pairings, there are many fanfics and Doujin putting Shikamaru with Ino, Sakura, Hinata, Temari, Shiho, his teachers's lover along with many others. Sometimes, all at once. There probably isn't a single person in the entire show with whom this guy hasn't been paired.
    • Naruto himself has been shipped with nearly every named female in the series (and a lot of the males, too), sometimes all at once. Of particular note are ships that include the Nine-Tailed Fox! And then there's FemNaruto who ends up paired with most of the male AND female cast. Or gets paired with people from other series.
    • Kakashi seems to get paired with pretty much everyone in the show too.
    • Sasuke occasionally gets this treatment as well. Besides the normal Naruto/Sasuke and Sakura/Sasuke, there are too many Sasuke ships to count. Although most Sasuke pairings tend to be yaoi.
    • One might believe the Akatsuki was one big orgy. Can't decide which combination of Deidara, Sasori, Itachi, Hidan, and Pein works? Why not pair them all together!
    • It should probably just be said that absolutely nothing in Naruto is sacred. At all. there are even crack fics floating out there pairing Naruto with Jesus.
  • In Mahou Sensei Negima: Negi. Although the majority are justified as roughly 90% of females he meets develop crushes on him.
    • And when we say 90%, we're talking about a series that introduced over 30 characters in chapter one. At this point, he's kissed half of them.
    • Somewhat lampshaded by Chamo, who appears to see Negi as a Launcher of a Thousand Ships. Of course, he's somewhat biased, as he has financial incentive to make Negi go for as many as possible; he earns several thousand Ermine Dollars every time Negi kisses a new girl.
    • Invoked by Paru describing Yue's situation, gaining a respectable female harem. Yue is not amused by this commentary.
    • A Troper specific Launcher is Chisame
  • Tsuna from Katekyo Hitman Reborn. There was Spanner/Tsuna doujinshi on sale merely weeks after Spanner's introduction. Japan moves in mysterious ways.
    • And Tsuna is joked to be the fandom bicycle as well.
    • Funnily enough, it's actually rare to see fan merchandise of Tsuna with any of the canon love interests (the four girls, to be precise). The magical Tsuna bicycle starts getting more outrageous when one realizes that there are fandoms that support Squalo x Tsuna and Bel x Tsuna.
    • Let's not forget Gokudera Hayato. He gets paired with not only every guardian, but with the TYL!Guardians as well (oh parallel world sex), and with multiple enemies. AND EVEN paired with the girls. (Including his sister. Disturbing yes?)
    • Chrome's paired with freakin' everyone: Mukuro for obvious reasons, Tsuna cus she kissed him when they first met (that still hasn't been explained), Hibari cus he saved her life once or twice, Ken cus he's totally Tsundere towards her, Chikusa cus he's on the same team as her, MM cus of the Foe Yay, Mammon cus of his Naughty Tentacles, and Julie on account of the kidnapping, etc etc. These all make some sense and at least have had vague screentime. It starts getting weird when it starts being characters she's never talked to or even talked about. Prime examples include Enma, Genkishi, Bel and for some reason Levi...
    • And who can forget Haru, who even has a fanclub on deviantArt specifically titled the "Anyonex Haru-Club"?
  • Every female lead from the Pokémon anime (Misty, May, Dawn, and Iris) has been subject to this. While the most common candidate for each is Ash, they've all been paired with just about everyone at one point or another.
    • Ash has been paired with everything from every female lead, to every male lead, to Pikachu, to Bayleef, to Latias (who if you want to get technical, is actually tied for the furthest anyone's ever gotten with him.) Have some actual numbers: As of October 2011, the list referenced below contains 495 named ships involving Ash. Plus 11 involving Ashley (Ash as a Wholesome Crossdresser). Plus 13 involving Ashachu (Ash as a Pikachu (it's canon)).
    • Name any two characters—Pokémon included—in the anime, and not only will there be a shipping fanbase, it will have a name! And it's not just limited to living characters! There is one called DownBoyShipping that consists of Misty's hand and Brock's ear!
    • Improbable Species Compatibility is inevitable really.
    • Ash's mother Delia also gets this treatment. (Just look at all of the "Who is Ash's Father" theories in WMG) The two most popular choices are Professor Oak and Giovanni, but there are lots of other possible candidates.
  • Meiling and Touya of Cardcaptor Sakura, while mild examples compared to other fandoms, get treated this way in fanfiction; especially Touya, who is most often targeted for the fandom's few common crack pairings.
  • Sanji from One Piece There's even a livejournal community dedicated to writing Sanji romance fic with any character.
    • Happens to Usopp, Zoro, and Ace as well.
    • Nami and Robin are also subject to this.
    • Luffy is the very definition of this trope!
    • Zoro himself is beginning to get a harem of his own. Not only is he commonly shipped with Nami, Robin, Sanji, Luffy, Ace, Mihawk, and Tashigi, but you can also add in now Bonney and Perona!
    • Shanks gets shipped around a bit too, just not as much as the other listed characters.
  • Alviss from Märchen Awakens Romance. The fandom isn't huge, but the boy has been paired not only with every kind of Mary Sue imaginable but with his teammates and the villains from the show. Especially because every single pairing has been hinted in canon. Even the evil overlord has attempted to kiss him in the anime, and it was a kids' show, with not even a drop of blood.
  • You have five seconds after finishing this sentence to name a female character from Hayate the Combat Butler with whom Hayate isn't paired.......That's what I thought. Doesn't hurt that most of them are canon. And the guys aren't always exempt from that.
  • There are fanfics pairing Jolyne Kujo from Part 6 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure with nearly every character in her arc (including Jotaro (her father), Emporio (an 11-year old boy), and Pucci (the villain)). She's also paired with characters from other arcs.
  • Axis Powers Hetalia...oh, where to begin? Its fandom thrives on the immense potential for historically justified and just plain cracktastic pairings amongst the Loads and Loads of Moe Anthropomorphisms to such an extent that nearly every character gets at least three popular ships. And then there are the true Launchers of a Thousand Ships who have at least three times that number of ships:
    • Russia, who wants to become one with everybody in canon. He's shipped with Lithuania, America, Belarus, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, China and lately Vietnam and Thailand and Netherland...and that's not even remotely all of the "historical" pairings.
    • France: He gets some with everyone, and some fanworks just list France/Everybody as one of the included pairings.
    • In Japanese fandom, Japan gets paired with everyone. 'Everyone' including the "well, that does make a fair amount of sense" ones like England, America, Greece (which might actually be the most canon one on this list), Italy, China, and the "where did THAT come from?!" ones like Switzerland, Norway, etc. He's not nearly as much of one in the English fandom, where England and Greece are the only ones he's paired up with any regularity, but he has definitely gotten fics with America and [insert any other Asian nation here]. For an idea of how much this trope applies to him, this Japanese fanart shows only the more plausible ships with him. It still takes a while to get through all of them.
    • The English-speaking fandom does the same with America to a slightly lesser extent. 'Slightly lesser' meaning that there's more of a tendency to pair him with select characters that have the most canon/historical basis with him (England, Russia, and Canada) than with apparently random characters. Keyword being slightly: you still see him being paired every now and then with the likes of France, Japan, Prussia, Vietnam, etc. He's not as much of one in the Japanese fandom, naturally, but considering that there are tags on Pixiv for pairings like America/Spain, America/Taiwan, and America/Seychelles...
    • Even Canada qualifies. He's most commonly shipped with France, America, and Prussia but is also frequently shipped with Cuba, England, and Russia (and Ukraine is rising in popularity as a het option for him), and there's more than one fic for crack pairings like Canada/Poland and Canada/Switzerland. Hell, there's fic for Canada/Turkey, and fanart for Canada/Taiwan. One fic takes Canada's Launcher Of A Thousand Ships status to its logical extreme, shipping him with the entire cast, one at a time.
    • England...well, he's shipped regularly with America and France. And repeatedly with Spain, Prussia, Canada, and Japan. And even with Hong Kong, India, and Portugal. The only reason he isn't higher up on this list is that he isn't really paired with everyone, just with nations he's got substantial historical basis with. Which admittedly isn't hard to find at all, but places him only a cut above nations like China (paired with Russia, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea) and Austria (paired with Hungary, Prussia, Switzerland, and Germany) who get a normal number of ships by Hetalia standards.
    • Lithuania gets shipped with Estonia,Cuba, Australia, Holland Russia, Poland, America, Belarus...he's pretty much europe's bicycle. He also tends to be Uke a lot, which is part of the reason.
  • Having befriended many people, Nanoha has this distinction in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha fandom, though Fate is pretty up there too in amount of pairings.
    • And of course, Erio Mondial will lay all the women to compensate for the failures of every other guy in the series. On the other hand, Yuuno Scrya, the resident Demoted Extra, is very flexible as long as it isn't Nanoha or Fate. Nanoha and Fate, on the other hand, are okay.
    • Similarly, Vivio enjoys love from all sides as well. It is particularly ironic that, as the daughter of the greatest shipwar trigger in the show, so far there have been no shipwars regarding Vivio. Though this may partially be because Vivio lacks any pairing fanservice, and thus is still fair game for even the most hardy of shippers.
    • With Vivid Memories ongoing, shippers are mostly aiming for the girls in Vivio's age group. Two of which are the same as her: reincarnates of ancient Belkan Lords.
    • The only qualification for you to be shipped with Hayate is that you must be female and you must exist in-universe. The former depends on how much you want to stick with the Les Yay theme of the show (though even if you do, Zafira is still one of her knights), and the latter depends on your opinion on Cross Overs.
  • In Code Geass, Lelouch is paired up with just about everybody, including his siblings, best friends, enemies, acquaintances, and people he's probably never even met. And sometimes with more than one at a time.
    • Occasionally one comes across selfcest for poor Lelouch, where he's paired up with Zero.
  • Revy from Black Lagoon. In addition to her semi-canonical love interest Rock, she's also paired with Dutch, Benny, Eda, Shenhua, Balalaika, Chang, Roberta, Ginji and even Boris.
    • Rock is also guilty here. There are fics of him getting it on for at more than one night with Revy, Eda (both at once at one point), Shenhua, Balalaika, and Roberta. Who knew a scrawny former office drone could be such a Badass and a Chick Magnet?
  • From Digimon, Mimi seems to be a perennial. Miyako's frequent crushes and infamous "Mimi fantasy" have turned her into something of one. Digimon Frontier, on the other hand, has The Smurfette Principle firmly in place, which means that Izumi is a Launcher of a Thousand Ships almost out of necessity, since any other pairings among the heroes are Yaoi or Twincest; if that's your Squick, you can't participate in ship wars (which doesn't exempt her from Foe Yay with the Quirky Miniboss Squad's only girl, of course)!
    • Hikari as well; she's been shipped with Daisuke, Takeru, Taichi, Yamato, Ken, Koushiro, and even characters from other series. In a Digimon crossover, whenever there's a major male character in the other series who will be shipped with a Digimon character, said latter character is probably going to be Hikari.
    • According to other pages, everyone in the rather extended cast of the original 'verse became a free-for-all after Digimon Adventure 02 completely messed with the fan expectations for hookups.
    • In Digimon Tamers, there is Rika Nonaka/Ruki Makino. Every single possibility has a fanbase. Rika/Takato, hotblooded girl and sweet boy who can help each other soften/toughen up, respectively (mind you, this is the one with the most character derailment, as Rika often becomes a backboneless Damsel in Distress for Takato to save in fanfic. Most popular evidence: Takato's dream of her in the premiere.) Rika/Henry (Jenrya, Jianliang, et cetera), hotblooded girl and calm, levelheaded boy (most popular evidence: any of the brief moments where she'd try to properly butt heads with him and it didn't work. The balance would do them - mostly her - some good, it's held.) Rika/Jeri (Juri), not just 'cause Girl-On-Girl Is Hot: Jeri makes a good damsel in distress for Rika, and could be someone she'd take under her wing (the one softens/one toughens dymanic is present in almost every ship for her.) Rika and Renamon - between Renamon's sultry voice and Cute Monster Girl-ness, Girl-On-Girl Is Hot definitely applies with the two even if Renamon's not totally humanoid. There's also Renamon's total devotion to Rika, and it clearly going both ways (Rika not being the type to constantly state it, but it's just as obviously there.) Now, as a Digimon and human partner this is expected, but Renamon is by far the most fleshed-out Digimon partner character, so it shows with her that it's every bit as voluntary as it would be with two humans, and not just "the critter follows the human around 'cause that's how an A Boy and His X series goes." (It's considered to be true with all partners in all series, but with Renamon it shows in every episode.) Finally, Ryo Akiyama, only person ever to beat her at the card game, and with a great love of flirtatious banter usually directed at her, with her being annoyed by it all - the best in Slap Slap Kiss, every scene in which the two are together are considered evidence; unlike so many of the others, there's no one scene you can remove and many an Official Couple starts out the way they started; Digimon was just never as romance-oriented a series as fandom wants it to be. About the only pairings for her without a fanbase are her and Kazu or Kenta (Those Two Guys, paired with each other or no one.)
    • Henry himself is shipped with Rika (see above), Takato (they've got one really good Ho Yay moment, in addition to the two male leads being the easiest choice for Slash Fic in any series), and Renamon (they have two really good Interspecies Romance-yay moments.) Three seems small, but this cast is smaller than Digimon Adventure. Not shipped with him are only Jeri (Takato's canon love interest who has limited interaction with Henry), Ryo (Rika's arguably-canon love interest who has limited interaction with Henry), Those Two Guys (see above), and the Mons with childlike personalities, or physical characteristics that would make them harder for most to see as a 'ship (maybe he'd get along with deliberately-Zeerust Tin Can Robot Gardromon, but the question isn't often asked.)
  • From Death Note, Mello has been paired with quite a lot of people, from his heterosexual life partner (Matt), to his rival (Near), to a woman in whose shower he hid (Lidner), to people he's never actually met (Light), to just the downright creepy (Light's dad).
    • Near too. Both Matt and Mello, occasionally Linda, the SPK (Gevanni most of the time), Light, Mikami and even L.
    • Let's face it, in Death Note-verse, Genius IQ = Launcher of a Thousand Ships. The three exceptions are A and BB, who despite being geniuses have been paired with three or four people at most, and Matsuda, who isn't a genius but has been paired up with everyone of importance in Death Note. Including old men and shinigami.
  • Does The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya's Kyon ring a bell? It should. Every character in the SS Brigade is paired with him- including honorary member Tsuruya! The fact that most of them like him back doesn't help...
    • Then there's Kyonko who gets anyone and everyone paired with her from both versions, including her alternate self, and then some.
    • Also the girl who tried to kill him twice before getting booted out of the story both times. When the last book comes out, he'll be getting shipped with the anti SOS brigade too. Urgh.
  • Sousuke from Full Metal Panic! can be paired with pretty much every main-ish character (and quite a few side characters). Pairings include: Kaname, Tessa, Gauron, Kurz, Mao, Kalinin, Tsubaki, Nami, Clouseau, Kyoko, Wraith, Mizuki, Zaied, and even the insane Police Lady. Of course, the story writers didn't make it hard.
  • Simon appears to be one for the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann fandom. The most common pairings include Nia, Kamina, Yoko, Viral, Rossiu, himself, and any combination thereof.
    • The cast must be having one big, hot-blooded orgy behind the scenes...even amongst the heterosexual options, for example, a notable solution to the Kamina/Yoko vs. Kittan/Yoko dilemma is to just let her have both of them. As far as solutions to Shipping Wars go, this fandom seems to take the route laden with the most Fetish Fuel and the least nitpicking.
  • Kenshin, given the levels of Ho Yay and Foe Yay, gets this treatment in fandom; ditto Sano.
  • Even though Pandora Hearts is still not an immensely popular series, the fandom somehow already figured that everybody is hot for Oz and/or Gilbert. Pairings like Oz/Gil, Alice/Oz, Shalon/Oz, Echo/Oz, Gil/Alice don't surprise anybody anymore, so the fandom went a step further. And so pairings like Oz/Oscar, Gil/Break, Gil/Vincent (it's actually almost canon - at least on Vincent's side; also, trope inverted, as Vincent is the one to obsess over his older brother Gil), Oz/Elliot, Gil/Jack, Gil/Oscar and even Oz/Gil/Alice came to life.
    • At this point it's safe to say that everybody can be paired with anybody with how connected the plot is becoming. Luckily, the abyss can send people through time to quell most fandom issues of age difference if they want to be moral about everything.
    • In general, the author seems to try for this with the series overall. If two characters have spoken, there is almost always shipping material for them. (Some may need thicker Shipping Goggles than others, but you can really find a fic for just about anything anymore.) If there hasn't been enough, it's coming. Couldn't see where Gil/Break was coming from? Cue Gil leaving his beloved master to be Break's left eye. They don't even have to have had real interaction. Wondering where the fair-sized fandom for Break/Elliot could come from? The character guide makes specific note about the latter deeply admiring the prior.
    • Moreover, Break is easily at least as much a Launcher as Oz or Gil anymore, if not moreso. It isn't too uncommon to see Break paired with Sharon, Reim, Gil, Oz, Alice, Alyss, Cheshire, Vincent, Lotti, Elliot, Rufus, Shelly, Cheryl, or even Emily; and a few others are rare but also present.
  • The Darker than Black fandom has pretty much seen to shipping Hei with anything that has a pulse, up to and including the cat. Of course, Studio BONES did practically bait them into it—you know you've got a ship-magnet on your hands when he's written into slash fics in canon.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!: Kaiba. Enough said.
    • Don't forget Yugi!
    • More importantly Atem.
    • Oh come on! This is the Yu-Gi-Oh fandom, the things in it are Launchers of a Thousand Ships aimed towards each other.

Kaiba: This is sounding dangerously close to a slashfic.

Ronove: If you wish for us to dictate, of course we will undertake that task. However, we will add our own demands to the scenario as well.
Battler: I'll agree to anything!...Huh? Why are you giving me those creepy looks?
Virgilla: ...RudoBato. GohBato. AmaBato.
Ronove: Pukuku! You mustn't forget RonoBato.

  • Shaman King: Yoh, Anna, Ren and Hao are pretty much the center of all ships.
    • Also Ren, Hao, and Horohoro are always the ones you see get shipped with every type of OC/Mary Sue known to man.
  • The Wolf's Rain fandom has Tsume, who's been shipped with just about everyone but the lady in a coma and the drunk old man, but who can really blame them? Kiba also gets around in the fanfics...often painfully so...
  • Izaya Orihara of Durarara!!!!. It helps that he professes to be in a Mind Game Ship situation with the entire human race. Izaya/Shizuo seems to be the most popular, though Izaya/Mikado, Izaya/Masaomi, and Izaya/Namie also seem to have a degree of popularity, while Izaya/Anri, Izaya/Shinra, Izaya/Dotachin, Izaya/Rio, Izaya/Either or both of his sisters, Izaya/fem!Izaya, Izaya/Celty and Izaya/Celty's Severed Head (yes, those are two completely separate pairings) are not unknown.

Erika: But wasn't Yumacchi talking about writing me and Dotachin in a master-slave relationship? How about this - Dotachin somehow becomes a girl when he gets up one morning, and finds himself in an all-girls boarding school...
Kadota: SHUT. UP. YOU. TWO. AHHHHHHHH!

      • To be quite honest Erika and Walker are responsible for perpetuating a lot of the ships with their own otaku fangirl/boy squealings, particularly Shizaya.

Shizuo: I'm off to Shinjuku to kill Izaya...I'll be back
Erika: Oh man this is so cool! Shizu~chan totally has the hots for Izaya! Boy on boy love is so much fun, I love it!
Rest of Cast: NOT HAPPENING!


Comic Books

  • For a long time (and probably to this day) Gambit has fulfilled this role in X-Men fandom, being paired with any and every character out there, regardless of whether he likes them, or whether he's even met them in the first place.
    • Iceman gets this treatment too, but for a different reason. He's easy to identify with and thus is a good Audience Surrogate, so making him slutty and pairing him with absolutely everyone makes much of the X-Men fandom happy.
    • Let's not forget Mystique, a bisexual shapeshifter who's taken on both male and female forms. She's usually a villain, but has spent time as a hero, so she can be paired with anyone of any Character Alignment, gender, or sexual orientation.
  • It's a running gag in the DC Universe that virtually every female that comes in contact with Nightwing falls in love with him. And that's not even getting into the Foe Yay...
    • Known exceptions: Dr. Leslie Tompkins (Old enough to be his grandmother), Stephanie Brown (underage, and dating his little brother), Wally West (the so called Straightest Man in DC).
    • Dick's "bicycliness" doesn't stop with the females he meets, at least in the fandom. Popular Slash Fic pairings fix him up with Bruce, Roy, Wally, Tim, Jason, Terry...
    • Bruce. Look at how many love interests he's had in the course of Batman History! Not to mention how many women have kissed him! Even non-love interests has kissed him! (Harley Quinn) I mean if you think about it, comic book love interests, villainess, movie love interests, tv show love interests, animated DCU love interests, and that's just the TIP of the iceburg! Let's not forget slash pairings! IN ALL INCARNATIONS!
    • Tim Drake! He stays mostly to the batfamily side of things, but popular ships include: Dick/Tim, Jason/Tim, Bruce/Tim, Damian/Tim, Kon/Tim, Bart/Tim, Kon/Bart/Tim, Steph/Tim, Tim/Tam, Cassie/Tim, Cass/Tim, Ra's/Tim and Tim/Bernard. Canonically, he is a gorgeous woman as Caroline Hill (one of his many undercover disguises), and there are several fics pairing other characters with "her." It also helps that Marcus To's drawings of Tim brought him into the ranks of a Bishonen with pretty hair.
  • Who hasn't Tony Stark been paired up with? Depending on how you count it, no one.
  • Clint Barton is largely considered the Marvel character who can be with any single other superheroine in the Marvel Universe and it not to come off strange. His current tally includes the first Ronin (Maya Lopez), The Black Widow, Mockingbird, Moonstone, the Scarlet Witch, and the Wasp.
  • Wolverine, of course, is considered to be a sexual stud-muffin given that he has been paired with virtually every other character possible in the X-men in fanfic. Of course, the authors sense this too. His canonical love interests have included: Silver Fox, Viper (with a very descriptive honeymoon), Jean Grey (never consumated), Mystique, Storm, the Heather Hudson version of Vindicator, the Silver Samurai's sister Mariko Yashida, and probably some people I'm missing.
    • Not to mention his string of female sidekicks like Kitty Pryde, Jubilee, and Pixie.
  • The Black Widow is the female version of this in Marvel comics. Her relationships include Iron Man, Hawkeye, Daredevil, an attempt by the writers to set her up with Deadpool(?!), and arguably Nick Fury. Even her late husband (she's a widow, get it?), the Red Guardian, was a superhero. Yes, Natasha goes with everything.
  • Wonder Woman is also considered to be a Launcher of a Thousand Ships for the main heroes of DC comics. It's just that none of the pairings ever stick. They've attempted to pair her up with Aquaman, Batman, Superman, and Nemesis.
  • Not as extreme as some of the examples, but in the Batman fandom, Harley Quinn gets paired with lots of different guys plus Ivy. Which is ironic since in canon she's shown to have pretty much Single-Target Sexuality for The Joker and some subtext with Ivy. Harley has also had her moments with Batman himself on occasion (see above for all the ships he's launched), at one point kissing him on the lips for being nice to her.
  • Daken, Wolverine's son and member of the Dark Avengers, is starting to become this, mostly just being paried with male characters though. But then again he's a Depraved Bisexual whose powers include super-healing and what amounts to sex-pollen. Common pairings include every member of the Dark Avengers (Bullseye and Mac/Venom in particular), his father Wolverine, Northstar, Deadpool, Anole, Wiccan and Hulkling.
  • You wouldn't think so, but a large number of Sin City Fan Fics are either slash fics or invovle Shipping amongst the cast. This often involves the female characters.
  • Princess Sally from Sonic the Hedgehog can be either type. IN CANON, no less.
  • While not getting much love in-universe, Deadpool fans seem to think he has chemistry with almost anyone who tolerates him for more than 5 minutes. Popular ships include Cable, Weasel, Bob, Domino, Black Widow, Spider-Man, Bullseye, and even Captain America (comics).


Film -- Animation


Film-- Live Action


Literature

  • While Animorphs fandom has a tendency to pair off all the characters, Marco gets it more than any other. I've seen him paired with every single Animorph plus some side characters. (And if Ax is paired with anyone at all, it's generally Marco. Unless it's Tobias, which is Squick, for several reasons.)
  • Edmund Pevensie, from the Chronicles of Narnia, is the Ensemble Darkhorse from all the protagonists and also the Troubled but Cute - Draco in Leather Pants Anti-Hero, with a pale skinned - dark hair complexion, hence he is shipped with practically everyone, plus various made-up fan characters. By the way, the characters he is probably most shipped with are Lucy and Peter. Yeah.
  • Daenerys Targaryen fills this role in A Song of Ice and Fire. Common pairings include Jon/Dany, Viserys/Dany, Drogo/Dany, Daario/Dany, Jorah/Dany, Tyrion/Dany, Dany/Jon/Tyrion, Dany/Aegon and Dany/any-of-her-handmaidens.
    • In all fairness, most of those have basis in canon. Viserys feels Dany up at least once, and their family has a good old tradition of incest, while one of the handmaids (Irri) takes it upon herself to sexually service Dany when she's having a restless night. There are several foreshadows (Valyrian polygamy and the three-headed dragon) indicating that Dany could take two husbands in the future (although and she would find Tyrion completely repulsive). As for Khal Drogo, well...
    • Her nephew Aegon comes in a close second, with possible matches including Dany, Sansa, Arianne Martell, Margaery Tyrell, or even Arya. Of course, as a young man with a solid claim to the Iron Throne, Aegon is easily Westeros' most eligible bachelor.
    • Sansa Stark seems to be one of the most commonly shipped, despite being no older than thirteen at the end of the last book. The most popular ship is Sansa/Sandor, but there's also Sansa/Petyr, Sansa/Tyrion, Sansa/Margaery, Sansa/Jaime, Sansa/Jon, Sansa/Theon etc.
  • Hermione Granger from Harry Potter has been paired with characters of every age, allegiance, gender, and even other realities and worlds.
    • Harry is frequently given a harem, while most girls at Hogwarts seem to be Hot for Teacher when it comes to Snape...and Bellatrix will fuck Anything That Moves, even her own sister or nephew!
    • Speaking of Harry, Harry has also been shipped with almost every character imaginable, especially Draco Malfoy, Snape, and even Cedric.
    • The Giant Squid is a joking example—any discussion of Crack Pairings is bound to have somebody claim they ship Squid/the first character that comes into their head.
  • Bella Swan from Twilight is a huge example of this. There are pairings of her with practically every character, including those of lesser importance.
  • Percy Jackson from Percy Jackson and The Olympians has been shipped with pretty much every character in his titular series, including very minor characters. Especially since Word of God says that even though demigods' parents may be related, demigods themselves, even if they share the same divine parent, can fall in love and have kids with no issues.
  • Crowley from Good Omens fandom along with the Fan-Preferred Couple Aziraphale/Crowley he is also shipped with Hastur, Pollution, adult Adam Young, the angel Gabriel, his Bentley, and in Crossover Ship John Constantine, James Bond, Harry Potter, Olympia Black...and just about anyone else. Being mistaken for an incubus seems to be a common plot thread. Lampshaded in one fic ?Do I look like a sodding *** toy to you?? Don't Answer That.
  • Although everyone in Warrior Cats has had this to a certain degree, Firestar probably takes the cake. He has been paired with Sandstorm, Spottedleaf, Cinderpelt, Tigerstar, Scourge, Graystripe, Mistyfoot, Bluestar, Silverstream, Ashfur, Echosong, Leafstar, Cinderheart, Morningflower, Onestar, Blackstar, Brackenfur, and a stick (though most of the fandom seems to think the stick is a better match for Jayfeather). Keep in mind that this list is riddled with Ho Yay, Foe Yay, and crackships.
    • ...and three that are actually canon.
    • His grandson Lionblaze is the same. He's been shipped with Heathertail, Cinderheart (both canon), Icecloud, Hazeltail, Honeyfern (who already has a canon mate), Twist, and Whitewing.
  • Liquidon Ethereteel and Neone Delft of Stationery Voyagers seem to be headed towards this, made worse by the fact that they get a lot more Backstory and Character Development than anyone else. Then again, the Mystery Wanderer is an even bigger whore about it, as that's part of The Plan.
  • The Left Behind Hatedom, in their exquisite Bile Fascination, has pretty much chosen Nicolae Carpathia for this role. This comes most directly from Fred Clark's famous weekly blog detailing just how bad these books are, the comments section for which has officially branded Carpathia a Memetic Sex God who has canon chemistry with EVERYONE—and they've set out to prove it too!
  • Frodo Baggins. Especially in the wake of the 2001-3 films, Frodo got paired with every conceivable hobbit, many big strong Men, and an Elf from time to time. Oh, and Gollum. Most of this was generated by women who found Elijah Wood's portrayal seriously attractive. Then again, he is the protagonist.
    • And Legolas, oh so much. Because he is pretty and an elf, and Fan-Girl-Authors really like those things. Legolas/Aragorn, Legolas/Pretty much every male elf (including his father Thranduil), Legolas/Gimli, Legolas/Faramir, Legolas/Most of the self-insert characters, Legolas/Sauron, Legolas/Gandalf, and so on and so forth.
  • Roose Bolton from A Song of Ice and Fire seems on his way of becoming this in the LJ and Tumblr communities.
  • The Star Wars Expanded Universe tends to have one per era.
    • In the prequel era, Anakin's Single-Target Sexuality doesn't stop all the Anakin/Obi-Wan, Anakin/Ahsoka, Anakin/anybody who's not Padmé fics.
    • In the Rebellion and New Republic eras, it's Luke. It would be Han (because he's sexy), but everyone likes the Han/Leia ship too much. This doesn't stop Luke/Han slash, though it's overshadowed in the fandom by Anakin/Obi-Wan.
    • In the New Jedi Order era, it's Jacen and Jaina. Not together. Usually. (They're also sometimes paired, or even OT3, with Anakin.) But Jacen and Jaina are paired with anybody who isn't related to them.
    • In the Legacy era, Cade. Of course, he'll do Anything That Moves, so...
    • As the Legacy of the Force / Fate of the Jedi era goes through, it's turning into Ben. Oh, so much.


Live Action TV

  • Among the corner of the Battlestar Galactica fandom that has special love for Lt. Felix Gaeta, he has been happily paired with just about every character (male, female, human, Cylon) you can think of. Including quite a few he has no real interaction with on the show.
    • And there's no possible way of counting the Kara "Starbuck" Thrace pairings. Or threesomes. Or...Of course, that was bound to happen because in the show itself she Really Gets Around. Gaius Baltar and Ellen Tigh also have a number of pairings. Even Lee has a collection.
  • In Blakes Seven, Avon/Anything That Moves (and Orac, which doesn't).
  • Faith Lehane from Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a Launcher of a Thousand Ships not just for her own fandom, but for many, many others. Just in fandom there's been Faith/Cordelia, Faith/Dawn, Faith/Buffy, Faith/Willow, Faith/Dawn/Buffy/Willow, Faith/Spike, Faith/Angel, Faith/Wesley, Faith/Xander, Faith/Tara (who she met once, in Buffy's body), Faith/Tara/Willow, Faith/Robin Wood (canon, but they broke up between Seasons 7 and 8), Faith/Giles, Faith/Joyce, Faith/Anya, Faith/Harmony, Faith/Lilah Morgan (admittedly, Faith did hit on her the one time they met) and a few Faith/Everyone fics. And that's just in fandom.
    • Spike is another lucky one that has been paired endlessly with every imaginable character, including ones he never met. Like Ampata, the Inca mummy girl, who was only in one episode. Spike wasn't in it.
  • Criminal Minds' Reid. Fandom ships him with everyone. Even half the unsubs.
    • Don't forget the crossover ships.
  • Annie Edison is this in Community, evidently. About half of the speculations have been hinted at in canon.
    • More than half really. She's had (some admittedly small amounts, but still) Ship Tease with Jeff, Britta, Abed, Troy and a canon relationship with Vaughn (along with multiple minor characters, such as Starburns and Professor British Guy pointing out how smoking hot she is). That really only leaves Shirley and Pierce.
    • The episode featuring the Crack Pairing description features pairing of most possible characters. Abed is very into every possible pairing.
  • Degrassi has Sean. It doesn't help that just about every girl he's shared a scene with (and even a few he hasn't) have said how hot he is. For reasoning, Emma, Ellie, and Ashley are canon, Manny talks about how hot he is, Paige and Hazel are popular Crack Pairings, and that really leaves Liberty, which goes to show accidents will happen. For Ho Yay, let's see...He's the only person who truly understands Rick, he and Ellie defend Rick before anyone else does, and then he kills Rick; on TV.com, this combines with speculation about Toby's taste in anime to turn the yaoi up some. Then there's Craig; indeed, Sean/Craig is the official couple over at TV.com's Degrassi forum, complete with a user named Seaig. More relevant, though, is that Craig wanted Sean to run away with him, and attempted suicide when Sean didn't. For Jimmy, there's this Foe Yay between them at first that is Serious Business, and then Jimmy's girlfriend cheats with Sean and goes on and on about how Sean's the better man, sprinkling in double entendres throughout. JT and Toby think Sean scores a lot, and JT tries to get him to use X. Marco's first crush is actually Sean, complete with Male Gaze shot of Sean's naked torso. Jay is a popular choice because of how mopey Jay gets when Sean isn't around. Peter has a serious obsession with Sean during their Foe Yay episodes. As for Spinner? There's actually a promo pic of Daniel Clark embracing Shane Kippel.
    • Not even Liberty was immune to it. In Season 3, she had a very blatant- if only for one episode- crush on Sean. On top of that, there's Ashley, too, which is sort of Canon.
    • For slash-alone, Marco. Some fans just aren't that original.
    • Eli seems to have inherited Sean's throne. Canonically, he's been with just Clare and Julia, with hints of him and Imogen becoming an item currently there. However, within the fandom, he's shipped with EVERYONE. Special mention goes to Fitz, Adam, and Fiona, however. The former of whom is a (As far as we've seen) straight male, as well as his rival during Season 10. And with the latter two Adam is an FTM Straight Transgender, and Fiona a lesbian. And then there's Eli/Morty the Hearse....
  • Jack Harkness of Doctor Who and Torchwood. Of course, he'd almost certainly flirt with these characters at a minimum. There is a Image Macro series out there pairing him with (among others) CJ Cregg, of all people.
    • This one has both been artificially inflated and taken to the next level by a fic challenge on a very popular Doctor Who community, called "Jack Harkness Sexes Everyone in Every Fandom Ever", which has at its core the absolutely impossible goal of writing enough fics to achieve just that.
    • The Doctor himself. While the Doctor/Rose and Doctor/River shippers are the most vocal (and have the most canonical ships), there's strong support for the Doctor/Martha, the Doctor/Jack, the Doctor/the Master, the Doctor/the TARDIS, and this is all just from the new series. Even from the old series, there's the Doctor/Romana, the Doctor/Sarah Jane Smith, and many, many more. Really, you can just say Doctor/X Companion and there's probably someone shipping it.
    • Flipped and reversed with the Brigadier who, because of his insanely long tenure, can logically be paired with each of the first seven Doctors in turn without any stretch in continuity.
    • Amy Pond is extremely popular in crossover shipping.
  • Firefly gets Jayne Cobb shipped with nearly everyone. Most common shippings include River or Zoe, but there's also plenty of fic involving Kaylee or Inara, as well as ones involving Simon or Mal.
    • Jayne is the token barbarian of the series—he likes guns, booze and women, and he'll take any that seem available.
    • Additionally, River gets paired up with a lot of people. The most common ones are Simon (which is nicknamed Crazy Space Incest), the aforementioned Jayne and Mal, but also with Kaylee, Inara, Wash, Book, Jubal Early, the Operative and even Badger. The fact that she fits this trope despite being seventeen on a ship whose median age seems to be about thirty is especially disturbing.
    • But really, just every damn character. Seriously, pick any combination of the show's nine eleven regulars, and it won't be too hard to find a fanfic pairing them up.
  • Rachel from Friends. Helped by the fact she was roomates with Monica (up until early season 6), Phoebe (season 6), Joey (seasons 6 to 10, intermittently) and Ross (briefly during 8 and 9). Several subtle (and not so subtle) ship teasing between her and the other girls (notably in some fights and "what if?" instances), some with Chandler (especially in early seasons) and, of course, she dated the remaining regulars. The character also, at some point, kissed every other person in the main cast, including the girls. Joey also qualifies ( he also kissed all of them).
  • Both Puck and Rachel on Glee.
    • Kurt isn't quite as popular because he mostly doesn't get shipped with girls, but he has been shipped with EVERY male character to appear on the show, and as the series continues there's been more and more Kurt/Various Girls fic. Apparently fangirls like a challenge almost as much as they like canon gayness.
  • Blair from Gossip Girl has been shipped with everyone in the show, including men who only love Serena, straight girls, her worst enemy, and even her boyfriend's deceased father. Apart from that she's also been paired with Edward, Draco Malfoy, Damon Salvatore, Dean Winchester, and Rachel Berry. And many more.
  • In addition to Peter Petrelli, Sylar is also a Launcher of a Thousand Ships in the Heroes fandom. Check out this LJ Heroes community: Rare Heroes. Look at the pairing tags list; Peter and Sylar have the most pairings. Peter actually comes in as a close second to Sylar, when you count them up.
    • Pretty much every Heroes fanfic is about Peter, Sylar, Claire, or Elle, usually a combination of two...or more
    • This Livejournal, "The Heroes Slash Manual", applies this quality to Kaito Nakamura...after a fashion.
  • Barney in How I Met Your Mother. The most popular pairing is Barney/Robin, but it is by no means the only one.
    • Barney/Lily is HIMYM's biggest UC ship. He's also shipped with Marshall and Ted. Or Stella and Victoria. Not to mention the crossovers...
  • As it's his show, House obviously gets treated like the fandom bicycle by fic writers. He's been paired up with everyone, from Wilson, Cuddy, Chase, Foreman and Cameron to Vogler, Tritter and, um, a giant squid. Which clearly hasn't been on the show but still...
    • Chase too. I've seen Chase/House, Chase/Foreman, Chase/Cameron, Chase/Stacy, Chase/Wilson, Chase/Cuddy, Chase/Kutner and Chase/Lucas.
  • Sam in iCarly. She has fanbases (although small in some cases) for pairings with Freddie, Carly, Spencer, Gibby, Griffin, Missy, Principal Franklin, Wendy, Brad, Shelby, Jade from Victorious and Alex from Wizards of Waverly Place. The prevalent fandom interpretation of her is that she is bi.
    • The male version is Freddie. He has been paired with Carly, Sam, Spencer, Gibby, Wendy, Melanie, Shelby, along with several girls of the week, and two reasonably popular Crossover Ship pairings, one with Megan from Drake and Josh, and the more recent one with Cat from Victorious.
  • Zev/Xev from Lexx for obvious reasons.
  • It's a Law and Order, so it isn't that obvious, but in the (admittedly small) L&O:SVU fandom, Olivia Benson is pretty much this. Probably because she's Mariska flippin' Hargitay.
  • On Lost Claire Littleton tends to get paired with just about anyone she has any sort of contact with. There’s Claire/Locke, Claire/Sawyer, Claire/Ethan, Claire/Boone, Claire/Hurley, Claire/Eko and Claire/Shannon from earlier Seasons and Claire/Miles, Claire/Richard, Claire/Jacob, Claire/Man in Black, Claire/Sayid, Claire/Kate, Claire/Juliet and yes Claire/Jack brought on by later ones.
  • Hawkeye Pierce from MASH has been paired with virtually every other character in the series, though the most popular pairings are BJ/Hawkeye, Margaret/Hawkeye (canon for an episode or so, actually), Trapper/Hawkeye, and even Radar/Hawkeye. Justified in that Hawkeye tends to flirt with Anything That Moves, though he (apparently) only flirts with men to make them uncomfortable.
  • Morgana from Merlin. The first Season inspired Morgana/Gwen, Morgana/Uther, Morgana/Arthur as well as some Morgana/Merlin, Morgana/(older)Mordred and Morgana/Nimueh, even though those two never even met! Season Two cut it down a little on the Morgana/Uther and Morgana/Arthur front but also inspired Morgana/Morgause (even though they're half-sisters) and (thanks to some fanmade vids for them) also Morgana/Sir Leon.
    • Ironic considering Morgana is part of no Official Couple on the show. Seriously though, in this fandom, everyone gets shipped with everyone. In a cast this pretty, they're all Little Black Dresses.
    • Morgana/Mordred!? But-But-But...in original canon he's...
  • In Power Rangers, Tommy got paired with an inordinate amount of Mary Sues over the years, but Sky from S.P.D. really takes the cake here, ending up with every single one of his teammates in fic (all at the same time on occasion), and even some of his enemies.
    • And then there's Dr. K, who is being paired up with each member of RPM team and the villains. And possibly her violin and keyboards.
    • Speaking of Tommy, it's easy to see pair Tommy with Jason (classic), Goldar (obsessed with Tommy), Zedd (even more obsessed than Goldar), Rita (come on, if you were her, you would), Kim (canon, and it's been said that 45% of Power Rangers fics are slash and 54% are Tommy/Kim), his clone, Kat (canon), and Adam (the two most popular rangers ever). There are also more bizarre fics pairing him with Zack, Trini, and Rocky, to say nothing of Observe the Viewing Globe. Fast forward to Dino Thunder, and he's paired with literally every other cast member: Hayley (despite the inherent Scrappiness of dating Tommy in canon and not being a Pink Ranger), Anton (they sound like lovers), Mesogog (personal space issues), Elsa (fakes being in love with him), Conner (because heavy is the head that wears the crown), Ethan (apparently on the same grounds as Trini/Billy, that one can understand the other's technobabble), Kira (far too much), and Trent (because they were both evil). There's also a Memetic Mutation that sleeping with Tommy is one of the fringe benefits of being a Pink Ranger. No doubt someone's paired him with Andros because they look so much alike. We're just lucky David never became a ranger, or we wouldn't have had to wait until Ninja Storm for incest slash to come out.
  • The growing Parks and Recreation fandom has most emphatically thrown Ben Wyatt into this role. While he and Leslie are the Fan-Preferred Couple (as well as the show's Official Couple in canon - a rarity?), there's also fic for Ben/April, Ben/Chris, Ben/Ann, Ben/Ron...hell, someone out there probably ships him with Jerry. Probably helps that this is Adam Scott we're talking about here...
  • Emily from Pretty Little Liars seems to get paired up with a lot of people: Ali, Spencer, Aria, Hanna, Maya, Paige, Samara, even Toby (despite being lesbian.)
  • Sam from Quantum Leap. Not that surprising, as the show itself has a premise specifically designed to allow for just about any kind of story the writer of the week wants to tell.
  • In The Sarah Connor Chronicles community, Cameron tends to get shipped with everyone. The most common pairings appear to be with John Conner, Sarah Connor and Derek Reese, but even John Henry and Allison Young have their supporters.
    • Like Firefly this is probably due in part to Cameron being played by Summer Glau.
  • Clark Kent of Smallville has been paired with just about every character on the show. Clark and Lex being the most popular Slash Couple rivaled with Oliver/Clark then you have your Chloe/Clark Shippers and your Lois/Clark Shippers. They even go far enough to pair him with Jor-El. The writers even would paint him as a chick magnet on the show, even though he hasn't caught onto it.
    • Chloe Sullivan also served as a Launcher of a Thousand Ships. The fact that many of her fans seem to use her as their own personal Audience Avatar means that Chloe hooking up with virtually any attractive character can be seen as wish-fulfillment. To that end, the fandom has shipped Chloe with Clark (Chlark), Oliver (a ship so popular that the showrunners themselves became Chlollie shippers in the last couple seasons), Lex(Chlex enjoyed a brief but dramatic spike in fanfic popularity around Season 2 for some reason), LIONEL of all people, and out-of-universe characters from other shows, like Dean and/or Sam Winchester from Supernatural.
      • One of the more popular Chloe crossover ships over the years has been Chloe/Batman. There have been so many prominent fics, that there it can be quite reasonably stated that there is an entire sub-genre of Smallville fanfic that involves Chloe moving to Gotham (often after the writer has Chloe realize that Clark/Oliver/Jimmy/Lana/Lionel "isn't good enough for her" or something) and then falling in love with Bruce Wayne, and ending up fighting crime alongside him on the Gotham City rooftops. In these fics, she often displays the ability to work the Batcomputer better than Bruce can, learns martial arts at a ridiculously quick pace, and often Alfred will advise Bruce to "open his eyes and see what's right in front of him."
  • Rodney McKay, of all people, in the Stargate universe. People will read just about anything that features him as part of a 'ship.
    • If you watch the episode "Tao of Rodney", this makes perfect sense.

Elizabeth Weir: Rodney, you're a good person. Know that we love you.
Rodney McKay: You love me? Really? All of you?

    • Evan Lorne also fulfils this trope.
    • So does John Sheppard. More John than even Rodney, since there seems to be the subfandom of Richard Woolsey/John Sheppard. Also, John has spent time with every Atlantis Civilian Head in a 'one on one' scene on a balcony somewhere, and has DARED to fall for an ascended lady (and a near-ascended one). Poor John's reputation is also cemented because Rodney just doesn't let it go. In extreme cases, John's character kind of goes through a transformation, and people forget that he's actually the military head of the Atlantis expedition. John/Elizabeth, John/Teyla, John/Ronon, John/Rodney, John/Richard, John/Random Evil Alien, John/Random Good Alien, John/his abusive dad, John/the entirety of a hockey team...well. It's been done.
    • Daniel Jackson & Cameron Mitchell from SG-1 have been paired up in Fanfic not only with each other, but with every main character in the show's history. Sometimes crossing over with Stargate Atlantis and even other shows.
  • Kotoha of Samurai Sentai Shinkenger. And the writers seem bound to encourage it.
    • Her lord, Takeru, has been paired with all five of his vassals, his childhood friend, his rival, and even the true lord, who is now his mother.
  • Dean Winchester from Supernatural. He's been paired with his little brother, his father, Bobby, Castiel, probably every single male and female character in the show, OMCs, OFCs and I'm not even touching the millions of crossovers that he's been in. Possibly justified because he's very pretty and very slutty but it's getting ridiculous.
    • Castiel may count too. It started harmlessly with just Dean, but then other angels (and demons and humans) appeared, and the rest is history.
  • Suite Life On Deck features Zack Martin, a serial dater who seems to be compatible which pretty much every girl on the show.
  • Malcolm Reed of Star Trek: Enterprise. There is a significant amount of fic for: Tucker/Reed, Archer/Reed, Reed/Sato, Reed/Mayweather, and Reed/Hayes. No other character comes close. The reason why can only be guessed at, but it probably has something to do with the whole "shy, reserved, and stoic" thing. And his fondness for making things go boom.
  • In Sanctuary, Helen Magnus is paired through fanfic with everyone, including non-canon relationships with Amelia Earhart and H.G. Wells among many others. Many of the popular ships in fandom include Magnus/John Druitt, Magnus/Nikola Tesla, Magnus/James Watson, Magnus/Will Zimmerman, Magnus/Kate, Magnus/...you get the picture. In canon, Tesla has a long-lived and one-sided flirtation with Magnus, but has gone so far as to sneak into her room at night (unsuccessfully) and has made it clear he would enjoy a relationship with Magnus if given the opportunity. Given that the woman is over 157 years old, is sexually fluid, and would have chemistry with a flea, it's not hard to see how this trope applies. Plus, it's Amanda Tapping.
  • Interesting thing on The Tudors. Henry gets paired off the most times in the show (obviously) but as for pairings written or suggested...Um, Katherine of Aragon. The theory I heard was that people just want her to be happy, considering how things went for her on the show.
  • Sookie from True Blood. Not only has she dated or had sexual tension with four guys canonically, but fan fic writers don't let silly things like gender or Incompatible Orientation keep them from pairing her with pretty much everyone on the show.
  • Vampire Diaries has Elena Gilbert who started innocently with love interest Stephen Salvatore, Matt Donavin, and Damon Salvatore. The longer the series got and the more male characters were introduced the longer the list became. Now do a search on Youtube and you will find Elena/Eric, Elena/Derek, Elena/Dean, Elena/Sam and of course Elena/Edward, and Elena/Jacob
    • It doesn't help she is the Doppelgänger of canon Launcher of a Thousand Ships Katherine Pierce whose conquests among others include Stephen and Damon Salvatore, Mason Lockwood, and Trevor.
    • Caroline is definitely catching up to Elena.
  • Cat in Victorious, like Sam is considered bisexual by the majority of the fandom. She has popular pairings with Jade, Robbie and Tori, semi-popular pairings with Trina, Beck and Andre and a popular Crossover Ship with Freddie from iCarly.
    • Jade is the secondary launcher, being paired with Tori, Cat and Beck as her most popular pairings, with less popular pairings with Andre and Robbie and a Crossover Ship with Sam from iCarly. Again, like Cat most people assume that she is bisexual and that Beck has come to terms with her sexual needs as part of their canon relationship.
  • Alex in Wizards of Waverly Place. Goes above and beyond the usual fandom bicycle because her most popular pairing is an incest pairing with brother Justin.
  • Alex Krycek from The X-Files. Do a little fanfic digging and you'll find him paired with almost everyone from the show. Krycek/Mulder is most common, but his level of Foe Yay with practically everybody spun off all sorts of other pairings. He also wound up something of a Memetic Sex God, and it's probably impossible to find a fic that doesn't mention his Green Eyes at least once.
    • For that matter, Mulder and Scully themselves. There are still whole websites devoted to shipping either of them with half the show's characters.
  • Shawn from Psych. Justified in the case that he has made a pass at everyone of the recurring characters at least once.
  • Emma from Once Upon a Time is commonly paired with her step-grandmother and archenemy Regina, who also happens to be her biological son's adoptive mom. Also fairly popular are Emma/Graham, Emma/August, Emma/Jefferson, and Emma/Gold. You'll also see your vocal minorities of Emma/Ruby and Emma/Archie shippers and even those who would ship Emma/Mary Margaret if Mary Margaret wasn't actually Emma's mom. Or who ship it regardless.
    • Ruby/Red is also shipped with quite a few characters—Emma (as mentioned above), Archie (due to both characters' popularity with fans and lack of canon love interests), Gold (especially before the introduction of his canon love interest Belle)), Snow White, and even Graham by fans who like Graham's character too much to take the convenient Killed Off for Real exit to further their preferred Emma ship. Don't forget Jefferson and Regina, either, even though they (and Gold and Archie, come to think of it) have never actually interacted with Ruby. August and Ruby had one conversation of Ship Tease and gained a small-but-loyal fanbase. And then there are those who liked Red's original love interest Peter from her tragic backstory...

Music

  • In any band with exactly one female, you can bet that she will get shipped with most or all of her bandmates. Examples include:
    • Tarja of Nightwish (later replaced by Anette).
      • Tuomas has been paired up with every other man in the band. In all fairness, he DOES make a really lovely and cute Uke.
  • Brendon Urie. He's generally characterized as so sweet and loving and openhearted and totally, completely faily, it's hard not to pair him with anyone. Especially anyone male. In fairness, this, this, and this would just be wasted otherwise.
  • The disputed rumored bisexuality of John Lennon has made him the focus (and fan bicycle) of about 99.9% of slashy fanfiction in the squickier areas of the Beatles fandom.
  • Gerard Way. He's been paired with: all the members of his band, Bert Mccracken of The Used, Billie Joe Armstrong, Brendon Urie and Ryan Ross, and even the Tenth Doctor. The fandom either doesn't know or doesn't care about his marriage with Lyn-Z Ballato.
  • Miley Cyrus has pretty much been paired with everyone who has shared a photo with her and possibly some who haven't.
  • Subverted and played straight with Patrick Stump. Subverted in the slash end of bandom in that he's paired with Pete Wentz 95% of the time, played straight in that in het circles, he's paired with nearly every female in the bandom scene with any level of significance (even the ex of the guy he's paired up with the most)
    • On the other hand, Pete Wentz is arguably the de facto bandom slash shipping bicycle.


Professional Wrestling

  • Jeff Hardy is the Launcher Of A Thousand Ships of pro wrestling. Male, female, giant, midget, relative, he apparently does (or far more likely, is done by) everyone. He's "extreme" and grown up into quite a manly specimen, but is still remembered and seen by many as a sweet little fresh-faced kid who does gymnastics, and also the fact that he's a raving Cloudcuckoolander, means he can pretty well go any direction you need him to without him being out of character.
  • Considering the fact that professional wrestling is filled with loads and loads of mostly often-shirtless guys and often scantily clad girls, maybe the best answer would've been "Just professional wrestling."

Theater

Cats: Mr. Mistoffelees, though usually paired with Rum Tum Tugger, has been placed with every single male and female character in the show.

Video Games

  • EVERYONE in Kingdom Hearts has been a Launcher Of A Thousand Ships at some point. EVERYONE. It probably helps given Kingdom Hearts' universe where any crossover has at least the slightest bit of plausibility.
    • Axel is the fandom bicycle: everybody gets a ride!
    • And then there's Demyx. He's the Organizations ***.
    • Roxas get the most hetero pairings out of everyone, especially with Namine, Xion, Olette, and Kairi. Then there's the Ho Yay...
      • Let's see...Axel, Hayner, Seifer, Sora, Riku, members of the Organization XIII...am I missing any?
  • Final Fantasy
    • Final Fantasy VI fans can throw Edgar together with anyone and everyone despite the fact that the poor guy couldn't get a date in-game, though he does have the best pick-up line in video game history.
    • In the Final Fantasy VII fandom, you've got Cloud, Tifa, Sephiroth and Vincent. If one adds in the endless flood of Relationship Sues, a thousand ships is a very lowball estimate of Sephiroth and Vincent's fleets.
    • In Final Fantasy VIII, Squall seems to be pretty paired with pretty much everyone who isn't Rinoa. It's not like the game's entire plot revolves around them falling in love with each other or anything.
    • In Final Fantasy XIII, we have Lightning. Two major reasons for this are the fact that she has no canon love interest, and the game has a not-inconsiderable amount of Les Yay between her and Fang. Then of course, there's her "motherly" relationship with Hope. If you want to go into Crossover Ships, there's Noctis, and being a Distaff Counterpart of Cloud Strife you can pair her up with him or any of his love interests. With Lightning scheduled to appear in the upcoming Dissidia 012, her status as ship-launcher can only grow.
    • Dissidia Final Fantasy:
      • It has Terra, the only default female hero in the group, as its biggest Launcher of a Thousand Ships.
      • Following somewhat close behind her, there's Squall, who for some reason seems to be paired a lot with several characters.
      • And in Japanese fandom, the one who stands head and shoulders above ALL of them is Firion, for some inexplicable reason. He is paired with everyone. It's the Rose. That rose has been in the hands of at least nine characters throughout the course of the two games. In fanshipping land this automatically means he is paired with everyone who has obtained it. Hell, people even ship him with Aerith for their mutual love of flowers, even though the two have never canonically met! However perhaps the only pairing that has any real basis in the events of the games is Lightning, due to their undeniably cute scene in the reports turns out he just wants that pesky flower back but still who wants to crush a shippers dreams!
      • Lightning's paired with a fair amount of men in Dissidia's sequel (technically prequel), too. Mainly, Kain Highwind, Firion, and the Warrior of Light.
  • The World Ends With You is still a new fandom, but already Neku's being paired with pretty much everyone. Minamimoto/Neku? Where'd that come from?

"Think he's got a thing for you, Neku? (...) Oh, please! The way he follows you around?"

    • Minamimoto himself is paired with just about everyone. Neku, Beat, Konishi, Megumi, Joshua...Especially Joshua.

Minamimoto: Why, hello there! This mic is zetta sexy!

        • Also calculators and math books.
    • Joshua too. Although Neku is by far his most popular option, he regularly gets shipped with Hanekoma, Minamimoto, Kitaniji, and Rhyme. Shiki and Beat are rarer but also exist, and he's a favorite for crossover ships.
  • Yuu Narukami of Persona 4 has been paired with every conceivable cast member of the series at one point or another.
  • Rune Factory 2 has an official Launcher of a Thousand Ships candidate in the form of Yue. When the main character marries a girl who was destined for another guy, that guy will automatically end up with Yue.
  • Lloyd Irving from Tales of Symphonia. Seriously, he's paired with everyone in the game, although he's frequently shipped with Colette, and Sheena. There are many who pair him with Raine or Presea. Maybe even Zelos. Or even paired with Yggdrasill.
    • He has been paired with his own father. Granted it's usually before The Reveal, but some even have the relationship continue afterward.
    • Because of the Multiple Endings, Lloyd is a canonical Launcher of a Thousand Ships.
      • It even continues in the sequel! Dawn of the New World basically confirms that Lloyd scores with whoever you want him to.
  • Emil seems to be this, too—he's been paired with a good chunk of the new cast including Ratatosk and Aster (who Ratatosk killed about a year and a half before Emil even came into existance.) Not to mention several of the original cast.
  • As far as Tales of the Abyss goes, Luke/Everyone might as well be canon. ...well, everyone important. At the very least you cannot deny that Luke/The Party (or The Party/Luke, as it is...) is very nearly canon.
    • Guy gets this treatment too.
  • Another canon Launcher of a Thousand Ships is Vayne of Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis, who has an ending with each of the other party members. The ones that aren't clearly romantic are laden with subtext.
  • Fire Emblem has Roy. He has 6 possible wives, and can support with 4 other males, one of which is his milk brother (or male maid for you people who are too lazy to look in a dictionary), and is obviously a target for Ho Yay/Bodyguard Crush. Not to mention Roy was playable in Smash Bros. Melee...
    • Roy's got some brutal competition for the "Pimp Lord of Fire Emblem" from Celice in Genealogy—Celice can take to his side one of 15 possible wives. (7 female children and 7 replacements, and then Yuria).
    • Lyndis from Fire Emblem 7 already has 4 canon love interests (5 if you count Florina as one), Sain and Wil are considered extremely plausible, Karel/Lyn and Lyn/Ninian have niche followings in the fandom, and one author even managed to pair her with Renault and make it plausible. And of course, there's the infamous Lyn/Tactician fics.
      • We can probably just go ahead and comment that most of the cast is canonically a Launcher of a Thousand Ships, and the fandom just goes ahead and takes this Up to Eleven.
    • My Unit (or Chris) in the remake of Mystery of the Emblem is an in-universe Launcher, capable of supporting with literally the entire cast of the game. They don't have as many potential love interests as Roy or Celice, though; male MU has 3, and female MU has 5.
    • The My Unit from Fire Emblem: Awakening takes this one step further. S/he can marry - pretty much any (As in, literally any character who isn't directly obtained thru Spotpass or DLC, including Bonus Units like Gangrel, Valhart, Inverse, Emelina, or Mystery Man Paris and Child characters like Lucina, n_n, or Chambray... and yes, s/he can have a kid with them) - player character, providing they're of the opposite gender, and have support conversations with those of their own (or anyone else left over).
  • Link is easily the Video Game town bicycle; he's paired with everyone from the eponymous Princess Zelda to...well, to the Shinto goddess Amaterasu as seen in Okami, given that both were wolves recently. (If there were a Shinto Hell, whoever first did that would be going there. Nor is this the only strange ship involving Amaterasu, in or out of Okami itself.)
  • In Golden Sun, everyone is a Launcher of a Thousand Ships.
    • And then the Lighthouses are jokingly considered as such in both the phrase's literal and other metaphorical sense, thanks to the fact that more than a half of the non-crackpairings (and a few crack ones) get their biggest Ship Tease in them.
      • And God said: "LET THERE BE DARK DAWN!!!"
  • World of Warcraft fan fiction's poster girl is Lady Jaina Proudmoore by far. She's often shipped with Arthas (pre- and post-undeath), Warchief Thrall (a pairing once characterized on the official Blizzard WoW General Discussion Forum as "Bow-Chikca-Lok'Tar"), a triangle between the three (and I'm sure a ménage à trois has been done at least once)...hell, every fan fic writer who writes about his own PCs will have them meet Jaina at some point.
    • Jaina/Arthas (pre-undeath) actually is canon: they used to date when they were both teenagers.
    • Don't forget Kael'thas Sunstrider! He canonically had a crush on her (although it was apparently unrequited).
      • Jaina was heiress to the throne of Kul Tiras before the fall of Lordaeron, and Arthas and Kael'thas were both crown princes of their respective allied kingdoms. Given how royalty is often married off to allied royalty, its not surprising that she'd have been socially introduced to every male heir in her age group from every ally Kul Tiras had.
    • Thrall and Sylvanas fit this trope for Horde aficionados.
    • Outside of canon characters, elves in general seem to fill this role. Especially blood elves.
  • Reimu and Marisa from the Touhou games tend to have their own mini-harems, most of their pairing options being youkais they've defeated in previous battles.
  • Metal Gear Solid's Snake tends to be paired up with almost everyone in the series, and outside of it - even before his appearance in Brawl. It really doesn't help that he's the Prince of the Even the Guys Want Him trope (Big Boss being the king).
    • In the MGS fandom itself, Otacon's probably earned this. He's been paired with Snake, Mei Ling, Raiden, Liquid, Grey Fox, Big Boss, Mantis, and young Ocelot, time paradoxes and plausibility be damned.
  • Sonic and Tails in the Sonic the Hedgehog series go with everyone...even though they show the least romantic interest of the entire cast.
  • Mega Man Star Force: Geo goes with everyone, mostly due to the fact that the game and anime each drop plenty of scenes for him that could be interpreted as ship teases - with several different characters. Love Triangle with Betty And Veronica Luna And Sonia, Ho Yay with Pat and Ace, Foe Yay with Solo and Jack.(And perhap maybe with "imagination"!)
  • Phoenix Wright gets paired up with everybody, including himself. And of course there's the friendly neighborhood memetic molesters Gant and Gourdy (that's the Lake Monster in case you're wondering).
    • Phoenix isn't alone. As one fan put it, "If it's breathing and in the Gyakuten series, it'll get shipped with Edgeworth. It's inevitable."
    • Apollo's working his way up to reaching his mentor's status.
  • Rudy Roughnight from Wild ARMs 1. In addition to all the females he gets paired with, Wild ARMs shippers also put him together with Jack and, for some reason, Zed. This even gets referenced in Wild ARMs 5, where the main Wild ARMs 1 related sidequest has Dean resolving which one amongst Jane, Cecilia, and Mariel does Rudy eventually end up with.
  • Disgaea has a rather small shipping base, in that most of its characters are only commonly shipped in one or two pairings each...the second pairing usually being with Etna. Seriously, Etna gets paired with everybody, including but not limited to: Laharl, Flonne, Mid-Boss, Adell, Rozalin, Axel...hell, even the Prinnies.
  • Team Fortress 2 - The poor Scout doesn't get a break when paired up with any of the other classes, not even his own. There's also the Pyro, who may be female. The Medic (usually a Memetic Molester) occasionally gets this kind of characterization due to his status as a Support class and the fact that he racks up points the fastest via assisting other classes, as well as the fact that his gameplay role is that of the White Mage and therefore Yaoi Fangirls designate him as the de facto Uke when Scout's not filling that role.
  • Poor, poor Splash Woman. It doesn't help that she's one of the only two lady bots in a cast nearing 100.
    • Looking at the fan art, Metal Man gets this treatment too.
    • In general, ANY Robot Master, including the Rockman Killers and the Stardroids. Each of them have launched enough ships to make a tangled love web. Perhaps the most common: little Mega Man himself!
  • Norman Jayden, the only one of the four heroes without a canonical love interest, is consequentially paired with pretty much everyone in the game, from Ethan Mars to Carter Blake.
  • Leon Kennedy, of Resident Evil fame, has been shipped with everyone. Of course his canon lover is Ada, but I've also seen him paired with Sherry, Ashley, Claire, Rebecca, Jill, Steve, Chris, Wesker, Alfred, Luis, Krauser, Saddler, Salazar, Mendez, Mike the Helicopter Guy, Billy, Kevin from Outbreak, a group of Lickers, Ganados, and even in one slightly disturbing story, Mr. X.
    • The fact that he's cannonically interested in Ada but has hit on Hunnigan and had a relationship with Angela, plus the fact that he repeatedly partners with Claire, plus Manuela and Ashley's also cannonical crushes on him, probably helps in this regard.
  • As mentioned above in the discussion on Link, Okami's Amaterasu gets shipped with far, far more characters than a non-talking Big Badass Wolf should ever be. Most of these rely on Ammy having a human form that we just never see.
  • This happened to Dawn and Lyra from Pokémon. Especially Lyra. The most popular characters to pair Lyra with (in Japan, at least) are Silver, Lance, and PETREL. Keep in mind, these are just the popular ones.
    • In the west (and East at that), Morty and Proton are also often shipped with her.
      • Silver himself is a shipping magnet, too, especially when you factor in Special.
    • With Pokémon Black and White, we have the male protagonist Hilbert (more commonly referred to as Touya or Black), who's being paired with practically every female in the game.
    • Don't forget N.
    • Red gets shipped with everyone, Pokemon and people outside the Kanto-Johto games included.
    • In-game, a lot of players ship Ditto with everyone, due to its ability to mate with (almost) any Pokémon and produce eggs.
      • There's a reason a why a lot of players name their Ditto "pimp".
  • Haseo of .hack//G.U., poor guy, virtually has an entire harbor reserved for him. From Atoli to Shino to Ovan to Endrance to Skeith to even the Grunties, he's been stuck with EVERYONE. I dare you to find someone that he HASN'T been shipped with.
    • Like Lloyd in Tales of Symphonia, Haseo is an actual canon launcher, since at the end of the third game, you can choose to "marry" (the characters are playing an an MMORPG) any party member, regardless of gender or even age. When trying to do it with a man, usually it leds to a "best buddy" scene rather than marriage, but there are a few exceptions like Endrance or even Azure Kite who want a little more than being friends...
  • For some obscure reason, Dynasty Warriors Sun Shang Xiang is fair game with everyone in Wu including her brothers, half the folks in Shu, and Sima Yi if you look hard enough. Although she may have to compete with her husband Liu Bei, honored with the Capslock_Koei tag "Shu mourns the loss of its bicycle".
  • Chun-Li from the Street Fighter series is also a fairly infamous case of this as well as she has been paired with Charlie, Ryu, Ken, and Guile (and to a lesser extent Cammy). This has at least caused some Your Mileage May Vary as the latter 2 men are Happily Married. But in all fairness the 90's anime and manga have helped the later 3 pairing ideas in certain ways.
  • Ellis from Left 4 Dead 2 ends up with everyone. Although 90% of the time it's with Nick, you can find him with his canon love interest Zoey, teammate Rochelle, Coach, the Hunter, the Witch, the Smoker and even his friends that don't even appear in the game like Keith. Ellis will also usually be the target of any fanfic writer's Original Character.
  • Dante of Devil May Cry fame gets this, mainly due to his status as an Action Hero. Not only is he paired with his implied love interests from the first three games (i.e. Trish, Lucia, and Lady), but Yaoi Fangirls just love to pair him up with Vergil (his own brother), Nelo Angelo (who is Vergil), and Nero (who may or may not be Vergil's son, and thus, his nephew). People also love to Cargo Ship Dante with his Devil Arms (especially Nevan). Very few notable characters are excluded from Dante's "harem"; Sparda and Eva, Kyrie (Nero's Victorious Childhood Friend), the side characters from the second game and novels, Arkham, Credo, Sanctus, and Mundus seem to be untouched, but it would be no surprise if said pairings had their own niche. Finally, there's the Fan-Preferred Couple of Dante and his Distaff Counterpart (and Fetish Fuel Station Attendant) Bayonetta. Naturally, some epic Ship-to-Ship Combat ensues.
  • Just try to find someone from Mass Effect who Shepard hasn't been paired up with yet...
    • Liara and Garrus also get ships to plenty of directions.
    • Mordin is slowly becoming a ship launcher too. He's been paired with both Female and Male Shepards, Samara, Zaeed, Captain Kirrahe (from the first game), Maelon and Doctor Chakwas, just to name a few. Knowing this makes a later conversation you have with him all the funnier.
    • Female Shepard seems to be the fandom's little black dress. She's been shipped with all the crew members, most of the alien council, prominent enemies, a whole range of obscure side mission characters, Male Shepard, non-sentient creatures, as well as some things that don't move.
  • Kasumi from Dead or Alive has ships for pretty much every base, ranging from the fairly mainstream Ryu Hayabusa, the more yurilicious Hitomi or Christie, all the way to straight up incest with her half sister Ayane or her brother Hayate. It would seem that whoever the favorite character is, shippers generally feel they go nicely with the cute redhead ninja.
  • Jin Kisaragi from BlazBlue. Aside from him being coupled with his Older Brother/Rival Ragna and Childhood Friend Tsubaki, Jin has been coupled with almost every character from the series even if it's almost impossible to happen. Despite him being a total ***, this must be just a huge turn-on for the fandom.
    • He has never been coupled with Litchi Faye-Ling, though. A Web Works made it happen instead, though not in a romantic way.
    • Ragna himself enjoys a fairly substantial shipping base as well, having, in addition to Jin, been paired with Noel, Rachel, Taokaka, and several characters who aren't even from the same franchise.
    • Carl Clover also enjoys a fair amount of popularity amongst shippers as well, ranging from Noel and Makoto, to Litchi and his own sister, Ada, and, like Ragna, with several characters who aren't even from the same franchise.
  • Atsuki Saijo from Lux-Pain has a good amount of Ship Tease with just about everyone.
  • Advance Wars has three. You have Eagle who gets all the good guys, Hawke who gets all the bad guys and some of the good guys, and Andy who gets it up the butt from everyone. ESPECIALLY Eagle and Hawke.
  • Endou from Inazuma Eleven seems to get paired up with just about every other major character in the series, both male and female, most likely because he can and does become good friends with basically anyone and everyone. Then there's a bunch of Starboarding with Endou on the receiving end, since he's a completely oblivious Chaste Hero. Plus there are some fans who jokingly ship Endou x Soccer (yes, as in The Beautiful Game).
  • Hawke as either gender in Dragon Age 2 bounces from person to person in fanfics like a ping pong ball.
  • Despite the Memetic Mutation "Everyone is furry for Krystal,"[5] Krystal from Star FOX is not the most prominent example of this trope from the series. Instead Fox tends to be paired with most of the other characters, yet he is rarely paired with any of the female characters aside from Krystal.
  • Mario goes with everybody. It's not just limited to female characters, either. Luigi is sometimes paired with him, and so is Bowser.
  • Sub-Zero. The younger one, anyway. Canonically, the closest thing he has to a girlfriend/partner/lover is Sareena, whom he enjoys a hefty amount of Ship Tease with. But thanks to the magic of Shipping Goggles, all of his friendships and rivalries are misconstrued as possible ships. Heterosexual Life Partners with Smoke and Kenshi? Ho Yay. Former archnemesis of Scorpion? Foe Yay. Former pupil Frost is eerily-obsessed with him? Mentor Ship. Not even his older brother, Elder Sub-Zero/Noob Saibot is safe from being paired up with Subby (it doesn't help that there's a Love Triangle-esque relationship between them and Sareena, as Sareena also had feelings for the original Sub-Zero). He also tends to be paired up with females he's only acquaintances with at best. Sub-Zero/Kitana, Sub-Zero/Jade, and Sub-Zero/Mileena have all popped up before on several occasions, and all are popular in their own right. Keep in mind that Smoke (in most titles) is a cyborg, whereas Scorpion and Noob are undead and Sareena is a demon in human guise. It doesn't hurt that he's also Estrogen Brigade Bait, so expect the female fans to create OCs to jump Sub-Zero's bones as well.
    • Reptile seems to be working his way up, too. Although the only character that shows romantic interest in him is probably Khameleon (due to the whole Adam and Eve Plot thing), he's additionally paired with Mileena and Nitara on a somewhat regular basis. Apparently, the lizard man has moxie.
  • Chell has been paired up with nearly every character in Portal. Wheatley is paired with almost as many. And Chell/Wheatley is the most popular ship in the fandom.


Web Original

  • Order of the Stick fans will ship anyone with anything, but the Crack Pairings thread keeps coming back to Vaarsuvius for some reason.
    • In fan art (and in fic to a lesser extent) Miko Miyazaki is frequently drawn, written, or requested, despite her status as The Scrappy with a large portion of the fandom and cast - and again, she's paired with just about everyone (including The Snarl).
  • As far as shipping is concerned, That Guy With The Glasses has Benzaie, Spoony, the Nostalgia Chick, Linkara and the Nostalgia Critic.
    • In Kink Meme news, while everyone's had a lot of action, probably the ultimate fandom mattress is now the Critic. A fair assumption, seeing as how apart from his usual pairings, as of writing he's had a gangbang on his desk, been shipped with an animated gargoyle, been the recipent of tentacle-lovin' and got kissed by the Lady Gaga from the Bad Romance video. Yes, really.
      • His actor, Doug Walker, is doing pretty well for himself too. Mostly because he's flirted with nearly everyone on the site for funsies.
    • It doesn't help matters that Spoony/Chick, Spoony/Googles, Spoony/Benzaie, Spoony/Critic, Spoony/Joe and Spoony/Sage are all canon.
  • El Goonish Shive has Tedd. He has a canon romance with Grace, and more than a little subtext with Elliot (including them dating in at least two alternate universes) which also frees up Ellen. Tedd's had plenty of moments with Susan and Sarah (with a decent amount of shippers for each of them with him), and there has been more than one Ho Yay bit with Tony. Some stretching on his former anxieties around Justin and a Bi the Way interpretation of his moments with Catalina is all it really takes to put Tedd with almost anyone his age in the cast. Except Nanase. Usually.
  • In Red vs. Blue fandom, it's Church and Grif (Church/Grif is fairly popular), and to a lesser extent, Caboose.
  • Rosa Fiametta of Survival of the Fittest falls into the 'fandom bicycle' category, as in recent times,[when?] pairings bandied about have included: Bounce, Ilario and Frankie Fiametta (Twincest, yay!), Alexia Morgan, Princess Cerberus (a joke character), Adam Tenser, Blood Boy and Bobby Jacks. This isn't even counting the several canonical relationships she's had.
    • Naturally, the most requested character on the (relatively new) SOTF Kink Meme is Rosa. It's reached the point where there's now a rule about requesting Rosa, due to the fact that she had a truckload of requests compared to other characters.
  • Hannelore "Hanners" Elliot Chatham from Questionable Content gets paired with...oh, you know the drill (a lot of her cast members new and old gets this treatment, too. Note, Hanners isn't the main character).
  • Conrad Achenleck from Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name has strong Foe Yay with Doc Worth, but also gets paired up with werewolf girl Toni, main character Hanna, and vampire hunter Abner who hasn't even appeared in the comic yet.
  • Marzipan is the only female of the Homestar Runner cast (not counting the Teen Girl Squad). Do the math.
  • In the webcomic The Dreamer, we have Bea. Officially with Alan in the 18th - century and with Ben in the 21st - century, may have had a past with Alex, could be paired up with her cousin John, and also with Freddy, just for the hell of it.
  • John from Homestuck. John/Rose, John/Jade (Even though it's been revealed that that pairing is Brother-Sister Incest), John/Dave, John/Karkat, John/Terezi, and John/Vriska are just a few of his pairings.
    • Though John does deserve special mention, it should be noted that many of the characters have many ships to their names. Resident Shipper on Deck Nepeta maintains a shipping wall, keeping track of the relationships between every single possible pairing between her friends.
      • Because the Trolls are naturally bisexual and have four different kinds of romance, by nature they tend to get shipped around more than most of the other characters.
    • Karkat as well; though he is most commonly shipped with John or Terezi, Karkat/Sollux, Karkat/Gamzee, Karkat/Tavros, Karkat/Nepeta, Karkat/Jade and Karkat/future!Karkat also have their supporters.
  • Evan from Everyman HYBRID gets this treatment. He's also the show's Estrogen Brigade Bait despite being what would, on network television, be Hollywood Homely. His obsession with knives probably attracts more fans to him despite his constant teetering on the edge of going Ax Crazy. Kicking it up a notch, Evan is quite aware, in-character, that Slash Fiction gets written about him; he and the rest of the cast find it flattering on some level.


Western Animation

Ty Lee is exempt from universal laws such as gravity and being shipped with Zuko.

    • The above comment is sadly false. There is a considerable number of Ty Lee/Zuko fics and fanart out there.
    • Zuko's sister Azula also gets shipped with pretty much everyone she's ever met, as well as many she hasn't. The most common seem to be with Ty Lee, Mai, Zuko, Sokka, Suki and Zhao, but there are many, many more. The idea of Azula having her way with both sides of the Sokka/Suki pairing (sometimes simultaneously) is also fairly common.
    • Sokka, Fandom Pimp. Forget water- or firebending, he's the pheromone bender.
    • Can't forget Aang. He's the master of all your elements.
    • Deviant ART user Mutenroushi points out in "Water Tribe Charm" how popular Katara and Sokka are.
    • Looking at some fanart, it seems Korra's been shipped with almost every character introduced before the show even premiered.
  • Danny from Danny Phantom paired with not only almost every single cast in the show (Sam, Valerie, Vlad, Dash, etc.), but even with inanimate items: Danny/Fenton Thermos anyone? Apparently, he's just that compatible.
    • Not to mention that he's paired with characters that don't even exist. Danny/Wes, anyone?
  • There can't be many other characters that Kim Possible (And to a lesser extent her Evil Counterpart Shego) isn't shipped with. Ron, Monique, Wade, Felix, Mankey, Brick, Bonnie, Tara, James, Anne, Mr. Barkin, Justine Flanner, The Tweebs, Ned, Ron's Dad, Ron's Mom, Drakken, Monkey Fist, Sr. Sr. Junior, DN-Amy, Killigan, Miss Go, all of Team Go, Will Du, Yori, and finally Dr. Director. Oh, and Kim with Shego? Just a little.
  • Raven in Teen Titans, commonly seen shipped with Robin, Beast Boy, Cyborg, Red X, Starfire, Terra, Slade, or others.
    • Raven/Everyone is hilariously parodied in this fanfiction.
    • Also, Robin, who is frequently shipped with Raven and Starfire, but also shipped commonly with Slade, Red X, Beast Boy, and most other guys in the series.
    • To go a little further, he's the Launcher of a Thousand Ships for most if not all of the DC universe. See Nightwing in the Comic Book section.
  • Kyle from South Park is paired with pretty much everybody.
    • Kenny is paired with...anything that lives.
    • Cartman's no slouch in the Launcher of a Thousand Ships department either. Considering the sheer amount of Ho Yay / Foe Yay he generates in the show it isn't surprising.
    • There is Craig/Tweek, Craig/Stan, Craig/Kyle, Craig/Kenny, Craig/Cartman, Craig/Clyde, Craig/Wendy, Craig/Mark, etc. Lots and lots.
  • Xandir from Drawn Together. More often than not, he's paired with Captain Hero, but ships with each of the other male characters are not uncommon. In fact, despite him being firmly identified as homosexual, he's often paired in fanfics with the show's female characters.
  • Fairly Oddparents, Norm the Genie seems to have started becoming this. Well, he has got paired with a lot of Original Characters, which are either human or genies. An idea that ships him with Wanda has been mentioned on a TV.com messageboard. There is a discussion on FanFiction.Net about whether he's better with Crocker or Imaginary Gary. Also, about him and Princess ManDIE. He has even been paired with Head Pixie. I also have a few original Ships for him, including Merope.
    • Both Cosmo and Anti-Cosmo seem to get a lot of this too, even with both of them being happily married in the show.
  • Riven of Winx Club is the most pair-able character in the whole show.
  • Starscream. All of them. This may be mildly connected to the fact that he's one of the more effeminate characters in a mostly male show in nearly every Transformers series.
    • Prowl seems to have reached this status in the Transformers Animated fandom. Probably because, frankly, he's hot. Also, he has chemistry with most of his team, not to mention Lockdown.
    • On a lesser-known scale, Team Rodimus member Red Alert is paired with Brawn, Hot Shot, Perceptor, Wheeljack, Rodimus Prime, and Inferno (who barely even exists). There are no doubt countless others.
    • Arcee in Transformers Prime, she is shipped with almost every Autobot and Decepticon in the show.
  • The Total Drama series has quite a few people in the cast that qualify. But, most notworthy, there's:
  • Mr. Quiet, Mr. Grumpy and Miss Chatterbox from The Mr. Men Show have each been paired with more then a few characters. Miss Calamity's been paired with a lot of characters. Besides Mr. Bump, she's been paired with Mr. Strong, Mr. Happy, Mr. Tickle, Mr. Quiet, and even Mr. Scatterbrain.
  • Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! has Nova. Just...Nova. She has sizable shipping fanbases with every single member of the team, Chiro included. Not to mention the crack.
  • Jade Chan. Considering she's the only regular female character, she was bound to fill this role.
  • Not only is Chuckie Finster from Rugrats a big example of this in the fandom, he is also a pretty good example of this in the show. He has had some Ship Tease moments with Lil, Susie and Angelica along with a slightly more than occasional one-shot female character. Tommy Pickles did make an effort to catch up with him in the show (even though it was mainly in All Grown Up!) but Chuckie Finster is still probably one of the more known cases of this in Nickelodean history.
  • The Flash from the animated version of the Justice League gets this, though granted BatFlash is one of the most popular, he's also been paired with Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Superman, Supergirl, Harley Quinn, Lex Luthor (though generally not reciprocating any feelings), the Lords!Flash (even though he's, ya know, dead, Fire, Linda Park, Spider-Man...In fact, one of the only ones he doesn't really get paired with is Hawkgirl- probably because canonically they're "Like Brother and Sister".
  • Double D. Though usually shipped with either Marie, Kevin, or Eddy, he's been shipped with the vast majority of the cast at least once. Yes, even Eddy's Brother.
    • Nazz has a bit of this too. Gets shipped with Kevin, Edd, Eddy, Sarah, and Marie.
  • King Julien from The Penguins of Madagascar has been shipped with nearly the entire rest of the cast: Maurice, Mort and all four penguins. It helps immensely that the show is loaded with Ho Yay and Foe Yay, and that King Julien himself is Ambiguously Gay. On the flip side, he did show interest in the sole leading female, Marlene the otter.
  • Ferb gets paired with everyone. Vanessa (his canonical Precocious Crush), Isabella (Ship Teased), Gretchen (Ships That Pass in the Night), Phineas and Candace (his step-siblings) plus about a hundred Mary Sue OCs (though this one is the most popular) and probably every other citizen in Danville. He's also been paired with half of the Fireside Girls (excluding Milly, Katie, and Ginger, in most cases).
    • Baljeet, but oddly enough, the majority of his are actually canon'; in fact, the only non-canon ship of his is with Isabella. But even then, they have their moments.
    • Also Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz. The obvious Perry aside, he dated several women on the show. Even ignoring the canon, he has several Fan Girls and OCs after him.
  • According to Fanon, this is Arnold's job, as he has a habit of being shipped with EVERYONE. Seriously, EVERYONE. Even Azula. Yay Arnold?
  • Word Girl. Let's see, who shall Becky (or WordGirl) be paired with today? This troper's seen all of the following: Becky/Scoops, Becky/Tobey, Becky/Two Brains, Becky/TJ, Becky/Violet, Becky/Chuck, Becky/that one guy who's always trying to find the police station...and the list goes on.
  • Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic has been paired up with everyone, including the kitchen sink [dead link] and shipping itself!
    • Here is a shipping chart. Note that the four most common pairings all involve Rainbow Dash. And they point to her like an arrow.
    • Twilight Sparkle also qualifies. In fact it's entirely possible that this trope fits Twilight more than Rainbow Dash! A lot of pics are drawn and a lot of fanfics are written involving Rainbow Dash pairings, but Twilight may possibly have more actual pairings.
    • Equestria Daily has actually graphed the shipping fanfics it's received on two separate occasions. Dash is currently winning on quantity, while Twilight is winning on variety, having been shipped with every one of her friends, herself (twice), her Parental Substitute and mentor Celestia, Big Macintosh, Spike, Luna, Derpy, Trixie, a huge variety of OC's, and on her more "open-minded" days several crossover characters.
    • As for colts, Big Macintosh seems to be one of the only males the fandom will touch, so he gets shipped with just about everypony at some point...including Applejack...and Applebloom!
      • Soarin is the closest thing to a pegasus equivalent to Big Macintosh (though to a lesser degree), being paired up frequently with Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Spitfire, and miscellaneous background ponies (but not to the same degree of Big Macintosh). Fancy Pants is the most popular Unicorn bachelor, although he is usually only shipped with Rarity and Fleur De Lis (that should give you some idea about how disproportionately the shippers within the fandom prefer slash pairings).
    • Because he's the only male main character Spike is slowly becoming this. He has been paired with each of the Mane 6 at least once, plus the Cutie Mark Crusaders, both Princesses, Little Strongheart, and even Big Macintosh.
    • He doesn't suffer from this as the aforementioned characters, but Discord has a surprising number of characters he's been shipped with. Most of the time he's shipped with either Celestia, Twilight, or Pinkie Pie. However, he's also been shipped with Chrysalis, Luna, Nightmare Moon, Fluttershy, and even Steven Magnet.
    • The fans seem to like shipping within the Mane 6. If one of the Mane 6 is in a shipping story, it's probably with one of the other 5.
      • Or more than one...
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars gave us Ahsoka. She's been paired at least with Anakin, Obi-Wan, Padme, Chuchi, Shaak Ti, Yoda, Barriss, Rex, Cad Bane, Boba Fett, Lux, basically anyone.
  • X-Men: Evolution has Kitty and Rogue. Kitty has her canon pairing with Lance, but also gets shipped with Kurt, Pietro(!), Scott, Piotr, Dani Moonstar, and Rogue. While Rogue has her more common Scott and Gambit pairings, she also is paired with Lance, Pietro, Kitty, and even Wolverine despite the huge age difference in this universe.
    • Interestingly, Jean almost never ends up with anyone other than Scott. Scott/someone else fans generally ignore her or make her Ron the Death Eater. Thought, the ocasional Jean/Lance fic and Jean/Logan fics still pop up now and again, so some people like her.
    • Kurt himself has been shipped with just about everyone in the cast. Kitty, Wanda, Amanda, Jubilee, Amara, Rahne, Scott, Evan, Logan, Toad, Storm, Lance, and then there's the fact he gets the most fangirls, so there's millions of OCs. Chicks really do dig the fuzzy dude (And apparenly the dudes as well). Hell, lets just say that if you have a name and one line of dialog, someone's going to ship you with Kurt.
    • Also Scott and Pietro, to a lesser extent than Kurt, has been shipped with a lot of people. As mentioned above, Scott has been shipped with both Rogue and Kitty, than there's his cannon love of Jean, then there's Kurt, and Lance, even ocasionally Logan (Seriously, Why does everyone feel the need to ship unerage characters with a hundred year old instructor!?), Storm, even Emma, AND SHE DIDN'T EVEN APPEAR IN THE SERIES!. Than Pietro's got every girl, plus Lance and Kurt, and ocasionally Toad, god, is there anyone who doesn't get shipped with more than five other characters!? Oh right, Jean.
  • As with all other versions of him, Dick is still a shipping bicycle in Young Justice. This is despite him being a Cute Shotaro Boy (he's thirteen) and Word of God saying he'll have no romance. To the same extent, Conner (Superboy) is very popular with the shippers.
  • In a rather odd occurrence, everyone on Metalocalypse tends to be shipped with everyone else, making them all Fandom Bicycles. Though it doesn't hurt that the Fandom is relatively laid back when it comes to shipping.
  • Hawkeye from The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes might become one eventually.[please verify] Fans don't have trouble imagining him with Black Widow, Mockingbird, Hulk, Black Panther, or even Bruce Banner. Of those five, Black Widow became the first to steal a kiss from Hawkeye.
  1. ↑ Yes, even Appa and Momo.
  2. ↑ not helped by the fact that Milo Ventimiglia (Peter) and Hayden Panettiere (Claire) dated for a while, spurring a Terrance/Philip tribute video
  3. ↑ 196 if you also count either the Valeyard or Metacrisis Tenth Doctor, 225 if you count both of 'em
  4. ↑ this "Rival Yay" is actually her desire to beat Guy and become the 40th Bushin Master; if she doesn't, someone else could come up and steal the chance to do so away from her
  5. ↑ (the Berserk Button of all who are not, especially those who have gone furry for Fara)
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