Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading in Western Animation.
- Adventure Time:
- The Lemongrabs. Before the reveal by both Word of God and in the series itself that they were actually brothers, the ambiguous nature of their relationship caused many fans to assume they were lovers. It wasn't helped by scenes of them nuzzling each other when they first met, as well as calling their artificially created family of Lemon Children "[their] boys". Several disturbing scenes in later episodes, however, caused most shippers to ultimately jump ship.
- The episode "Red Throne" had Cinnamon Bun declare his love for Flame Princess, which wasn't contested by anyone involved, and also explicitly featured Ship Sinking for her relationship with Finn. The creators had to clarify that this wasn't the intention—it was meant to be more of a knightly thing, with "love" meaning more like "deep devotion to your ruler." Episodes afterward avoided treating them as together.
- All Grown Up!: While Phil and Lil's Incest Subtext in Rugrats can be written off with Children Are Innocent, this spin-off has them as preteens where there are several 'wait...what?' moments; the second episode has Lil asserting her independence, moving into her own room and playing it very much like a break-up (complete with an ending that features a Better as Friends resolution). Another episode deals with Lil growing breasts, and Phil's reaction to it is very atypical of a brother. There's another episode where Phil hits it off with a friend from the soccer team, and Lil didn't like that her friend was taking her brother away from her.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender:
- Azula's actions towards her brother are nothing short of seductive, though admittedly that's how she acts with everyone. No Word of God whether or not this is intentional. But they sure loved to tease the fans with this idea such as a possible pairing in the series between her and the Blue Spirit, aka Zuko's alternate identity.
- Azula's interactions with Ty Lee and vice versa come off as romantic, to the point where even Azula's voice actress thinks Azula loved Ty Lee, but this was unintentional. Azula was manipulating Ty Lee for her own gain and Ty Lee was afraid of disobeying her. It's just that Ty Lee's default personality is to be upbeat and friendly to everyone and Azula's default Faux Affably Evil personality, as noted above, is to act seductive towards everyone, so their interactions come off as a whole lot friendlier than one would expect between a blackmailer and her victim. But that's why at the climax of "The Boiling Rock" Ty Lee betrays Azula to save her friend Mai without a second thought.
- Zuko and Katara have a number of moments that look like Ship Tease and Unresolved Sexual Tension, even before Zuko's Heel–Face Turn. There is the infamous moment when they're in a cave together and Katara touches Zuko's scar, their "field trip" episode after Zuko joins their group, and Zuko's attempted Heroic Sacrifice for Katara in the finale, which ends up with Katara cradling Zuko. Many assumed that Katara was the Betty to Mai's Veronica and that the series was exploring Zuko's feelings for Katara after he ran off from Mai. Word of God says they were never intended to be a couple, but their status as a Fan-Preferred Couple led to a bit of trolling.
- If you watch "Jet" without knowing that Katara and Sokka are siblings and without noticing the multiple times it's brought up in the episode itself, it can come off like a Love Triangle between them and the title character. It starts with Katara being annoyed by Sokka's role as the boring, practical guy; she gets swept up in bad boy Jet while Sokka disapproves; then she realizes that Jet is a jerk and Sokka's way of seeing things was right all along. Switch out Sokka for Aang (whose crush on Katara is oddly not addressed in this episode) and it would be textbook early ship fuel.
- Ben 10: Ben and Kevin have a lot of Ho Yay, especially during the time when Ben was pregnant (don't ask). Kevin constantly changing alignments means they have a turbulent relationship. Especially in Alien Force, despite all the hate in the past, Ben forgets everything and trusts Kevin by the second episode (with bonus Ho Yay), and later when Kevin goes evil again Ben sounds like he is ready to kill Kevin but Gwen doesn't let him. And then in Omniverse, Kevin goes evil again but Ben saves him this time. Funnily enough, Kevin's re-introduction and subsequent relationship with Ben's cousin Gwen was likely intended to distract from the original series's infamous Relationship Writing Fumble where Ben and Gwen (originally intended to be childhood friends instead of cousins) were written with a lot of unintentional romantic subtext.
- The DiC-era Care Bears (1980s) episode "Last Laugh" starts with the shocking revelation that "Cheer Bear ISN'T cheerful!" The reason? Grumpy Bear. Cheer Bear explaining that she feels like she's failing to live up to her name because he's the one person she's never been able to cheer up does nothing to prevent her from coming across as someone simply suffering from an unrequited crush (if anything, that only makes it worse).
- Danny Phantom: In addition to all of his other similarities to Spider-Man, Danny's relationship with his sister, Jazz, often resembles Peter Parker's with Mary Jane (the red hair doesn't help). You half-expect Jazz to say, "Go get 'em, tiger," at the end of "The Ultimate Enemy," especially after the hug, lovingly touching his hand, and considering their dialogue sounds strikingly similar to Danny's and Sam's during their Last-Minute Hookup:Jazz: Don't think this means I'll stop being meddling and overprotective./Sam: I just have to warn you, I still have my own way of doing things.
Danny: Wouldn't have it any other way./That's what I'm counting on. - Gravity Falls: Dipper and Mabel, despite being siblings and the show overall celebrating the relationship between a brother and sister (given that the creator based the the two characters on himself and his sister), have numerous fans who view their relationship in a different light.
- Iron Man: Armored Adventures: Pepper is always jealous whenever Rhodey looks at another girl and starts a fist fight over Rhodey wanting to hang out with another friend of his who's a girl. She also has a heart to heart and long, laughter-filled date with Gene in one episode, after which she becomes his devoted Gene-can-do-no-wrong fangirl and texts/calls him constantly. Tony also comes across as flirting with Rhodey a lot of the time, made even more Ho Yay intensive whenever Rhodey yells at him to open up and stop blocking people out. They have so many heart to heart conversations and Tony apologizes to him so often it's more reminiscent of a squabbling couple than best friends. Then there's the way Whitney follows Tony around even when he's being an asshole to her (although given her abusive father, she might just be okay with it) and how far she'll go to save his life... And we're not even going to get into Tony's fanboying of Gene Khan. Oh, and in the last few episodes, Rhodey seems to care a bit more about Whitney than he lets on.
- The Looney Tunes Show gives us a perfect example of Ho Yay overshadowing the possible love interests. Bugs is shown to be in a some-what relationship with Lola (somewhat) but most of the dialogue (and premise) can be seen as Bugs and Daffy being married.
- Mega Man (Ruby-Spears) slipped up pretty damn bad
in "Bro Bots." As an added bonus, in the last fight scene, Protoman ends up more-or-less straddling his younger brother, who then wraps his legs around Proto's friggin' waist.Megaman: You and me. One on one. No PANTS.
Protoman: You got it. - The Legend of Korra:
- Korra and Bolin, are ulitmately a big case of this. The intention from showrunners was that Bolin's crush was one-sided as Korra, while appreciating the praise Bolin gives her, only sees him as a friend/brother, while falling for Bolin's older brother Mako whom she becomes Official Couple with by the end of the first series. Unfortunately, the chemistry Korra and Bolin have both on their date and the rest of the series is unmistakable and something that was seriously lacking in her relationship with Mako (which ends by Book 3, after enough fans complained about it). This fumbling is also helped by the fact Bolin is the one of the people who helps Korra become a better Bender, and along with Asami is one of the people who most frequently gives Korra emotional support, as well as one of the characters her own age she can just goof off with. Additionally Bolin's official love interest Opal, bares some similarities to Korra (especially appearance-wise in Book 4) which does add some salt to the wound.
- Asami and Bolin especially in Book 2 is another case of this, they become closer after both getting heart broken by Mako and Korra respectively, but according to Word of God it's purely a platonic Like Brother and Sister friendship. Although even as platonic friendships go they are extremely affectionate with each other, with Asami rubbing her forehead on Bolin's at one point during a hug and mussing up with his hair lovingly. You could be easily forgiven for assuming they were gonna end up together before Korra and Asami became the real focus.
- Korra and Bolin, are ulitmately a big case of this. The intention from showrunners was that Bolin's crush was one-sided as Korra, while appreciating the praise Bolin gives her, only sees him as a friend/brother, while falling for Bolin's older brother Mako whom she becomes Official Couple with by the end of the first series. Unfortunately, the chemistry Korra and Bolin have both on their date
- Molly of Denali: By the way Molly and Tooey act around one another, it's easy to assume that they may have crushes on each other. Though the writers never intended for there to be any romantic feelings between the two, it's safe to say the fandom isn't afraid to ship them.
- Brad and Jenny from My Life as a Teenage Robot are meant to be Platonic Life-Partners. However, some episodes implied that Jenny might have something of a crush on Brad. Needless to say, the fans took notice, making Brad/Jenny the popular ship.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- The episode "Griffon the Brush Off" is very easy to interpret as a messy Love Triangle centered around Rainbow Dash, with Pinkie Pie as the Stalker with a Crush and Gilda as the Clingy Jealous Psycho Ex-Girlfriend. Even the opening is near identical to Pepé Le Pew chasing his newest true love, complete with Pinkie performing his little love hop.
- What, exactly, is the relationship between Twilight Sparkle and Spike? They're definitely close enough to consider each other family, but the nature of their bond is never specified for most of the show's run. As such, they've shown signs of being friends, siblings, mother and son (Twilight did hatch him, after all), and it can be argued that Spike shows evidence of having a Precocious Crush on her at times. Asking the production crew didn't help much either, as Lauren Faust said that she considers Spike to have been raised by Celestia, while series director Jim Miller states that he was raised by Twilight. It isn't until season nine's "Twilight's Seven" that we finally we learn that they view each other as siblings, with that reveal being the result of Spike's own voice actress asking for this issue to be cleared up. Even then, it's still hard to ignore the hints that their relationship runs deeper than siblings, such as Spike's biggest fear is Twilight abandoning him and Twilight being hurt over Spike saying that she doesn't like that he has a "real parent". Whether Twilight's parents raised him or such duties were split between them and Celestia is still up in the air.
- Cheese Sandwich's idolisation of Pinkie Pie appears to be simple respect for her talents. However there are a couple of lines in the episode that suggest he could have actually fallen in love with her. The subtext for a romance is definitely there. This became Ascended Fanon as they're married in the Distant Finale.
- PAW Patrol: A lot of fans mistakenly believe that Chase and Skye, as well as Marshall and Everest, have Ship Tease going on between them. But as series director, Charles E. Basien, said in his own words, "Those scenes from past episodes only show the friendship [Chase & Skye and Marshall & Everest] have." That has done little to nothing to stop the fans, however.
- Velma and Shaggy have been a popular Scooby-Doo ship for years. As early as Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! there have been signs such as Velma having Shaggy's cough medicine at hand and Shaggy having a spare pair of Velma's glasses. However, this wasn't Ship Tease. It was a by-product of the two having originally been siblings during development. Some elements spilled into the final product, resulting in accidental Ship Tease. Some future productions do end up making a relationship between the two Ascended Fanon however, granted if only briefly, such as Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated.
- The premise of Sitting Ducks is that a duck named Bill and an alligator named Aldo become friends despite society and nature stating that they should be enemies. The writing, however, tends to portray it more along the lines of dealing with racism or homophobia with episodes involving one or both of them having to disguise their species or tiptoe around the nature of their friendship in order to integrate into each other's friend groups or keep up appearances. There's even being an episode near the end of the series where Aldo gets outted to his friends as a "Duck Lover" that reads like a textbook Very Special Coming-Out Story with Bill and Aldo finally having to own up to their relationship and demand validation and respect for it. After a certain point, it stops being subtext and becomes simply text.
- Star Wars Rebels has Sabine and Ezra, Officially for the third season it is assumed that Ezra had already overcome his infatuation with Sabine. Unofficially, "he outgrew it" seems to not be the case in the third season, as he's still flustered when she hugs him to jetpack away from enemies and when meeting her father, who asks if he's "with Sabine" (in context, he's clearly asking if Ezra is part of Sabine's crew rescuing him, but Ezra feels the need to clarify that he's "not with her with her" as if he wishes that he was but is afraid of upsetting her by claiming to be more than they are). In the fourth season, the writers decide to permanently remove these types of jokes, to avoid this interpretation, with mixed success.
- Steven Universe: The Movie after Spinel reveals her Tragic Backstory, she and Steven sing a duet called "Found" where Steven assures her she will love again (in those exact words) and offers him her hand. Spinel's hesitant body language, the focus on their joined hands, and Spinel's parts in the song all suggest a Defrosting Ice Queen finally opening up and falling for someone new after being hurt. Spinel's immediate shine to Steven and her Clingy Jealous Girl behavior before this do not help, and neither does the fact that Steven's actual love interest, Connie, barely appears in the movie. It continues in her next appearance where she gains heart eyes on sight of Steven and immediately rushes to smooch his face. Due to Steven still being sixteen at the time and already in a relationship with Connie, this was very obviously not meant to be romantic.
- Sym-Bionic Titan: Lance and Ilana pretend to be siblings as part of their life on Earth, and Word of God says their relationship would remain platonic had the show continued. However, several fans see them as having romantic chemistry, not helped by the fact that some episodes seem to tease the idea of a relationship. They get mistaken as a couple multiple times, one episode involves Lance clothing a naked Ilana with his sweater, and another ends with them sharing a dance together. While other characters are introduced as love interests for the two, they aren't nearly as developed, furthering Lance/Ilana's status as the Fan-Preferred Couple.
- Teen Titans (2003):
- Word of God says that the main characters (with the notable exception of Official Couple Robin and Starfire) all love each other Like Brother and Sister, even Beast Boy and Raven. Although, it has also been stated that Raven and Beast Boy were written as 'an old married couple' just without the relationship part, so really, the fumble was unavoidable.
- The Titans are all platonic except for Robin/Starfire. A lot of fans have trouble seeing Robin and Raven as only friendship, especially on Raven's side. They understand each other so well and have such a good friendship in later episodes that many thought Raven liked Robin and she's the only person capable of calming his mind in "Haunted", something even Starfire wasn't able to accomplish. Robin is also the one who volunteers to go find Raven in the underworld in Season Four when Trigon causes The End of the World as We Know It (even being willing to tolerate Slade's presence if it means he can find Raven). It doesn't help that in the comics Raven did have an unrequited crush on Robin. Nothing has been confirmed though.
- Slade's obsession with making Robin, then Terra, his "apprentice" is borderline sexual, especially with him taking measures to control their bodies - Robin with nanobots and Terra with a suit grafted to her nervous system. It doesn't help that he actually slept with Terra in the comics.
- Cyborg and Bumblebee were initially written to dislike each other in hopes that the fandom wouldn't assume she was his love interest just because they're both black. All this accomplished was making the pairing extremely popular in the fandom due to their constant bickering coming off as Belligerent Sexual Tension.
- Total Drama:
- The intent with Katie and Sadie is that they're BFFs who knew each other since childhood, are extremely close, and are constantly hanging out with each other, to the point where Chris remarks that they "share a brain". However, their friendship is so close and the two of them are so affectionate with each other that a lot of people ended up interpreting it as romantic, not helped by the fact that Katie and Sadie don't have many meaningful interactions with anyone else.
- Jo and Brick's relationship was apparently meant to be a simple rivalry between two jocksnote of opposite genders. In practice, they have enough Belligerent Sexual Tension interspersed with moments of respect that it comes off like a romance arc where the writers just forgot to give them a Relationship Upgrade at the end. It also doesn't help that Dawn's comment about Brick having a "need to be dominated" seems like perfect setup for a Pitbull Dates Puppy scenario.
- Duncan and Zoey's friendship in All-Stars was meant to be just that: a friendship. Since Duncan's arc in that season was about embracing his Hidden Heart of Gold, it made sense for a Nice Girl like Zoey to guide him along that path. However, many fans, many of whom were bored of Zoey's canonical relationship with Mike, took to seeing their interactions as romantic, and "Doey" was an extremely popular ship in the fandom for a time.
- Gwen's entire arc in All-Stars revolves around making up with Courtney after kissing her boyfriend in World Tour, and the entire time, she makes it clear how awful she felt about her and Courtney's friendship being ruined. And they actually do end up spending a decent portion of the season as good friends. However, Gwen and Courtney barely interacted until World Tour, and their friendship in World Tour was mostly due to their mutual dislike of Heather, rather than any similarities in personality. Thus, instead of reading it as Gwen being wistful about how her friendship with Courtney came to such a bitter end, a lot of fans read it as Gwen having had a crush on Courtney and regretting that she ever made her angry. The fact that Gwen and Courtney act very affectionate once they became friends definitely bolstered this idea.
- Scarlett and Max in Pahkitew Island end up working together throughout most of the season as "partners in crime", and have several arguments amongst each other over who is the leader and who is the sidekick. In fact, Max and Scarlett both explicitly state In-Universe that they aren't romantically interested in each other after Chris mistakes them for boyfriend and girlfriend. However, in spite of (or perhaps because of) all that, "Scax" remains the most popular ship involving either of them.
- The 2023 reboot gives us Wayne and Raj, who are supposed to be just that: Just Friends and nothing more. However, a lot of people took to seeing their interactions as romantic. In particular, it's hard to hear the joke about the two sharing jock straps without interrupting it as being platonic. Before the show aired, many fans predicted that they would be the gay couple. Well, they were half right...
- The reboot's second season saw a Villainous Friendship form between MK and Julia, yet, due to them constantly complimenting each other's skills and deviousness, as well as Julia making comments like telling MK she's making her (Julia) blush or "If MK's brain drove a cool car, I'd date it", many fans took it as there was something more between the two. The flames were only fanned further when, in episode 7, MK outright asks if Julia likes her (as a friend, but she doesn't directly say that), which causes Julia to act in a very She Is Not My Girlfriend manner. Due to all this, as well as the fact the girls can't stop doing confessionals without each other, "MKulia" wound up skyrocketing into popularity and ended up easily surpassing Julia's previous most popular ship with Wayne.
- In the "Rebirth" trilogy of The Transformers, the relationship between Arcee and Daniel Witwicky is suddenly deepened, probably as a prelude to making him her Headmaster partner. Then at the very end of the final episode Daniel, who is literally inside Arcee's head at the moment, tries to make what sounds very much like a romantic confession only for Arcee to shush him, saying she feels the same way.
- In Transformers: Prime, Jack and Arcee behave like they have something going on, despite one being a human teenager and the other being a fully adult transforming robot. Complete with Jack remarking that part of the reason he cares so much for her is that she was "his first" and Jack's mother remarking that Arcee "isn't the kind of girl I imagined him ditching me for".
- Voltron: Legendary Defender:
- Keith and Shiro are the closest of the main paladins, but because the show doesn't get around to explaining Keith's backstory until two thirds into the show, it's not clear for a long time exactly when or how they got to know each other and what kind of bond they shared, and whether it was friendship, familial, or something else. Of course there's the official Word of God-supported stance that the two are very close friends. At one point Krolia mentions Shiro having helped raise Keith, and he does have some (admitted by Word of God to be unintentional) resemblance to Keith's father, suggesting a fatherly roleAlthough.... However, this is contradicted by flashbacks which show Shiro as closer to a Big Brother Mentor instead, and Keith himself also describes Shiro on two separate occasions as brotherly (although that interpretation also receives some pushback from Word of God). Meanwhile, because up to that point the two share quite a lot of Ho Yay, because Shiro fulfills quite a few of the roles a love interest normally would towards KeithExplanation, and because neither have any other viable love interests to speak of aside from Shiro's Last-Minute Hookup brought about by an Author's Saving Throw, bolstered by Shiro being gay and thus Incompatible Orientation not being an obstacle, others interpret them not as The Not-Love Interest but as each other's Implied Love Interest instead, despite the show's indications otherwise.
- After previous seasons established that Acxa and Keith shared some sort of unspoken bond, Season 7 has a few moments of heavy Ship Tease that appeared to suggest Acxa had romantic feelings for Keith. However nothing ever comes of it, and in fact the following season focuses much more heavily on her budding friendship with Veronica.
- Young Justice (2010): Dick and Artemis probably were only supposed to come off as friends or siblings, but their banter winds up coming playfully romantic, he already knew who her parents were but still trusted her, and then she outright straddles him in "Darkest". (It Makes Sense in Context.) Canonically she's dating his best friend, and they have enough Ho Yay themselves that some fans just ship all three together.
