Kermitu Kleric Katie
KULT OF KERMITU
I think it might be a case of pair the spares. As most of you probably know, Yuffie/Vincent has always been a popular pairing amongst FFVII fanfic writers and fan artists, even back when the only FFVII game we had was the original FFVII itself, where the two characters had very little interaction. I myself am indifferent to the pairing, but have often wondered what makes the pairing so popular. I always figured it was due to the fact that they were both secret characters, but today I realized there's more to it than that. In fact, for one thing, I think the fact that they had little interaction at first was also a reason, as it meant fanfic writers were given a lot of leeway with how they could make the relationship develop. But I think the main reason is due to how popular it is amongst shippers to pair the spares. For those who don't know, pair the spares is a common trope in works of fiction (including and especially fan fiction), where characters who are alone amongst a bunch of couples are paired together so they aren't left out. An example of this would be the Waluigi/Rosalina pairing in the Mario fandom, who get paired together as they're the only plumber and princess, respectively, without a love interest, since Mario and Peach have each other, Luigi and Daisy have each other(who are themselves a canon case of pair the spares), and Wario has Mona from the WarioWare series, whereas Rosalina has yet to have any romantic interest in any Mario game, and Waluigi has an unrequited crush on Princess Daisy. Both are also extremely popular characters in the Maro series, and if one wanted to ship one of them with someone without having to break up a canon couple, pairing them with each other is pretty much your only option without having to resort to using a more obscure Mario character or interspecies romance, not to mention they've had very little interaction between each other in the Mario games, so like with Yuffie/Vincent, one is given much leeway in developing a relationship between them. If one applies this same logic to the 6 surviving human playable characters in FFVII, they can understand why so many people ship the pairing, as Yuffie is the only one without a love interest of any sort, yet is a very popular character. Cloud and Tifa have each other, and Cid has Shiera, and Barret did have a wife and Vincent had Lucrecia, but Barret's wife is dead and Lucrecia left Vincent for Hojo and is now in a cave and unlikely to leave it any time soon, so that leaves Yuffie, Barret and Vincent alone. However, if you're wondering why people usually pair her with Vincent instead of Barret, there are several likely reasons why. For one thing, Barret is over twice Yuffie's age, and about twice her size, while Vincent is physically only 11 years older than her(though chronologically a lot more than that). For another, Yuffie and Vincent are simply far more popular characters than Barret, and therefore more likely to appear in fan works. A third reason is that many fan works already pair Barret up with Elmyra, due to pair the spares logic for starters, as well as due to being older than much of the main cast (though they're not necessarily close in age; Elmyra's likely around a decade older than Barret, give or take a few years), and the fact that they're both doting parents to children that aren't even their own biologically.
So tl;dr: the Yuffie/Vincent pairing is likely popular due to pair the spares logic alongside several secondary reasonings.
P.S.: Keep in mind that this whole post is mostly just speculation on my part.
So tl;dr: the Yuffie/Vincent pairing is likely popular due to pair the spares logic alongside several secondary reasonings.
P.S.: Keep in mind that this whole post is mostly just speculation on my part.
