TwinApplesShipping

TwinApplesShipping is the friendship between Iris and her Axew from the Pokémon fandom.

Canon
Axew is Iris’s second Pokémon and her main Pokémon that stays with her when Iris travels to other regions. He was often seen on Iris’s long hair or shoulder due to the Tusk Pokémon's preference of staying outside of a Poké Ball.

Black & White
Iris obtained Axew from the elder of her hometown when he was just a few days old. She was given the task of journeying with Axew in order to help raise him into a great Haxorus. Before he evolved, he preferred being outside of his Poké Ball, traveling inside Iris's long hair.

Firstly, Axew and Iris appear in the anime seeing the black clouds caused by Zekrom in Nuvema Town. Later, when she was in some bushes, Ash encountered her around, although he thought she was initially a Pokémon due to her long hair. Ash scans her with his Pokédex and it identifies her as Axew. Ash throws the Pokéball at Iris, but she scolds him later, revealing that Axew was actually in Iris's hair.

Arriving in Striaton city, Cilan appears for the first time. Being a sommelier, he ensures that Iris and Axew have a perfect compatibility with each other, before Ash leaves for the Striaton gym.

Much later, it was shown that Axew has not had much experience in battling, crying when he was hit by weakened Bullet Seed and Solar Beam attacks from Cilan's Pansage; however, he was shown to be able to produce an extremely powerful Dragon Rage that could cause massive destruction, but was uncontrollable and had a tendency to explode in all directions rather than beam at a specific target as it is meant to. Both Ash and Cilan playfully referred to it as a "Dragon Sneeze", much to Iris's annoyance. A pun exists where, as Axew says his name while using "Dragon Sneeze", it sounds rather like "achoo". Later in the episode, Axew was trapped in the horns of a wild Scolipede, and Iris had to rescue him using their Pokémon.

At some point, Iris became proud that Axew had finally mastered the Dragon Rage and thus, easily defeating Team Rocket and later, defeating Ash's Scraggy in a training battle.

When Luke was making his movie The Legend of the Pokémon Knight, Axew took the role of Iris' strongest Pokémon, the Dragon Master. At first, he had no trouble in his battle against Ash's Pikachu, but was eventually defeated.

Iris used Axew in the semifinal round of the Club Battle against Luke and his Golett. Not knowing about Golett's immunity to Normal-type attacks, Iris ordered Axew to use Scratch which was ineffective. Axew then got hit hard by Golett's Mega Punch. Managing to get up Axew used Dragon Rage, but this attack was dodged by Double Team. While still using Double Team, Golett used Gyro Ball, confusing Axew and managed to hit him hard. Axew then tried Dragon Rage again, but this was countered by Golett's Shadow Ball. Golett then used Gyro Ball again. Unable to do anything Axew started running away. Eventually Axew got exhausted and as he was about to be hit by Gyro Ball, Axew learned Outrage, knocking Golett back and finally defeating it.

Axew was used to propel the train cart Ash and friends were riding on to get away from Team Rocket; along with Tepig using Ember, which soon became Flamethrower, and Roggenrola using Flash Cannon.

Iris used Axew in a battle against Cynthia's Garchomp. Axew's Scratch and Dragon Rage successfully hit Garchomp but seemed to do no damage. Garchomp then used her Dragon Rush and Draco Meteor attacks to cause a lot of damage to Axew. At the last second when it seemed like Axew was down, he got back up and ended up knocking Garchomp down with his newly learned Giga Impact and shocking everybody. Garchomp quickly recovered and was about to finish Axew off with a Brick Break but was called off by Cynthia at the last second.

Axew was reunited with the elder at the Village of Dragons, embracing her with open arms. She complimented his health and praised Iris for how he had been cared for. Later, when Shannon's newly evolved Hydreigon lost control of himself, Axew helped Excadrill corner the Brutal Pokémon after Emolga and Dragonite chased him to shore. He kept Hydreigon distracted with Dragon Rage while Iris attempted to leap on him from behind to calm him down.

When Team Plasma captures Iris with metal cuffs, Axew saves her by breaking those metals with Scratch. Later, Axew was used in the first round of the Marine Cup Tournament. He battled Teaque's Vanillite, but was knocked out by a super-effective Ice Beam. Axew was playing with Emolga when he was attacked by a wild Galvantula using Electro Ball and sent rolling down a hill where he bumped his head on a large rock. Since Emolga had already gotten in to trouble for attacking Oshawott and Scraggy that morning, Iris scolded Emolga for attacking Axew, causing Emolga to become upset and fly away, worrying Axew. After being healed, Axew and the gang set off on their way to find Emolga, only to find that she had allied herself with Team Rocket. Under the shroud of Yamask's Haze, Emolga pulled Axew away. Later, Emolga shared her plan to get back in Iris's good books with Axew, unaware that Meowth was listening in.

Later, when Iris separates from Ash, Axew says goodbye to Pikachu and travels with Iris for the rest of her adventures.

Journeys
Although he has not been seen, Axew has been training with Iris against other dragon-type trainers, which would lead him to evolve to Fraxure and later, to Haxorus.

Haxourus helps his trainer by climbing the ranks in the Coronation World Series. When Ash and Iris are reunited and fight in a Pokémon battle, Haxourus eventually manages to defeat Ash's Dracovish, but loses to Ash's Dragonite.

Fanon
TwinApplesShipping currently is a popular friendship within its fandom due to the amount of screentime and moments it has. It is unpopular as a het ship since fans find it weird to ship humans with Pokémon. Previously, this ship was unpopular due to Iris being in a season considered the worst by fans, however, when Iris returns as a champion, this ship has recently become more popular. The het ship is also overshadowed by many ships, mainly on Iris’s side. Romantic TwinApplesShipping rivals NegaiShipping, WishfulShipping, DiamondDragonShipping and many other Iris ships. Axew is often shown in fan art alongside Iris. When Axew evolves to Haxorus, this ship changes its name to AtticShipping (Iris x Haxorus).

Fans of NegaiShipping (Ash x Iris) also tend to form a triangle of ships between TwinApplesShipping and PikaShipping (Ash x Pikachu), also resulting in SparkingTuskShipping (Pikachu x Axew).

Fandom

 * Iris/Axew tag on FanFiction.net